In this essay, Yuli Tamir argues that the growing interest in public education in the developed world in general and in the United States in particular is grounded in a fear of losing global hegemony. The most rational approach to slowing down these hegemonic shifts is to empower public education and allow the neglected human capital vested in…

Two theories on the function and nature of educational change and the historical relationship between schooling and socialization of individuals are criticized. (JD)

"Ressentiment" is identified as a key concept for understanding educational issues, including research directions, demands for accountability, and individual and group experiences of schooling (particulary those of prisoners). (GW)

This essay focuses on an analysis of the relationships among the educational institution, the mode of economic production, and the labor force. Class is considered an important factor in the dominant mode of production. Social classes are produced in a capitalist society by their position in the division of labor. The educational system reproduces…

Society as a whole and social structures within the school act to constrain autonomous thought on the part of the students. The school community itself must be renewed (as must its curriculum) to encourage the specific requirements of inquiry. (MJB)

Dewey's notion of applying the method of social intelligence to the solution of social problems is critically reviewed with special emphasis on his failure to come to terms with the question of concentrated social power in America. Theoretical ambiguities as well as unclear ideas on the practical agencies of social change are pointed out. (DS)

Two perspectives on the sociology of education were identified and related to general sociological perspectives. The theme of constraint and construction was considered in relation to the institution of education and its role in capitalist society. (JN)

This article describes the dominant ideology characteristic of modern organization which reproduces patterns of domination and subordination, and then discusses the effects of the dominant ideology relative to the structure and function of schooling. (MT)

The relationship between power and knowledge is discussed, as it concerns the professoriate in higher education. Power and knowledge, it is argued, can vary independently. Although economic power influences faculty, they still possess considerable autonomy to shape education and to develop humanistic capacities of students. (PP)