Capitalist development and educational reform

Abstract

The early formulations of reproduction theory fail to grasp uneven educational development because of a reliance on a mechanical, base/ superstructure model of social organization. Unlike neo-Weberian models which attempt to sever the necessary connection between the existence of public education and commodity production, reproduction theory emphasizes the “correspondence” of public education and the capitalist economy. But this “correspondence” does not adequately conceptualize the unity of form and content in capitalist relations of production. As a causal model it implies that economic relations develop in the absence of their institutional counterparts. The weight of economic “needs” then calls institutional reform into play. Such a model reduces historical development to the movement of pure forms.