Public Education Systems and Social Cohesion

Andy Green and Germ Janmaat

Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES), Institute of Education

Presentation to Centre for Lebanese Studies Annual Conference on:‘Education for Social Cohesion in the Lebanon’

15/10/09

Historical Perspective: Education as State Formation

Schooling … 'the most powerful weapon for forming ...nations' (Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution)

‘Practically all modern nations are now awake to the fact that education is the most potent means of development of the essentials of nationality.’ (Baron Dubin, Prussia, 1826)

‘Society can only exist if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity. Education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that collective life demands.’ (Durkheim, Education and Sociology)

Education and State Formation

Historically, national education systems have been used as instruments of state formation and social integration :

• Spreading national languages and cultures

• Promoting national identity

• Inculcating dominant ideologies

• Conveying the rights and duties of citizenship

Education and State Formation in 19th C Western Europe

The nineteenth-century education system came to assume a primary responsibility for the moral, cultural and political development of the nation. It became the secular church. It was variously called upon to assimilate immigrant cultures, to promote established religious doctrines, to spread the standard form of the national language, to forge a national identity and a national culture, to generalise habits of routine and rational calculation, to encourage patriotic values, to inculcate moral disciplines and, above all, to indoctrinate in the political and economic creeds of the dominant classes. It helped to construct the very subjectivities of citizenship, justifying the ways of the state to the people and the duties of the people to the state.

(Green, Education and State Formation).

National Education System

The preferred means in the West for developing mass education was the national education system which comprised :

• Majority of schools funded and controlled by the state

• Compulsory attendance (in German states)

• State training and licensing of teachers

• State controlled curricula and exams

• Later free tuition

Effectiveness of NES in Social Integration

Developing modern citizens in the western nation states in the 19th century was a long and contested process. Mainly imposed from above.

Less than 50% of the French spoke French before the Revolution and before unification less than 3 per cent of the Italian population spoke Italian (Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 60).

In his book ‘Peasants into Frenchmen’ Weber describes the epic 100 year process from the Revolution down to Jules Ferry during which the French education system sought to mould often unwilling student into French Citizens.

NES in East AsiaNES have more recently played an important role in state building and economic development in East Asian states – from Japan after the Meiji restoration to Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea after independence.

These states adopted quite centralised systems with state controlled private schools and placed great emphasis on civic education.

Singapore – a state about the same size as Lebonon and prone to civil conflict in the 60s – is an interesting case– it used the national education system quite successfully to develop a national civic identity amongst its mutli-faith, multi-lingual population.

• Mostly pubic schools, bi-lingual school (English dominant)

• Religious studies abandoned for Civic and Moral education.

Effectiveness of NES in Social Integration

Efforts to socialise students into Citizens was quite successful in many cases but usually where:

• The public system dominated schooling and was centrally controlled

• Where schools were secular or where systems had religious schools under state control

• Where population had incentives to become literate (industrialisation)

• In countries where a dominant group was able to establish an inclusive overarching national identity for the people.

Current Research on Education and Social Cohesion

Direct and Indirect effects of education on social cohesion:

From Green, Preston and Janmaat (2006):

Education, Equality and Social Cohesion

Then LLAKES research

 

Learning Effects on Social Cohesion  

  Labour market structures:

Union density and compassReach of collective agreementsMinimum wage

  

Income dispersal 

  Dispersal of outcomes Social Cohesion

TrustCivic cooperation

 Learning

Socialization 

Education and Income Equality and Trust

Using IALS test score ratios for educational equality and Gini coefficients for income equality, we find strong correlations across countries between:

• educational equality and income equality (r=.650, p=.009)

• educational equality and general trust (r=-.592, p=.020)

• educational inequality and violent crime correlated (also over time)

(Green, Preston and Janmaat, Education, Equality and Social Cohesion, 2006)

Figure 2. Relationship between Social Cohesion and Income Inequality

UK US

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100-Gini Coefficient (100=total inequality)

Social Cohesion Index

Figure 1. Relationship between Social Cohesion and Education Inequality

Fi Swe Au Ca Pol

Ir Be

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UK US

Por

Swt Ne

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1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

Education Inequality

Social Cohesion Index

Education Systems and Social Cohesion

There is an indirect impact of education on social cohesion through distributions of

skills and income, but is there also a direct effect?

Study on the effect of education systems using Mons (2007) database on system

characteristics and the IEA Civic Education study (1999) on civic values

Proposed education system effects:

• The earlier the selection on the basis of ability or tuition fees, the greater the disparities of SC values;

• The more decentralized regarding curriculum matters, the greater the disparities of SC values;

• The earlier the selection on the basis of ability or tuition fees, the lower the levels of SC values;

• The more decentralized regarding curriculum matters, the lower the levels of SC values

Social Cohesion Values

Which values to focus on?

Curricula of western states stress two sets of values:

• Ethnic tolerance / intercultural understanding

• Common, national identity / patriotism (more recently)

Potential problem: are national identity and ethnic tolerance

compatible?

Findings

• Patriotism and ethnic tolerance are compatible in centralized systems but not in decentralized/federal ones

• Comprehensive and centralized systems are both associated with lower disparities in values across social divides

• Centralized systems show higher levels of patriotism

• No effect of early selection on levels of ethnic tolerance and patriotism

Policy Implications

Historical evidence from the West (and East Asia) suggests that national

education systems (NES) can be effective vehicles of social integration.

• A predominance of public institutions with national curricula, including Civic Education;

• State licensing of schools and supervision of teacher training and examinations;

• Secular public schools (USA, France) or with state controlled denominational schools (German states, Britain, Netherlands).

Centralised systems have often been most effective in promoting overarching

national identities (including in multi-ethnic states such as Singapore).

Comprehensive systems generally enhance equality of outcomes which may

promote social cohesion.

Policy Perspective: Lebanon

Ideally, a national and comprehensive system of secular or multi-faith state schools focusing on the promotion of an overarching Lebanese identity would be the most effective in promoting social cohesion. However, the reality is that in the divided context of Lebanon there is currently little political support for such a system and the majority will continue to attend private religious schools.

Higher education probably offers the best potential for social integration because students from different faiths are mixed.

Schools could do more for social cohesion if common Lebanese values and identity were promoted in all schools. Teacher training and the adoption on national textbooks in sensitive subjects such as Civics and History could play an important role.