ABSTRACT
Education has often served a role in social movements and in collective efforts to remove injustices. Evidence of this role is illustrated by such examples as Labor Colleges in the United States, ANC education camps in South Africa, feminist consciousness-raising groups in many western countries and literacy-raising groups with political orientations in Cuba and Brazil. Often the intention embedded in the educational role is not simply to change for the sake of progress but to revitalize and defend values different from the dominant ones. In some societies, there is a greater emphasis on the continuation of the culture and a desire for very little change; whereas in others there is a greater emphasis on transforming the culture and improving it. In most western industrial societies there has tended to be an emphasis on change, on questioning the status quo. Yet, within these societies, there are particular groups that would prefer to see little change to the status quo. This chapter examines the different orientations that communities have to social and technological change and the values they would like to keep and how they have attempted to do that in a world that is nevertheless changing at such a rapid pace.
