Education can be thought of as the transmission of the values and
accumulated knowledge of a society. In this sense, it is equivalent
to what social scientists term socialization or enculturation.
Children—whether conceived among New Guinea tribespeople,
the Renaissance Florentines, or the middle classes of Manhattan—
are born without culture. Education is designed to guide them in
learning a culture, molding their behaviour in the ways
of adulthood, and directing them toward their eventual role in
society. In the most primitive cultures, there is often little formal
learning—little of what one would ordinarily call school or classes
or teachers. Instead, the entire environment and all activities are
frequently viewed as school and classes, and many or all adults act
as teachers. As societies grow more complex, however, the quantity
of knowledge to be passed on from one generation to the next
becomes more than any one person can know, and, hence, there
must evolve more selective and efficient means of cultural
transmission. The outcome is formal education—the school and the
specialist called the teacher.
As society becomes ever more complex and schools become ever
more institutionalized, educational experience becomes less
directly related to daily life, less a matter of showing and learning
in the context of the workaday world, and more abstracted from
practice, more a matter of distilling, telling, and learning things out
of context. This concentration of learning in a formal atmosphere
allows children to learn far more of their culture than they are able
to do by merely observing and imitating. As society gradually
attaches more and more importance to education, it also tries to
formulate the overall objectives, content, organization, and
strategies of education. Literature becomes laden with advice on
the rearing of the younger generation. In short, there develop
philosophies and theories of education.
Education, discipline that is concerned with methods of teaching and
learning in schools or school-like environments as opposed to various
nonformal and informal means of socialization (e.g., rural development
projects and education through parent-child relationships).
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Education can be thought of as the transmission of the values and
accumulated knowledge of a society. In this sense, it is equivalent to what
social scientists term socialization or enculturation. Children—whether
conceived among New Guinea tribespeople, the Renaissance Florentines, or
the middle classes of Manhattan—are born without culture. Education is
designed to guide them in learning a culture, molding their behaviour in the
ways of adulthood, and directing them toward their eventual role in society.
In the most primitive cultures, there is often little formal learning—little of
what one would ordinarily call school or classes or teachers. Instead, the
entire environment and all activities are frequently viewed as school and
classes, and many or all adults act as teachers. As societies grow more
complex, however, the quantity of knowledge to be passed on from one
generation to the next becomes more than any one person can know, and,
hence, there must evolve more selective and efficient means of cultural
transmission. The outcome is formal education—the school and the specialist
called the teacher.
Key People: Karl Augustus Menninger Bob Jones, Jr. A. Bartlett Giamatti Amos
Eaton William Claire Menninger
Related Topics: curriculum professional education examination educational
technology homework
As society becomes ever more complex and schools become ever more
institutionalized, educational experience becomes less directly related to
daily life, less a matter of showing and learning in the context of the
workaday world, and more abstracted from practice, more a matter of
distilling, telling, and learning things out of context. This concentration of
learning in a formal atmosphere allows children to learn far more of their
culture than they are able to do by merely observing and imitating. As
society gradually attaches more and more importance to education, it also
tries to formulate the overall objectives, content, organization, and strategies
of education. Literature becomes laden with advice on the rearing of the
younger generation. In short, there develop philosophies and theories of
education.
This article discusses the history of education, tracing the evolution of the
formal teaching of knowledge and skills from prehistoric and ancient times to
the present, and considering the various philosophies that have inspired the
resulting systems. Other aspects of education are treated in a number of
articles. For a treatment of education as a discipline, including educational
organization, teaching methods, and the functions and training of teachers,
see teaching; pedagogy; and teacher education. For a description of
education in various specialized fields, see historiography; legal education;
medical education; science, history of. For an analysis of educational
philosophy, see education, philosophy of. For an examination of some of the
more important aids in education and the dissemination of knowledge, see
dictionary; encyclopaedia; library; museum; printing; publishing, history of.
Some restrictions on educational freedom are discussed in censorship. For an
analysis of pupil attributes, see intelligence, human; learning theory;
psychological testing.
Education in primitive and early civilized cultures
Prehistoric and primitive cultures
The term education can be applied to primitive cultures only in the sense of
enculturation, which is the process of cultural transmission. A primitive
person, whose culture is the totality of his universe, has a relatively fixed
sense of cultural continuity and timelessness. The model of life is relatively
static and absolute, and it is transmitted from one generation to another with
little deviation. As for prehistoric education, it can only be inferred from
educational practices in surviving primitive cultures.
