Author Meets Critics: Cathie Jo Martin's "Education for All?"

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

This author meets critics book panel discusses Cathie Jo Martin’s Education for All? Literature, Culture and Education Development in Britain and Denmark. The panel is chaired by Anna Grzymala-Busse and panelists include Amel Ahmed, Ben Ansell, Sheri Berman, Johannes Lindvall, and Cathie Martin. The panel should be of interest students of education system development, cultural influences on politics, processes of institutional change, and the educational determinants of economic inequality.

The book begins with a puzzle: Why did Denmark develop mass education for all in 1814, while Britain (the leader of the industrial revolution) created a public-school system only in 1870 and primarily educated academic achievers? Denmark was something of an agricultural backwater on the outskirts of Europe, while Britain was the leader of the industrial revolution. Yet Danish policymakers created vibrant, secondary, vocational training programs while their British counterparts shifted all secondary funding to grammar schools. How can it be that Denmark and other Northern European education systems accepted high levels of educational diversity for the various classes with their strong vocational programs and yet they produced much higher levels of socioeconomic equality; whereas the British education system strove for greater equality of educational opportunity but produced higher levels of socioeconomic inequality?

“Education for All?” explores the cultural origins of diverse education models and the impacts of these systems on the economic fortunes of low-skill youth. Fiction writers are the protagonists of this story, as their literary narratives inspired education campaigns over the long nineteenth-century.

Danish writers imagined mass schools as the foundation for a great society and economic growth. Their depictions fortified the mandate to educate all the people: neglecting low-skill youth would waste societal resources and threaten the social fabric.

British authors pictured mass education as harming social stability, lower-class work, and national culture. For these writers, learning was an individualistic activity of self-discovery, education was the making of the man. Young people in coming of age novels such as Robinson Crusoe and David Copperfield used individual initiative to triumph over adversity. British authors deeply resented structural economic injustices, but also viewed most institutions -- government bureaucracies, employers’ organizations and even unions -- as abusive. Expanding rights through courts was their cure for social ills. Their stories of youths who overcame structural injustices with individual determination made it easier to blame students who failed to seize educational opportunities.

This book is for people who care about educating children of all abilities, are baffled by culture wars over public policy and worry about the future of collective action in our dystopian world.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Chair

• Anna M. Grzymala-Busse Stanford University

Presenters

• Amel F. Ahmed University of Massachusetts, Amherst

• Ben William Ansell University of Oxford

• Sheri Berman Barnard College, Columbia University

• Cathie Jo Martin Boston University Political Science