Education, Equality And Social Cohesion

The first fully comparative empirical analysis of the relationship between education and social cohesion, this book develops a new "distributional theory" of the effects of educational inequality on social solidarity. Based on a wide-ranging theoretical critique, and extensive analysis of data on inequality and social attitudes for over 25 developed countries, the study shows how educational inequality undermines social trust, civic co-operation and the rule of law. It is not how much education a country has that matters for social cohesion but how it is distributed and the co-operative values that people learn.

ANDY GREEN is Professor of Comparative Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. He has published widely on a range of education issues, with major works translated into Chinese, German, Japanese and Spanish. His published books include High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness and Skills Formation (with Phil Brown and Hugh Lauder), Convergences and Divergences in European Education and Training Systems (with Alison Wolf and Tom Leney), Education, Globalization and the Nation State and Education and State Formation: The Rise of Education Systems in England, France and the USA.

JOHN PRESTON is Senior Lecturer in Citizenship at the University of East London, UK. He has written widely on themes of adult education, social capital and social cohesion. He has conducted consultancy for UNESCO and is currently working on a study of social cohesion and exclusion in the European Commission.

JAN GERMEN JANMAAT is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK, working on projects supported by a Framework Six Marie Curie grant. His research interests include citizenship education and the formation of identities and values among youngsters. He has published in the journals Ethnic and Racial Studies, European Education and Nationalities Papers.