ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that the very structures of education systems and their associated styles of educational decision-making impinge upon modes of social solidarity and forms of political consciousness and representation. He suggests that the currently fashionable preference for institutional autonomy and parental choice within many education systems is unlikely to assist in the empowerment of the majority of citizens in inegalitarian societies. Rather, the celebration of diversity and choice amongst individuals with unequal access to cultural as well as material resources is likely to inhibit rather than enhance their chances of emancipation. The growing tendency to base more and more aspects of social affairs on the notion of consumer rights rather than upon citizen rights involves more than a move away from public-provided systems of state education towards individual schools competing for clients in the marketplace.
