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If Schools Didn't Exist: A Study in the Sociology of Schools

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A classic in the philosophy of education, considering the fundamental purpose and function of schools, translated into English for the first time.

This classic 1971 work on the fundamental purpose and function of schools belongs on the same shelf as other landmark works of the era, including Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and John Holt's How Children Fail. Nils Christie's If School Didn't Exist, translated into English for the first time, departs from these works by not considering schooling (and deschooling) as much as schools and their specific community and social contexts. Christie argues that schools should be proving grounds for how to live together in society rather than assembly lines producing future citizens and employees.

Christie presents three examples of schools in different settings—a French village school that became the bedrock of its community; federal government–run schools for Native Americans that facilitated the experience of inferiority; and a British secondary school that reinforced class stratification. He considers the school's function as a storage space (for an unproductive segment of society), as a means for differentiation (based on merit), and as distributor of knowledge. He introduces the idea of the school-society, a self-governing body of students, teachers, parents, and community; and he offers a vision of a society based on normalizing the needs and values of local communities.

The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

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Series Title

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Call Number

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Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press., 2020

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262358477

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NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

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Subject(s)

Philosophy of Education
Sociology of Schools

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Statement of Responsibility

Nils Christie, Lucas Cone, Joachim Wiewiura

Other Information

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umi

Source

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/4853/If-Schools-Didn-t-ExistA-Study-in-the-Sociology-of

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12093.001.0001

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