ABSTRACT
Summary: Students often consider schooling as the key to their economic future. Human capital education goals have often displaced in importance goals such as active citizenship and transmission of cultural knowledge. This chapter explores the early concepts surrounding the relationship between education and human capital economics by discussing: The evolution of the high school as a mass institution; The development of vocational education and vocational guidance; The birth of the junior high school; Pedagogies serving the new industrial system; The historical debate about whether human capital education placed schools in service to corporations.
