ABSTRACT
An understanding of the role of the state has become central to any sociological analysis of power in society. It is particularly important to try to understand the increasing intervention by the state in the education system. One of the most important contributions to our understanding of schooling has been made by historians of education. Uncovering 'official' establishment history, they have demonstrated the difference between private, minority education, supported by the bourgeoisie, and the mass schooling provided for the working-class. Capitalist society is determined by the imperatives of profit and domination, but this formally totalitarian economic system is in contrast to the formally democratic political system. This chapter reviews the origins of the debate in the nineteenth century to focus on the radical view of education, the struggle of working-class people to create their own independent form of education.
