ABSTRACT
Inculcation, indoctrination, censorship and the spread of propaganda constitute an overlapping set of techniques designed to allow powerful and often dominant forces, notably governments and churches, to convert individuals and groups in various ways to particular points of view. Together they offer potent means of political and social control. Such procedures have been imposed on school systems and on the broader society, sometimes with draconian severity. They are manifestly at odds with liberal views of education, which stress the need to develop autonomous, thinking individuals. In schools, instruction has historically exerted a controlling grip through inculcation (the process of forcibly impressing upon the mind through frequent repetition and admonition) and indoctrination (the associated content - the doctrine or belief system being inculcated). Propaganda is disseminated through organised publicity programmes, whether within or without the educational system, propagating particular doctrines or creeds through highly selective and deliberately distorted information. Key strategies of the propagandist are the use of calumny against opponents and public censorship of their views. Alternative doctrines and opinions unpalatable to those in power are thus suppressed. Historically, such methods have been especially evident where education for a particular good cause has been prosyletised, whether religion, the national and/or imperial interest, the physical and moral health of the population, a political ideology or, more recently, the environment (see Marsden, 1989 and 1993).
