In reply to Harold Jarche » A few good books. Conflicting agendas in education
All the posts here have been really thought provoking. Like Brian, I have wondered how to connect some of the current theories on learning with the 'real' lives of 'real' people. What I think is needed here is a sociological appreciation of how individual's experience and perceptions (and learning processes) are embedded in particular socio-economic contexts and cultural processes that can only be very approximately captured in a theory of learning or a manual for instructional design. These constructs are inevitably reductive simplifications that 'black box' most of an individual's learning process. They lead to educational practices that work for some students and not for others. And when they work, we don't know why and when they don't work we don't know why. Are some students successful despite our teaching methods? What are students themselves bringing to their successes and failures?

On a more prosaic note, Rory's comment about the link between state education and industrial society's labour processes is important. ANd the link is still there today. In England at least the development of the state education system was intimately linked to the gradual extension of the vote to all working men and the needs of the developing labour market in a capitalist industrial economy. The extension of education to the masses was viewed with deep suspicion by the 'natural' and traditional ruling class. Education has always had the dual role of both enabling and controlling and has always been a double-edged sword. Teaching individuals how to read in order that they can read the Bible and employers' instructions always risked the possibility that they would also read subversive pamphlets if available. The controlling aspect was seem as crucial to those that begrudgingly conceded that they were having to 'educate our masters' - the Duke of Wellington I think. Whatever the other contradictions and tensions in education today I think this fundamental one between the enabling agenda and the controlling agenda is still very much in evidence. And it makes its presence felt in every bit of curriculum development and in every lecture theatre, tutorial room and classroom.