ABSTRACT
From Marx’s theory of education, I turn to his plans for reform in education. As we shall see, there are close links between ideas discussed under the heading of a ‘theory of education’, and aspects of what seem purely practical proposals for a new kind of school. For Marx, theory and practice should not be separated from each other. One important parallel brings out this point. Marx takes any worthwhile discussion of ‘human nature’ to be about human life in some particular society at some particular time. Something similar can be said of his thinking about education. He does have a number of general ideas, seen in his accounts of individual development and the relation between change in education and change in society. But where more detailed questions are concerned, Marx’s thinking is directed towards education within a certain society. In fact, we can be even more specific than this. Marx’s concern in discussing education in modern Western society is with the education of a particular class: the working class. This limitation must be kept in mind in what follows.
