Learning your place

Abstract

Abstract This chapter takes the “learning as premodifier” strategy of the book literally, seeing the underlying purpose of learning—whether intentionally or otherwise—as being about modifying and training the learner so that they better fit their designated place in society and the economy. In this reading, learning is fundamentally about learning your place. This learning will start from the moment you are conscious, continue throughout your formal education, and be reemphasized and returned to repeatedly during your working and social life. The chapter critically assesses the roles of both formal education and factors and experiences beyond formal learning in “forming” the individual for their place in society and the economy. In so doing, it also critiques, implicitly and explicitly, many of the core ideas that underlie beliefs in the potential for individual social and economic progress, supported by and through the educational system, as expressed in so many policy statements and academic articles.