How the Education ISA is the dominant ISA?

In his influential essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

(1968/2014), Althusser argues that the reproduction of the workforce
has to be studied separately from the reproduction of means of production
(e.g. factories, machinery, raw materials). Althusser (ibid) claims
that the sole material or physical reproduction of the workforce is not
enough, but in addition to this, the workforce has to be competent, because
of the complex nature of the capitalist socio-economic structure.
In On the Reproduction of Capitalism (2014, 50) Althusser argues that
the development and the complexity of the means of production demands
that the workforce has to be skilled and continues to be reproduced
so as to correspond to the modern societal division of labour, and
to fill in its different ‘posts’ and ‘jobs’. Consequently, Althusser (ibid)
asks how this kind of professional and skilled reproduction is ensured
within capitalism, and provides the following answer:
the reproduction of the qualifications of labour-power no longer
tends (it is a question of a tendential law) to be ensured ‘on the job’
(instruction during production itself) but, increasingly, outside
production, by the capitalist school system and other instances
and institutions.
Althusser (ibid, 51) states that what is learned in school is different
kinds of ‘know-how’, that is, ‘techniques and quite a few other things
besides, including elements (rudimentary or, on the contrary, advanced)
of ‘scientific culture’ or ‘literary culture’ that are of direct use
in different jobs in production.’ In addition to know-how, ‘rules’ of good
behaviour are taught in school, that is, customs and practices to be
observed,
depending from the future position one is ‘destined’ to hold
(ibid). These are rules of professional ethics and professional moral
codes of conduct, i.e. ‘rules of respect for the social and technical division
of labour, and, in the final analysis, the rules of the order established
by class domination’ (ibid).
Althusser (2014, 51-52) further argues that the school teaches knowhow
in a form which ensures one’s dependency on the dominant ideology.
He claims that, within the industrial and mature capitalist societal
structures, the dominant Ideological State Apparatus is now, as the result
of political and ideological class struggle, the educational Ideological
State Apparatus. This is so, above all, and as Althusser
(2014, 37-38) argues, because the reproduction of the workforce takes
place outside the enterprise in the modern industrial capitalism.

Althusser elevates the scholastic ISA as the dominant one, because

according to Althusser the school-family dyad has replaced church-family
dyad. In more detail, Althusser provides the following answer to a question:
why is the educational apparatus the dominant ISA in the capitalist social
formation?

“one Ideological State Apparatus certainly has the dominant role, although
hardly anyone lends an ear to its music: it is so silent! This is the School. It
takes children from every class at infant school age, and then for years, the
years in which the child is most ‘vulnerable’, squeezed between the family
state apparatus and the educational state apparatus, it drums in to them,
whether it uses new or old methods, a certain amount of ‘know-how’
wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, arithmetic, natural history, the
sciences, literature) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics,
civic instruction, philosophy). Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge
mass of children are ejected ‘into production’: these are the workers or
small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on:
and, for better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it falls by the
wayside and fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white-collar
workers, small and middle civil servants, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last
portion reaches its summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment,
or to provide, as well as the ‘intellectuals of the collective labourer’, the
agents of exploitation (capitalists, managers), the agents of repression
(soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators, etc.), and the professional
ideologists (priests of all sorts, most of whom are convinced ‘laymen’)”.
(Althusser, 2014, 250-251)
Meanwhile, Althusser reminds us that many of the ‘virtues’, such as

modesty, resignation and submissiveness, are also acquired in families,

in the church, in the army, through culture, and in sporting events (ibid,

146). Yet, no other ISA, as Althusser (ibid, 146) argues, has ‘a captive

audience of all the children of the capitalist social formation at its beck

and call […] for as many years as the schools do, eight hours a day, six

days out of seven.’ It is, without a doubt, the education apparatus in

which the future holders of different social positions get their know-how

in terms of formal knowledge but also regarding conformity, dominant

ideology and societal practices. For Althusser, the education system is

not simply a provider of knowledge, but rather various forms of rules

and behaviour that reflect the current social division of labour (Sotiris,

2013, 109). Althusser (2014, 236) remarks in Ideology and Ideological

State Apparatuses that:

“the reproduction of labour power requires not only a reproduction

of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission

to the rules of the established order, i.e. a reproduction of

submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction

of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for

the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will

provide for the domination of the ruling class 'in words”.

This is why Althusser thinks the educational apparatus, in a developed

capitalist society, is the dominant Ideological State Apparatus (Sotiris,

2013). The weight of this claim seems undeniable, especially in the time

of neoliberal higher education restructuring, as we will come to realise

later in this thesis. However, although Althusser’s thesis remains to be

convincing, his remarks uphold certain degrees of structural determinism,

as well as problematic notions regarding the capitalist state, which

is where we turn next. In the next chapter, I discuss three interlinked

issues, based on Poulantzas’ work, through which Althusser’s thesis is

complemented, while I seek to bring together Gramsci and Althusser,

again with the help of Poulantzas. The works of Poulantzas, in particular,

are of great importance in this sense because, as Sotiris (2014) argues,

he had both the Althusserian ambivalence towards Gramsci, but

also at the same time, he was a strongly influenced by Gramsci in his

work.