This thesis argues that the epistemology dominant in contemporary analytic philosophy of education - Paul Hirst's 'Forms of Knowledge' thesis - is fundamentally mistaken. It is an empiricist philosophy in the narrow, and traditional, sense, it takes tests against experience as definitive for knowledge claims. It is empiricist in a wider sense, in that its epistemology is subject - centred, it takes the beliefs and mind states of subjects and their justification as the central task of epistemology. Narrow and wide empiricism are both rejected in this thesis. Considerations in the history and philosophy of science are used to establish this claim. An objectivist, nonsubject centred, epistemology is proposed. This takes human knowledge to be a creation of human cognitive activity, such activity having necessarily historical, social and practical dimensions. Epistemology is two sided. It must be an account of knowledge on the one hand and an account of ignorance on the other hand. Thus epistemology requires a theory of ideology. Such a theory is developed in this thesis. It ties ideology to human practices, and ultimately to the form of productive practices in society. Marx's account of the errors of the classical economists is taken as paradigmatic of accounts of theoretical ideology. This thesis proposes an alternative theory of knowledge and subsequently of schooling, to that of analytic philosophy of education, the methodological issue of the appraisal of theories is generated. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (MSRP), outlined by Imre Lakatos, is used here to suggest that the Marxist research program in education is progressive, whilst the analytic programme is degenerating.