Education and social change

Abstract

Education is generally considered as an important instrument stimulating of social change. Besides, according to the liberal theory, education has always been considered as a path for the social mobility and the key for the individual and social progress. Nevertheless it was in the sixties that education start calling the attention of economists, politicians, international organisms and revolutionary movements. As a matter of fact there took place some events that led to look closer the educational processi and institutions. The elaboration of economic theories on education is a sign of this increasing interest in education and knowledge. But the economic conception of the «human capital» has some ideological presuppositions that reinforce the capitalist model of society. Anyway education, in terms of economic growth and social mobility became conspicuous in every developped capitalist country. In the underdevelopped capitalist countries the rising industrialization has also underlined the role of education in social change. But, beyond those problems, concerning the capitalist development in developped countries and the industrialization in underdevelopped capitalist countries, the sixties and the beginnings of the seventies gave other reasons for remarking the importance of education in social change. Namely the socialist educational reforms in Cuba, China and, more recently, in several African countries are an inspiration for new and important studies. In the socialist revolution there is the consciousness that the class struggle also shows itself in school clearly. On the other side, the conflict theories, marxist or non-marxist, also apply to the analysis of the educational reforms in capitalist societies. These theories try to establish the grounds for an alternative society, based on the value of work. Indeed a project of educational change as part and parcel of a processus of cultural revolution logically derives from a class analysis of the contradictions existing in the economic, political and cultural life as a whole.