The concept of culture in radical theories of education

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to consider the application of the concept of culture ln educational studies which take a 'radical' stance. Such studies assert that inequality of educational achievement in complex modern societies has a more or less direct and significant relationship to social class and that the phenomenon of achievement is to be explained by strictly social causes. Radical accounts of education thus challenge the assumption that educational achievement is to be explained by a natural or pre-social distribution of individual 'aptitude', 'mental ability' or 'intelligence' in the population at large. The outcome of this 'radical' position is that if unequal achievement in education can be explained by social causes related to class, such causes can be changed through the processes of schooling and broader social action. Show more