Gramsci, religion and education as hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourse

Abstract

This article examines Gramsci’s analysis of education and religion as hegemonic discourses. An attempt is made to critique Gramsci’s analytical framework—his notions of ideology, education, religion and hegemony, and his concept of the ‘organic intellectuals’, the ideological role of the intellectuals as consciousness builders, and the emergence of the counter-hegemonic strategy during the transformation of power relations in society. The article evaluates the revolutionary curriculum—the transformational pedagogy, as envisaged by Gramsci, that would create a new world.

In reality, the internal relations of any nation are the result of a combination which is ‘original’ and (in a certain sense) unique: these relations must be understood and conceived in their originality and uniqueness if one wishes to dominate them and direct them (Gramsci, in Hoare & Nowell Smith, 1971: 240).