From jobs without education to education without jobs. Education, economy and young people and society -an overview
Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley
Summary
Though many Marxist writers continue to theorise the relationship between education and the workplace ‘needs’ of capital, we have argued in Education make you fick, innit? that the main function of any ‘correspondence’ between education and capitalism is that of ‘social control’ – particularly in the context of the recomposition of class and the changing relationship between youth and employment.
We now argue that we may be entering a new period of crisis where a generation of ‘overschooled’ (but ‘undereducated’) young people begin to question whether remaining in education for an extended period will enable them to secure comparable employment. As a result the education system may increasingly experience a ‘crisis of legitimacy’, a crisis compounded by growing inequalities post -14 and in higher education.
Such a situation while posing great dangers to the future of education also provides new opportunities for practitioners who want to change how schools, colleges and universities operate to work with students to develop far reaching alternatives
For a copy of the full paper – email PAPER to mar.all@btinternet.com
Education, Economy and Society 