ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 the links between education policy and the economy were analysed. The global shift to supply-side economics has effectively elevated education policy to a pivotal element of economic policy with the development of human capital being perceived as central to the creation of economic growth. However, education policy has always been about much more than economic policy, it is social policy too. Perhaps, more precisely, it can be argued to have a social function – concerned not solely with matters of welfare, but with matters of ideology too. This delineation between the provision of education as economic and as social policy is not neat and tidy – the relationship is often one of interdependence. However, the focus in this chapter is on the extent to which a wide range of social values shape education policy and how education policy refl ects the diverse, and sometimes contradictory, social functions associated with it.
