Resistance Theory

Resistance theory draws on an understanding of the complexities of culture to define the relationship [Page 748]between schools and the dominant society. It gained attention in the educational literature of curriculum studies during the 1980s, largely as an outgrowth of theories of cultural reproduction that preceded it. Resistance theory expanded social analyses of schools as sites where dominant ideas, values, norms, and practices reflective of the social division of labor in capitalist society were transmitted to youth through the curriculum and the organization of learning. Questions about how social class mediated learning and social group formations within schools were of central concern. In resistance theory, schools were considered social sites that structured the experience of both dominant and subordinate groups and that served as contested terrain for marginalized youth to manifest their resistance to prevailing cultural formations. Theorists of resistance sought to understand youth labeled as “marginal” and “deviant” in contextually and historically specific ways, focusing their analyses on the root causes, origins, and meanings that youth attributed to their behavior. Specifically, theories of resistance examined how youth generated meaning of their social location in a society marked by social class divisions and how they formed social practices to both cohere as a group and to challenge external forces of domination. Resistance theory builds on notions of cultural reproduction, but breaks away from the more determinate thesis that considers schools as predictable and impermeable sites that reproduce the social order. For resistance theorists, a critical examination of the link between social structures and human agency is essential.

A thorough understanding of resistance theory requires an analysis of theories of cultural reproduction, especially in regard to the principles of cultural formations. Theorists of cultural reproduction defined culture as the level at which social groups develop distinct patterns of life. The meanings, values, and ideas found in social institutions and customs were considered a reflection of how social groups responded to their life experiences. Here, culture was connected to material existence, and questions about the changing dynamics of family, institutional, and social life within an evolving capitalist society were considered. Importantly, theories of cultural reproduction emphasized the possibility of more than one cultural group existing at any one historical moment, thus leading to an analysis of various social group formations and their relationship to one another. Key to theories of cultural reproduction was the concept of “dominant” cultural formations and “subcultures.” Subcultures were defined as a response to the dominant culture; a relatively autonomous social space with its own meaning structure, activities, and values. Researchers and theorists interested in gaining a better understanding of marginalized youth in schools and other institutional settings investigated the ways that youth articulated their position within the wider social order. Central to these analyses was an understanding that both dominant cultures and subcultures were necessary for capitalist social systems to reproduce themselves. In other words, cultural reproduction theory emphasized the structural determinants of social life, and the meaning that youth generated about their class positions and gendered and racial identities, in group formations identified as subcultures.

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