Q2. Try to explain the differences between "theorists who advocate deterministic models of reproduction" and "models that allow for the relative autonomy of individuals in their own cultural settings" (pg. 11; italics added).

deterministic theories take as their starting point the structural requirements of the capitalist economy system and attempt to demonstrate how individuals are obliged to fulfill predefined roles that ensure the perpetuation of a class society. (pg. 11)


In this view of reproduction theory he used these to represent the deterministic:

Bowel and Gintis: This theory says that capitalist relation produces and reproduces, on one hand, capitalists and, on the other hand, wage-labourers. Schools train the wealthy to take up places at the top of the economy while conditioning the poor to accept their lowly status in the class structure. (pg. 12)

Pierre Bourdieu: uses the Cultural Capital and habitus concepts. To demonstrate his theories. These he defines as the general cultural background, knowledge, disposition and skills that are passed from one generation to the next. Children of upper-class origin inherit substantially different cultural capital than do working-class children. Schools reward the cultural capital of the dominant classes and devalue those of the lower classes. Upper-class children have linguistic and cultural competence that help them succeed in school. (pg. 13) These deeply defined values, that children inherit from their families, define individual's attitudes toward education. The school system in turn discourages children of lower classes from setting their goals higher than that of their parents and they instill in them the attitude that it is unlikely they will achieve academic success.

Basil Bernstein and Shirley Brice Heath:
"formal education actually functions 'to certify lower status youngsters as socially inferior at an early age and to initiate the process that keeps many of them economically and socially inferior in adulthood.'" (pg. 18)

Then finally consider models that allow for the relative autonomy of individuals in their own cultural settings.

Culturally attuned models begin with the experiences of individuals and only after understanding people on their own terms do these models attempt to connect those experiences with demands of capitalist social relations. (pg. 11)

Paul Willis: He also agrees that the structures of society influence job choices but he points out that these structural forces act through and are mandated by the cultural milieu. If we are to understand social reproduction we must understand how and why young people take the restricted and often meaningless available jobs in ways that seem sensible to them in their familiar world as it is actually lived. so for the answers, he states that we must go to the cultural milieu for answers. (pg. 19)


Henry Giroux: This theory is explained by bridging the division between structure and agency. He says that separation of human agency and structural analysis either suppresses the significance of individual autonomy or ignores the structural determinants that lie outside the immediate experience of human actors. He admits that examining wider structural and ideological determinants is important, but we need to recognize that human beings never represent simply a reflex of such constrains. We must not ignore the human experiences of domination and resistance (pg. 20, 21)
Pamela