Social Cohesion and Common Schooling
Social Cohesion and Common Schooling
Criterion 4 of evaluating privatization
Whether schooling promotes the social good and holds a society together.
Why states fund schools
To build the social good, which each society defines for itself.
Common schooling
A shared educational experience so students can take a full part in social, political, and economic life.
Common elements
Curriculum, values, goals, language, and political orientation.
Two routes to social goods
- System design: offer all students the same system of education.
- Instruction: teach socialization skills and civic virtues.
The fourth criterion for judging a privatization program is social cohesion: whether schooling helps hold a society together. This is the reason public money goes into schools in the first place, and it is the criterion where a fully private, fragmented system raises the most doubt.
Schools and the Social Good
Schools are expected to promote the social good, and that expectation is the main reason governments fund them. What counts as the social good varies from one society to another, and even within a society different people define it differently. A common thread is the chance to move up: when a child ends up better off than the parent, that upward movement is one plain sense of the social good.
In a democracy, the social good shows up as a shared educational experience that gives students the start they need to take a full part in social, political, and economic life. The democratic purpose of schooling is usually read as needing common elements across schools, so that students are not divided from the outset by which school they attended.
If the social good calls for shared experience, the next question is what that shared experience has to include.
Because schooling is meant to hold a society together and help people move up in life.
What counts as the social good varies between societies, but a common thread is upward movement: a child ending up better off than the parent. In a democracy it also means a shared start for civic life.
Common Schooling
Common schooling is the idea that students share the same educational experience rather than getting different systems depending on their social level. Offering everyone the same start is what lets students later take a full part in the institutions of society.
The democratic purpose of schooling is usually taken to require common elements across the system. These are the parts that, when they differ, split students into separate tracks.
| Common element | Why it matters for cohesion |
|---|---|
| Curriculum | If what is taught differs, part of the shared foundation is lost. |
| Values | Students across schools should absorb a common set of values. |
| Goals | Each student is held to the same aim: to do their best. |
| Language | A shared language keeps some students from being shut out of jobs and study. |
| Political orientation | An open, shared civic outlook rather than a narrow one. |
The first route to producing social goods is to design the system this way. Social goods come from collective action, meaning that when all students are offered the same system of education, the shared benefit follows. As long as schooling is delivered in separate pieces, that common good is harder to reach.
Designing a shared system is one route to cohesion. The second works through what happens inside the classroom.
A shared educational experience offered to all students, not different systems by social level.
The democratic purpose of schooling is read as needing common elements: curriculum, values, goals, language, and political orientation. Shared collective schooling is one route to producing social goods.
Instruction for Cohesion
The second route to social goods runs through the instruction students receive. Teaching only subject content is not enough. Where students are also taught socialization skills and the importance of civic virtues, schooling becomes a way to build cohesion, because those students will later have to live and work alongside many different kinds of people.
Schools carry this out in different ways, and how they do it matters less than whether they do it at all.
- Offer courses such as civics, political science, or character education.
- Encourage charitable acts, such as older students helping younger or lower-income learners.
- Provide instruction on shared problems, such as environmental issues students can help solve.
Teaching civic virtue is not the job of one subject teacher. It belongs to every teacher, because attitudes, good behavior, and a sense of civic responsibility are learned across the whole school, not in a single period.
When both routes are followed, designing a shared system and teaching civic virtue through it, the common social good is more likely to reach students and, in time, society.
Together, the two routes explain why cohesion is treated as a real test of any privatization program, not an afterthought.
System design and instruction.
System design offers all students the same schooling, so shared benefit comes from collective action. Instruction teaches socialization skills and civic virtues through courses, charitable acts, or work on shared problems.
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