ABSTRACT
This chapter considers four ways of judging the value of education for individuals. The four ways are levels of income; social mobility and inequality; empowerment and citizenship, and consumption. Maximising relative income will motivate an individual to demand more education so long as there is net gain in their absolute income. The belief that individuals are interested in relative rather than in absolute income may also be combined with an assumption that education does not affect the productivity of labour. Education for individual empowerment may focus on an individual's capacity to appreciate, enjoy and contribute to human achievements and cultures; direct their own life; participate in the society to which they belong, or play a role in the development of the worlds they share with others. From the perspective of Rational Action Theory cultural capital is a mechanism which maintains social class divisions because the capacity to interpret and engage with the education system is passed on from parent to child.
