Understanding subaltern classes and their struggle – past and present

Abstract

The article is convinced that Gramsci’s relevance lies in his occupation with a great number of modern sociological problems: curriculum, discontinuity between the culture of the school and that of daily life, changes of society and ideology.

The structure of the article is. First, I introduce to Gramsci and his strong relationship with the communist movement; then I continue to refer to some of the foundational concepts of Gramsci’s thinking (hegemony, common sense, intellectuals). The concept hegemony origins in the Russian Social Democrats pointing to the role of the Russian proletariat in a bourgeois revolution against Tsarism. Gramsci develops the concept further and attempts to apply it in stable capitalist countries like Italy. In the second section, the article discusses how education can provide knowledge, insight, and mental tools to overcome inequalities.