ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to show that the main periods of educational reform coincided with, or immediately followed, periods of deep social unrest and political conflict. It represents an outgrowth of the political and economic conflict arising from the continued widening and deepening of capitalist control over production, and the contradictions inherent in the process. The chapter argues that the moving force behind educational change is the contradictory nature of capital accumulation and the reproduction of the capitalist order. Conflicts in the educational sphere often reflect muted or open conflicts in the economic sphere. It describes the process of educational change without identifying the mechanisms whereby economic interests are translated into educational programs. The chapter identifies all correspond to particularly intense periods of struggle around the expansion of capitalist production relations. It observes a welfare crisis, or a conflict over taxes; or a struggle within the school system over resource transfers.
