Showing papers on "Compulsory education published in 1983"

The Feminization of Public School Teaching: 1870-1920

Abstract: This article presents an explanation for the process of feminization of public school teaching in the United States between 1870 and 1920. Feminization of teaching is seen as generated by economic constraints increased by the formal definition of state school systems through enactment of compulsory attendance laws. Juxtaposed to school system needs to reduce costs were ideological and cultural restraints, rooted in the structure of preindustrial households and religious disestablishment, against the economic independence of women. Through regression and path analysis, the direct and indirect effects of predictors of proportion female in teaching are tested in a state-by-state analysis for 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900.

Liberty and Compulsory Education

Abstract: Although it is primarily concerned with the value of liberty and the justification of compulsory education, what lies behind much of this paper is the question ‘;Why treat children like children?’ The fact is that we do not regard children as having the same rights, privileges and liberties as adults, and children may not be thought of as deserving the same degree of respect or consideration as their seniors. In the past this has led to some horrific states of affairs, and while matters have undoubtedly improved, it is still the case that most people accept what Graham Haydon describes as ‘;the assumption that one thing can go for children and quite another for adults’. One likely consequence of this, and an important example of the different treatment reserved for children is compulsory education. Illiterate and innumerate adults are not compelled to practise their letters or play with counters or watch prescribed television programmes. Even when, to quote Mill, we have an adult ‘;who shows rashness, obstinacy and self-conceit—who cannot live within moderate means—who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgencies—who pursues animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect’, we do not subject him to character-building games or uplifting scripture readings, or initiate him into the mysteries of home economics, or read Shakespeare at him. But we compulsorily do all of this and more to children. Moreover, compulsory education, as we have it, is not something from which the young can gain remission. The law that requires ‘;every child of compulsory school age…to receive an efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability, and aptitude’ effectively defines an approach where what counts is the arbitrariness of chronology, not standards or excellence.

The Aims of Early Childhood Education

Abstract: Different aims of education arise largely from varying conceptions of value. Whatever those differences are one's aims must be the same for all stages of education including Early Childhood Education. The expression Early Childhood Education is awkward as it covers compulsory and non‐compulsory education and the variety of institutions that children attend. Recent claims that the pre‐compulsory years are critical for future learning seem well established. Educationists should be bold enough, it is argued, to conclude that there is at least a prima facie case for making all the years of early education compulsory.

The development of secondary education in Japan after world war II

Abstract: The basic pattern of contemporary secondary education in Japan was laid down in the years immediately after the Second World War. Secondary education is divided into a lower and an upper stage. The main characteristic of the lower stage is the combination of compulsory subjects and elective subjects. This article shows how the attempt to organise upper secondary education along American lines with comprehensive high schools controlled by elected school boards has given way to a structure more in keeping with Japanese needs. However, co-education in upper secondary schools has taken firm root in Japan. The article concludes with a list of major policy issues in Japanese secondary education today.

Paternalism and the Justification of Compulsory Education

Abstract: This paper examines at a philosophical level the justification for making education compulsory, concentrating on those arguments based on the welfare of the child. These arguments rest on the princ...

An Overview of the Demand for Post-compulsory Education by British Men, 1955–77

Abstract: The number of students attending full-time education after the age of 16, when compulsory education ends, is determined by (i) the size of the relevant age group, and (ii) the percentage of the age group attending full-time education. The former is known fairly precisely several years before students reach the age of 16. The latter is not known, because it fluctuates in response to demand (whether students want to continue with further education) and supply (whether they are able to continue, having received the relevant qualification). Supply constraints, however, are not likely to operate before university; variations in the percentage of the age group continuing with education up to GCE ‘A’ level examinations (taken by most students at the age of 18) are almost certain to be the result of demand shifts. Students qualifying for university entry (obtaining two or more GCE ‘A’ levels), and wishing to pursue it, may find that there are restrictions in the number of places that can be offered. If this is so, the percentage of the age group entering university may vary in response to both demand and supply shifts, but as we shall argue below there is no evidence of operative supply constraints after 1963.

An Analysis of Economic Returns to Japan's Higher Education and Its Application to Educational Financing.

Abstract: knowledge and technologies result from increased education. The subsequent effects of an expanded educational system on a nation's economic progress have been shown dramatically. It has been stated that, "Japan is a striking example of the role which education can play in economic development. The real basis of scientific agriculture in Japan, whose yields are among the highest in the world, is a system of universal and compulsory education. Japan did not begin with steel mills. She laid a solid foundation for economic development in the nationwide system of public education."1 To achieve economic growth and development three elements are commonly needed: (1) natural resources, (2) human resources, and (3) capital resources. These resources are, however, interdependent and serve as constraints for any kind of economic activity. An examination of Japan's postwar economic growth shows that it is not always necessary for a country to possess abundant natural resources in order to achieve a high economic growth rate. It seems that the prerequisite condition for economic growth is to have sufficient human resources (skilled and well-educated) and adequate capital.