Subject choice and the commodification of culture

On the 13^th of October 2012, the Sydney Morning Herald released an article entitled “Hipsters embrace lingo of the ancient words”. While this article places emphasis on what appears to be a revival of classical studies like Latin and Ancient Greek, it also reports a steady growth in vocational subjects such as business studies and legal studies. According to the chief executive of the Board of Studies NSW, Carol Taylor, ''There has been steady growth in those two subjects which indicates that students are looking at those courses as a link with what they might want to go on and do as a career”. In addition, there has been strong interest in Vocational Education and Training courses, with more than 30,000 students enrolled in 2012, and large increases in students taking language courses such as French continuers and Chinese.

I believe that the rise in students wishing to undertake courses that will act as frameworks of knowledge for their intended career choice stem from tensions between the promise of education to improve the social mobility of individuals and the promise to simultaneously improve an individual’s social efficiency. In the past, there has been a strong link between a child’s grades and their father’s profession. If a family was considered ‘high class’, there was a larger likelihood of the child seeking a well-regarded profession. The education system seeks to break down statistics such as these by ensuring people of all genders, nationalities and socio-economic backgrounds are equipped with the opportunity for placement in any profession. The commodification of culture however, especially in the area of education , I believe has lead students to crave the attainment of the highest levels of human capital where negotiating their position in the contemporary world as economically viable and culturally meaningful ensures they can be identified as successful.

I feel as though this ‘pressure’ on students to attain specific levels of achievement and attend university are ways in which the education sector is able to adopt a managerial approach to education in that it allows institutions to promote different courses and options and in this way, turn subjects and the promise of a particular academic outcome into a commodity.

References:

Browne, R. October 13, 2012, The Sydney Morning Herald, <http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/hipsters-embrace-lingo-of-the-ancient-worlds-20121012-27i6u.html>

Holmes, D., Hughes, K., & Julian, R., (2007). ‘Chapter 7: The more you learn the  more you earn? Education today’, Australian sociology: A changing society, 2^nd ed., Pearson Education, Sydney, pp 217-244.

Wells, A.S., Lopez, A., Scott, J. & Holme, J.J. (1999). Charter schools as postmodern paradox: Rethinking social stratification in an age of deregulated school choice. Harvard Education Review, 69(2), 172-204.