ABSTRACT
In the face of vast newfound technical capabilities, and problems, a volatile combination of boundless optimism and fatalistic determinism shapes and limits discussion of fundamental issues of social purpose. Control over both the form of schooling and its academic and moral content is the symbolic battlefield whereon ideas, beliefs and cultures struggle perpetually for more control of what societies will be like in the future. Schools were instruments of social policies aimed at economic stability and growth, and at equalizing educational opportunity and life-chances. They were needed engines of assimilation and moral indoctrination into majority cultures, languages and ethical standards. Parents and non-parents alike seem less disposed than in the past to accept uncritically the assumptions and claims which underpin monolithic state-sponsored education. Current widespread scepticism, soul-searching and experimentation in educational and social policy is almost certainly related to profound changes in the way we live and work as well as in our cultural and linguistic make-up.
