Capitalist development and educational structure

This essay presents a theoretical overview of the relationship between the accumulation process and educational change in the capitalist periphery. The author argues that the school system may serve the interests of the capitalist class by (a) regulating the labour flow between the capitalist and non-capitalist modes of production, (b) raising labour productivity in the capitalist mode, (c) thwarting the development of either a large and class-conscious proletariat or a peasant-worker alliance, and (d) undermining the ideological and political position of traditional elites. Data are introduced consistent with the proposition that where the state represents primarily the interests of the capitalist class, it is these objectives, not a commitment to equality or to maximizing the rate of economic growth, which dominate educational policy.