Education, Globalisation and Social Change by Emile Durkheim
This week’s reading speaks of the contentious definition of education and how we should understand education. Kant defines it as seeking individual perfection but it is a contradiction that we cannot reach specialization efficiency with the use of homogeneous education. There is another definition of utilitarianism where ‘individual becomes an instrument of happiness for himself and for his fellows” but since happiness is subjective, the way to achieving it through education becomes very subjective and not feasible as well.
Education has varied indefinitely across time and place and it cannot be extracted from its historical context and judged with presentism. To find an ideal education, it must have an ideal reality that fits it and we have yet to achieve such a society, hence it has no reality in itself, thus fabricated. By referencing to our history, we are able to learn from past errors in education and the entire human past has contributed to the formation of this totality of maxims that guide education today. We are essentially the end product of education and evolution from the past.
We should consider educational systems from past and present and abstract the characteristics which are common to them. Education varies across class systems and is heterogeneous, even though that is morally questionable to determine their life chances based off their heritage.
