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Resistance Theory

A part of U.S. history is the story of the struggle of racial and ethnic groups for human and civil rights. The development of the fields of ethnic studies was a 20th-century attempt to document people's and communities' opposition to the forces of oppression and to develop a historical and theoretical explanation for that opposition. Therefore, one of the theoretical origins of resistance theory lies in the racial and ethnic history of people of color in the United States.

Foundations of Resistance Theory

In the sociology of education, social and cultural reproduction theories are vital to the emergence of resistance theory because they challenge the view of schools as neutral societal institutions. The basic assumption of both social and cultural reproduction models is that schools reflect, reproduce, and legitimize an unequal society. According to Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, social reproduction models argue that schools reproduce an unequal society by socializing students to take and accept their place in that society. This framework focuses on the role of schools in preparing students for the world of work. For instance, in the United States, social reproduction theory examines the values, norms, and skills that characterize the workplace under capitalism and how they are mirrored (or correspond to) the social dynamics of the daily classroom encounter. Bowles and Gintis referred to this as the correspondence principle. As a result, the curriculum, pedagogy, and social relations in working-class schools are structured to reproduce the next generation of working-class adults. One of the critiques of social reproduction theory is the explanatory absence of the role of race, ethnicity, gender, culture, and human agency in the maintenance and challenge of the unequal social order.

Cultural reproduction models focus on the role of culture in reproducing society. They argue that schools—while appearing impartial—tend to legitimize certain forms of knowledge, ways of speaking, and ways of relating to the world (i.e., cultural capital) that privilege the dominant class. On the other hand, schools marginalize and devalue the knowledge, ways of speaking, and ways of relating to the world that come from the subordinate classes. Therefore, schools reproduce class inequality by privileging the culture of the dominant class and marginalizing the culture of the subordinate classes. Once again, one of the critiques of cultural reproduction theory is its inability to describe how human actors challenge or resist an unequal social order.

Conceptual Development: Definitions

Scholars including Paul Willis, Henry Giroux, Douglas Foley, and Jay MacLeod developed some preliminary theoretical conceptualizations of a late-20th-century resistance theory. Although researchers define resistance differently, most explain resistance as an oppositional response to subordination. Resistance is generally defined as a response to unequal power relationships and social inequality. The majority of research using resistance theory examines resistance in schools. According to Henry Giroux, “resistance is a critique of schools as an institution, where social activities are tied to political and cultural significance” (1983, p. 286). The schools, as a site, play a central role of reproduction in understanding and testing the robustness of resistance theory. For example, both Douglas Foley and Paul Willis define resistance as oppositional behavior and label it as counter–school-culture. Fordham's work on African American students refers to resistance as an antiachievement ethic. Both Willis and Foley focus on male high school student experiences to illustrate how resistance is a struggle to validate working-class values and lifestyles. According to Willis and Foley, these acts of resistance in school result in alienation and negative treatment by school officials. Consequently, resistance behavior enables students to be labeled as troublemakers or defiant, and these labels—along with adults' responses—contribute to some students performing poorly in school. The powerlessness that results from reactionary resistant behavior further limits the students' participation in the educational system.

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