ABSTRACT
A critical analysis of the ideological impact of education in the Western world since 1900 yields a pattern in which ideologies change and reappear. The introduction of compulsory schooling in the middle of the nineteenth century was the result of two contemporaneous ideologies. First, in North America, it was introduced primarily to prepare the vast numbers of new immigrants for the workforce in the factories and their regimentation; second, in Europe, as a result of Bismarck’s thinking and impact, compulsory schooling was introduced as a preparation for the military. In the 1980s, a new form of progressive education gave birth to the Whole Language Approach, which, by the early 1990s, was under attack by conservative forces. The brief analysis of the development of ideological influences on education in the Western world demonstrates the continuous tension that existed between two fundamentally different perspectives. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
