MARX AND ENGELS, DURKHEIM AND BOURDIEU: CONTRIBUTIONS TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCATION AND SOCIETY

This paper presents a reflection of the main theoretical assumptions of Marx and Engels in German Ideology (Ideologia Alema) Work, of Durkheim in Education and Sociology (Educacao e Sociologia) Work and of Bourdieu in The Economics of Symbolic Exchanges (A Economia das Trocas Simbolicas) Work. Based on a theoretical/bibliographic study, it seeks to understand the divergences and similarities among the authors' ideas. Considering that education has two aspects, it can both transform and conserve society. This way, the object of this study focuses on the following problem: does education transform or conserve society? The study was carried out through individual and group readings and discussions, with the intention of understanding important aspects of this process, in addition to referring to other authors, in order to achieve answers to the object of study. As a result, it was possible, through the authors' minds, to understand that the relation between education and society occurs through contradiction. They present education as a fundamental element in the development of consciousness and as a form of the human being's transformation, but the whole history of Brazilian education does not realize concern about an emancipatory educational process and, at present, we can observe educational reforms with clear intentions of reinforcing the disengagement with education. The same education, considered element of social transformation, is that alienates. At the service of capital, it misrepresents the locus of class struggle and exacerbates the social inequality, in which the individual does not recognize his place in society. Thus he defends the bourgeoisie that holds him capitalism's and intellectual ignorance's hostage.