Hegemony

By Oscar Medina
Although Antonio Gramsci did not write about race, racism, or the colonial experience, his socio-political work is recognized throughout many academic disciplines such as cultural studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and among other fields of studies (Hall 1996). Many praise his thought for its refusal to leave the terrain of concrete historical, social and cultural realities for abstraction, economism and reductionist theoretical models (Forgacs 2000, Hall) that tend to simplify structures of social formation rather than highlight the structural complexity. Gramsci works from a Marxist terrain, however, his critical lens is in the superstructure, where institutions and culture function to uphold the structure. This paper will discuss briefly Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and how his concept(s) help explain the durability of “advanced” capitalist societies. Also, in this paper I will draw from Gramsci concept(s) of hegemony to discuss the culture and practice of white supremacy in education, particularly on the University of California Berkeley campus.
What is Hegemony?
In advanced capitalist societies, the state rules through a combination of coercion and consent. According to Gramsci the state is composed of a political society and civil society (PN 262). By political society he refers to political institutions and legal constitutional control such as schools, courts, and police authorities. By civil society he refers to private institutions and economic systems. Gramsci suggests that the two spheres (political and civil society) are what make the state overlap, making their division purely conceptual. In advanced democratic capitalist societies, for example, business owners (the bourgeoisie) have political power in public spheres because they have the power to influence electoral outcomes. For example, a state retrofit or construction project requires a construction company to supply material and labor. As “public servants,” politicians will seek out a development company that has the potential to provide financial assistance in upcoming elections – thus giving political power to the bourgeoisie economic and political interest. Common scenarios of this sort, I believe make Gramsci define the composition of the state as political society and civil society, two overlapping complex forces that converge to pave the ground of hegemony.
Hegemony is best described as a formula of rule through force and consent primarily through ideology. Ideology is understood in terms of ideas, meanings and practices that purport to be universal truths to sustain powerful social groups. Gramsci himself lays out the formula in the following way,
The maximum of legislative capacity can be inferred when a perfect formula of directives is matched by a perfect arrangement of the organisms of execution and verification, and by a perfect preparation of the ‘spontaneous’ consent of the masses who must ‘live’ those directives, modifying their own habits, their own will, their own convictions conform with those directives and with the objectives they propose to achieve. (Gramsci, Prison Notebooks p.266)

In short, laws control the lives of the masses and the masses obey to the laws that socially control their decisions. For example, if one violates the law, one is forced to settle with the courts and by coerced consent; one has to agree with the courts decision albeit guilty or not guilty. Gramsci states “hegemony [is] protected by the armour of coercion”(PN 263). In other words the masses do not randomly obey authority but obey authority because of a set of organizing and “legitimized” rules and practices are in place. Hegemony, in this case, is the process of making, maintaining and reproducing authoritative sets of meaning and practices by force and consent. Hegemony works toward the advantage of the ruling and dominant social group; in the case of the U.S., I would say it works with capitalist intent as its primary motivation.
Hegemony is creating and maintaining a common conception of the world by feeding popular ideologies to the masses.
…. the dominant group is coordinated concretely with the general interests of the subordinate groups and the life of the State is conceived of as a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria (on the juridical plane) between the interest of the fundamental group and those of the subordinate groups-equilibria in which the interests of the dominate group prevail, but only up to a certain point, i.e. stopping short of narrowly corporate economic interest. (PN182)

For example, neo-liberal economic policies like NAFTA, are sold to the masses with fixed notions of profit and economic development; although, only to benefit the dominant group and further deprive the subordinate groups. The idea of hegemony explains how power of ascendant social groups is maintained. In my view hegemony is basically the terrain we are forced to walk on. Existing laws (policies) imposed by the state and ideologies manifested through censored media, are just two examples of how institutions force our consent and shape the terrain we walk on.
How Hegemony Operates
In advanced capitalist societies, ideology is the fuel of hegemony.
Ideas and opinions are not spontaneously ‘born’ in each individual brain: they have had a centre of formation, of irradiation, of dissemination, of persuasion-a group of me, or a single individual even, which has developed them and presented them in the political form of current reality. (PN 192)
Hegemony operates through the consent and coercion of the masses under the dominant group’s ideological parameters (rules, practices and culture). Louis Althusser (1971), in Ideology and the State views the school as the dominant ideological state apparatus because schools inculcate the ideology of the state, a sense of nationalist and liberalist ideas. Nonetheless, the school is the reproductive site of capitalist subjects, where the creation of workers, mangers and leaders are fostered. Schools enable these practices through a set of ideologies established by the ruling class. Hegemony occurs by conditioning students to practice these sets of ideologies, such as language and culture. It is through a combination of consent and coercion that enables ideologies to sustain and reproduce. Elementary schools in the U.S., for example force students every morning to pledge their allegiance to the U.S. flag. Not only are schools inculcating nationalism but they are exercising a set of ideological notions, “one nation, under god, with liberty and justice for all” which paves the hegemonic ground we walk on.

Gramsci’s Elements of Revolutionary Change

According to Gramsci, in order for revolutionary change to occur there must a be a collective political consciousness founded at the economic corporate level . First, workers must identify a struggle; “a tradesman must feel obliged to stand by another tradesman” in unity to identify a common struggle. Second, when the solidarity of interest among all the members of the social class (in this case the working-class) is reached to reform the existing fundamental structures, (thirdly) their corporate interest must transcend the corporate limits of the economic class (those in power) to garner forward the interest of the subordinate groups. According to Gramsci these are the three stages for revolutionary change. For example in the 1960, the Chicano civil rights movement formed through identifying their collective struggle (building alliances) to overcome the dominated landscape of white supremacy to move forward their own perspective on the cultural and political history of the southwest. The three stages for revolutionary change create an agenda for the subordinate group. According to Gramsci, the subordinate group must create a counter-hegemonic force through a “war of position” and “a philosophy of praxis.”
Gramsci states that “a theory is ‘revolutionary’ precisely to the extent that it is an element of conscious separation and distinction into two camps and is a peak inaccessible to the enemy camp” (p462). This philosophy of praxis is, for example, the establishment of ethnic studies on university campuses, a counter-hegemonic movement in opposition to the glorification of white studies in academia. Ward Churchill (1995) writes on whites studies and U.S. university system. Churchill states that a university education “...serves to under pin the hegemony of white supremacy in its other, more literal manifestations: economic, political, military and so on.” In this case, ethnic studies departments across university campuses are a counter-hegemonic force that attempt to penetrate dominant white academia for a more inclusive curriculum, if not establish new intellectual circles of thought.
The establishment of ethnic studies is a revolutionary change in academia, a change that was fought using the tactics of a “war of position,” rather than “war of maneuver.” Through Gramsci lens, I argue that the struggle to establish ethnic studies on university campuses, came through a ‘war of position,’ a political protracted struggle rather than a ‘war of manoeuvre,’ an upfront physical confrontational struggle (Hall, PN 233). Gramsci believed that a counter-hegemonic struggle must seek to gain ascendancy within civil society before any attempt is made on state power.
Scrutinizing the University of California Berkeley Using Gramsci’s Concepts
The University of California Berkeley (UCB) is a colonial site where we can apply some of Gramsci concepts of hegemony. UCB was founded in 1868, shortly after the U.S. – Mexican war (1846-1848). After the war, Mexico lost half of its territory to the U.S. The university today lies on a terrain that was once Mexican soil; yet nowhere on the campus is there a monument recognizing this historical fact. Additionally, not a single place on campus recognizes the extinct Ohlone indigenous peoples that occupied the San Francisco bay area before colonial settlers invaded the territory. The only place on campus that recognizes indigenous life is in Krober hall where white Anthropology department displays Ohlone artifacts on walls of the museum of anthropology for the pleasure of visiting tourist to consume. Krober hall is named after Alfred Louis Krober, a white protestant male anthropologist who was a professor at UC Berkeley from 1901-1946 and is most rewarded for studying the Indians of California . His research focused on studying the last Yahi Indian named Ishi. Ishi resided five years at the UCB’s Anthropology museum where he developed tuberculosis and died in 1916.
It is through hegemony that white settlers are able to colonize the Indian and justify their so-called “savagery” and then display the Indian pictures, language and culture. The university legitimizes this as historical preservation of the Indian. Gramsci would call it a domination by the ruling group over the Indian. Gramsci concept of hegemony helps us understand how UCB can legitimize their occupation, and colonization of indigenous people.
Pushing more on the concept of white supremacy, universities have a critical role to play for the state, which is to uphold and sustain the legitimacy of the state. The state holds its universities accountable to continue producing the knowledge that will legitimize the state’s operation. It is through cultural practices of white supremacy, that whiteness prevails to be the functioning dominant language and culture of the state. Whiteness, then, is the dominant culture on most university campuses throughout the nation (except for historically black colleges in the South) making it an explicit uncomfortable terrain for racial and ethnic minorities. W.E.B Du Bois, one of the first African American’s that obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard in (1896) and shared his experience as being one of the only non-white males on a predominately all white university campus: Du Bois recalls at Harvard, “while attending a commencement social function, a lady seemed determined to mistake me for a waiter…. I was at Harvard, but not of it” (Trumpbour, John, ed., 1981). Historically, universities have catered to the dominant white western groups while excluding and subordinating the racial and ethnic groups from “legitimized” intellectual domains (universities). This is because elite universities like Harvard and Berkeley have a role in operating the hegemonic ideology of the state. This quote best describes the university’s function:
The University serves to socialize and train the next generation of guardians of the extant social, political, and economic order; and minority and Third World students, no less than others, must confront the functions of their education directly (Trumpbour, John, ed p.308)
Students of color on university campuses are forced to think thoroughly of their privileged positions, nonetheless to either establish a counter-hegemony or perpetuate the current hegemonic state.
Conclusion: Complexities with Hegemony

Hegemony is a temporary settlement and series of alliances between social groups that is won and not given. Therefore, hegemony is an end-less struggle of forces emerging to power only to be taken over by another ascending force. Hegemony is not a static entity. Take culture for example, there is no single common dominant culture but rather an array of dominant cultures. In other words, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is one that is limited to a nation-state paradigm.

Work Cited

Althusser, Louis (1971) Ideology & Ideological State Apparatuses. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press: 127-186.

Gramsci, Antonio (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Q. Hoare & G.Nowell Smith, ed & trans. New York: International Publishers.

Churchill, Ward (1995). “White Studies: The Intellectual Imperialism of U.S. Higher Edeucation”. Since Predator Came.Aigis Press.

Hall, Stuart (1986) “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.” Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies.

Forgacs, David, ed. (2000) The Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Trumpbour, John, ed. (1981) How Harvard Rules: Reason in the Service of Empire. Boston, MA: SouthEnd Press.

Equity of Access and Opportunity

Equity of Access and Opportunity
By Oscar Medina
How do we begin to establish equity of access and opportunity across different high schools and racial/ethnic groups that have historically been disenfranchised from accessing higher education? My concept of equity is access and opportunity, specifically striving to create and provide access and opportunity to higher education. The goal is to eliminate the vicious reproductive cycle of unequal access and opportunity and replace it with an equitable system of access and opportunity. My concept of equity draws primarily from Rawls’ (1971) theoretical frameworks, “justice of fairness.” However, I first discuss a sufficient and adequate threshold (baseline) that will give context my concept of equity. This threshold is one that must be established by an institution (school or school district). I use high schools and their graduation requirements to discuss access and opportunity to higher education. I call my framework of equity - “access and opportunity.”
What is access and opportunity? Why is access important to higher education and what opportunities come with access? Access to higher education provides long-term opportunities for students and reduces unemployment, crime and poverty rates – improving society as a whole. Attaining a college degree will increase an individual’s incomes and life opportunities. A college education provides critical and analytical skills that lead individuals to participate in the political process. Once active in the political process and civic participation, individuals can make conscious decisions by practicing their political right. Access to institutions of higher education not only create opportunities to improve the living conditions of an individual but also serve to ameliorate the conditions of a growing unequal society.
Who has access and opportunity and who doesn’t? Segregated high schools located in predominantly white upper and middle class communities provide their students with access to higher education primarily because schools work toward their advantage. High schools located in upper and middle class communities provide their students with the cultural and social capital to access a university of their choice. White upper and middle class culture and language is ubiquitous throughout the high school’s curriculum and practices. While high schools in white upper and middle class communities provide access and opportunity to higher education to their students, high schools in working-class communities of color limit their access and opportunity and socialize their students to become workers rather than leaders. The high schools in low-income and working class communities guide their students to community colleges, the military or into the low-paid labor force. These are limited opportunities that are incomparable to the access and opportunities that white upper-middle class high schools provide their students.
I propose that all high schools must provide students access to a four-year university after graduating high school and those who chose to opt out from attending a university must be given the opportunity to attend a community college that will seek to transfer them to a four-year university within a reasonable time frame - two years worth of preparatory coursework. These efforts require structural change at the meso level. Meso level change would mean reforming institutional policy that will make the high school graduation standards a college preparatory curriculum mandatory so that students complete the college preparatory curriculum to be eligible to attend a four-year university when they graduate from high school. Making these efforts plausible requires the concept of maximization. Drawing from Guttmann’s (1999) concept of equal educational opportunity, maximization is the process that requires the state to devote as many resources to education as needed to maximize life chances (opportunities). In order for high schools to claim institutional equity they must begin by reforming their policies on graduation curriculum in order to better serve the disadvantaged high schools and students.
I chose to discuss equity of access and opportunity at the high school level because I strongly believe that equity is lacking across California high schools primarily because most of the students who graduate from low-income segregated high schools that are composed primarily of students of color are not even eligible to attend a four-year college. I want to discuss how high schools can employ a policy of equity that would provide access and opportunity for graduating high school students to pursue a four-year college degree. My framework of equity is one that strives to provide university access and opportunity for students of color graduating from segregated high schools in low-income communities. The motive behind this attempt is to establish a form of equity for high schools with a dense population of low-income students of color that have historically been disenfranchised from educational opportunities beyond their high school graduation.
Sufficiency and Adequacy
I want to discuss a minimum threshold drawing from a sufficiency and adequacy theoretical model (Gordon 1972) that will establish access and opportunity across different high schools. According to Gordon (1972) to equalize educational opportunity in a democracy requires parity in achievement at a baseline corresponding to the level required for social satisfaction and democratic participation. His model of opportunity is one of adequacy. The adequacy is making sure that students reach a baseline. He argues we must “insure equal opportunity for basic educational achievement without limiting the freedom of individuals to rise above the that baseline.” Drawing from this framework, I argue for a baseline that will grant university access to all graduating high students. This effort of implementing a baseline that all students must pass has the potential to provide significant access and opportunity to low-income students of color. Gordon’s baseline is one that consists of making sure students reach basic survival and participation skills. Gordon’s baseline reminds me of the current high school exit exam in California which students are forced to pass a standard test to receive their graduation diploma. My equitable baseline asks for the completion of a set of college preparatory courses that will grant graduating high school students access into four-year universities where their critical and analytical skills will sharpen to engage and participate in social change.
The Challenges and Complexities
Schools are known for sorting students into different educational trajectories, by what is known as academic tracking (Oakes). Schools practice this institutional form of racism more against working-class students of color. The institutional practice of academic tracking places a selective group of students on a university pathway while placing others on to a vocational pathway. Creating a baseline (threshold) that makes all high school students university bound (once passing the baseline) has the potential to even eliminate institutional tracking, because teachers, counselors and administrators will work toward providing all students with the college preparatory courses to graduate from high school eligible to apply to four-year university. Setting up a threshold of this capacity attempts to promise all students university access and opportunity.
This college bound threshold will require resources to be maximized at the high school level so that schools (particularly historically segregated) can have their students reach this baseline. The problem with maximization according to Gutmann (1999) is that maximization in education is a moral ransom because it offers maximizing resources to education at the stake of limiting other social resources. The weakness and problem with maximization is that it takes from others to reach an end goal (in this case the end goal would be to have all students reach the college bound threshold). I can see how some tax payers who do not have children in a public high school would not favor my framework of equity because they may not see the immediate results of improving society. My concern is, if we are to maximize resources to education, particularly in high school, how and where will resources be distributed and maximized? What will it take to have all graduating high school students reach the college bound threshold? Increasing the salary of teachers? Tutor laboratories? Operating schools for longer hours? Providing students with what resources in order to achieve the completion of a college preparation curriculum?
Why is the difference principle important?
In search of equal opportunity, Gutmann argues for a “democratic standard” in which inequalities can be justified only if they (disadvantaged students) do not deprive any student of their ability to participate effectively in the democratic process. Gutmann draws from Rawls (1971) who says that inequality is permitted only if it benefits the least-advantaged individuals. Despite this concept being problematic because it creates an unbalance or may limit the “overachievers” potential, this concept attempts to bring those most disadvantaged (low-income racial/ethnic minorities) up to the college bound threshold.
Assuming the framework of institutions required by equal liberty and fair equality of opportunity, the higher expectations of those better situated [students] are just if and only they work as part of a scheme [college preparatory] which improves the expectations [four-year college degree] of the least advantaged members of society” (Rawls 75).
Using Rawls difference principle and his theoretical framework offers a critical analysis of inequality and attempts to ameliorate the conditions of the least disadvantaged. One can argue that his view is partly egalitarian because it brings the disadvantaged up in an attempt to reach the most well off. According to the difference principle, “it is justifiable only if the difference in expectation [access to four-year college] is to the advantage of the representative man who is worse off, in this case the representative unskilled worker [low-income students of color without the social and cultural capital that will help them apply and attend a four-year college]” (Rawls 78). The difference principle can be applied at many levels to increase diversity at four-year universities, which will provide access and opportunity to the most disadvantaged high schools and students.
Problems with the difference principle
The difference principle according to Sen (1992) is concerned with the distribution of primary goods to reach a “justice as fairness.” I only take from Rawls efficiency model within his difference principle to solidify a justice of fairness. The difference principle focuses on much more complex means of distribution such as primary goods (such as incomes) and well-being. Sen (1999) argues that human diversity makes for such inequalities in society, which leads me to depart and examine beyond my equity threshold. Drawing from Sen’s concept of inequality based on human diversity, leads me to ask the following questions. Will students of color from low-income high schools take the initiative to apply to a university after completing their college preparatory course work, let alone will they prepare and take the SAT? As social agents, students will have to take initiative in completing the university eligibility and application process. Ultimately, will the students that reach the threshold attend a university? For example, will a student’s immigration status or social status hinder her or him from attending a university? The student and their diverse background (class, race, gender, immigration status) throws a wrench into my equity framework. Nonetheless, how will low-income students of color perform once they attend the university? Will they excel or dropout? Will low-come students of color be comfortable at a university where the cultural and linguistic terrain is composed of a White upper and middle class culture?
Conclusion
The equity framework of access and opportunity attempts to close the racial and ethnic achievement gap and increase the college going rate for high schools that have historically lagged in providing college access and opportunity to their students. Because schools are persistently creating inequality through academic tracking and other systemic problems, opportunities are not being presented. High schools and universities must work collaboratively to increase access and opportunity. Diverse universities will benefit everyone particularly white upper and middle class students. Their view of society becomes more complex which makes better democratic citizens. Historically disenfranchised citizens will participation in civics at higher rates as well.

Work Cited
Gordon, W. Edmund (1972) Toward Defining Equality of Educational Opportunity. Random
House. New York.
Gutmann, Amy (1999) Democratic Education. Princeton University Press.
Oakes, Jeannie (1985) Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality. Yale University Press.
Rawls, John (1971) A Theory of Justice. Harvard Press. Cambridge.
Sen, Amartya (1999) Inequality Reexamined. Russell Sage.