ABSTRACT
Schools are institutions to which, in our society, we delegate the responsibility for a large part of the education of our children. We do so because most of us are convinced that parents have neither the time, expertise, social contacts and, perhaps, inclination to provide the education that we require for children in their own homes. But because our expectations with regard to education are many and various, it will necessarily be the case that we expect schools to fulfil several different roles. So, for instance, it is difficult to see how schools could fulfil any functions at all unless they-or the educational authorities which control them-assumed a basic childminding function. That is, some effort has to be made so that children attend school and their basic physical well-being is catered for when they attend. We also expect schools to contribute to the socialisation and moral education of our children, not necessarily by having lessons in good manners or the evils of bullying and racism, but by emphasising in all they do that certain types of actions and attitudes are to be encouraged and others are to be discouraged. Such roles are always important and, at some stages of schooling, may provide the main justification for schooling. So, for instance, this government has pledged that it will ensure that nursery education is available for all children. The long-term evidence for the academic benefit of such
schooling is non-existent, such evidence in terms of social or moral learning is inconclusive,1 but its benefits as a child-minding exercise which frees parents, especially mothers, for employment may be enough to justify the exercise. However, important as such things may be, most of us, we suspect, would not see them as a significant justification for the vast machinery and expense of schooling within our society. For such justification we have to look elsewhere. And the place to look, we will argue, is at the transmission of culture.
