Postmodernism and education
Postmodernism dismisses the ‘certainties’ of the past
The certainties of the past created meta-narratives (big-stories) about people and their future identity
Those certainties of the past created an education system which met the needs of our industrial ‘Fordist’ economy which need social inequalities, for society to function:
- For example bright students, future solicitors and managers, went to Grammar Schools while future workers, tradesman, went to secondary schools (comprehensives overcame the problems of selection but identity was fixed by your set or stream)
- This was a one-size fits all education system was engineered, deliberately creating structural inequalities, to meet the ‘certainties’ or meta-narratives of the period
- By a one-size fits all education system – there’s no diversity within the system such as home-schooling
- Education is in a single time frame, if you leave school with no qualifications tough
- Teacher led with students 100% passive – think of Paul Willis, Learning to Labour
sociologytwynham.com 
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