Artikelen

'Omdat het nu eenmaal moet!' De verbreiding van maatschappelijke schooldwang

Auteurs

  • Vries,Geert de

Trefwoorden:

Education, Historical development, Social change, Social factors, Political factors, Sixteenth century, Compulsory participation, Socioeconomic factors, Compulsory education's spread, Political/social/economic issues, 1500s-present

Samenvatting

'Because You Just Have to!' The Spread of Compulsory Education. The spread of education over the last 200 years is due to ever-increasing figurational constraints exerted over the population. Since the 1500s, political elites have sought to improve their position, control the lower classes, and modernize the economy through raising educational standards. Important factors include the example of the Catholic church, the alliance between the elites of northwestern Europe with Protestantism, and the initiative of teachers and progressive bourgeois leaders. Once a threshold level of education was achieved, and after the industrial revolution changed the system of productive relations by creating anonymous labor markets, employers began to treat educational level as a screening device, thus encouraging school attendance. By the late 1800s, rising living standards enabled the lower classes to attend school at the same time that employers raised the educational requirements for jobs. To compete with the lower classes, the upper classes attended high schools and colleges. Education soon became the focus of class struggles. In the 1900s, educational expansion began to propel itself by creating its own demand. Credential inflation and the tendency toward meritocratic inequality are unintended results. Adapted from the source document.

Biografie auteur

Vries,Geert de

Gepubliceerd

1993-01-01

Nummer

Sectie

Artikelen