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6 - Education in Historical and Cultural Perspective

from Part II - Historical and Life Course Transitions: Economic and Demographic Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

By
Robert Crosnoe
Edited by
Ross D. Parke  and
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Ross D. Parke
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Summary

Education is a powerful determinant of young people’s futures and a key developmental context of their daily lives, but education is changing. The recent restructuring and globalization of the economy have increased the lifelong benefits of higher education in the US and many other developed countries, which in turn has created downward pressure on earlier stages of the educational systems. This chapter describes economic restructuring, its effects on returns to higher education and curricular differentiation, and what these effects mean for inequality in a globalizing and diversifying world. It then shifts attention to different kinds of policy and programmatic responses to inequality in a changing educational context, focusing on strategies to change schools, change curricula in schools, change connections between schools and families, and change the psychology of young people. The goal is to explore ways that developmentally informed, culturally responsive, and multilevel solutions can be developed to promote equality of opportunity and educational equity.

Keywords

educationinequality academic progresseconomic restructuring and educationcultural responsiveness in education
Type
Chapter
Information
Children in Changing Worlds
Sociocultural and Temporal Perspectives
 , pp. 131 - 162
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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