ABSTRACT
Making social cohesion a prominent goal of education also has a powerful rationale in economic terms. There has been a growing acceptance by economists of the centrality of human and social capital in economic success…law, contract and economic rationality provide a necessary but insufficient basis for the stability and prosperity of post-industrial societies; these must be leavened with reciprocity, moral obligation, duty towards community and trust. It is this ‘social capital’ which has a large and measurable economic value. A nation’s well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a single pervasive cultural characteristic—the level of social capital inherent in the society.
