Educationalisation ant its meaning in contemporary world

Abstract

This text presents a few reflections on the processes formatting contemporary conditions for the functioning of individuals in Western society. The term life-long learning makes a career today and ceases to be just a cliché, saying that we have been gathering experiences all our lives. Learning (education) becomes a tool, a task, an effect (in the form of an attitude of readiness for constant development of skills), which defines the logic of action of contemporary people. This text should be seen as a contribution to a broader analysis of social processes related to the growing importance of educational institutions in the contemporary world. The first part presents the main features of the syndrome of educationalisation as a process resulting from the expansion of formal education institutions. The author points out here the importance of school education in changing the way of peoples’ ways of thinking over the decades and in locating the value of education in the centre of Western culture. The second part of the text presents the influence of education on various spheres of functioning of individuals. The author shows how the educational logic begins to regulate the activities of individuals in fields so far not associated with education.

Keywords

• education
• educationalisation
• educational policy
• culture