Social Efficiency Theory

-Major proponents include Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, and John Ogbu

While both the Humanist Theory and Progressivism focus on the needs of our education system and the appropriate responses required by those needs, the Social Efficiency Theory is more of a social criticism of the effect of education on certain populations. Social Efficiency Theory doesn’t focus on learning philosophies but provides answers to the question, “What are the real results of our education system?” Social Efficiency Theory is also distinctive because its creators and proponents are economists (Bowles and Gintis) and an anthropologist (Ogbu) as opposed to educators.

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis provide a different argument and aspect of Social Efficiency Theory than does John Ogbu. Thus, each will be presented separately.

Bowles and Gintis, in their book Schooling in Capitalist America, argue the correspondence principle. They explain how the internal organization of schools corresponds to the internal organization of the capitalist workforce in its structures, norms and values. Later, in their article, Contradiction and Reproduction in Educational Theory, Bowles and Gintis proceed to discuss what they would define as an adequate education system. They state the following three goals:

1. Education should be egalitarian. It should act as a force to overcome the inequalities which arise in society.

2. Education should be developmental. It should allow students to grow cognitively, physically, emotionally, and critically.

3. Education should be the “social continuity of life.” It should promote the integration of students as fully functioning members of society.

Unfortunately, Bowles and Gintis found our education to be anything but what is mentioned above. Instead, they attribute schools in America as being a reproductive force for dominant ideology. Through the Social Efficiency Model, schools are not viewed as an egalitarian force or a great equalizer, but are viewed as a repressive force. Bowles and Gintis noted several distasteful aspects of our system:

-Schools serve the capitalist order in modern society

-Schools reproduce values necessary in a repressive capitalistic society

-Schools repress, coerce, and guide students to a certain niche of the labor force

-Schools allow the dominant class to maintain the current class structure

Furthermore, Bowles and Gintis reject the idea that a meritocracy exists within our nation. They propose that meritocracy instead serves as a sort of mask for the dominant, powerful, and wealthy. They say that these demographics of people have a false notion that they are where they are because of merit, yet are really only dominant, powerful, and wealthy because of social class.

An aside: To read about a current issue regarding meritocracy, please click on the link, "Meritocracy: Asians on Berkeley's Campus."

And finally, Bowles and Gintis debunk the premise of educational reform. They say the notion that schools can create equality of opportunity is false.

Ultimately, Bowles and Gintis call for democratic socialism as the only way to obtain egalitarian education, for they believe that educational reform requires economic transformation.

John Ogbu researched the relationship between socialization and upward mobility for minorities in the United States. He identified three different types of minorities (autonomous, immigrant, and caste) but focused mostly on caste-like minorities. Ogbu maintains that it is the variations in opportunity structure that control how children will perceive and attain their adult roles in society. In studying the motives of caste-like minorities, Ogbu found that the motives for acquiring formal education were quite different between majority and minority groups, and thus, the two groups don’t really participate in the same education system even when they attend the same schools. Much like Bowles and Gintis, Ogbu states that an individual’s education may allow that person to raise his or her social status, but the romanticization of this idea of education as a tool of upward mobility under any conditions is a false notion. Ogbu believes it is the nature of opportunity for future adult roles and what a student is socialized to believe about their place in life that will limit their upward mobility. Additionally, Ogbu states the presence of a job ceiling that limits the ability of caste-like minority groups to compete freely for any jobs on the market.