Showing papers by "Alvin W. Gouldner published in 1978"

The New Class project, II: A frame of reference, theses, conjectures, arguments, and an historical perspective on the role of intellectuals and intelligentsia in the international class contest of the modern era

Abstract: 7.1 The necessary institution for the mass production of the New Class and its special culture of critical discourse is the historically unique system of "public education," whether at the secondary or tertiary levels. This system is characterized by the fact that (a) it is education away from the home and thus away from close parental supervision; (b) it is education mediated by a special group of New Class, "teachers," whose role requires them to take the standpoint of the collectivity as a whole, and who train students to believe that the value of their discourse does not depend upon their differing class origins, that it is not the speaker but the speech that is to be attended. (c) All public schools, therefore, are schools for a linguistic conversion, moving their charges away from the ordinary languages of their everyday lives and moving them toward the CCD (i.e., the culture of critical discourse).