ABSTRACT
At the end of Chapter 1 of this book, Bernstein’s view of the importance of democracy to future education models was presented. As we saw, Bernstein implied that much current education was profoundly undemocratic, in that social group affected acquisition of knowledge. He asserted that images of those valued in the educational environment, types of knowledge, educational possibilities and resources were distributed differently according to the social group to which the learner belonged. Access to these images, knowledges, possibilities and resources, however, affected access to the fundamental democratic rights of participation, inclusion and individual enhancement. Furthermore, he suggested that pupils who do not receive these rights in school are likely to come from social groups who do not receive these rights in society.
