Abstract

That the expansion of educational systems in unequal societies can have at best limited, if any, equalising effects is well-established by the vast and continuously accumulating volume of empirical evidence. ¹ This has, on the one hand, shattered liberal-functionalist assumptions and notions about the role of formal education as an instrument of individual achievement, equal opportunity and large-scale social mobility. On the other hand, critical perspectives that view education as reproducing social inequality have gained firm ground. The main functions of schooling, according to these latter views, are the reproduction of dominant ideologies and their forms of knowledge, and the distribution of knowledge and skills in a manner that will reproduce the structure of social inequality.