Page 38 - Igor Ž. Žagar in Ana Mlekuž, ur. Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: mednarodni vidiki vzgoje in izobraževanja. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2020. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 38
P. 38
r aziskovanje v vzgoji in izobr aževanju: mednarodni vidki vzgoje in izobr aževanja
In the second period, the era of self-management and consumer-led
market socialism, there is a real divide between party ideologues, describ-
ing Yugoslav society in Marxist terms, and a growing body of sociologists
using Durkheimian categories of social stratification (cf. Archer, Duda,
Stubbs, 2014). There was very little work done on education in relation to
social class, although surveys in 1976 (Previšić and Serdar, 1978) and 1987
(Rimac and Baranović, 1991) in the Socialist Republic of Croatia both point
to parental levels of education as being the most important determinant
of continuing to higher education. This was, also, of course, the period of
the consolidation of what Djilas had termed the ‘new class’ (Djilas, 1957) or
what the protesting students in 1968 in Belgrade termed the ‘red bourgeoi-
sie’ (Klasić, 2012). It was also notable for the ambitious, but largely unsuc-
cessful, educational reforms that came to be known as the Šuvar reforms
after the sociologist, and reluctant politician, Stipe Šuvar (Bacevic, 2016).
Influenced by both Bourdieu and a particular Marxist ideology, Šuvar in-
fluenced the thinking of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia as ear-
ly as 1974, critiquing “a situation in which certain strata are reproducing
themselves, their structures and their socio-economic positions, and with
this, their social power.” (quoted in Bacevic, 2016: 80). By 1977, he had not
only analysed the problem but devised a solution, thus:
Education has been developed as a specific ritual which selects a
small proportion of the population for the social elites, and plac-
es them on a pedestal which is inaccessible to the vast majority of
the population. … the class function of education, in our socie-
ty, unlike in the societies of exploitation, is not, or should not be
to help people escape the working class, but to enable them to fall
back into it. (Suvar, 1977, quoted in Bacevic, 2016)
In retrospect, Šuvar’s reforms were an attempt to respond to the first
signs of problems in the Yugoslav economy, linked to the oil price hike
in the early 1970s, and growing unemployment, including graduate unem-
ployment, only partly offset through the safety valve of gastarbajter migra-
tion (le Normand, 2016). Politically, the demands of the Belgrade students
in 1968 and the, rather different, demands of the Zagreb students in 1971,
are responded to not through expansion of higher education for all, but
through the intended abolition of dual gymnasium and vocational track
secondary education, tying education to the supposed needs of the labour
market (echoed by later STEM arguments) and, as Jana Bacevic (Bacevic,
2016) has pointed out, a pronounced anti-intellectualism.
38
In the second period, the era of self-management and consumer-led
market socialism, there is a real divide between party ideologues, describ-
ing Yugoslav society in Marxist terms, and a growing body of sociologists
using Durkheimian categories of social stratification (cf. Archer, Duda,
Stubbs, 2014). There was very little work done on education in relation to
social class, although surveys in 1976 (Previšić and Serdar, 1978) and 1987
(Rimac and Baranović, 1991) in the Socialist Republic of Croatia both point
to parental levels of education as being the most important determinant
of continuing to higher education. This was, also, of course, the period of
the consolidation of what Djilas had termed the ‘new class’ (Djilas, 1957) or
what the protesting students in 1968 in Belgrade termed the ‘red bourgeoi-
sie’ (Klasić, 2012). It was also notable for the ambitious, but largely unsuc-
cessful, educational reforms that came to be known as the Šuvar reforms
after the sociologist, and reluctant politician, Stipe Šuvar (Bacevic, 2016).
Influenced by both Bourdieu and a particular Marxist ideology, Šuvar in-
fluenced the thinking of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia as ear-
ly as 1974, critiquing “a situation in which certain strata are reproducing
themselves, their structures and their socio-economic positions, and with
this, their social power.” (quoted in Bacevic, 2016: 80). By 1977, he had not
only analysed the problem but devised a solution, thus:
Education has been developed as a specific ritual which selects a
small proportion of the population for the social elites, and plac-
es them on a pedestal which is inaccessible to the vast majority of
the population. … the class function of education, in our socie-
ty, unlike in the societies of exploitation, is not, or should not be
to help people escape the working class, but to enable them to fall
back into it. (Suvar, 1977, quoted in Bacevic, 2016)
In retrospect, Šuvar’s reforms were an attempt to respond to the first
signs of problems in the Yugoslav economy, linked to the oil price hike
in the early 1970s, and growing unemployment, including graduate unem-
ployment, only partly offset through the safety valve of gastarbajter migra-
tion (le Normand, 2016). Politically, the demands of the Belgrade students
in 1968 and the, rather different, demands of the Zagreb students in 1971,
are responded to not through expansion of higher education for all, but
through the intended abolition of dual gymnasium and vocational track
secondary education, tying education to the supposed needs of the labour
market (echoed by later STEM arguments) and, as Jana Bacevic (Bacevic,
2016) has pointed out, a pronounced anti-intellectualism.
38
