Towards a critical sociology of education

Abstract

One of the most deeply ingrained beliefs about formal education - a belief held by parents and teachers alike - is that it gives successful students, irrespective of their social origins, access to the most lucrative and rewarding places in society. This belief arose soon after the French Revolution, which promised to overturn the old social order, based on ascribed rather than achieved status, to a new one, where the three principles of 'freedom, equality, and fraternity' would rule the day. Prior to the Revolution and to the new social philosophy promoted by the post-Enlightenment thinkers, one's position in society generally depended on who one's father was. It was 'sinful' to try to move out of one's station in life, given that the 'natural' 'order of things' and the general well-being of society depended on the fulfillment of one's calling on earth, as indicated by the family one was born into, by the grace of 'divine providence'. To go against one's lot in life was to rebel against society, and God. The sons of kings and nobles were destined to be kings and nobles, and the sons of cobblers and carpenters were, in their turn, to also follow in their fathers' footsteps. The education that then existed, based as it was on an apprenticeship (Aldrich, 1997), ensured that skills were handed on from generation to generation within a family context, so that not only knowledge but also social positions were reproduced.