IDEOLOGICAL WORK

Abstract

Through an ethnographic account of life in an Australian middle-class suburban high school, this article contributes to the understanding of how schooling can work to enculturate young people into a capitalistic way of life. The fulcrum of action is the school's health education program. In juxtaposition to this case, a vignette of the author's own experience as a health education teacher in a working-class country town a decade earlier is presented. Together, the two snapshots of school life not only draw attention to the durability of the routines of ideological practice but also to how resistance and opposition are constant possibilities. It is suggested that the starting point for teachers working toward a collectively healthier and more socially just society lies in an understanding of the social, historical, and ideological contexts of their work.