Education and Society: Welfare State Challenges
Module 4. Society and Education: Present and Future
1. Education and Social Welfare: The Welfare State
Education has become a consumer product of the welfare state. The welfare state is required to meet the demand for education, whether through private or public institutions. However, not all layers of the population benefit equally, and education remains a source of inequality and political conflict.
We are in an era where consumer products, including education, are created according to consumption
Read MoreIndustrialization in Vizcaya: Late 19th-Early 20th Century
Industrialization in Vizcaya: Late 19th and Early 20th Century
This is an extract from the novel El Intruso, focusing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its author is Blasco Ibáñez, a Valencian writer deeply engaged with politics. He was a naturalistic author known for his vivid descriptions of workers’ living conditions. This first-level text was written in 1904.
The Rise of Industry in Vizcaya
This period marked the beginning of industrialization in Vizcaya, which commenced after the end
Read MoreBaroque Literature: Paradox, Contrasts, and Society
Baroque Literature: Paradox and Social Reflection
What in the Renaissance was a vision of the world as contingent and varied disappears. It looks like tensions between opposites that are not resolved. The balance that we see is unstable, and any variation may be disastrous. The universe is much more dynamic. Therefore, human experience is a bundle of contradictions. There will be a theological-type vitalism, but on the other side, creating tension, it is dominated by sensory and physical vitality.
Read MoreUnderstanding Culture: Elements, Competence, and Iceberg Model
Culture Defined
Culture encompasses aspects of life shared by a group of people, including:
- Values, norms, expectations, manners, attitudes, beliefs
- Age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation
- Language, history, geography, customs, rituals
- Food, clothing, music, literature, art, religion
- Education and literacy, occupation, income, social class and status, leisure activities
- Communication patterns, ways of life, roles, time
- Information transmitted from generation to generation
Elements of Culture
Key components
Read MoreUnderstanding Terrorism: Threats, Definitions, and Responses
The Threat of International Terrorism
- Very unlikely, not massively consequential.
- Suggested to even ignore it completely, go about daily lives as usual; to do otherwise would give in to the terrorist goal to provoke and strike fear.
- Despite this, the threat of terrorism – or its perception – thus owes itself far more to the subjective emotions and fear of politics and uncertainty – particularly by citizens of the developed world.
- Fears can be amplified and preyed on by terrorists and the media,
The Frankfurt School: Critical Theory and Habermas’ Philosophy
The Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School emerged in 1923 when a group of German scientists and intellectuals with Marxist leanings met to conduct sociological research aimed at countering positivist, neopositivist, scientistic, and empiricist theories. The goal was to highlight the shortcomings of these theories and address how advanced technological society and its technical achievements, instead of liberating human beings, had spawned ideological and technical elements that contributed to their
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