conclusion on good education

What makes a quality education?

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Claire Boonstra

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Sustainable Development is affecting economies, industries and global issues

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, sustainable development.

What constitutes a quality education? Today, quality is most often measured through the OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) standardized tests – and countries are ranked accordingly. The higher on that list, the better your education would be. But do these results and rankings still relate to what really matters today – and tomorrow?

At first glance, the relationship between PISA and economic performance doesn’t seem too hard to pinpoint. Correlations between high PISA rankings and “hard” variables such as GDP, performance, productivity – these are easy enough to draw up. But if we agree that the success of modern-day economies is based on more than children’s ability to read, write and do maths, what other variables might we draw up and how might we assess their presence? If we also agree that societies are more than just their economic performance, what of instruments such as GDP and PISA?

Preparing children for life

The rapid changes we’re experiencing in our societies are having a substantial impact on the likelihood that our children will find a satisfying path when they are older. Our life expectancies are rising dramatically. Rather than pinpointing the single role they’ll play, children may have to prepare for a series of roles, more so than we have so far been used to.

The meaningful discussion I believe we should engage in thus goes beyond the mere necessity of finding a job. Should an education prepare us for a single job to last our entire career, or might it take into account the sequence of professional roles that is becoming more commonplace?

Does one mould fit all?

Each developing child passes through our school system to reach their full potential as an adult in society. The current version of our education system requires each child to be measured against the same standards. We must all fit these particular norms, fit that particular mould, strive to meet those specific criteria. Are we not wasting an awful amount of potential and harming both ourselves and society? Wouldn’t developing the full and infinite potential of each person be the preferable route to take, for each individual as well as humanity? What if we could use all our existing knowledge on learning and developments in technology to find a solution that matches the natural diversity in talents with the infinite array of different roles?

Artificial employees

We are entering an age where computers, robots and artificial intelligence will start to outperform humans in skills we score children against today: computation, applied writing, organization and assembly, rote memorization, decision-tree-based problem solving. Replacing humans in such jobs makes as much economic sense as the replacement of horses by cars once did. In healthcare, in retail, in the services industry, this is already happening and there is every reason to believe it will continue.

Roles likely to avoid such robotization for some time yet are those that revolve around the precise traits that make us unmistakably human: inventiveness, creativity, empathy, entrepreneurialism, intuition, lateral thinking, cultural sensitivity, to name a few. What if we gave these more emphasis in schools? Who is going to programme the robots?

Policy changes vs. fundamental review

Changes at the policy level are a constant for our schools and our teachers are right to sigh at yet another shift. Changes in recent years seem to have been mostly directed at the what and the how of education, rather than the more fundamental question: what is it for? That is the broad, deep and fundamental discussion I would very much like to see happening: what should be the purpose of our education, if a substantial portion of our children will soon have more than 100 years to spend in societies that are changing rapidly?

It’s up to each of us to find our own answers to these questions: individuals, schools and also governments, in creating the wider conditions for their citizens. There may be no correct or ideal answers, just like there are no ‘ideal’ political standpoints. But we must try to answer them, to determine a course for the compass.

Five attempts at an answer

After several years of asking these questions in various national and international forums, I’ve come to the conclusion that education has five key goals:

• To unleash the infinite potential of humanity. A substantial potential remains unused in people, simply because current curricula and testing bodies lack the means to address it. Imagine the benefits of an education system that helps students reach their full potential? Imagine the effect such students might have on our societies?
• To learn how to apply oneself as an instrument towards lifelong value. Post-war generations went to work where they could. In contrast, recent generations have learned to do what they enjoy. Bridging the two tendencies, we might teach children how they matter and impart a sense of self-appreciation in a societal context. Ask them what are their core strengths, their talents and interests, and how they will put these to use for society?
• To learn how to shape the future. Rather than preparing children for the future – which is rather passive and arguably impossible to do, as we don’t know how history will develop – we might teach children how they may have an influence on society; how they may shape, design, develop, articulate, make and programme ideas and things.
• To understand and master the conditions for peace. Conflict resolution, clear interpersonal communications, empathy and intercultural understanding may well be crucial traits of our societies if they are to stay liveable, both in the context of our increasingly culturally diverse societies as well as the everyday school and work environment.
• To learn how to be healthy and happy. Taking proper care of one’s body and discovering the drivers of one’s general well-being are essential skills to succeed at life. Schools might help students find a good balance between effort, exercise and relaxation, and to define their personal priorities in life.

This is not a debate for politicians and civil servants alone. Every single one of us is a decision-maker when it comes to education. None of us should debate how a quality education is best provided to children or how such quality is best assessed if we haven’t first asked ourselves: what is quality education in the first place?

Have you read? 5 reasons why we need to reduce global inequality Why gender equality will make or break the Global Goals

Author: Claire Boonstra is the co-founder of tech start-ups, founder of Operation Education and a Young Global Leader

Guest editor of this series is Owen Gaffney, Director, International Media and Strategy, Stockholm Resilience Centre and Future Earth

Image: Children sit inside a classroom on their first day of school at Shimizu elementary school in Fukushima, northern Japan April 6, 2011. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Share this:

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

The Agenda .chakra .wef-n7bacu{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-weight:400;} Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Sustainable Development .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

What to expect at the Special Meeting on Global Cooperation, Growth and Energy for Development

Spencer Feingold and Gayle Markovitz

April 19, 2024

Desalination: What is it and how can it help tackle water scarcity?

Johnny Wood

April 15, 2024

'It's now cheaper to save the world than destroy it': author Akshat Rathi on Climate Capitalism 

Robin Pomeroy and Sophia Akram

April 10, 2024

3 social economy innovators that are driving change in Brazil

Eliane Trindade

April 4, 2024

What is 'phygital' infrastructure and how can it impact growth in developing economies?

Chirag Chopra and Piyush Gupta

April 2, 2024

5 things to know about investing in frontier markets

Lisa Satolli

• Our Mission

What Is Education For?

Read an excerpt from a new book by Sir Ken Robinson and Kate Robinson, which calls for redesigning education for the future.

What is education for? As it happens, people differ sharply on this question. It is what is known as an “essentially contested concept.” Like “democracy” and “justice,” “education” means different things to different people. Various factors can contribute to a person’s understanding of the purpose of education, including their background and circumstances. It is also inflected by how they view related issues such as ethnicity, gender, and social class. Still, not having an agreed-upon definition of education doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it or do anything about it.

We just need to be clear on terms. There are a few terms that are often confused or used interchangeably—“learning,” “education,” “training,” and “school”—but there are important differences between them. Learning is the process of acquiring new skills and understanding. Education is an organized system of learning. Training is a type of education that is focused on learning specific skills. A school is a community of learners: a group that comes together to learn with and from each other. It is vital that we differentiate these terms: children love to learn, they do it naturally; many have a hard time with education, and some have big problems with school.

There are many assumptions of compulsory education. One is that young people need to know, understand, and be able to do certain things that they most likely would not if they were left to their own devices. What these things are and how best to ensure students learn them are complicated and often controversial issues. Another assumption is that compulsory education is a preparation for what will come afterward, like getting a good job or going on to higher education.

So, what does it mean to be educated now? Well, I believe that education should expand our consciousness, capabilities, sensitivities, and cultural understanding. It should enlarge our worldview. As we all live in two worlds—the world within you that exists only because you do, and the world around you—the core purpose of education is to enable students to understand both worlds. In today’s climate, there is also a new and urgent challenge: to provide forms of education that engage young people with the global-economic issues of environmental well-being.

This core purpose of education can be broken down into four basic purposes.

Education should enable young people to engage with the world within them as well as the world around them. In Western cultures, there is a firm distinction between the two worlds, between thinking and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity. This distinction is misguided. There is a deep correlation between our experience of the world around us and how we feel. As we explored in the previous chapters, all individuals have unique strengths and weaknesses, outlooks and personalities. Students do not come in standard physical shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities. They all have their own aptitudes and dispositions and different ways of understanding things. Education is therefore deeply personal. It is about cultivating the minds and hearts of living people. Engaging them as individuals is at the heart of raising achievement.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and that “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Many of the deepest problems in current systems of education result from losing sight of this basic principle.

Schools should enable students to understand their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others. There are various definitions of culture, but in this context the most appropriate is “the values and forms of behavior that characterize different social groups.” To put it more bluntly, it is “the way we do things around here.” Education is one of the ways that communities pass on their values from one generation to the next. For some, education is a way of preserving a culture against outside influences. For others, it is a way of promoting cultural tolerance. As the world becomes more crowded and connected, it is becoming more complex culturally. Living respectfully with diversity is not just an ethical choice, it is a practical imperative.

There should be three cultural priorities for schools: to help students understand their own cultures, to understand other cultures, and to promote a sense of cultural tolerance and coexistence. The lives of all communities can be hugely enriched by celebrating their own cultures and the practices and traditions of other cultures.

Education should enable students to become economically responsible and independent. This is one of the reasons governments take such a keen interest in education: they know that an educated workforce is essential to creating economic prosperity. Leaders of the Industrial Revolution knew that education was critical to creating the types of workforce they required, too. But the world of work has changed so profoundly since then, and continues to do so at an ever-quickening pace. We know that many of the jobs of previous decades are disappearing and being rapidly replaced by contemporary counterparts. It is almost impossible to predict the direction of advancing technologies, and where they will take us.

How can schools prepare students to navigate this ever-changing economic landscape? They must connect students with their unique talents and interests, dissolve the division between academic and vocational programs, and foster practical partnerships between schools and the world of work, so that young people can experience working environments as part of their education, not simply when it is time for them to enter the labor market.

Education should enable young people to become active and compassionate citizens. We live in densely woven social systems. The benefits we derive from them depend on our working together to sustain them. The empowerment of individuals has to be balanced by practicing the values and responsibilities of collective life, and of democracy in particular. Our freedoms in democratic societies are not automatic. They come from centuries of struggle against tyranny and autocracy and those who foment sectarianism, hatred, and fear. Those struggles are far from over. As John Dewey observed, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

For a democratic society to function, it depends upon the majority of its people to be active within the democratic process. In many democracies, this is increasingly not the case. Schools should engage students in becoming active, and proactive, democratic participants. An academic civics course will scratch the surface, but to nurture a deeply rooted respect for democracy, it is essential to give young people real-life democratic experiences long before they come of age to vote.

Eight Core Competencies

The conventional curriculum is based on a collection of separate subjects. These are prioritized according to beliefs around the limited understanding of intelligence we discussed in the previous chapter, as well as what is deemed to be important later in life. The idea of “subjects” suggests that each subject, whether mathematics, science, art, or language, stands completely separate from all the other subjects. This is problematic. Mathematics, for example, is not defined only by propositional knowledge; it is a combination of types of knowledge, including concepts, processes, and methods as well as propositional knowledge. This is also true of science, art, and languages, and of all other subjects. It is therefore much more useful to focus on the concept of disciplines rather than subjects.

Disciplines are fluid; they constantly merge and collaborate. In focusing on disciplines rather than subjects we can also explore the concept of interdisciplinary learning. This is a much more holistic approach that mirrors real life more closely—it is rare that activities outside of school are as clearly segregated as conventional curriculums suggest. A journalist writing an article, for example, must be able to call upon skills of conversation, deductive reasoning, literacy, and social sciences. A surgeon must understand the academic concept of the patient’s condition, as well as the practical application of the appropriate procedure. At least, we would certainly hope this is the case should we find ourselves being wheeled into surgery.

The concept of disciplines brings us to a better starting point when planning the curriculum, which is to ask what students should know and be able to do as a result of their education. The four purposes above suggest eight core competencies that, if properly integrated into education, will equip students who leave school to engage in the economic, cultural, social, and personal challenges they will inevitably face in their lives. These competencies are curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure, and citizenship. Rather than be triggered by age, they should be interwoven from the beginning of a student’s educational journey and nurtured throughout.

From Imagine If: Creating a Future for Us All by Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D and Kate Robinson, published by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022 by the Estate of Sir Kenneth Robinson and Kate Robinson.

What Is Education? Insights from the World's Greatest Minds

Forty thought-provoking quotes about education..

Posted May 12, 2014 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

As we seek to refine and reform today’s system of education , we would do well to ask, “What is education?” Our answers may provide insights that get to the heart of what matters for 21st century children and adults alike.

It is important to step back from divisive debates on grades, standardized testing, and teacher evaluation—and really look at the meaning of education. So I decided to do just that—to research the answer to this straightforward, yet complex question.

Looking for wisdom from some of the greatest philosophers, poets, educators, historians, theologians, politicians, and world leaders, I found answers that should not only exist in our history books, but also remain at the core of current education dialogue.

In my work as a developmental psychologist, I constantly struggle to balance the goals of formal education with the goals of raising healthy, happy children who grow to become contributing members of families and society. Along with academic skills, the educational journey from kindergarten through college is a time when young people develop many interconnected abilities.

As you read through the following quotes, you’ll discover common threads that unite the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical aspects of education. For me, good education facilitates the development of an internal compass that guides us through life.

Which quotes resonate most with you? What images of education come to your mind? How can we best integrate the wisdom of the ages to address today’s most pressing education challenges?

If you are a middle or high school teacher, I invite you to have your students write an essay entitled, “What is Education?” After reviewing the famous quotes below and the images they evoke, ask students to develop their very own quote that answers this question. With their unique quote highlighted at the top of their essay, ask them to write about what helps or hinders them from getting the kind of education they seek. I’d love to publish some student quotes, essays, and images in future articles, so please contact me if students are willing to share!

What Is Education? Answers from 5th Century BC to the 21 st Century

• The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. — Jean Piaget, 1896-1980, Swiss developmental psychologist, philosopher
• An education isn't how much you have committed to memory , or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. — Anatole France, 1844-1924, French poet, novelist
• Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. — Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013, South African President, philanthropist
• The object of education is to teach us to love beauty. — Plato, 424-348 BC, philosopher mathematician
• The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education — Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968, pastor, activist, humanitarian
• Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, physicist
• It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. — Aristotle, 384-322 BC, Greek philosopher, scientist
• Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life. — Brigham Young, 1801-1877, religious leader
• Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer – into a selflessness which links us with all humanity. — Nancy Astor, 1879-1964, American-born English politician and socialite
• Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939, Irish poet
• Education is freedom . — Paulo Freire, 1921-1997, Brazilian educator, philosopher
• Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. — John Dewey, 1859-1952, philosopher, psychologist, education reformer
• Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. — George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, scientist, botanist, educator
• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer, poet
• The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. — Sydney J. Harris, 1917-1986, journalist
• Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. — Malcolm Forbes, 1919-1990, publisher, politician
• No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. — Emma Goldman, 1869 – 1940, political activist, writer
• Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. — John W. Gardner, 1912-2002, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson
• Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. — Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer, theologian, poet, philosopher
• Education is the movement from darkness to light. — Allan Bloom, 1930-1992, philosopher, classicist, and academician
• Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. -- Daniel J. Boorstin, 1914-2004, historian, professor, attorney
• The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. — William S. Burroughs, 1914-1997, novelist, essayist, painter
• The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. -- Robert M. Hutchins, 1899-1977, educational philosopher
• Education is all a matter of building bridges. — Ralph Ellison, 1914-1994, novelist, literary critic, scholar
• What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul. — Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, English essayist, poet, playwright, politician
• Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. — Malcolm X, 1925-1965, minister and human rights activist
• Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students. — Solomon Ortiz, 1937-, former U.S. Representative-TX
• The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. — Plutarch, 46-120AD, Greek historian, biographer, essayist
• Education is a shared commitment between dedicated teachers, motivated students and enthusiastic parents with high expectations. — Bob Beauprez, 1948-, former member of U.S. House of Representatives-CO
• The most influential of all educational factors is the conversation in a child’s home. — William Temple, 1881-1944, English bishop, teacher
• Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them. — John Ruskin, 1819-1900, English writer, art critic, philanthropist
• Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete. — Joyce Meyer, 1943-, Christian author and speaker
• Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. — B.F. Skinner , 1904-1990, psychologist, behaviorist, social philosopher
• The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers rather than to fill it with the accumulation of others. — Tyron Edwards, 1809-1894, theologian
• Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength of the nation. — John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, 35 th President of the United States
• Education is like a lantern which lights your way in a dark alley. — Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, 1918-2004, President of the United Arab Emirates for 33 years
• When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts. — Dalai Lama, spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism
• Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence . — Robert Frost, 1874-1963, poet
• The secret in education lies in respecting the student. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, essayist, lecturer, and poet
• My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance, but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. — Maya Angelou, 1928-, author, poet

©2014 Marilyn Price-Mitchell. All rights reserved. Please contact for permission to reprint.

Marilyn Price-Mitchell, Ph.D., is an Institute for Social Innovation Fellow at Fielding Graduate University and author of Tomorrow’s Change Makers.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Teletherapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Therapy Center NEW
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

• Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

The turning point: Why we must transform education now

Global warming. Accelerated digital revolution. Growing inequalities. Democratic backsliding. Loss of biodiversity. Devastating pandemics. And the list goes on. These are just some of the most pressing challenges that we are facing today in our interconnected world.

The diagnosis is clear: Our current global education system is failing to address these alarming challenges and provide quality learning for everyone throughout life. We know that education today is not fulfilling its promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies. These findings were detailed in UNESCO’s Futures of Education Report in November 2021 which called for a new social contract for education.

That is why it has never been more crucial to reimagine the way we learn, what we learn and how we learn. The turning point is now. It’s time to transform education. How do we make that happen?

Here’s what you need to know. 

Why do we need to transform education?

The current state of the world calls for a major transformation in education to repair past injustices and enhance our capacity to act together for a more sustainable and just future. We must ensure the right to lifelong learning by providing all learners - of all ages in all contexts - the knowledge and skills they need to realize their full potential and live with dignity. Education can no longer be limited to a single period of one’s lifetime. Everyone, starting with the most marginalized and disadvantaged in our societies, must be entitled to learning opportunities throughout life both for employment and personal agency. A new social contract for education must unite us around collective endeavours and provide the knowledge and innovation needed to shape a better world anchored in social, economic, and environmental justice.  

What are the key areas that need to be transformed?

• Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools

Education is in crisis. High rates of poverty, exclusion and gender inequality continue to hold millions back from learning. Moreover, COVID-19 further exposed the inequities in education access and quality, and violence, armed conflict, disasters and reversal of women’s rights have increased insecurity. Inclusive, transformative education must ensure that all learners have unhindered access to and participation in education, that they are safe and healthy, free from violence and discrimination, and are supported with comprehensive care services within school settings. Transforming education requires a significant increase in investment in quality education, a strong foundation in comprehensive early childhood development and education, and must be underpinned by strong political commitment, sound planning, and a robust evidence base.

• Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development

There is a crisis in foundational learning, of literacy and numeracy skills among young learners. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text. Children with disabilities are 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills compared to their peers. More than 771 million people still lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women. Transforming education means empowering learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to be resilient, adaptable and prepared for the uncertain future while contributing to human and planetary well-being and sustainable development. To do so, there must be emphasis on foundational learning for basic literacy and numeracy; education for sustainable development, which encompasses environmental and climate change education; and skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

• Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession

Teachers are essential for achieving learning outcomes, and for achieving SDG 4 and the transformation of education. But teachers and education personnel are confronted by four major challenges: Teacher shortages; lack of professional development opportunities; low status and working conditions; and lack of capacity to develop teacher leadership, autonomy and innovation. Accelerating progress toward SDG 4 and transforming education require that there is an adequate number of teachers to meet learners’ needs, and all education personnel are trained, motivated, and supported. This can only be possible when education is adequately funded, and policies recognize and support the teaching profession, to improve their status and working conditions.

• Digital learning and transformation

The COVID-19 crisis drove unprecedented innovations in remote learning through harnessing digital technologies. At the same time, the digital divide excluded many from learning, with nearly one-third of school-age children (463 million) without access to distance learning. These inequities in access meant some groups, such as young women and girls, were left out of learning opportunities. Digital transformation requires harnessing technology as part of larger systemic efforts to transform education, making it more inclusive, equitable, effective, relevant, and sustainable. Investments and action in digital learning should be guided by the three core principles: Center the most marginalized; Free, high-quality digital education content; and Pedagogical innovation and change.

• Financing of education

While global education spending has grown overall, it has been thwarted by high population growth, the surmounting costs of managing education during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the diversion of aid to other emergencies, leaving a massive global education financial gap amounting to US$ 148 billion annually. In this context, the first step toward transformation is to urge funders to redirect resources back to education to close the funding gap. Following that, countries must have significantly increased and sustainable financing for achieving SDG 4 and that these resources must be equitably and effectively allocated and monitored. Addressing the gaps in education financing requires policy actions in three key areas: Mobilizing more resources, especially domestic; increasing efficiency and equity of allocations and expenditures; and improving education financing data. Finally, determining which areas needs to be financed, and how, will be informed by recommendations from each of the other four action tracks .

What is the Transforming Education Summit?

UNESCO is hosting the Transforming Education Pre-Summit on 28-30 June 2022, a meeting of  over 140 Ministers of Education, as well as  policy and business leaders and youth activists, who are coming together to build a roadmap to transform education globally. This meeting is a precursor to the Transforming Education Summit to be held on 19 September 2022 at the UN General Assembly in New York. This high-level summit is convened by the UN Secretary General to radically change our approach to education systems. Focusing on 5 key areas of transformation, the meeting seeks to mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4.

• More on the Transforming Education Summit
• More on the Pre-Summit

Related items

• Future of education
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

More on this subject

Other recent news

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• HHS Author Manuscripts

What’s the good of education on our overall quality of life? A simultaneous equation model of education and life satisfaction for Australia

Nattavudh powdthavee.

a Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom

c Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social, Research, University of Melbourne, Australia

Warn N. Lekfuangfu

b University College London, London, United Kingdom, and Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Mark Wooden

Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall quality of life of citizens. However, little is known about the different pathways through which education shapes people’s satisfaction with life overall. One reason for this is because previous studies have traditionally analysed the effect of education on life satisfaction using single-equation models that ignore interrelationships between different theoretical explanatory variables. In order to advance our understanding of how education may be related to overall quality of life, the current study estimates a structural equation model using nationally representative data for Australia to obtain the direct and indirect associations between education and life satisfaction through five different adult outcomes: income, employment, marriage, children, and health. Although we find the estimated direct (or net) effect of education on life satisfaction to be negative and statistically significant in Australia, the total indirect effect is positive, sizeable and statistically significant for both men and women. This implies that misleading conclusions regarding the influence of education on life satisfaction might be obtained if only single-equation models were used in the analysis.

1. Introduction

Many educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall quality of life of citizens. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms – and the relative impacts of these different mechanisms – through which more education actually contributes to people’s overall life satisfaction. Much of the research in this area typically reports only the estimated contemporaneous relationship between education and life satisfaction once income and other socio-economic variables are controlled for ( Frey and Stutzer, 2000 ; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004 ; Headey, Muffels, and Wooden, 2008 ; Powdthavee, 2008 ). Unfortunately, since income and other indicators of socio-economic status (e.g., employment and marital status) are themselves a function of education, simply running a single-equation model in which both education and other adult outcomes are entered on the right-hand side tells us little about the relative importance of the different pathways through which education can enhance (or even in some cases, reduce) overall life satisfaction.

While income is naturally viewed as the main mediating factor of education on a person’s well-being ( Diener et al., 1993 ; Clark, Frijters, and Shields, 2008a , Powdthavee, 2010a ), many scholars have argued that education plays a much more important role in influencing individual’s life satisfaction through non-monetary channels than through its impact on one’s financial status ( Brighouse, 2006 ; Michalos, 2008 ). In a comprehensive review of the non-pecuniary benefits of education, Oreopoulos and Salvanes (2011) concluded that education was one of the most important predictors of one’s health status, employability, and probability of being married, all well-known predictors of life satisfaction ( Oswald, 1997 ; Layard, 2005 ; Layard et al., 2013 ). 1 In a more direct test of the indirect effects of education on happiness, Chen (2012) used data from four East Asian countries to show that the statistical association between education and happiness is mediated more by non-pecuniary factors, such as the strength of social networks and cosmopolitan experiences, than income. Empirical evidence in this area, however, remains scarce, and the extent of any indirect effects of education on life satisfaction remains imperfectly understood.

We aim to fill this research gap by testing whether findings on the overall effect of education on life satisfaction are sensitive to the choice of estimation strategy, and in particular the use of a structural equation model rather than the more conventional single-equation approach. We propose that, in order to better understand the different pathways through which education predicts people’s overall quality of life, an empirical test has to have a number of special features. First, we must be able to estimate the amount of variation in the potential mediating factors (which, in our case, are contemporaneous adult outcomes measured at the same time as life satisfaction) explained by education. Second, we must also be able to simultaneously determine how these variations in the potential mediating factors explain life satisfaction.

Using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, and covering the period 2001–2010, we estimate a structural equation model that allows us to simultaneously compare the relative indirect associations between education and life satisfaction through five different adult outcomes: income, employment, marriage, children, and health. In addition to this, we also want to be able to shed some lights on the following two questions:

• Are the pathways through which education influences life satisfaction the same for men and women?
• How stable are these estimated indirect effects over time?

By answering these questions we provide powerful, new and more comprehensive insights into how education can be associated with having a more satisfying life and what matters most in that process.

There is also another important reason for choosing the HILDA Survey for our analysis. Previous studies that have used this popular data set have often found education to be correlated negatively and statistically significantly with life satisfaction in regression equations where income, health, and other socio-economic variables are controlled for in a single-equation model (e.g., Shields, Wheatley-Price, and Wooden, 2009 ; Green, 2011 ; Ambrey and Fleming, 2014 ), which could potentially lead to a loose and largely incorrect interpretation of education being welfare reducing in Australia. Hence, one of our objectives is to test the hypothesis that the combined indirect effect of education on life satisfaction is positive, sizeable and statistically significant even though the direct (or net) effect is not. 2

The paper is structured as followed. Section 2 summarises previous relevant literature. Section 3 briefly discusses the data and the empirical strategy. Results are reported in Section 4. Section 5 discusses and concludes.

2. Background

2.1. previous research on the relationship between education and life satisfaction.

Previous studies have used single-equation models to establish the link between education and measures of life satisfaction and have produced mixed results. Using highest education qualification dummies as control variables in cross-section regression equations, many scholars have found a positive and statistically significant association between education and self-rated life satisfaction across different international data sets and time periods (e.g., Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004 ; Easterlin, 2001 ; Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2005 ; Graham and Pettinato, 2002 ). Yet there have also been other studies that have documented either a negative or a statistically insignificant effect of education on the way people report their satisfaction with life overall (e.g., Melin, Fugl-Meyer, and Fugl-Meyer, 2003 ; Flouri, 2004 ; Powdthavee, 2008 ; Shields, Wheatley-Price, and Wooden, 2009 ).

One explanation for these mixed findings is that both direction and magnitude of the coefficient on education in a life satisfaction regression equation are often sensitive to the inclusion of other variables in the model ( Dolan, Peasgood, and White, 2008 ). For example, controlling for potential outcomes of education, such as income and health, in a life satisfaction regression equation will tend to produce a coefficient that underestimates the full contribution which education is making to life satisfaction.

While most researchers know this to be the case, little attempt has been made to decompose the overall effect of education on life satisfaction into direct and indirect effects and study them individually. Consequently, previous research tends to refrain from over-interpreting the coefficient on education in a life satisfaction regression equation, citing it only as a control variable that needs to be interpreted with caution given the presence of other endogenous variables in the model.

2.2. Accounting for the links between education and different adult outcomes

Previous research, especially by economists, has highlighted financial returns as one of the main benefits that people receive from investing in additional human capital (e.g., Angrist and Krueger, 1991 ; Harmon and Walker, 1995 ; Leigh and Ryan, 2008 ). Using data sets across countries and time periods, researchers have often reported the rate of financial return to education to be economically sizeable, statistically significant, and to have causal interpretations; for example, education allows individuals to become (or at least, be “perceived” as) more efficient and productive in the labor market, leading them to earn more than their less educated counterparts (for a comprehensive review of this literature, see Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, 2004 ).

However, many educational philosophers and researchers (e.g., Brighouse, 2006 ; Michalos, 2008 ) have argued that monetary gains are not the main benefit from education. Rather, it is the non-pecuniary gains, such as better health and stability in family life, where the real value of investment in human capital lies. These sentiments are reflected in recent empirical work in economics. According to a review by Oreopoulos and Salvanes (2011 , p. 159):

“In the traditional investment model, [education] itself is treated as a black box: individuals enter, something happens, and productivity (usually defined in terms of one-dimensional skill) increases. A look inside the box, however, reveals that [education] generates many experiences and affect multiple dimensions of skill that, in turn, may affect central aspects of individual’s lives both in and outside the labor market.”

What researchers in this area have found is that education affects not only individual income, but also enables individuals to make better decisions about health, marriage and family life. For example, studies have found individuals with more schooling to have, on average, better mental and physical health outcomes ( Lleras-Muney, 2005 ; Siles, 2009 ; Powdthavee, 2010b ). More educated individuals are also significantly less likely to be unemployed and when unemployed, do not remain unemployed for very long ( Mincer, 1991 ; Kettunen, 1997 ).

Some researchers have also found that education not only makes individuals more attractive in the labor market, but also more attractive in other settings. Men and women with more earnings potential or with higher prestige jobs are typically seen as relatively more appealing in a competitive marriage market ( Chiappori, Iyigun, and Weiss, 2009 ; LaFortune, 2013 ). There is also evidence of substantially lower divorce rates among those with more completed years of schooling of similar age and family background, thus suggesting that the critical thinking and social skills acquired from more education may also translate to more stable marriages ( Oreopoulos and Salvanes, 2011 ).

With respect to the effect of education on people’s decision to start a family, the existing empirical evidence mostly seems to suggest that education has a negative effect on women’s fertility rate ( Sander, 1992 ; Martin, 1995 ; Isen and Stevenson, 2010 ). One of the reasons for this could be that education increases the value of time in the labor market, thereby significantly raising the opportunity cost of child rearing for women ( Becker, 1991 ) or simply reducing women’s preferences for children ( Easterlin, 1987 ).

There are certainly many other non-pecuniary effects of education on life that could also be potentially welfare enhancing, including its effects on the extent of social networks, attitudes towards work and job satisfaction, and even the ability to trust other people (e.g., Oreopoulos and Salvanes, 2011 ), as well as potentially welfare reducing, including its effects on income aspirations, the tendency to migrate, and the average commuting time to and from work (e.g., McLafferty, 1997 ; Stutzer, 2004 ). Education can also be welfare reducing for the individuals in countries where, holding other things constant, there is widespread skill mismatch and/or over-education ( Allen and van der Velden, 2001 ; Chevalier, 2003 ). However, the current study will focus only on adult outcomes that are both objectively measured and have been found to have some influence on adult life satisfaction in previous research. These are: income, employment, marriage, the number of children, and health.

2.3. Accounting for the links between adult outcomes and life satisfaction

Recent research in economics has distinguished an individual’s ‘decision’ utility, inferred from observed choices, from her ‘experienced’ utility, which more closely matches the notion of satisfaction and happiness (e.g. Kahneman, Wakker, and Sarin, 1997 ; Carter and McBride, 2013 ). According to Daniel Kahneman and colleagues, experienced utility, which has a hedonic quality, can be measured in real time (e.g. moment-to-moment emotions) or in retrospective (e.g. life satisfaction). We follow the tradition in economic research and use life satisfaction as a proxy for an individual’s experienced utility ( Oswald, 1997 ; Kahneman and Krueger, 2006 ).

In a typical life satisfaction regression equation a standard set of control variables will include, among other things, income, employment status, marital status, the number of children, and the health status of the respondent ( Layard, 2005 ; Powdthavee, 2010c ).

Based on previous studies, income has generally been found to have a positive and statistically significant relationship with life satisfaction ( Diener et al., 1993 ; Oswald, 1997 ; Clark, Frijters, and Shields, 2008a , Powdthavee, 2010a ). The association, however, is often depicted as small when compared with the effects of other potential mediating factors of education. For example, Blanchflower and Oswald (2004) showed that it would take, on average, US$100,000 extra income per annum to compensate for a marital separation, and US$60,000 extra income per annum to compensate for unemployment. These estimated compensation variations for marital separation and unemployment are also typically larger for men than for women, consistent with previous evidence that men usually have more to gain than women from marriage (perhaps through better lifestyle changes; Gardner and Oswald, 2004 ) and more to lose from joblessness (especially in terms of loss of self-esteem; Goldsmith, Veum, and Darity, 1997 ). This broad pattern of comparatively large non-pecuniary effects of marriage and unemployment on life satisfaction holds across different data sets and analytical methods (e.g., Winkelmann and Winkelmann, 1998 ; Helliwell, 2003 ; Powdthavee, 2008 ).

Much of the evidence on the relationship between having children and life satisfaction suggests that parents are either less satisfied with life or report the same level of life satisfaction as non-parents ( Di Tella, MacCulloch, and Oswald, 2003 ; Smith, 2003 ; Shields and Wooden, 2003 ; Clark et al., 2008b , Powdthavee, 2008 ). One likely explanation for this is the negative impact of children on financial satisfaction, which is a common finding across many different countries around the world ( Stanca, 2012 ). There are, however, a few exceptions to this finding. For example, using data from the 1995–1997 round of the World Values Survey, Haller and Hadler (2006) report a positive and statistically significant effect on life satisfaction after controlling for income and financial satisfaction. Haller and Hadler’s explanation is that children put demands on day-to-day positive emotions but nonetheless people still regard them as a positive contribution when providing a cognitive evaluation of well-being. 3 Other studies suggest that the relationship between children and life satisfaction may depend significantly upon broader cultural and social factors. For instance, it has been found that the presence of children has a stronger negative effect on subjective well-being in the UK and the US compared to Europe and Russia ( Di Tella, MacCulloch, and Oswald, 2003 ; Smith, 2003 ). The relationship may also depend on how the children variable is coded in the life satisfaction equation. A study by Shields and Wooden (2003) , for example, finds that the negative relationship between children and life satisfaction is driven more by the children living at home and less by the children who are living elsewhere.

Finally, health, both psychological and physical, has been found to represent one of the largest and most significant contributing factors to higher levels of life satisfaction in many data sets. While different specific health conditions, such as heart attacks and strokes, can have differential negative effects on evaluations of overall quality of life ( Shields and Wheatley-Price, 2005 ; Powdthavee and van den Berg, 2011 ), having a long-term incapacitating health problem or disability is generally found to be associated with relatively low levels of life satisfaction. Further, adaptation over time to the onset of such serious conditions has been found to be far from complete ( Oswald and Powdthavee, 2008 ).

Based on the review above, different rates of return can be expected in the relationships between education and different adult outcomes, and between different adult outcomes and life satisfaction. The indirectly channelled educational benefits through each of the five adult outcomes may even vary significantly across genders and time periods. The overall direction and the magnitude for each of the indirect effects are, however, unclear on a priori grounds. For example, it is entirely possible that the marginal effect of education on the probability of being employed is higher for women than for men. Yet it is also possible that the marginal effect of employment on life satisfaction is higher for men than for women, thus making it difficult to predict whether the indirect effect of education on life satisfaction via employment will be larger for men or for women. Hence, it seems important to analyse these channels simultaneously and estimate the relative importance of each of these pathways in order to make sense of how education really affects people’s satisfaction with life overall.

3. Data and empirical strategy

As already noted, the data used in this analysis come from the HILDA Survey, a longitudinal survey that has been tracking members of a nationally representative sample of Australian households since 2001. A total of 7682 households participated in wave 1, providing an initial sample of 19,914 persons (aged 0–93). Of those, 13,969 persons were eligible for the interview ( Wooden, Freidin, and Watson, 2002 ). The members of these participating households form the basis of the panel pursued in subsequent annual survey waves. Interviews are conducted with all adults (defined as persons aged 15 years or older) who are members of the original sample, as well as any other adults who, in later waves, are residing with an original sample member. Annual re-interview rates (the proportion of respondents from one wave who are successfully interviewed the next) are reasonably high, rising from 87% in wave 2 to over 96% by wave 9 (see Watson and Wooden, 2012 ).

Our main dependent variable comes from responses to a question about overall life satisfaction. The question reads: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life? Again, pick a number between 0 and 10 to indicate how satisfied you are.” A visual aid is used in the administration of these questions, which involves a pictorial representation of the scale with the extreme points labelled “totally dissatisfied” and “totally satisfied”.

The measure of education is a continuous variable representing the number of years spent in education, which is commonly used as a proxy of education in the field of labor economics (e.g., Oreopoulos and Salvanes, 2011 ). This “Years of education” variable is derived from respondents’ highest educational attainment. Thus a respondent reporting having completed secondary school (Year 12) is assumed to have completed 12 years of education, a person completing an ordinary university degree is assumed to have completed 15 years of education, and so on. As is conventional, we are not measuring actual years spent in education (which would vary with the time with which qualifications are completed, the number of qualifications obtained, and time spent studying that did not lead to a qualification) but instead the time typically taken to obtain the highest qualification reported.

Turning to the other adult outcomes that are also potentially mediating factors of education on life satisfaction, we have income being represented by the log of real equivalised household income. 4 Employment is a binary variable representing whether the person was employed or not during the week preceding interview (0 = not employed; 1 = employed). Marriage is also a binary variable representing whether or not the person is currently married, where marriage is defined to include both registered and de facto unions (0 = not married; 1 = married). Number of children is the total number of children the respondent has, including children that no longer live at home. And health status is a binary variable identifying whether the respondent has no long-term health condition, disability or impairment (0 = has long-term health problems; 1 = has no long-term health problems).

Our control variables in all regression equations include gender, birth year, and regional (or state) dummies. 5 This permits comparisons of effects to be made within the same gender, same cohort, and same Australian state.

Pooling data across ten survey waves, there were 135,964 observations of people who were eligible for the interview. However, our analysis of indirect effects of education is restricted to individuals aged 16–64 who participated in any of the first ten survey waves, and responded to the questions from which the life satisfaction and the five adult outcome variables (income, employment, marriage, children, and health) were constructed. This reduces our sample to 76,622 observations; 36,208 males and 40,414 females. Table 1 presents the mean unadjusted scores on life satisfaction and other adult outcomes. However, to aid the interpretation of our results we standardize all variables in the regression equation to have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.

Descriptive statistics, HILDA 2001 and 2010.

Note : Standard deviations are in parentheses. All figures are unadjusted (i.e., not standardized).

3.2. Empirical strategy

We adopt the multiple mediation analysis method ( Baron and Kenny, 1986 ; Hayes, 2009 ) to study the indirect effects of education on life satisfaction through the five different channels of income, employment, marriage, children, and health (see Fig. 1 ). A standard structural equations model (SEM) is estimated, thereby allowing a non-zero correlation between the residuals of the equations for each dependent variable. Note that failure to allow for the interdependence across equations could be benign or it could confound the correlation of residuals with the effects of the independent variables ( Greene, 2002 ).

A multiple mediation model of education on life satisfaction

The model is:

where LS it denotes standardized life satisfaction, with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 1, of individual i at time t; X sit represents the standardized adult outcome s , where 1 = log of real equivalised household income, 2 = in employment, 3 = married, 4 = number of children, and 5 = no long-term health problems; EDUC it is standardized years of education; Z it represents a vector of control variables; μ si represents the unobserved individual-specific effect; and u ist denotes the error term in each equation. The SEM equation was estimated with robust standard errors, which also allowed for clustering at the individual level. Assuming that the adult variables and the education variable are not correlated with μ si and u ist , unbiased estimates of β and γ can be obtained from running the SEM model on the pooled sample.

Based on the equations above, the indirect effect of EDUC it on LS it through X sit for each s is given by β s × γ s . As recommended by Hayes (2009) , bootstrapping (with 200 replications) is used to estimate the standard errors for all of the estimated indirect effects. The model is estimated using the SEM command in STATA 13.

One objection to the naïve estimation of ( 1 ) is that both education and other adult outcomes are likely to be correlated with the unobserved individual-specific component, μ si . This includes, for example, personality traits and/or ability. It is well known that if researchers fail to appropriately controlling for these important heterogeneous factors, then ordinary least squares (OLS) can produce biased estimates ( Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters, 2004 ).

A typical approach to correct for the unobserved heterogeneity bias is to exploit panel data and estimate a fixed effects (FE) model on the pooled sample. The FE model works by focusing solely on the within-person variation in the data set and thus eliminating any variables that do not have any within-person information from the estimation process. Consequently, it is not possible to obtain any reliable estimates on characteristics that have zero or little within-person variation, such as gender or education, using the typical FE estimator ( Plumper and Troeger, 2007 ).

Hence, the second part of our empirical analysis applies the empirical strategy outlined in Boyce (2010) and estimates Plumper and Troeger’s (2007) fixed effects vector decomposition (FEVD) model with personality traits as additional determinants of individual fixed effects in an SEM setting. More formally, the FEVD method allows researchers to estimate a FE model without the loss of information on variables that have zero or little within-person variation via the three following steps. The first step involves estimating a conventional FE model of LS it with no other covariates and obtaining the estimate of the FE residual ( μ ̂ 0 i ) from the model. In principal, this FE residual includes all observable and unobservable between-person information. From Eq. (1) , we can represent μ ̂ 0 i as

where L S ¯ i is a within-person average of LS it , X ̄ i is a within-person average of X ist , EDU ¯ i is a within-person average of EDU it and Z i is a within-person average of Z it , from each wave, t .

The second step of the FEVD involves decomposing the fixed residual into a part that is observable and a part that is not. The inclusion of personality variables, P i , at this stage then helps to reduce the size of the unobservable component of the FE residual, which will effectively reduce the correlation between any covariates with potentially low within-person variation and the true unobservable component, thus allowing many slow moving variables to be favourably estimated using the FEVD model ( Boyce, 2010 ). The decomposition can then take place using observable characteristics and a set of personality traits in a pooled OLS setting to predict the FE residual obtained from ( 2 ).

where the vector of personality variables, P i , are taken from measures of Big-5 personality traits from wave 5 in the survey. This model therefore leaves the true unobservable component of μ ̂ 0 i captured in the predicted error term of ( 3 ) and denoted here as η ̂ 0 i .

The third and last stage involves using η ̂ 0 i as an explanatory variable in a pooled OLS regression:

Although education may be correlated with μ 0 i , it is not correlated with η ̂ 0 i . Therefore, by including η ̂ 0 i we can obtain reliable estimates on both zero within-person variation variables, such as gender, and very slow moving variables, such as education (as well as other time-varying variables, such as income and employment).

We repeat the same steps for other subsidiary equations in the SEM model. Hence, the FEVD version of ( 1 ) is

Again, the model can be estimated using the SEM command in STATA 13.

4.1. Direct and indirect associations between education and life satisfaction

Table 2 first reports single-equation model of life satisfaction with education and other variables appearing on the right-hand side. Here, we include as control variables gender, age, age-squared, state of residence dummies, and wave dummies.

Single-equation model of the relationship between education and life satisfaction, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

Robust standard errors are in parentheses. All regressions controlled for gender, age and age-squared, state of residence dummies, and wave dummies. All regressions also allowed for clustering at individual level. All variables are standardized with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.

Looking at the estimates taken from the full sample – i.e., combining males and females samples together – (column 1), we can see that years of education is negatively and statistically significantly correlated with life satisfaction. The coefficients on the other variables of interest are all positive, with the largest coefficient coming from being married; a one standard deviation increase in the marriage variable is associated with a 0.18 standard deviation increase in life satisfaction. This is followed, in order of size of association, by health (the absence of long-term health problems), household income, employment, and the total number of children (the coefficient for which is insignificant and close to zero in magnitude). Note that the negative and statistically significant coefficient on years of education is consistent with previous studies employing HILDA Survey data (e.g., Shields, Wheatley-Price, and Wooden, 2009 ).

Splitting the sample into male and female sub-samples, we can see that, consistent with previous studies, men generally derive more satisfaction from being employed and from being married than women. Women, on the other hand, report a slightly higher level of life satisfaction from the same increase in log of real equivalised household income than men. In addition, having no long-term health problems is associated with more satisfaction for women than for men. Further, the total number of children is positively associated with life satisfaction for women but negatively associated with life satisfaction for men, although both correlations are not statistically significantly different from zero. More importantly, years of education enter both gender-specific life satisfaction equations in a negative and statistically significant manner.

Table 3 moves on to present the estimates obtained from running the SEM model specified in the previous section. We begin by observing that the first panel of Table 3 (i.e., Equation 1 ) is an exact replication of Table 2 ’s single-equation estimates. With respect to Equations 2 –6 (or equations in which variations in different adult outcomes are explained by education), an increase in years of education is associated positively and statistically significantly with income, the likelihood of being employed, and the likelihood of having no long-term health problems in the combined samples. By contrast, there is strong evidence to suggest that more educated Australian adults tend to have fewer children on average. Moreover, there is evidence that more years of education is associated with a higher probability of being married in the combined sample. The largest positive contribution from an increase of one standard deviation in the years spent in education is in the income domain, then employment, health, and the probability of being married.

Structural equation modelling of the indirect effects of years of education on life satisfaction, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

Note : See Table 2 .

When splitting the sample by gender, we can see that a one standard deviation increase in education is associated with a greater increase in the likelihood of being employed for women than for men. In contrast, education is found to be a good predictor of the probability of being married for men but not women. Men also typically enjoy a slightly higher rate of return to education when it comes to health. On the other hand, there is very little gender difference in the effect of education on the log of real equivalised household income. Finally, the previously observed negative association between standardized years of education and standardized total number of children is negative and statistically significant for both men and women, although the estimated coefficient size is larger for women than for men.

By combining all of the above estimates together we are able to estimate and report each of the indirect effect of years of education on life satisfaction. These indirect effects are reported in Table 4 .

Implied indirect associations between years of education and life satisfaction, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

Bootstrap standard errors (200 replications) are in parentheses. The t -statistics are based on the test that the two coefficients between males and females within the same year are equal. All variables are standardized with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.

Looking across columns, we can see that all but one of the estimated indirect effects are positive and statistically significant. Only the indirect associations between education and life satisfaction via income (0.021), employment (0.006), marriage (0.013), and health (0.014) are statistically well determined at conventional statistical levels in the combined sample.

Interesting results emerge when we compare these indirect relationships between men and women. For men, the largest indirect association between education and life satisfaction is through income (0.018). For women, the largest indirect association between education and life satisfaction is also through income (0.022). Further, while men seem to have enjoyed the indirect benefit of education through its positive effect on the probability of being employed, the same cannot be said for women. Indeed, the indirect effect of education through being employed is insignificantly different from zero for women.

A closer look at the estimates in Table 4 also suggests a noticeable gap in the size of the total indirect effects between men and women (total indirect relationship for men = 0.057; total indirect relationship for women = 0.037).

As explained earlier, to deal with potential heterogeneity bias, we adopt Boyce’s (2010) FEVD model and use it in the SEM setting. On the assumption that personality is mostly stable across ten waves, we used the personality traits variables collected in wave 5 of the HILDA Survey (measuring the Big Five personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience) to assist us in the second step of the FEVD estimation. 6 The estimates obtained from this second stage are reported in Table A1 . Consistent with Boyce (2010) , we find that personality explains a great deal of the individual heterogeneity in life satisfaction (as well as in other outcomes). Interestingly, it is worth noting that, other things held constant, the years of education variable is not strongly correlated with the FE residual obtained from the life satisfaction equation. This implies that, given a specification that includes other individual characteristics and personality variables, education is unlikely to have suffered from unobserved heterogeneity bias in a pooled OLS estimation.

Predicting the fixed effect residuals using various objective characteristics and personality variables.

Robust standard errors are in parentheses. All regressions controlled for state of residence dummies and wave dummies, and allowed for clustering at individual level. All variables are standardized with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Personality traits come from wave 5 in the HILDA Survey and assumed to be mostly stable across all ten waves.

We report the third stage FEVD estimates in the SEM setting in Table 5 and the implied indirect effects in Table 6 . Inclusion of the estimated η i in each SEM equation has very little impact on the size of the estimated coefficients and the relative trade-offs between coefficients in the same equation. For example, in Table 5 ’s Equation 1 , the coefficient on education is only slightly more negative than the coefficient reported in Table 3 ; −0.034 compared to −0.028. Although part of these differences in the SEM estimates is attributed to the smaller sample used in the FEVD estimation (not everyone who appeared in waves 1–10 was surveyed in wave 5), it is reassuring to see in Table 6 that qualitatively similar indirect effects can still be obtained with or without the use of FEVD method. For instance, the total indirect effects of education on life satisfaction in the combined sample with and without the use of FEVD are 0.049 and 0.048, respectively. The only clear difference is that the total indirect effects with the use of FEVD are statistically the same for men (0.050) as for women (0.048).

Structural equation modelling with the application of the fixed effects vector decomposition method, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

Implied indirect associations between years of education and life satisfaction obtained from Table 5 ’s FEVD estimates, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

Note : See Table 4 .

Finally, as a robustness check, we tested whether our results were sensitive to the specification of the education variable, replacing years of education with a dummy variable representing whether the individual had completed at least a university degree. The estimated indirect effects on life satisfaction from this alternative specification are reported in Table 7 . 7 As can be seen, it makes virtually no difference to our results whether one uses years of education or a “Graduates versus non-graduates” dummy as a proxy of education. For example, a large part of the positive indirect effect of education on life satisfaction still comes from the higher levels of incomes being earned among the graduates compared to the non-graduates.

Implied indirect associations between completing at least a university degree and life satisfaction, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

4.2. Time-profiles of the indirect effects by gender

To obtain a complete picture of the direct and indirect associations between education and life satisfaction, we next explore the time-profiles of these estimated coefficients, using data for each year over the period 2001–2010. This involves re-estimation of the SEM equations with FEVD presented in Tables 5 and ​ and6 6 for each of the ten survey waves used here. A graphical summary of the results is presented in Fig. 2A–G .

(A–G) Time profiles of the estimated implied indirect effects of a one standard deviation increase in the standardized years of education on standardized life satisfaction.

What we learn from looking at these figures can be summarised as follows:

• Not all positive indirect associations are positive in all years, and vice versa for the negative indirect associations.
• Controlling for other adult outcomes, the negative direct association between education and life satisfaction has been declining over time ( Fig. 2G ). We are not certain why this is, given that we cannot directly explain the direct effect. It could have simply been caused by the time effect, cohort effect, or changes in the unobserved relationship between education and life satisfaction.
• The indirect association between education and life satisfaction through employment is U-shaped for women.
• There is an increasing trend in the indirect effect of education through marriage for both men and women over time.
• There appears to be relatively little difference in the estimated indirect effects between men and women, and this mostly does not change over time.

5. Discussions and conclusions

According to the traditional human capital model, people invest in education in hopes of greater lifetime wealth and consumption. While evidence of a significant financial return to schooling is well documented in the education literature, we still know very little about how this effect might contribute to individual evaluations of overall quality of life.

In this paper, we empirically demonstrate that, for adults living in Australia between 2001 and 2010, education is likely to be positively related to overall life satisfaction through many different channels even when ceteris paribus education itself has a negative and statistically significant relationship with overall life satisfaction. For both men and women, the largest estimated indirect effect of education on life satisfaction is through income. This is followed by its positive effect on long-term health. On average, men tend to benefit slightly more than women from education, in part because education is more strongly associated with a greater likelihood of employment for men. There is no statistically important indirect benefit (or cost) from what education does to either men’s or women’s decision over the number of children to have on life satisfaction.

Why are these results important? First, if an aim of educational policy is to maximize well-being, the pre-requisite is a model that captures in a quantitative way the relative impact of all the main influences of education on subsequent well-being. Separate studies of the effect of education on life satisfaction with different choices of control variables are of little use in helping us understand how education operates in a well-being function. These indirect effects need to be estimated together and then compared. Second, our results provide important information for people who have been thinking about whether or not to invest in more education if their ultimate goal is not in a particular area but to have a satisfied life as a whole.

The analyses presented here are, of course, not without limitations. Ideally what we would like to present is a fully causal model of education on life satisfaction. The ability to overcome the issue of unobserved heterogeneity is simply not enough. It requires running controlled experiments on a grand scale – not only on education, but also on every other aspect of a person’s life – which is both expensive and requires long time horizons. Future research will have to return to address the issues of causality related to these estimated direct and indirect effects.

Another potential shortcoming is in the model’s assumption of how different mechanisms work. Here, we assume that there are only two distinct channels through which education can separately influence life satisfaction: (i) the financial channel, and (ii) the non-financial channel. Yet in reality the two channels are likely to be interwoven. For example, there is a large literature in economics showing income to be a strong predictor of health and mortality, holding education constant (e.g., Gardner and Oswald, 2004 ). Given the complex relationships between financial and non-financial pathways of education, a multilevel mediation analysis – which is beyond the scope of this paper – might be more suitable for analysing the direct and indirect effects of education on life satisfaction. Finally, it might also be worthwhile for future researchers to test whether these direct and indirect effects of education on life satisfaction can be found in data from countries other than Australia.

Tables A1 and ​ andA2 A2

Structural equation modelling with the application of the fixed effects vector decomposition method and completing at least a university as a proxy for education, HILDA Survey 2001–2010.

1 They also acknowledged that more education might also bring along with it added stress and constraints on time, thus leading to the possibility that education could also have a negative impact on overall life satisfaction.

2 The negative correlation between education and life satisfaction has also often been found in studies that used the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). For example, see Powdthavee (2008 , 2010a) .

3 For a discussion of the potential effects of children on day-to-day positive experiences, see Dolan and White (2009) .

4 Equivalised real annual household income is calculated using the following formula: real annual household income/(1 + 0.5 * (number of adult household members − 1) + 0.3 * (number of children aged less than 15 in the household)).

5 Note that the broad results are unaffected without controlling for these variables.

6 Qualitatively the same results can be obtained using the personality data collected in wave 9 (or the averages from both waves) in the second stage of FEVD.

7 See Table A2 for the corresponding SEM model with FEVD.

• Allen J, van der Velden R. Education mismatches versus skill mismatches: Effects on wages, job satisfaction, and on-the-job search. Oxford Economic Papers. 2001; 53 (3):434–452. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ambrey CL, Fleming CM. Life satisfaction in Australia: Evidence from ten years of the HILDA Survey. Social Indicators Research. 2014; 115 (2):691–714. [ Google Scholar ]
• Angrist JD, Krueger AB. Does compulsory school attendance affect schooling and earnings? Quarterly Journal of Economics. 1991; 106 (4):979–1014. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baron RM, Kenny DA. The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1986; 51 (6):1173–1182. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Becker GS. A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, MA: 1991. [ Google Scholar ]
• Blanchflower D, Oswald AJ. Well-being over time in Britain and the USA. Journal of Public Economics. 2004; 88 (7):1359–1386. [ Google Scholar ]
• Boyce CJ. Understanding fixed effects in human well-being. Journal of Economic Psychology. 2010; 31 (1):1–16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brighouse H. On Education. Routledge; New York: 2006. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carter S, McBride M. Experienced utility versus decision utility: Putting the ‘S’ in satisfaction. Journal of Socio-Economics. 2013; 42 :13–23. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen W. How education enhances happiness: Comparison of mediating factors in four East Asian countries. Social Indicators Research. 2012; 106 (1):117–131. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chevalier A. Measuring over-education. Economica. 2003; 70 (279):509–531. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chiappori P, Iyigun M, Weiss Y. Investment in schooling and the marriage market. American Economic Review. 2009; 95 (5):1689–1713. [ Google Scholar ]
• Clark AE, Frijters P, Shields MA. Relative income, happiness, and utility: An explanation for the Easterlin paradox and other puzzles. Journal of Economic Literature. 2008a; 46 (1):95–144. [ Google Scholar ]
• Clark AE, Diener E, Georgellis YE, Lucas RE. Lags and leads in life satisfaction: A test of the baseline hypothesis. Economic Journal. 2008a; 118 (529):F222–F243. [ Google Scholar ]
• Diener E, Sandvik E, Seidlitz L, Diener M. The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute. Social Indicators Research. 1993; 28 (3):195–223. [ Google Scholar ]
• Di Tella R, MacCulloch R, Oswald AJ. The macroeconomics of happiness. Review of Economics and Statistics. 2003; 85 (4):809–827. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dolan P, Peasgood T, White M. Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Psychology. 2008; 29 (1):94–122. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dolan P, White MP. Accounting for the richness of daily activities. Psychological Science. 2009; 20 (8):1000–1008. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Easterlin RA. Fertility. In: Eatwell J, Milgate M, Newman P, editors. The New Palgrave, A Dictionary of Economics. The Stockton Press; New York: 1987. pp. 302–308. [ Google Scholar ]
• Easterlin RA. Income and happiness: Towards a unified theory. Economic Journal. 2001; 111 (473):465–484. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ferrer-i-Carbonell A. Income and well-being: An empirical analysis of the comparison income effect. Journal of Public Economics. 2005; 89 (5–6):997–1019. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ferrer-i-Carbonell A, Frijters P. How important is methodology for the estimates of the determinants of happiness. Economic Journal. 2004; 114 (497):641–659. [ Google Scholar ]
• Flouri E. Subjective well-being in midlife: The role of involvement of and closeness to parents in childhood. Journal of Happiness Studies. 2004; 5 (4):335–358. [ Google Scholar ]
• Frey BS, Stutzer A. Happiness, economy and institutions. Economic Journal. 2000; 110 (466):918–938. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gardner J, Oswald AJ. How is mortality affected by money, marriage and stress. Journal of Health Economics. 2004; 23 (6):1181–1207. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldsmith AH, Veum JR, Darity W., Jr Unemployment, joblessness, psychological well-being and self-esteem: Theory and evidence. Journal of SocioEconomics. 1997; 26 (2):133–158. [ Google Scholar ]
• Graham C, Pettinato S. Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies. Brookings Institution Press; Washington DC: 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
• Green F. Unpacking the misery multiplier: How employability modifies impacts of unemployment and job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health. Journal of Health Economics. 2011; 30 (2):265–276. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greene WH. Econometric Analysis. Prentice Hall; Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haller M, Hadler M. How social relations and structures can produce happiness and unhappiness: An international comparative analysis. Social Indicators Research. 2006; 75 (2):169–216. [ Google Scholar ]
• Harmon C, Walker I. Estimates of the return to schooling for the United Kingdom. American Economic Review. 1995; 85 (5):1278–1286. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hayes AF. Beyond Baron and Kenny: Statistical mediation analysis in the new millennium. Communication Monographs. 2009; 76 (4):408–420. [ Google Scholar ]
• Headey B, Muffels R, Wooden M. Money does not buy happiness: Or does it? A reassessment based on the combined effects of wealth, income and consumption. Social Indicators Research. 2008; 87 (1):65–82. [ Google Scholar ]
• Helliwell JF. How’s life? Combining individual and national variables to explain subjective well-being. Economic Modelling. 2003; 20 (2):331–360. [ Google Scholar ]
• Isen A, Stevenson B. NBER Working Paper Series No. 15725. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research; 2010. Women’s education and family behavior: trends in marriage, divorce, and fertility. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kahneman D, Krueger AB. Development in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2006; 20 (1):3–24. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kahneman D, Wakker PP, Sarin R. Back to Bentham? Explorations of experienced utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 1997; 112 (2):375–405. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kettunen J. Education and unemployment duration. Economics of Education Review. 1997; 16 (2):163–170. [ Google Scholar ]
• LaFortune J. Making yourself attractive: Pre-marital investments and the returns to education in the marriage market. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013; 5 (2):151–178. [ Google Scholar ]
• Layard R. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. Penguin Press; London and New York: 2005. [ Google Scholar ]
• Layard R, Clark AE, Cornaglia F, Powdthavee N, Vernoit J. IZA Discussion Paper No. 7682. University of Bonn; 2013. What predicts a successful life? [ Google Scholar ]
• Leigh A, Ryan C. Estimating returns to education using different natural experiment techniques. Economics of Education Review. 2008; 27 (2):149–160. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lleras-Muney A. The relationship between education and adult mortality in the United States. Review of Economics Studies. 2005; 72 (1):189–221. [ Google Scholar ]
• Martin TC. Women’s education and fertility: Results from 26 demographic and health surveys. Studies in Family Planning. 1995; 26 (4):187–202. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McLafferty S. Gender, race, and the determinants of commuting: New York in 1990. Urban Geography. 1997; 18 (3):192–212. [ Google Scholar ]
• Melin R, Fugl-Meyer KS, Fugl-Meyer AR. Life satisfaction in 18- to 64-year-old Swedes: In relation to education, employment situation, health and physical activity. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine. 2003; 35 (2):84–90. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Michalos AC. Education, happiness and well-being. Social Indicators Research. 2008; 87 (3):347–366. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mincer J. NBER Working Paper Series No. 3838. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research; 1991. Education and unemployment. [ Google Scholar ]
• Oreopoulos P, Salvanes K. Priceless: The nonpecuniary benefits of schooling. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2011; 25 (1):159–184. [ Google Scholar ]
• Oswald AJ. Happiness and economic performance. Economic Journal. 1997; 107 (445):1815–1831. [ Google Scholar ]
• Oswald AJ, Powdthavee N. Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges. Journal of Public Economics. 2008; 92 (5–6):1061–1077. [ Google Scholar ]
• Plumper T, V, Troeger E. Efficient estimation of time-invariant and rarely changing variables in finite sample panel analyses with unit fixed effects. Political Analysis. 2007; 15 (2):124–139. [ Google Scholar ]
• Powdthavee N. Putting a price tag on friends, relatives, and neighbors: Using surveys of life-satisfaction to value social relationships. Journal of SocioEconomics. 2008; 37 (4):1459–1480. [ Google Scholar ]
• Powdthavee N. How much does money really matter? Estimating the causal effects of income on happiness. Empirical Economics. 2010a; 39 (1):77–92. [ Google Scholar ]
• Powdthavee N. Does education reduce the risk of hypertension? Estimating the biomarker effect of compulsory schooling in England. Journal of Human Capital. 2010b; 4 (2):173–202. [ Google Scholar ]
• Powdthavee N. The Happiness Equation: The Surprising Economics of our Most Valuable Asset. Icon Books; London: 2010c. [ Google Scholar ]
• Powdthavee N, van den Berg B. Putting different price tags on the same health condition: Re-evaluating the well-being valuation approach. Journal of Health Economics. 2011; 30 (5):1032–1043. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Psacharopoulos G, Patrinos HA. Returns to investment in education: A further update. Education Economics. 2004; 12 (2):111–134. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sander W. The effect of women’s schooling on fertility. Economics Letters. 1992; 40 (2):229–233. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shields MA, Wheatley-Price S. Exploring the economic and social determinants of psychological well-being and perceived social support in England. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A. 2005; 168 (3):513–537. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shields MA, Wheatley-Price S, Wooden M. Life satisfaction and the economic and social characteristics of neighborhoods. Journal of Population Economics. 2009; 22 (2):421–443. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shields MA, Wooden M. Marriage, children and subjective well-being. Paper presented at the Eighth Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference; 12–14 February; Melbourne Exhibition Centre; 2003. (URL: http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/hilda/Bibliography/Conference_Papers/Shields_etal_Marriage,_Children_and_Subjective_Well-being.pdf ) [ Google Scholar ]
• Siles MA. The causal effect of education on health: Evidence from the United Kingdom. Economics of Education Review. 2009; 28 (1):122–128. [ Google Scholar ]
• Smith K. Individual welfare in the Soviet Union. Social Indicators Research. 2003; 64 (1):75–105. [ Google Scholar ]
• Stanca L. Suffer the little children: Measuring the effects of parenthood on well-being worldwide. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 2012; 81 (3):742–750. [ Google Scholar ]
• Stutzer A. The role of income aspirations on individual happiness. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 2004; 54 (1):89–109. [ Google Scholar ]
• Watson N, Wooden M. The HILDA Survey: A case study in the design and development of a successful household panel study. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies. 2012; 3 (3):369–381. [ Google Scholar ]
• Winkelmann L, Winkelmann R. Why are the unemployed so unhappy? Evidence from panel data. Economica. 1998; 65 (257):1–15. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wooden M, Freidin S, Watson N. The household, income and labor dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey: Wave 1. The Australian Economic Review. 2002; 35 (3):339–348. [ Google Scholar ]

Editors’ Conclusion: Imagining an Education for “Good Life”

• First Online: 19 November 2019

Cite this chapter

• Pernille Hviid 12 &
• Mariann Märtsin 13  

Part of the book series: Cultural Psychology of Education ((CPED,volume 10))

892 Accesses

1 Citations

In concluding this volume, we come back to the questions that guided this book, namely, to explore when and how does the educational intrusion become a resource for individual and collective creativity, and when does it create unconstructive or destructive tensions for the individual and/or for the community. We consider the suggestions developed in each of the chapters and through that build a bricolage of knowledge on cultivated education that cultivates people and vice versa. Furthermore, we suggest to view the relationship between societal, community and personal values, interests, and concerns that feed into the construction of “good education” as a dynamic and evolving dialectic, where the aim is not the resolution of tensions, but rather a constructive engagement between various voices and perspectives. We argue that while antagonistic contradictions lead to the othering of children and students in education, and of education for children and students, constructive contradictions have the potential to generate knowledge from the tensioned dialogues, not only showing concern for its already cultivated children and students, but also paving the way for the usability of education in the community.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Abbey, E. (2012). Ambivalences and its transformations. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), Oxford handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 989–997). New York: Oxford University Press.

Google Scholar  

Arendt, H. (2006). What is authority? In H. Arendt (Ed.), Between past and future (pp. 91–141). London: Penguine Classics.

Bozhovich, L. I. (2009). The social situation of child development. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 47 (3), 59–86.

Article   Google Scholar  

Brown-Jeffy, S., & Cooper, J. E. (2011). Towards a conceptual framework of culturally relevant pedagogy: An overview of the conceptual and theoretical literature. Teacher Education Quarterly, 1, 65–84.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). New York: Seabury.

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53 (2), 106–116.

Gordon, M. (1999). Hannah arendt on authority: Conservatism in education reconsidered. Educational Theory, 49 (2), 161–180.

Grieves, V. (2009). Aboriginal spirituality: Aboriginal philosophy, The basis of aboriginal social and emotional wellbeing, Discussion paper no. 9 . Darwin: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health.

Gutiérrez, K. D. (2008). Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly, 43 (2), 148–164. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.43.2.3 .

Hedegaard, M. (1996). Ændring af skolepraksis: Et kommunalt projekt med statsløse palæstinensiske børn. In M. Hedegaard (Ed.), Praksisformers forandring—Personlig udvikling (pp. 71–96). Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.

Hedegaard, M., & Chaiklin, S. (2005). Radical local teaching and learning . Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.

Hviid, P. (2016). Borders in education and living—A case of trench warfare. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 50 (1), 44–61.

Hviid, P., & Villadsen, J. W. (2014). Cultural identities and their relevance to school practice. Culture & Psychology, 20 (1), 59–69.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 465–491.

Märtsin, M. (2018). On the possibility of becoming otherwise. In B. Wagoner, I. Bresco, & S. Zadeh (Eds.), Memory in the wild (p. TBC). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

Matusov, E. (2015). Comprehension: A dialogic authorial approach. Culture & Psychology, 21 (3), 392–416.

Moll, L. C., & Greenberg, J. B. (1990). Creating zones of possibilities: Combining social contexts for instruction. In L. C. Moll (Ed.), Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology (pp. 319–348). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41 (3), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244 .

Rey, F. L. G. (2009). Historical relevance of Vygotsky’s work: Its significance for a new approach to the problem of subjectivity in psychology. Outlines, 1, 59–73.

Rival, L. (2012). The materiality of life: Revisiting the anthropology of nature in Amazonia. Indiana, 29, 127–143.

Singh, P., Märtsin, M., & Glasswell, K. (2015). Dilemmatic spaces: High-stakes testing and the possibilities of collaborative knowledge work to generate learning innovations. Teachers and Teaching, 21 (4), 379–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2014.976853 .

Valsiner, J. (2008). Open intransitivity circles in development and education: Pathway to synthesis. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 23, 131. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172741 .

Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. Van Der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Cambridge: Blackwell.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Pernille Hviid

Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Mariann Märtsin

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pernille Hviid .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

School of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, QLD, Australia

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Hviid, P., Märtsin, M. (2019). Editors’ Conclusion: Imagining an Education for “Good Life”. In: Hviid, P., Märtsin, M. (eds) Culture in Education and Education in Culture. Cultural Psychology of Education, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28412-1_15

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28412-1_15

Published : 19 November 2019

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-28411-4

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-28412-1

eBook Packages : Education Education (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of education is the branch of applied or practical philosophy concerned with the nature and aims of education and the philosophical problems arising from educational theory and practice. Because that practice is ubiquitous in and across human societies, its social and individual manifestations so varied, and its influence so profound, the subject is wide-ranging, involving issues in ethics and social/political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and other areas of philosophy. Because it looks both inward to the parent discipline and outward to educational practice and the social, legal, and institutional contexts in which it takes place, philosophy of education concerns itself with both sides of the traditional theory/practice divide. Its subject matter includes both basic philosophical issues (e.g., the nature of the knowledge worth teaching, the character of educational equality and justice, etc.) and problems concerning specific educational policies and practices (e.g., the desirability of standardized curricula and testing, the social, economic, legal and moral dimensions of specific funding arrangements, the justification of curriculum decisions, etc.). In all this the philosopher of education prizes conceptual clarity, argumentative rigor, the fair-minded consideration of the interests of all involved in or affected by educational efforts and arrangements, and informed and well-reasoned valuation of educational aims and interventions.

Philosophy of education has a long and distinguished history in the Western philosophical tradition, from Socrates’ battles with the sophists to the present day. Many of the most distinguished figures in that tradition incorporated educational concerns into their broader philosophical agendas (Curren 2000, 2018; Rorty 1998). While that history is not the focus here, it is worth noting that the ideals of reasoned inquiry championed by Socrates and his descendants have long informed the view that education should foster in all students, to the extent possible, the disposition to seek reasons and the ability to evaluate them cogently, and to be guided by their evaluations in matters of belief, action and judgment. This view, that education centrally involves the fostering of reason or rationality, has with varying articulations and qualifications been embraced by most of those historical figures; it continues to be defended by contemporary philosophers of education as well (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2007, 2017). As with any philosophical thesis it is controversial; some dimensions of the controversy are explored below.

This entry is a selective survey of important contemporary work in Anglophone philosophy of education; it does not treat in detail recent scholarship outside that context.

1. Problems in Delineating the Field

2. analytic philosophy of education and its influence, 3.1 the content of the curriculum and the aims and functions of schooling, 3.2 social, political and moral philosophy, 3.3 social epistemology, virtue epistemology, and the epistemology of education, 3.4 philosophical disputes concerning empirical education research, 4. concluding remarks, other internet resources, related entries.

The inward/outward looking nature of the field of philosophy of education alluded to above makes the task of delineating the field, of giving an over-all picture of the intellectual landscape, somewhat complicated (for a detailed account of this topography, see Phillips 1985, 2010). Suffice it to say that some philosophers, as well as focusing inward on the abstract philosophical issues that concern them, are drawn outwards to discuss or comment on issues that are more commonly regarded as falling within the purview of professional educators, educational researchers, policy-makers and the like. (An example is Michael Scriven, who in his early career was a prominent philosopher of science; later he became a central figure in the development of the field of evaluation of educational and social programs. See Scriven 1991a, 1991b.) At the same time, there are professionals in the educational or closely related spheres who are drawn to discuss one or another of the philosophical issues that they encounter in the course of their work. (An example here is the behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, the central figure in the development of operant conditioning and programmed learning, who in works such as Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) grappled—albeit controversially—with major philosophical issues that were related to his work.)

What makes the field even more amorphous is the existence of works on educational topics, written by well-regarded philosophers who have made major contributions to their discipline; these educational reflections have little or no philosophical content, illustrating the truth that philosophers do not always write philosophy. However, despite this, works in this genre have often been treated as contributions to philosophy of education. (Examples include John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education [1693] and Bertrand Russell’s rollicking pieces written primarily to raise funds to support a progressive school he ran with his wife. (See Park 1965.)

Finally, as indicated earlier, the domain of education is vast, the issues it raises are almost overwhelmingly numerous and are of great complexity, and the social significance of the field is second to none. These features make the phenomena and problems of education of great interest to a wide range of socially-concerned intellectuals, who bring with them their own favored conceptual frameworks—concepts, theories and ideologies, methods of analysis and argumentation, metaphysical and other assumptions, and the like. It is not surprising that scholars who work in this broad genre also find a home in the field of philosophy of education.

As a result of these various factors, the significant intellectual and social trends of the past few centuries, together with the significant developments in philosophy, all have had an impact on the content of arguments and methods of argumentation in philosophy of education—Marxism, psycho-analysis, existentialism, phenomenology, positivism, post-modernism, pragmatism, neo-liberalism, the several waves of feminism, analytic philosophy in both its ordinary language and more formal guises, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Conceptual analysis, careful assessment of arguments, the rooting out of ambiguity, the drawing of clarifying distinctions—all of which are at least part of the philosophical toolkit—have been respected activities within philosophy from the dawn of the field. No doubt it somewhat over-simplifies the complex path of intellectual history to suggest that what happened in the twentieth century—early on, in the home discipline itself, and with a lag of a decade or more in philosophy of education—is that philosophical analysis came to be viewed by some scholars as being the major philosophical activity (or set of activities), or even as being the only viable or reputable activity. In any case, as they gained prominence and for a time hegemonic influence during the rise of analytic philosophy early in the twentieth century analytic techniques came to dominate philosophy of education in the middle third of that century (Curren, Robertson, & Hager 2003).

The pioneering work in the modern period entirely in an analytic mode was the short monograph by C.D. Hardie, Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory (1941; reissued in 1962). In his Introduction, Hardie (who had studied with C.D. Broad and I.A. Richards) made it clear that he was putting all his eggs into the ordinary-language-analysis basket:

The Cambridge analytical school, led by Moore, Broad and Wittgenstein, has attempted so to analyse propositions that it will always be apparent whether the disagreement between philosophers is one concerning matters of fact, or is one concerning the use of words, or is, as is frequently the case, a purely emotive one. It is time, I think, that a similar attitude became common in the field of educational theory. (Hardie 1962: xix)

About a decade after the end of the Second World War the floodgates opened and a stream of work in the analytic mode appeared; the following is merely a sample. D. J. O’Connor published An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (1957) in which, among other things, he argued that the word “theory” as it is used in educational contexts is merely a courtesy title, for educational theories are nothing like what bear this title in the natural sciences. Israel Scheffler, who became the paramount philosopher of education in North America, produced a number of important works including The Language of Education (1960), which contained clarifying and influential analyses of definitions (he distinguished reportive, stipulative, and programmatic types) and the logic of slogans (often these are literally meaningless, and, he argued, should be seen as truncated arguments), Conditions of Knowledge (1965), still the best introduction to the epistemological side of philosophy of education, and Reason and Teaching (1973 [1989]), which in a wide-ranging and influential series of essays makes the case for regarding the fostering of rationality/critical thinking as a fundamental educational ideal (cf. Siegel 2016). B. O. Smith and R. H. Ennis edited the volume Language and Concepts in Education (1961); and R.D. Archambault edited Philosophical Analysis and Education (1965), consisting of essays by a number of prominent British writers, most notably R. S. Peters (whose status in Britain paralleled that of Scheffler in the United States), Paul Hirst, and John Wilson. Topics covered in the Archambault volume were typical of those that became the “bread and butter” of analytic philosophy of education (APE) throughout the English-speaking world—education as a process of initiation, liberal education, the nature of knowledge, types of teaching, and instruction versus indoctrination.

Among the most influential products of APE was the analysis developed by Hirst and Peters (1970) and Peters (1973) of the concept of education itself. Using as a touchstone “normal English usage,” it was concluded that a person who has been educated (rather than instructed or indoctrinated) has been (i) changed for the better; (ii) this change has involved the acquisition of knowledge and intellectual skills and the development of understanding; and (iii) the person has come to care for, or be committed to, the domains of knowledge and skill into which he or she has been initiated. The method used by Hirst and Peters comes across clearly in their handling of the analogy with the concept of “reform”, one they sometimes drew upon for expository purposes. A criminal who has been reformed has changed for the better, and has developed a commitment to the new mode of life (if one or other of these conditions does not hold, a speaker of standard English would not say the criminal has been reformed). Clearly the analogy with reform breaks down with respect to the knowledge and understanding conditions. Elsewhere Peters developed the fruitful notion of “education as initiation”.

The concept of indoctrination was also of great interest to analytic philosophers of education, for, it was argued, getting clear about precisely what constitutes indoctrination also would serve to clarify the border that demarcates it from acceptable educational processes. Thus, whether or not an instructional episode was a case of indoctrination was determined by the content taught, the intention of the instructor, the methods of instruction used, the outcomes of the instruction, or by some combination of these. Adherents of the different analyses used the same general type of argument to make their case, namely, appeal to normal and aberrant usage. Unfortunately, ordinary language analysis did not lead to unanimity of opinion about where this border was located, and rival analyses of the concept were put forward (Snook 1972). The danger of restricting analysis to ordinary language (“normal English usage”) was recognized early on by Scheffler, whose preferred view of analysis emphasized

first, its greater sophistication as regards language, and the interpenetration of language and inquiry, second, its attempt to follow the modern example of the sciences in empirical spirit, in rigor, in attention to detail, in respect for alternatives, and in objectivity of method, and third, its use of techniques of symbolic logic brought to full development only in the last fifty years… It is…this union of scientific spirit and logical method applied toward the clarification of basic ideas that characterizes current analytic philosophy [and that ought to characterize analytic philosophy of education]. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 9–10])

After a period of dominance, for a number of important reasons the influence of APE went into decline. First, there were growing criticisms that the work of analytic philosophers of education had become focused upon minutiae and in the main was bereft of practical import. (It is worth noting that a 1966 article in Time , reprinted in Lucas 1969, had put forward the same criticism of mainstream philosophy.) Second, in the early 1970’s radical students in Britain accused Peters’ brand of linguistic analysis of conservatism, and of tacitly giving support to “traditional values”—they raised the issue of whose English usage was being analyzed?

Third, criticisms of language analysis in mainstream philosophy had been mounting for some time, and finally after a lag of many years were reaching the attention of philosophers of education; there even had been a surprising degree of interest on the part of the general reading public in the United Kingdom as early as 1959, when Gilbert Ryle, editor of the journal Mind , refused to commission a review of Ernest Gellner’s Words and Things (1959)—a detailed and quite acerbic critique of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and its espousal of ordinary language analysis. (Ryle argued that Gellner’s book was too insulting, a view that drew Bertrand Russell into the fray on Gellner’s side—in the daily press, no less; Russell produced a list of insulting remarks drawn from the work of great philosophers of the past. See Mehta 1963.)

Richard Peters had been given warning that all was not well with APE at a conference in Canada in 1966; after delivering a paper on “The aims of education: A conceptual inquiry” that was based on ordinary language analysis, a philosopher in the audience (William Dray) asked Peters “ whose concepts do we analyze?” Dray went on to suggest that different people, and different groups within society, have different concepts of education. Five years before the radical students raised the same issue, Dray pointed to the possibility that what Peters had presented under the guise of a “logical analysis” was nothing but the favored usage of a certain class of persons—a class that Peters happened to identify with (see Peters 1973, where to the editor’s credit the interaction with Dray is reprinted).

Fourth, during the decade of the seventies when these various critiques of analytic philosophy were in the process of eroding its luster, a spate of translations from the Continent stimulated some philosophers of education in Britain and North America to set out in new directions, and to adopt a new style of writing and argumentation. Key works by Gadamer, Foucault and Derrida appeared in English, and these were followed in 1984 by Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition . The classic works of Heidegger and Husserl also found new admirers; and feminist philosophers of education were finding their voices—Maxine Greene published a number of pieces in the 1970s and 1980s, including The Dialectic of Freedom (1988); the influential book by Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , appeared the same year as the work by Lyotard, followed a year later by Jane Roland Martin’s Reclaiming a Conversation . In more recent years all these trends have continued. APE was and is no longer the center of interest, although, as indicated below, it still retains its voice.

3. Areas of Contemporary Activity

As was stressed at the outset, the field of education is huge and contains within it a virtually inexhaustible number of issues that are of philosophical interest. To attempt comprehensive coverage of how philosophers of education have been working within this thicket would be a quixotic task for a large single volume and is out of the question for a solitary encyclopedia entry. Nevertheless, a valiant attempt to give an overview was made in A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Curren 2003), which contains more than six-hundred pages divided into forty-five chapters each of which surveys a subfield of work. The following random selection of chapter topics gives a sense of the enormous scope of the field: Sex education, special education, science education, aesthetic education, theories of teaching and learning, religious education, knowledge, truth and learning, cultivating reason, the measurement of learning, multicultural education, education and the politics of identity, education and standards of living, motivation and classroom management, feminism, critical theory, postmodernism, romanticism, the purposes of universities, affirmative action in higher education, and professional education. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education (Siegel 2009) contains a similarly broad range of articles on (among other things) the epistemic and moral aims of education, liberal education and its imminent demise, thinking and reasoning, fallibilism and fallibility, indoctrination, authenticity, the development of rationality, Socratic teaching, educating the imagination, caring and empathy in moral education, the limits of moral education, the cultivation of character, values education, curriculum and the value of knowledge, education and democracy, art and education, science education and religious toleration, constructivism and scientific methods, multicultural education, prejudice, authority and the interests of children, and on pragmatist, feminist, and postmodernist approaches to philosophy of education.

Given this enormous range, there is no non-arbitrary way to select a small number of topics for further discussion, nor can the topics that are chosen be pursued in great depth. The choice of those below has been made with an eye to highlighting contemporary work that makes solid contact with and contributes to important discussions in general philosophy and/or the academic educational and educational research communities.

The issue of what should be taught to students at all levels of education—the issue of curriculum content—obviously is a fundamental one, and it is an extraordinarily difficult one with which to grapple. In tackling it, care needs to be taken to distinguish between education and schooling—for although education can occur in schools, so can mis-education, and many other things can take place there that are educationally orthogonal (such as the provision of free or subsidized lunches and the development of social networks); and it also must be recognized that education can occur in the home, in libraries and museums, in churches and clubs, in solitary interaction with the public media, and the like.

In developing a curriculum (whether in a specific subject area, or more broadly as the whole range of offerings in an educational institution or system), a number of difficult decisions need to be made. Issues such as the proper ordering or sequencing of topics in the chosen subject, the time to be allocated to each topic, the lab work or excursions or projects that are appropriate for particular topics, can all be regarded as technical issues best resolved either by educationists who have a depth of experience with the target age group or by experts in the psychology of learning and the like. But there are deeper issues, ones concerning the validity of the justifications that have been given for including/excluding particular subjects or topics in the offerings of formal educational institutions. (Why should evolution or creation “science” be included, or excluded, as a topic within the standard high school subject Biology? Is the justification that is given for teaching Economics in some schools coherent and convincing? Do the justifications for including/excluding materials on birth control, patriotism, the Holocaust or wartime atrocities in the curriculum in some school districts stand up to critical scrutiny?)

The different justifications for particular items of curriculum content that have been put forward by philosophers and others since Plato’s pioneering efforts all draw, explicitly or implicitly, upon the positions that the respective theorists hold about at least three sets of issues.

First, what are the aims and/or functions of education (aims and functions are not necessarily the same)? Many aims have been proposed; a short list includes the production of knowledge and knowledgeable students, the fostering of curiosity and inquisitiveness, the enhancement of understanding, the enlargement of the imagination, the civilizing of students, the fostering of rationality and/or autonomy, and the development in students of care, concern and associated dispositions and attitudes (see Siegel 2007 for a longer list). The justifications offered for all such aims have been controversial, and alternative justifications of a single proposed aim can provoke philosophical controversy. Consider the aim of autonomy. Aristotle asked, what constitutes the good life and/or human flourishing, such that education should foster these (Curren 2013)? These two formulations are related, for it is arguable that our educational institutions should aim to equip individuals to pursue this good life—although this is not obvious, both because it is not clear that there is one conception of the good or flourishing life that is the good or flourishing life for everyone, and it is not clear that this is a question that should be settled in advance rather than determined by students for themselves. Thus, for example, if our view of human flourishing includes the capacity to think and act autonomously, then the case can be made that educational institutions—and their curricula—should aim to prepare, or help to prepare, autonomous individuals. A rival justification of the aim of autonomy, associated with Kant, champions the educational fostering of autonomy not on the basis of its contribution to human flourishing, but rather the obligation to treat students with respect as persons (Scheffler 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988). Still others urge the fostering of autonomy on the basis of students’ fundamental interests, in ways that draw upon both Aristotelian and Kantian conceptual resources (Brighouse 2005, 2009). It is also possible to reject the fostering of autonomy as an educational aim (Hand 2006).

Assuming that the aim can be justified, how students should be helped to become autonomous or develop a conception of the good life and pursue it is of course not immediately obvious, and much philosophical ink has been spilled on the general question of how best to determine curriculum content. One influential line of argument was developed by Paul Hirst, who argued that knowledge is essential for developing and then pursuing a conception of the good life, and because logical analysis shows, he argued, that there are seven basic forms of knowledge, the case can be made that the function of the curriculum is to introduce students to each of these forms (Hirst 1965; see Phillips 1987: ch. 11). Another, suggested by Scheffler, is that curriculum content should be selected so as “to help the learner attain maximum self-sufficiency as economically as possible.” The relevant sorts of economy include those of resources, teacher effort, student effort, and the generalizability or transfer value of content, while the self-sufficiency in question includes

self-awareness, imaginative weighing of alternative courses of action, understanding of other people’s choices and ways of life, decisiveness without rigidity, emancipation from stereotyped ways of thinking and perceiving…empathy… intuition, criticism and independent judgment. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 123–5])

Both impose important constraints on the curricular content to be taught.

Second, is it justifiable to treat the curriculum of an educational institution as a vehicle for furthering the socio-political interests and goals of a dominant group, or any particular group, including one’s own; and relatedly, is it justifiable to design the curriculum so that it serves as an instrument of control or of social engineering? In the closing decades of the twentieth century there were numerous discussions of curriculum theory, particularly from Marxist and postmodern perspectives, that offered the sobering analysis that in many educational systems, including those in Western democracies, the curriculum did indeed reflect and serve the interests of powerful cultural elites. What to do about this situation (if it is indeed the situation of contemporary educational institutions) is far from clear and is the focus of much work at the interface of philosophy of education and social/political philosophy, some of which is discussed in the next section. A closely related question is this: ought educational institutions be designed to further pre-determined social ends, or rather to enable students to competently evaluate all such ends? Scheffler argued that we should opt for the latter: we must

surrender the idea of shaping or molding the mind of the pupil. The function of education…is rather to liberate the mind, strengthen its critical powers, [and] inform it with knowledge and the capacity for independent inquiry. (Scheffler 1973 [1989: 139])

Third, should educational programs at the elementary and secondary levels be made up of a number of disparate offerings, so that individuals with different interests and abilities and affinities for learning can pursue curricula that are suitable? Or should every student pursue the same curriculum as far as each is able?—a curriculum, it should be noted, that in past cases nearly always was based on the needs or interests of those students who were academically inclined or were destined for elite social roles. Mortimer Adler and others in the late twentieth century sometimes used the aphorism “the best education for the best is the best education for all.”

The thinking here can be explicated in terms of the analogy of an out-of-control virulent disease, for which there is only one type of medicine available; taking a large dose of this medicine is extremely beneficial, and the hope is that taking only a little—while less effective—is better than taking none at all. Medically, this is dubious, while the educational version—forcing students to work, until they exit the system, on topics that do not interest them and for which they have no facility or motivation—has even less merit. (For a critique of Adler and his Paideia Proposal , see Noddings 2015.) It is interesting to compare the modern “one curriculum track for all” position with Plato’s system outlined in the Republic , according to which all students—and importantly this included girls—set out on the same course of study. Over time, as they moved up the educational ladder it would become obvious that some had reached the limit imposed upon them by nature, and they would be directed off into appropriate social roles in which they would find fulfillment, for their abilities would match the demands of these roles. Those who continued on with their education would eventually become members of the ruling class of Guardians.

The publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971 was the most notable event in the history of political philosophy over the last century. The book spurred a period of ferment in political philosophy that included, among other things, new research on educationally fundamental themes. The principles of justice in educational distribution have perhaps been the dominant theme in this literature, and Rawls’s influence on its development has been pervasive.

Rawls’s theory of justice made so-called “fair equality of opportunity” one of its constitutive principles. Fair equality of opportunity entailed that the distribution of education would not put the children of those who currently occupied coveted social positions at any competitive advantage over other, equally talented and motivated children seeking the qualifications for those positions (Rawls 1971: 72–75). Its purpose was to prevent socio-economic differences from hardening into social castes that were perpetuated across generations. One obvious criticism of fair equality of opportunity is that it does not prohibit an educational distribution that lavished resources on the most talented children while offering minimal opportunities to others. So long as untalented students from wealthy families were assigned opportunities no better than those available to their untalented peers among the poor, no breach of the principle would occur. Even the most moderate egalitarians might find such a distributive regime to be intuitively repugnant.

Repugnance might be mitigated somewhat by the ways in which the overall structure of Rawls’s conception of justice protects the interests of those who fare badly in educational competition. All citizens must enjoy the same basic liberties, and equal liberty always has moral priority over equal opportunity: the former can never be compromised to advance the latter. Further, inequality in the distribution of income and wealth are permitted only to the degree that it serves the interests of the least advantaged group in society. But even with these qualifications, fair equality of opportunity is arguably less than really fair to anyone. The fact that their education should secure ends other than access to the most selective social positions—ends such as artistic appreciation, the kind of self-knowledge that humanistic study can furnish, or civic virtue—is deemed irrelevant according to Rawls’s principle. But surely it is relevant, given that a principle of educational justice must be responsive to the full range of educationally important goods.

Suppose we revise our account of the goods included in educational distribution so that aesthetic appreciation, say, and the necessary understanding and virtue for conscientious citizenship count for just as much as job-related skills. An interesting implication of doing so is that the rationale for requiring equality under any just distribution becomes decreasingly clear. That is because job-related skills are positional whereas the other educational goods are not (Hollis 1982). If you and I both aspire to a career in business management for which we are equally qualified, any increase in your job-related skills is a corresponding disadvantage to me unless I can catch up. Positional goods have a competitive structure by definition, though the ends of civic or aesthetic education do not fit that structure. If you and I aspire to be good citizens and are equal in civic understanding and virtue, an advance in your civic education is no disadvantage to me. On the contrary, it is easier to be a good citizen the better other citizens learn to be. At the very least, so far as non-positional goods figure in our conception of what counts as a good education, the moral stakes of inequality are thereby lowered.

In fact, an emerging alternative to fair equality of opportunity is a principle that stipulates some benchmark of adequacy in achievement or opportunity as the relevant standard of distribution. But it is misleading to represent this as a contrast between egalitarian and sufficientarian conceptions. Philosophically serious interpretations of adequacy derive from the ideal of equal citizenship (Satz 2007; Anderson 2007). Then again, fair equality of opportunity in Rawls’s theory is derived from a more fundamental ideal of equality among citizens. This was arguably true in A Theory of Justice but it is certainly true in his later work (Dworkin 1977: 150–183; Rawls 1993). So, both Rawls’s principle and the emerging alternative share an egalitarian foundation. The debate between adherents of equal opportunity and those misnamed as sufficientarians is certainly not over (e.g., Brighouse & Swift 2009; Jacobs 2010; Warnick 2015). Further progress will likely hinge on explicating the most compelling conception of the egalitarian foundation from which distributive principles are to be inferred. Another Rawls-inspired alternative is that a “prioritarian” distribution of achievement or opportunity might turn out to be the best principle we can come up with—i.e., one that favors the interests of the least advantaged students (Schouten 2012).

The publication of Rawls’s Political Liberalism in 1993 signaled a decisive turning point in his thinking about justice. In his earlier book, the theory of justice had been presented as if it were universally valid. But Rawls had come to think that any theory of justice presented as such was open to reasonable rejection. A more circumspect approach to justification would seek grounds for justice as fairness in an overlapping consensus between the many reasonable values and doctrines that thrive in a democratic political culture. Rawls argued that such a culture is informed by a shared ideal of free and equal citizenship that provided a new, distinctively democratic framework for justifying a conception of justice. The shift to political liberalism involved little revision on Rawls’s part to the content of the principles he favored. But the salience it gave to questions about citizenship in the fabric of liberal political theory had important educational implications. How was the ideal of free and equal citizenship to be instantiated in education in a way that accommodated the range of reasonable values and doctrines encompassed in an overlapping consensus? Political Liberalism has inspired a range of answers to that question (cf. Callan 1997; Clayton 2006; Bull 2008).

Other philosophers besides Rawls in the 1990s took up a cluster of questions about civic education, and not always from a liberal perspective. Alasdair Macintyre’s After Virtue (1984) strongly influenced the development of communitarian political theory which, as its very name might suggest, argued that the cultivation of community could preempt many of the problems with conflicting individual rights at the core of liberalism. As a full-standing alternative to liberalism, communitarianism might have little to recommend it. But it was a spur for liberal philosophers to think about how communities could be built and sustained to support the more familiar projects of liberal politics (e.g., Strike 2010). Furthermore, its arguments often converged with those advanced by feminist exponents of the ethic of care (Noddings 1984; Gilligan 1982). Noddings’ work is particularly notable because she inferred a cogent and radical agenda for the reform of schools from her conception of care (Noddings 1992).

One persistent controversy in citizenship theory has been about whether patriotism is correctly deemed a virtue, given our obligations to those who are not our fellow citizens in an increasingly interdependent world and the sordid history of xenophobia with which modern nation states are associated. The controversy is partly about what we should teach in our schools and is commonly discussed by philosophers in that context (Galston 1991; Ben-Porath 2006; Callan 2006; Miller 2007; Curren & Dorn 2018). The controversy is related to a deeper and more pervasive question about how morally or intellectually taxing the best conception of our citizenship should be. The more taxing it is, the more constraining its derivative conception of civic education will be. Contemporary political philosophers offer divergent arguments about these matters. For example, Gutmann and Thompson claim that citizens of diverse democracies need to “understand the diverse ways of life of their fellow citizens” (Gutmann & Thompson 1996: 66). The need arises from the obligation of reciprocity which they (like Rawls) believe to be integral to citizenship. Because I must seek to cooperate with others politically on terms that make sense from their moral perspective as well as my own, I must be ready to enter that perspective imaginatively so as to grasp its distinctive content. Many such perspectives prosper in liberal democracies, and so the task of reciprocal understanding is necessarily onerous. Still, our actions qua deliberative citizen must be grounded in such reciprocity if political cooperation on terms acceptable to us as (diversely) morally motivated citizens is to be possible at all. This is tantamount to an imperative to think autonomously inside the role of citizen because I cannot close-mindedly resist critical consideration of moral views alien to my own without flouting my responsibilities as a deliberative citizen.

Civic education does not exhaust the domain of moral education, even though the more robust conceptions of equal citizenship have far-reaching implications for just relations in civil society and the family. The study of moral education has traditionally taken its bearings from normative ethics rather than political philosophy, and this is largely true of work undertaken in recent decades. The major development here has been the revival of virtue ethics as an alternative to the deontological and consequentialist theories that dominated discussion for much of the twentieth century.

The defining idea of virtue ethics is that our criterion of moral right and wrong must derive from a conception of how the ideally virtuous agent would distinguish between the two. Virtue ethics is thus an alternative to both consequentialism and deontology which locate the relevant criterion in producing good consequences or meeting the requirements of moral duty respectively. The debate about the comparative merits of these theories is not resolved, but from an educational perspective that may be less important than it has sometimes seemed to antagonists in the debate. To be sure, adjudicating between rival theories in normative ethics might shed light on how best to construe the process of moral education, and philosophical reflection on the process might help us to adjudicate between the theories. There has been extensive work on habituation and virtue, largely inspired by Aristotle (Burnyeat 1980; Peters 1981). But whether this does anything to establish the superiority of virtue ethics over its competitors is far from obvious. Other aspects of moral education—in particular, the paired processes of role-modelling and identification—deserve much more scrutiny than they have received (Audi 2017; Kristjánsson 2015, 2017).

Related to the issues concerning the aims and functions of education and schooling rehearsed above are those involving the specifically epistemic aims of education and attendant issues treated by social and virtue epistemologists. (The papers collected in Kotzee 2013 and Baehr 2016 highlight the current and growing interactions among social epistemologists, virtue epistemologists, and philosophers of education.)

There is, first, a lively debate concerning putative epistemic aims. Alvin Goldman argues that truth (or knowledge understood in the “weak” sense of true belief) is the fundamental epistemic aim of education (Goldman 1999). Others, including the majority of historically significant philosophers of education, hold that critical thinking or rationality and rational belief (or knowledge in the “strong” sense that includes justification) is the basic epistemic educational aim (Bailin & Siegel 2003; Scheffler 1965, 1973 [1989]; Siegel 1988, 1997, 2005, 2017). Catherine Z. Elgin (1999a,b) and Duncan Pritchard (2013, 2016; Carter & Pritchard 2017) have independently urged that understanding is the basic aim. Pritchard’s view combines understanding with intellectual virtue ; Jason Baehr (2011) systematically defends the fostering of the intellectual virtues as the fundamental epistemic aim of education. This cluster of views continues to engender ongoing discussion and debate. (Its complex literature is collected in Carter and Kotzee 2015, summarized in Siegel 2018, and helpfully analyzed in Watson 2016.)

A further controversy concerns the places of testimony and trust in the classroom: In what circumstances if any ought students to trust their teachers’ pronouncements, and why? Here the epistemology of education is informed by social epistemology, specifically the epistemology of testimony; the familiar reductionism/anti-reductionism controversy there is applicable to students and teachers. Anti-reductionists, who regard testimony as a basic source of justification, may with equanimity approve of students’ taking their teachers’ word at face value and believing what they say; reductionists may balk. Does teacher testimony itself constitute good reason for student belief?

The correct answer here seems clearly enough to be “it depends”. For very young children who have yet to acquire or develop the ability to subject teacher declarations to critical scrutiny, there seems to be little alternative to accepting what their teachers tell them. For older and more cognitively sophisticated students there seem to be more options: they can assess them for plausibility, compare them with other opinions, assess the teachers’ proffered reasons, subject them to independent evaluation, etc. Regarding “the teacher says that p ” as itself a good reason to believe it appears moreover to contravene the widely shared conviction that an important educational aim is helping students to become able to evaluate candidate beliefs for themselves and believe accordingly. That said, all sides agree that sometimes believers, including students, have good reasons simply to trust what others tell them. There is thus more work to do here by both social epistemologists and philosophers of education (for further discussion see Goldberg 2013; Siegel 2005, 2018).

A further cluster of questions, of long-standing interest to philosophers of education, concerns indoctrination : How if at all does it differ from legitimate teaching? Is it inevitable, and if so is it not always necessarily bad? First, what is it? As we saw earlier, extant analyses focus on the aims or intentions of the indoctrinator, the methods employed, or the content transmitted. If the indoctrination is successful, all have the result that students/victims either don’t, won’t, or can’t subject the indoctrinated material to proper epistemic evaluation. In this way it produces both belief that is evidentially unsupported or contravened and uncritical dispositions to believe. It might seem obvious that indoctrination, so understood, is educationally undesirable. But it equally seems that very young children, at least, have no alternative but to believe sans evidence; they have yet to acquire the dispositions to seek and evaluate evidence, or the abilities to recognize evidence or evaluate it. Thus we seem driven to the views that indoctrination is both unavoidable and yet bad and to be avoided. It is not obvious how this conundrum is best handled. One option is to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable indoctrination. Another is to distinguish between indoctrination (which is always bad) and non-indoctrinating belief inculcation, the latter being such that students are taught some things without reasons (the alphabet, the numbers, how to read and count, etc.), but in such a way that critical evaluation of all such material (and everything else) is prized and fostered (Siegel 1988: ch. 5). In the end the distinctions required by the two options might be extensionally equivalent (Siegel 2018).

Education, it is generally granted, fosters belief : in the typical propositional case, Smith teaches Jones that p , and if all goes well Jones learns it and comes to believe it. Education also has the task of fostering open-mindedness and an appreciation of our fallibility : All the theorists mentioned thus far, especially those in the critical thinking and intellectual virtue camps, urge their importance. But these two might seem at odds. If Jones (fully) believes that p , can she also be open-minded about it? Can she believe, for example, that earthquakes are caused by the movements of tectonic plates, while also believing that perhaps they aren’t? This cluster of italicized notions requires careful handling; it is helpfully discussed by Jonathan Adler (2002, 2003), who recommends regarding the latter two as meta-attitudes concerning one’s first-order beliefs rather than lessened degrees of belief or commitments to those beliefs.

Other traditional epistemological worries that impinge upon the epistemology of education concern (a) absolutism , pluralism and relativism with respect to knowledge, truth and justification as these relate to what is taught, (b) the character and status of group epistemologies and the prospects for understanding such epistemic goods “universalistically” in the face of “particularist” challenges, (c) the relation between “knowledge-how” and “knowledge-that” and their respective places in the curriculum, (d) concerns raised by multiculturalism and the inclusion/exclusion of marginalized perspectives in curriculum content and the classroom, and (e) further issues concerning teaching and learning. (There is more here than can be briefly summarized; for more references and systematic treatment cf. Bailin & Siegel 2003; Carter & Kotzee 2015; Cleverley & Phillips 1986; Robertson 2009; Siegel 2004, 2017; and Watson 2016.)

The educational research enterprise has been criticized for a century or more by politicians, policymakers, administrators, curriculum developers, teachers, philosophers of education, and by researchers themselves—but the criticisms have been contradictory. Charges of being “too ivory tower and theory-oriented” are found alongside “too focused on practice and too atheoretical”; but in light of the views of John Dewey and William James that the function of theory is to guide intelligent practice and problem-solving, it is becoming more fashionable to hold that the “theory v. practice” dichotomy is a false one. (For an illuminating account of the historical development of educational research and its tribulations, see Lagemann 2000.)

A similar trend can be discerned with respect to the long warfare between two rival groups of research methods—on one hand quantitative/statistical approaches to research, and on the other hand the qualitative/ethnographic family. (The choice of labels here is not entirely risk-free, for they have been contested; furthermore the first approach is quite often associated with “experimental” studies, and the latter with “case studies”, but this is an over-simplification.) For several decades these two rival methodological camps were treated by researchers and a few philosophers of education as being rival paradigms (Kuhn’s ideas, albeit in a very loose form, have been influential in the field of educational research), and the dispute between them was commonly referred to as “the paradigm wars”. In essence the issue at stake was epistemological: members of the quantitative/experimental camp believed that only their methods could lead to well-warranted knowledge claims, especially about the causal factors at play in educational phenomena, and on the whole they regarded qualitative methods as lacking in rigor; on the other hand the adherents of qualitative/ethnographic approaches held that the other camp was too “positivistic” and was operating with an inadequate view of causation in human affairs—one that ignored the role of motives and reasons, possession of relevant background knowledge, awareness of cultural norms, and the like. Few if any commentators in the “paradigm wars” suggested that there was anything prohibiting the use of both approaches in the one research program—provided that if both were used, they were used only sequentially or in parallel, for they were underwritten by different epistemologies and hence could not be blended together. But recently the trend has been towards rapprochement, towards the view that the two methodological families are, in fact, compatible and are not at all like paradigms in the Kuhnian sense(s) of the term; the melding of the two approaches is often called “mixed methods research”, and it is growing in popularity. (For more detailed discussion of these “wars” see Howe 2003 and Phillips 2009.)

The most lively contemporary debates about education research, however, were set in motion around the turn of the millennium when the US Federal Government moved in the direction of funding only rigorously scientific educational research—the kind that could establish causal factors which could then guide the development of practically effective policies. (It was held that such a causal knowledge base was available for medical decision-making.) The definition of “rigorously scientific”, however, was decided by politicians and not by the research community, and it was given in terms of the use of a specific research method—the net effect being that the only research projects to receive Federal funding were those that carried out randomized controlled experiments or field trials (RFTs). It has become common over the last decade to refer to the RFT as the “gold standard” methodology.

The National Research Council (NRC)—an arm of the US National Academies of Science—issued a report, influenced by postpostivistic philosophy of science (NRC 2002), that argued that this criterion was far too narrow. Numerous essays have appeared subsequently that point out how the “gold standard” account of scientific rigor distorts the history of science, how the complex nature of the relation between evidence and policy-making has been distorted and made to appear overly simple (for instance the role of value-judgments in linking empirical findings to policy directives is often overlooked), and qualitative researchers have insisted upon the scientific nature of their work. Nevertheless, and possibly because it tried to be balanced and supported the use of RFTs in some research contexts, the NRC report has been the subject of symposia in four journals, where it has been supported by a few and attacked from a variety of philosophical fronts: Its authors were positivists, they erroneously believed that educational inquiry could be value neutral and that it could ignore the ways in which the exercise of power constrains the research process, they misunderstood the nature of educational phenomena, and so on. This cluster of issues continues to be debated by educational researchers and by philosophers of education and of science, and often involves basic topics in philosophy of science: the constitution of warranting evidence, the nature of theories and of confirmation and explanation, etc. Nancy Cartwright’s important recent work on causation, evidence, and evidence-based policy adds layers of both philosophical sophistication and real world practical analysis to the central issues just discussed (Cartwright & Hardie 2012, Cartwright 2013; cf. Kvernbekk 2015 for an overview of the controversies regarding evidence in the education and philosophy of education literatures).

As stressed earlier, it is impossible to do justice to the whole field of philosophy of education in a single encyclopedia entry. Different countries around the world have their own intellectual traditions and their own ways of institutionalizing philosophy of education in the academic universe, and no discussion of any of this appears in the present essay. But even in the Anglo-American world there is such a diversity of approaches that any author attempting to produce a synoptic account will quickly run into the borders of his or her competence. Clearly this has happened in the present case.

Fortunately, in the last thirty years or so resources have become available that significantly alleviate these problems. There has been a flood of encyclopedia entries, both on the field as a whole and also on many specific topics not well-covered in the present essay (see, as a sample, Burbules 1994; Chambliss 1996b; Curren 1998, 2018; Phillips 1985, 2010; Siegel 2007; Smeyers 1994), two “Encyclopedias” (Chambliss 1996a; Phillips 2014), a “Guide” (Blake, Smeyers, Smith, & Standish 2003), a “Companion” (Curren 2003), two “Handbooks” (Siegel 2009; Bailey, Barrow, Carr, & McCarthy 2010), a comprehensive anthology (Curren 2007), a dictionary of key concepts in the field (Winch & Gingell 1999), and a good textbook or two (Carr 2003; Noddings 2015). In addition there are numerous volumes both of reprinted selections and of specially commissioned essays on specific topics, some of which were given short shrift here (for another sampling see A. Rorty 1998, Stone 1994), and several international journals, including Theory and Research in Education , Journal of Philosophy of Education , Educational Theory , Studies in Philosophy and Education , and Educational Philosophy and Theory . Thus there is more than enough material available to keep the interested reader busy.

• Adler, Jonathan E., 2002, Belief’s Own Ethics , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• –––, 2003, “Knowledge, Truth and Learning”, in Curren 2003: 285–304. doi:10.1002/9780470996454.ch21
• Anderson, Elizabeth, 2007, “Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective”, Ethics , 117(4): 595–622. doi:10.1086/518806
• Archambault, Reginald D. (ed.), 1965, Philosophical Analysis and Education , London: Routledge.
• Audi, Robert, 2017, “Role Modelling and Reasons: Developmental and Normative Grounds of Moral Virtue”, Journal of Moral Philosophy , 14(6): 646–668. doi:10.1163/17455243-46810063
• Baehr, Jason, 2011, The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604074.001.0001
• ––– (ed.), 2016, Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology , New York: Routledge.
• Bailey, Richard, Robin Barrow, David Carr, and Christine McCarthy (eds), 2010, The SAGE Handbook of the Philosophy of Education , Los Angeles: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781446200872
• Bailin, Sharon and Harvey Siegel, 2003, “Critical Thinking”, in Blake et al. 2003: 181–193. doi:10.1002/9780470996294.ch11
• Ben-Porath, Sigal R., 2006. Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Blake, Nigel, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith, and Paul Standish (eds.), 2003, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education , Oxford: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470996294
• Brighouse, Harry, 2005, On Education , London: Routledge.
• –––, 2009, “Moral and Political Aims of Education”, in Siegel 2009: 35–51.
• Brighouse, Harry and Adam Swift, 2009, “Educational Equality versus Educational Adequacy: A Critique of Anderson and Satz”, Journal of Applied Philosophy , 26(2): 117–128. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5930.2009.00438.x
• Bull, Barry L., 2008, Social Justice in Education: An Introduction , New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Burbules, Nicholas C., 1994, “Marxism and Educational Thought”, in The International Encyclopedia of Education , (Volume 6), Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite (eds.), Oxford: Pergamon, second edition, pp. 3617–22.
• Burnyeat, Myles F., 1980, “Aristotle on Learning to be Good”, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics , Berkeley CA: University of California Press, pp. 69–92.
• Callan, Eamonn, 1997, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy , Oxford: Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/0198292589.001.0001
• –––, 2006, “Love, Idolatry, and Patriotism”, Social Theory and Practice , 32(4): 525–546. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract200632430
• Carr, David, 2003, Making Sense of Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Theory of Education and Teaching , London: RoutledgeFalmer.
• Carter, J. Adam and Ben Kotzee, 2015, “Epistemology of Education”, Oxford Bibliographies Online , last modified: 26 October 2015.
• Carter, J.Adam and Duncan Pritchard, 2017, “Epistemic Situationism, Epistemic Dependence, and the Epistemology of Education”, in Abrol Fairweather and Mark Alfano (eds.), Epistemic Situationism , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 168–191. doi:10.1093/oso/9780199688234.003.0010
• Cartwright, Nancy D., 2013, Evidence: For Policy and Wheresoever Rigor Is a Must , London: London School of Economics and Political Science.
• Cartwright, Nancy D. and Jeremy Hardie, 2012, Evidence-based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Chambliss, J.J. (ed.), 1996a, Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia , New York: Garland.
• Chambliss, J.J., 1996b, “History of Philosophy of Education”, in Chambliss 1996a, pp. 461–472.
• Clayton, Matthew, 2006, Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0199268940.001.0001
• Cleverley, John and D.C. Phillips, 1986, Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock , New York: Teachers College Press.
• Curren, Randall R., 1998, “Education, Philosophy of”, in E.J. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , vol. 3, pp. 231–240.
• –––, 2000, Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• –––, (ed.), 2003, A Companion to the Philosophy of Education , Oxford: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470996454
• –––, (ed.), 2007, Philosophy of Education: An Anthology , Oxford: Blackwell.
• –––, 2013, “A Neo-Aristotelian Account of Education, Justice and the Human Good”, Theory and Research in Education , 11(3): 231–249. doi:10.1177/1477878513498182
• –––, 2018, “Education, History of Philosophy of”, revised second version, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online . doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N014-2
• Curren, Randall, Emily Robertson, and Paul Hager, 2003, “The Analytical Movement”, in Curren 2003: 176–191. doi:10.1002/9780470996454.ch13
• Curren, Randall and Charles Dorn, 2018, Patriotic Education in a Global Age , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Dworkin, Ronald, 1977, Taking Rights Seriously , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Elgin, Catherine Z., 1999a, “Epistemology’s Ends, Pedagogy’s Prospects”, Facta Philosophica , 1: 39–54
• –––, 1999b, “Education and the Advancement of Understanding”, in David M. Steiner (ed.), Proceedings of the 20 th World Congress of Philosophy , vol. 3, Philosophy Documentation Center, pp. 131–140.
• Galston, William A., 1991, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139172462
• Gellner, Ernest, 1959, Words and Things: A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology , London: Gollancz.
• Gilligan, Carol, 1982, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Goldberg, Sanford, 2013, “Epistemic Dependence in Testimonial Belief, in the Classroom and Beyond”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 47(2): 168–186. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12019
• Goldman, Alvin I., 1999, Knowledge in a Social World , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0198238207.001.0001
• Greene, Maxine, 1988, The Dialectic of Freedom , New York: Teachers College Press.
• Gutmann, Amy and Dennis F. Thompson, 1996, Democracy and Disagreement , Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Hand, Michael, 2006, “Against Autonomy as an Educational Aim”, Oxford Review of Education , 32(4): 535–550. doi:10.1080/03054980600884250
• Hardie, Charles Dunn, 1941 [1962], Truth and Fallacy in Educational Theory , New York: Teachers College Bureau of Publications.
• Hirst, Paul, 1965, “Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge”, in Philosophical Analysis and Education , Reginald D. Archambault, (ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 113–138.
• Hirst, Paul and R.S. Peters, 1970, The Logic of Education , London: Routledge.
• Hollis, Martin, 1982, “Education as A Positional Good”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 16(2): 235–244. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.1982.tb00615.x
• Howe, Kenneth R., 2003, Closing Methodological Divides: Toward Democratic Educational Research , Dordrecht: Kluwer. doi:10.1007/0-306-47984-2
• Jacobs, Lesley A., 2010, “Equality, Adequacy, And Stakes Fairness: Retrieving the Equal Opportunities in Education Approach”, Theory and Research in Education , 8(3): 249–268. doi:10.1177/1477878510381627
• Kotzee, Ben (ed.), 2013, Education and the Growth of Knowledge: Perspectives from Social and Virtue Epistemology , Oxford: Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118721254
• Kristjánsson, Kristján, 2015, Aristotelian Character Education , London: Routledge.
• –––, 2017, “Emotions Targeting Moral Exemplarity: Making Sense of the Logical Geography of Admiration, Emulation and Elevation”, Theory and Research in Education , 15(1): 20–37. doi:10.1177/1477878517695679
• Kvernbekk, Tone, 2015, Evidence-based Practice in Education: Functions of Evidence and Causal Presuppositions , London: Routledge.
• Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe, 2000, An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Educational Research , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Locke, J., 1693, Some Thoughts Concerning Education , London: Black Swan in Paternoster Row.
• Lucas, Christopher J. (ed.), 1969, What is Philosophy of Education? , London: Macmillan.
• Lyotard, J-F., 1984, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge , Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• MacIntyre, Alasdair, 1984, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory , second edition, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Martin, Jane Roland, 1985, Reclaiming a Conversation: The Ideal of the Educated Woman , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Mehta, Ved, 1963, Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
• Miller, Richard W., 2007, “Unlearning American Patriotism”, Theory and Research in Education , 5(1): 7–21. doi:10.1177/1477878507073602
• National Research Council (NRC), 2002, Scientific Research in Education , Washington, DC: National Academies Press. [ NRC 2002 available online ]
• Noddings, Nel, 1984, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education , Berkeley: University of California Press.
• –––, 1992, The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education , New York: Teachers College Press.
• –––, 2015, Philosophy of Education , fourth edition, Boulder, CO: Westview.
• O’Connor, D.J., 1957, An Introduction to Philosophy of Education , London: Routledge.
• Park, J., (ed.), 1965, Bertrand Russell on Education , London: Allen and Unwin.
• Peters, R.S., (ed.), 1973, The Philosophy of Education , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 1981, Moral Development and Moral Education , London: G. Allen & Unwin.
• Phillips, D.C., 1985, “Philosophy of Education”, in International Encyclopedia of Education , Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite, (eds.), pp. 3859–3877.
• –––, 1987, Philosophy, Science, and Social Inquiry: Contemporary Methodological Controversies in Social Science and Related Applied Fields of Research , Oxford: Pergamon.
• –––, 2009, “Empirical Educational Research: Charting Philosophical Disagreements in an Undisciplined Field”, in Siegel 2009: 381–406.
• –––, 2010, “What Is Philosophy of Education?”, in Bailey et al. 2010: 3–19. doi:10.4135/9781446200872.n1
• –––, (ed.), 2014, Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy , Los Angeles: Sage.
• Pritchard, Duncan, 2013, “Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of Education”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 47(2): 236–247. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12022
• –––, 2016, “Intellectual Virtue, Extended Cognition, and the Epistemology of Education”, in Baehr 2016: 113–127.
• Rawls, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice , Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
• –––, 1993, Political Liberalism , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Robertson, Emily, 2009, “The Epistemic Aims of Education”, in Siegel 2009: 11–34.
• Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (ed.), 1998, Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives , New York: Routledge.
• Satz, Debra, 2007, “Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship”, Ethics , 117(4): 623–648. doi:10.1086/518805
• Scheffler, Israel, 1960, The Language of Education , Springfield, IL: Thomas.
• –––, 1965, Conditions of Knowledge: An Introduction to Epistemology and Education , Chicago: Scott, Foresman.
• –––, 1973 [1989], Reason and Teaching , Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
• Schouten, Gina, 2012, “Fair Educational Opportunity and the Distribution of Natural Ability: Toward a Prioritarian Principle of Educational Justice”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 46(3): 472–491. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.2012.00863.x
• Scriven, Michael, 1991a, “Beyond Formative and Summative Evaluation”, in Milbrey McLaughlin and D.C. Phillips (eds.), Evaluation and Education: At Quarter Century , Chicago: University of Chicago Press/NSSE, pp. 19–64.
• –––, 1991b, Evaluation Thesaurus , Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Siegel, Harvey, 1988, Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education , New York: Routledge.
• –––, 1997, Rationality Redeemed?: Further Dialogues on an Educational Ideal , New York: Routledge.
• –––, 2004, “Epistemology and Education: An Incomplete Guide to the Social-Epistemological Issues”, Episteme , 1(2): 129–137. doi:10.3366/epi.2004.1.2.129
• –––, 2005, “Truth, Thinking, Testimony and Trust: Alvin Goldman on Epistemology and Education”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 71(2): 345–366. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00452.x
• –––, 2007, “Philosophy of Education”, in Britannica Online Encyclopedia , last modified 2 February 2018. URL = <https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/philosophy-of-education/108550>
• –––, (ed.), 2009, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195312881.001.0001
• –––, 2016, “Israel Scheffler”, In J. A Palmer (ed.), Routledge Encyclopaedia of Educational Thinkers , London: Routledge, pp. 428–432.
• –––, 2017, Education’s Epistemology: Rationality, Diversity, and Critical Thinking , New York: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2018, “The Epistemology of Education”, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online , doi:10.4324/0123456789-P074-1.
• Skinner, B.F., 1948 [1962], Walden Two , New York: Macmillan.
• –––, 1972, Beyond Freedom and Dignity , London: Jonathan Cape.
• Smeyers, Paulus, 1994, “Philosophy of Education: Western European Perspectives”, in The International Encyclopedia of Education , (Volume 8), Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite, (eds.), Oxford: Pergamon, second Edition, pp. 4456–61.
• Smith, B. Othanel and Robert H. Ennis (eds.), 1961, Language and Concepts in Education , Chicago: Rand McNally.
• Snook, I.A., 1972, Indoctrination and Education , London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Stone, Lynda (ed.), 1994, The Education Feminism Reader , New York: Routledge.
• Strike, Kenneth A., 2010, Small Schools and Strong Communities: A Third Way of School Reform , New York: Teachers College Press.
• Warnick, Bryan R., 2015, “Taming the Conflict over Educational Equality”, Journal of Applied Philosophy , 32(1): 50–66. doi:10.1111/japp.12066
• Watson, Lani, 2016, “The Epistemology of Education”, Philosophy Compass , 11(3): 146–159. doi:10.1111/phc3.12316
• Winch, Christopher and John Gingell, 1999, Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Education , London: Routledge.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• PES (Philosophy of Education Society, North America)
• PESA (Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia)
• PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain)
• INPE (International Network of Philosophers of Education)

autonomy: personal | Dewey, John | feminist philosophy, interventions: ethics | feminist philosophy, interventions: liberal feminism | feminist philosophy, interventions: political philosophy | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on autonomy | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on disability | Foucault, Michel | Gadamer, Hans-Georg | liberalism | Locke, John | Lyotard, Jean François | -->ordinary language --> | Plato | postmodernism | Rawls, John | rights: of children | Rousseau, Jean Jacques

Acknowledgments

The authors and editors would like to thank Randall Curren for sending a number of constructive suggestions for the Summer 2018 update of this entry.

Copyright © 2018 by Harvey Siegel D.C. Phillips Eamonn Callan

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2023 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

UNICEF Data : Monitoring the situation of children and women

GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Goal 4 aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.  This goal supports the reduction of disparities and inequities in education, both in terms of access and quality. It recognizes the need to provide quality education for all, and most especially vulnerable populations, including poor children, children living in rural areas, persons with disabilities, indigenous people and refugee children.

This goal is of critical importance because of its transformative effects on the other SDGs. Sustainable development hinges on every child receiving a quality education. When children are offered the tools to develop to their full potential, they become productive adults ready to give back to their communities and break the cycle of poverty. Education enables upward socioeconomic mobility.

Significant progress was achieved during the last decade in increasing access to education and school enrolment rates at all levels, particularly for girls. Despite these gains, about 260 million children were out of school in 2018, nearly one fifth of the global population in that age group. Furthermore, more than half of all children and adolescents worldwide are failing to meet minimum proficiency standards in reading and mathematics.

UNICEF’s contribution towards reaching this goal centres on equity and inclusion to provide all children with quality learning opportunities and skills development programmes, from early childhood through adolescence. UNICEF works with governments worldwide to raise the quality and inclusiveness of schools.  

UNICEF is custodian for global monitoring of Indicator 4.2.1 Percentage of children (aged 24–59 months) developmentally on track in at least 3 of the 4 following domains: literacy-numeracy, physical, socio-emotional and learning.

Child-related SDG indicators

Target 4.1 by 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.

Proportion of children and young people: (a) in grades 2/3; (b) at the end of primary; and (c) at the end of lower secondary achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics, by sex

• Indicator definition
• Computation method
• Comments & limitations

Explore the data

The indicator aims to measure the percentage of children and young people who have achieved the minimum learning outcomes in reading and mathematics during or at the end of the relevant stages of education.

The higher the figure, the higher the proportion of children and/or young people reaching at least minimum proficiency in the respective domain (reading or mathematic) with the limitations indicated under the “Comments and limitations” section.

The indicator is also a direct measure of the learning outcomes achieved in the two subject areas at the end of the relevant stages of education. The three measurement points will have their own established minimum standard. There is only one threshold that divides students into above and below minimum:

Below minimum refers to the proportion or percentage of students who do not achieve a minimum standard as set up by countries according to the globally-defined minimum competencies.

Above minimum refers to the proportion or percentage of students who have achieved the minimum standards. Due to heterogeneity of performance levels set by national and cross-national assessments, these performance levels will have to be mapped to the globally-defined minimum performance levels. Once the performance levels are mapped, the global education community will be able to identify for each country the proportion or percentage of children who achieved minimum standards.

(a) Minimum proficiency level (MPL) is the benchmark of basic knowledge in a domain (mathematics, reading, etc.) measured through learning assessments. In September 2018, an agreement was reached on a verbal definition of the global minimum proficiency level of reference for each of the areas and domains of Indicator 4.1.1 as described in the document entitled: Minimum Proficiency Levels (MPLs): Outcomes of the consensus building meeting ( http://gaml.uis.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MPLs_revised_doc_20190204.docx ).

Minimum proficiency levels (MPLs) defined by each learning assessment to ensure comparability across learning assessments; a verbal definition of MPL for each domain and levels between cross-national assessments (CNAs) were established by conducting an analysis of the performance level descriptors, the descriptions of the performance levels to express the knowledge and skills required to achieve each performance level by domain, of cross-national, regional and community-led tests in reading and mathematics. The analysis was led and completed by the UIS and a consensus among experts on the proposed methodology was deemed adequate and pragmatic.

The global MPL definitions for the domains of reading and mathematics are presented here (insert link)

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading test has six proficiency levels, of which Level 2 is described as the minimum proficiency level. In Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), there are four proficiency levels: Low, Intermediate, High and Advanced. Students reaching the Intermediate benchmark are able to apply basic knowledge in a variety of situations, similar to the idea of minimum proficiency. Currently, there are no common standards validated by the international community or countries. The indicator shows data published by each of the agencies and organizations specialised in cross-national learning assessments.

(a) The number of children and/or young people at the relevant stage of education n in year t achieving at least the pre-defined proficiency level in subject s expressed as a percentage of the number of children and/or young people at stage of education n, in year t, in any proficiency level in subjects.

Harmonize various data sources To address the challenges posed by the limited capacity of some countries to implement cross- national, regional and national assessments, actions have been taken by the UIS and its partners. The strategies are used according to its level of precision and following a reporting protocol ( http://gaml.uis.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/GAML6-WD-2-Protocol-for-reporting-4.1.1_v1.pdf ) that includes the national assessments under specific circumstances.

Out-of-school children In 2016, 263 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school, representing nearly one-fifth of the global population of this age group. 63 million, or 24% of the total, are children of primary school age (typically 6 to 11 years old); 61 million, or 23% of the total, are adolescents of lower secondary school age (typically 12 to 14 years old); and 139 million, or 53% of the total, are youth of upper secondary school age (about 15 to 17 years old). Not all these kids will be permanently outside school, some will re-join the educational system and, eventually, complete late, while some of them will enter late. The quantity varies per country and region and demands some adjustment in the estimate of Indicator 4.1.1. There is currently a discussion on how to implement these adjustments to reflect all the population. In 2017, the UIS proposed to make adjustments using the out-of-school children and the completion rates.( http://uis.unesco.org/en/blog/helping-countries-improve-their-data-out-school-children ) and the completion rates.

Learning outcomes from cross-national learning assessment are directly comparable for all countries which participated in the same cross-national learning assessments. However, these outcomes are not comparable across different cross-national learning assessments or with national learning assessments. A level of comparability of learning outcomes across assessments could be achieved by using different methodologies, each with varying standard errors. The period of 2020-2021 will shed light on the standard errors’ size for these methodologies.

The comparability of learning outcomes over time has additional complications, which require, ideally, to design and implement a set of comparable items as anchors in advance. Methodological developments are underway to address comparability of assessments outcomes over time.

While data from many national assessments are available now, every country sets its own standards so the performance levels might not be comparable. One option is to link existing regional assessments based on a common framework. Furthermore, assessments are typically administered within school systems, the current indicators cover only those in school and the proportion of in-school target populations might vary from country to country due to varied out-of-school children populations. Assessing competencies of children and young people who are out of school would require household-based surveys. Assessing children in households is under consideration but may be very costly and difficult to administer and unlikely to be available on the scale needed within the next 3-5 years. Finally, the calculation of this indicator requires specific information on the ages of children participating in assessments to create globally-comparable data. The ages of children reported by the head of the household might not be consistent and reliable so the calculation of the indicator may be even more challenging. Due to the complication in assessing out-of-school children and the main focus on improving education system, the UIS is taking a stepping stone approach. It will concentrate on assessing children in school in the medium term, where much data are available, then develop more coherent implementation plan to assess out-of-school children in the longer term.

Click on the button below to explore the data behind this indicator.

Completion rate (primary education, lower secondary education, upper secondary education)

A completion rate of 100% indicates that all children and adolescents have completed a level of education by the time they are 3 to 5 years older than the official age of entry into the last grade of that level of education. A low completion rate indicates low or delayed entry into a given level of education, high drop-out, high repetition, late completion, or a combination of these factors.

Percentage of a cohort of children or young people aged 3-5 years above the intended age for the last grade of each level of education who have completed that grade.

The intended age for the last grade of each level of education is the age at which pupils would enter the grade if they had started school at the official primary entrance age, had studied full-time and had progressed without repeating or skipping a grade.

For example, if the official age of entry into primary education is 6 years, and if primary education has 6 grades, the intended age for the last grade of primary education is 11 years. In this case, 14-16 years (11 + 3 = 14 and 11 + 5 = 16) would be the reference age group for calculation of the primary completion rate.

The number of persons in the relevant age group who have completed the last grade of a given level of education is divided by the total population (in the survey sample) of the same age group.

The age group 3-5 years above the official age of entry into the last grade for a given level of education was selected for the calculation of the completion rate to allow for some delayed entry or repetition. In countries where entry can occur very late or where repetition is common, some children or adolescents in the age group examined may still attend school and the eventual rate of completion may therefore be underestimated.

The indicator is calculated from household survey data and is subject to time lag in the availability of data. When multiple surveys are available, they may provide conflicting information due to the possible presence of sampling and non-sampling errors in survey data. The Technical Cooperation Group on the Indicators for SDG 4 – Education 2030 (TCG) has requested a refinement of the methodology to model completion rate estimates, following an approach similar to that used for the estimation of child mortality rates. The model would ensure that common challenges with household survey data, such as timeliness and sampling or non-sampling errors are addressed to provide up-to-date and more robust data.

TARGET 4.2 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education

Proportion of children aged 24-59 months of age who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being, by sex.

Early childhood development (ECD) sets the stage for life-long thriving. Investing in ECD is one of the most critical and cost-effective investments a country can make to improve adult health, education and productivity in order to build human capital and promote sustainable development. ECD is equity from the start and provides a good indication of national development. Efforts to improve ECD can bring about human, social and economic improvements for both individuals and societies.

The recommended measure for SDG 4.2.1 is the Early Childhood Development Index 2030 (ECDI2030) which is a 20-item instrument to measure developmental outcomes among children aged 24 to 59 months in population-based surveys. The indicator derived from the ECDI2030 is the proportion of children aged 24 to 59 months who have achieved the minimum number of milestones expected for their age group, defined as follows:

– Children age 24 to 29 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 7 milestones – Children age 30 to 35 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 9 milestones – Children age 36 to 41 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 11 milestones – Children age 42 to 47 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 13 milestones – Children age 48 to 59 months are classified as developmentally on-track if they have achieved at least 15 milestones

SDG indicator 4.2.1 is intended to capture the multidimensional and holistic nature of early childhood development. For this reason, the indicator is not intended to be disaggregated by domains since development in all areas (health, learning and psychosocial wellbeing) are interconnected and overlapping, particularly among young children. The indicator is intended to produce a single summary score to indicate the proportion of children considered to be developmentally on track.

The domains included in the indicator for SDG indicator 4.2.1 include the following concepts:

Health: gross motor development, fine motor development and self-care Learning: expressive language, literacy, numeracy, pre-writing, and executive functioning Psychosocial well-being: emotional skills, social skills, internalizing behavior, and externalizing behavior

The number of children aged 24 to 59 months who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being divided by the total number of children aged 24 to 59 months in the population multiplied by 100.

SDG 4.2.1 was initially classified as Tier 3 and was upgraded to Tier 2 in 2019; additionally, changes to the indicator were made during the 2020 comprehensive review. In light of this and given that the ECDI2030 was officially released in March 2020, it will take some time for country uptake and implementation of the new measure and for data to become available from a sufficiently large enough number of countries. Therefore, in the meantime, a proxy indicator (children aged 36-59 months who are developmentally ontrack in at least three of the following four domains: literacy-numeracy, physical, social-emotional and learning) will be used to report on 4.2.1, when relevant. This proxy indicator has been used for global SDG reporting since 2015 but is not fully aligned with the definition and age group covered by the SDG indicator formulation. When the proxy indicator is used for SDG reporting on 4.2.1 for a country, it will be footnoted as such in the global SDG database.

Click on the button below to explore the data behind this indicator’s proxy; Children aged 36-59 months who are developmentally ontrack in at least three of the following four domains: literacy-numeracy, physical, social-emotional and learning . For more information about this proxy indicator, please see “Comments and Limitations”

Adjusted net attendance rate, one year before the official primary entry age

The indicator measures children’s exposure to organized learning activities in the year prior to the official age to start of primary school as a representation of access to quality early childhood care and pre-primary education. One year prior to the start of primary school is selected for international comparison. A high value of the indicator shows a high degree of participation in organized learning immediately before the official entrance age to primary education.

The participation rate in organized learning (one year before the official primary entry age), by sex as defined as the percentage of children in the given age range who participate in one or more organized learning programme, including programmes which offer a combination of education and care. Participation in early childhood and in primary education are both included. The age range will vary by country depending on the official age for entry to primary education.

An organized learning programme is one which consists of a coherent set or sequence of educational activities designed with the intention of achieving pre-determined learning outcomes or the accomplishment of a specific set of educational tasks. Early childhood and primary education programmes are examples of organized learning programmes.

Early childhood and primary education are defined in the 2011 revision of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011). Early childhood education is typically designed with a holistic approach to support children’s early cognitive, physical, social and emotional development and to introduce young children to organized instruction outside the family context. Primary education offers learning and educational activities designed to provide students with fundamental skills in reading, writing and mathematics and establish a solid foundation for learning and understanding core areas of knowledge and personal development. It focuses on learning at a basic level of complexity with little, if any, specialisation.

The official primary entry age is the age at which children are obliged to start primary education according to national legislation or policies. Where more than one age is specified, for example, in different parts of a country, the most common official entry age (i.e. the age at which most children in the country are expected to start primary) is used for the calculation of this indicator at the global level.

The number of children in the relevant age group who participate in an organized learning programme is expressed as a percentage of the total population in the same age range. From household surveys, both enrolments and population are collected at the same time.

Participation in learning programmes in the early years is not full time for many children, meaning that exposure to learning environments outside of the home will vary in intensity. The indicator measures the percentage of children who are exposed to organized learning but not the intensity of the programme, which limits the ability to draw conclusions on the extent to which this target is being achieved. More work is needed to ensure that the definition of learning programmes is consistent across various surveys and defined in a manner that is easily understood by survey respondents, ideally with complementary information collected on the amount of time children spend in learning programmes.

TARGET 4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all

Proportion of schools offering basic services, by type of service.

This indicator measures the presence of basic services and facilities in school that are necessary to ensure a safe and effective learning environment for all students. A high value indicates that schools have good access to the relevant services and facilities. Ideally each school should have access to all these services and facilities.

The percentage of schools by level of education (primary education) with access to the given facility or service

Electricity: Regularly and readily available sources of power (e.g. grid/mains connection, wind, water, solar and fuel-powered generator, etc.) that enable the adequate and sustainable use of ICT infrastructure for educational purposes.

Internet for pedagogical purposes: Internet that is available for enhancing teaching and learning and is accessible by pupils. Internet is defined as a worldwide interconnected computer network, which provides pupils access to a number of communication services including the World Wide Web and carries e-mail, news, entertainment and data files, irrespective of the device used (i.e. not assumed to be only via a computer) and thus can also be accessed by mobile telephone, tablet, PDA, games machine, digital TV etc.). Access can be via a fixed narrowband, fixed broadband, or via mobile network.

Computers for pedagogical use: Use of computers to support course delivery or independent teaching and learning needs. This may include activities using computers or the Internet to meet information needs for research purposes; develop presentations; perform hands-on exercises and experiments; share information; and participate in online discussion forums for educational purposes. A computer is a programmable electronic device that can store, retrieve and process data, as well as share information in a highly-structured manner. It performs high-speed mathematical or logical operations according to a set of instructions or algorithms.

Computers include the following types: -A desktop computer usually remains fixed in one place; normally the user is placed in front of it, behind the keyboard; – A laptop computer is small enough to carry and usually enables the same tasks as a desktop computer; it includes notebooks and netbooks but does not include tablets and similar handheld devices; and – A tablet (or similar handheld computer) is a computer that is integrated into a flat touch screen, operated by touching the screen rather than using a physical keyboard.

Adapted infrastructure is defined as any built environment related to education facilities that are accessible to all users, including those with different types of disability, to be able to gain access to use and exit from them. Accessibility includes ease of independent approach, entry, evacuation and/or use of a building and its services and facilities (such as water and sanitation), by all of the building’s potential users with an assurance of individual health, safety and welfare during the course of those activities.

Adapted materials include learning materials and assistive products that enable students and teachers with disabilities/functioning limitations to access learning and to participate fully in the school environment.

Accessible learning materials include textbooks, instructional materials, assessments and other materials that are available and provided in appropriate formats such as audio, braille, sign language and simplified formats that can be used by students and teachers with disabilities/functioning limitations.

Basic drinking water is defined as a functional drinking water source (MDG ‘improved’ categories) on or near the premises and water points accessible to all users during school hours.

Basic sanitation facilities are defined as functional sanitation facilities (MDG ‘improved’ categories) separated for males and females on or near the premises.

Basic handwashing facilities are defined as functional handwashing facilities, with soap and water available to all girls and boys.

The number of schools in a given level of education with access to the relevant facilities is expressed as a percentage of all schools at that level of education.

The indicator measures the existence in schools of the given service or facility but not its quality or operational state.

For every child to learn, UNICEF has eight key asks of governments:

• A demonstration of how the SDG 4 global ambitions are being nationalized into plans, policies, budgets, data collection efforts and reports.
• A renewed commitment to education to recover learning losses and manage impacts of COVID-19.
• The implementation and scaling of digital learning solutions and innovations to reimagine education.
• Attention to skills development should be a core component to education.
• Focus to provide quality education to the most vulnerable – including girls, children affected by conflict and crisis, children with disabilities, refugees and displaced children.
• A continued commitment to improving access to pre-primary, primary and secondary education for all, including for children from minority groups and those with disabilities.
• A renewed focus on learning outcomes and their enablers, including learning in safe and adequate environments, support by well-trained teachers and structured content.
• The implementation of SDG-focused learning throughout schools to raise awareness and inspire positive action.

Learn more about  UNICEF’s key asks for implementing Goal 4

See more Sustainable Development Goals

ZERO HUNGER

GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

QUALITY EDUCATION

GENDER EQUALITY

CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

REDUCED INEQUALITIES

CLIMATE ACTION

PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS

PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

• Current Students
• Faculty / Staff
• Paying for College
• Alumni Services
• Partnerships
• Program Finder
• Affordable, Flexible, Accessible
• Distance Education
• All Online Courses & Degrees
• Baccalaureate Online
• Graduate Online
• Start Dates
• Admissions, Costs & Aid
• Faculty and Contacts
• Academic and Career Support
• Student Testimonials
• Distance Education Advantage
• About Hybrid Learning
• Hybrid Learning Degrees
• Admissions Requirements
• Top Destination Courses
• Student Life
• Academic Support
• Academic Calendar
• Faculty & Contacts
• Technical Institute for Environmental Professions
• Term Calendar
• Sustainable Ventures
• Careers & Outcomes
• About Unity
• Office of the President
• Announcing Our Evolution
• Sustainable Achievements & Initiatives
• Reinventing College
• Extended Reality (XR)
• Commencement
• Give to Unity Environmental University
• Institutional Communications
• Unity Environmental University News

Home  /  News  /  Why Is Education Important? The Power Of An Educated Society

Why Is Education Important? The Power Of An Educated Society

Looking for an answer to the question of why is education important? We address this query with a focus on how education can transform society through the way we interact with our environment. 

Whether you are a student, a parent, or someone who values educational attainment, you may be wondering how education can provide quality life to a society beyond the obvious answer of acquiring knowledge and economic growth. Continue reading as we discuss the importance of education not just for individuals but for society as a whole. 

Harness the power of education to build a more sustainable modern society with a degree from  Unity Environmental University .

How Education Is Power: The Importance Of Education In Society

Why is education so important? Nelson Mandela famously said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” An educated society is better equipped to tackle the challenges that face modern America, including:

• Climate change
• Social justice
• Economic inequality

Education is not just about learning to read and do math operations. Of course, gaining knowledge and practical skills is part of it, but education is also about values and critical thinking. It’s about finding our place in society in a meaningful way. 

Environmental Stewardship

A  study from 2022 found that people who belong to an environmental stewardship organization, such as the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, are likely to have a higher education level than those who do not. This suggests that quality education can foster a sense of responsibility towards the environment.

With the effects of climate change becoming increasingly alarming, this particular importance of education is vital to the health, safety, and longevity of our society. Higher learning institutions can further encourage environmental stewardship by adopting a  framework of sustainability science .

The Economic Benefits Of Education

Higher education can lead to better job opportunities and higher income. On average, a  person with a bachelor’s degree will make $765,000 more  in their lifetime than someone with no degree. Even with the rising costs of tuition, investment in higher education pays off in the long run. In 2020, the return on investment (ROI) for a college degree was estimated to be  13.5% to 35.9% . 

Green jobs  like environmental science technicians and solar panel installers  have high demand projections for the next decade. Therefore, degrees that will prepare you for one of these careers will likely yield a high ROI. And, many of these jobs only require an  associate’s degree or certificate , which means lower overall education costs. 

Unity  helps students maximize their ROI with real-world experience in the field as an integral part of every degree program. 

10 Reasons Why School Is Important

Education is not just an individual pursuit but also a societal one.  In compiling these reasons, we focused on the question, “How does education benefit society?” Overall, higher education has the power to transform:

• Individuals’ sense of self
• Interpersonal relationships
• Social communities
• Professional communities

Cognitive Development

Neuroscience research  has proven that the brain is a muscle that can retain its neuroplasticity throughout life. However, like other muscles, it must receive continual exercise to remain strong. Higher education allows people of any age to improve their higher-level cognitive abilities like problem-solving and decision-making. This can make many parts of life feel more manageable and help society run smoothly. 

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is key to workplace success.  Studies  show that people with emotional intelligence exhibit more:

• Self-awareness
• Willingness to try new things
• Innovative thinking
• Active listening
• Collaboration skills
• Problem-solving abilities

By attending higher education institutions that value these soft skills, students can improve their emotional intelligence as part of their career development in college.

Technological Literacy

Many careers in today’s job market use advanced technology. To prepare for these jobs, young people likely won’t have access to these technologies to practice on their own. That’s part of why so many STEM career paths require degrees. It’s essential to gain technical knowledge and skills through a certified program to safely use certain technologies. And, educated scientists are  more likely to make new technological discoveries .

Cultural Awareness

Education exposes individuals to different cultures and perspectives. Being around people who are different has the powerful ability to foster acceptance. Acceptance benefits society as a whole. It increases innovation and empathy. 

College also gives students an opportunity to practice feeling comfortable in situations where there are people of different races, genders, sexualities, and abilities. Students can gain an understanding of how to act respectfully among different types of people, which is an important skill for the workplace. This will only become more vital as our world continues to become more globalized.

Ethical and Moral Development

Another reason why school is important is that it promotes ethical and moral development. Many schools require students to take an ethics course in their general education curriculum. However, schools can also encourage character development throughout their programs by using effective pedagogical strategies including:

• Class debates and discussions
• Historical case studies
• Group projects

Unity’s distance learning programs  include an ethical decision-making class in our core curriculum. 

Ready To Learn More About Unity Environmental University?

Communication Skills

Effective written and verbal communication skills are key for personal and professional success. Higher education programs usually include at least one communication course in their general education requirements. Often the focus in these classes is on writing skills, but students can also use college as an opportunity to hone their presentation and public speaking skills. Courses such as  Multimedia Communication for Environmental Professionals  provide many opportunities for this. 

Civic Engagement

According to a  Gallup survey , people with higher education degrees are:

• More likely to participate in civic activities such as voting and volunteering
• Less likely to commit crimes
• More likely to get involved in their local communities

All these individual acts add up to make a big difference in society. An educated electorate is less likely to be swayed by unethical politicians and, instead, make choices that benefit themselves and their community. Because they are more involved, they are also more likely to hold elected officials accountable.

Financial Stability

The right degree can significantly expand your career opportunities and improve your long-term earning potential. Not all degrees provide the same level of financial stability, so it’s important to research expected salary offers after graduation and job demand outlook predictions for your desired field. Consider the return on investment for a degree from an affordable private school such as  Unity Environmental University .

Environmental Awareness

We have already discussed why education is important for environmental stewardship. Education can also lead to better environmental practices in the business world. By building empathy through character education and ethics courses, institutions can train future business leaders to emphasize human rights and sustainability over profits. All types and sizes of businesses can incorporate sustainable practices, but awareness of the issues and solutions is the first step.

Lifelong Learning

The reasons why education is important discussed so far focus on institutional education. However, education can happen anywhere. Attending a university that values all kinds of learning will set students up with the foundation to become lifelong learners.  Research  demonstrates that lifelong learners tend to be healthier and more fulfilled throughout their lives. When societies emphasize the importance of education, they can boost their overall prosperity.

The Role Of Unity Environmental University In Society

Environmentally conscious education is extremely valuable and should be accessible to all.   Unity Environmental University  offers tuition prices that are comparable to public universities, and financial aid is available to those who qualify. Courses last five weeks so that students can focus on only one class at a time. This ensures all learners are set up for academic success. 

Unity believes in supporting students holistically to maximize the power of education. This includes mental health services,  experiential learning opportunities , and  job placement assistance . Students in our  hybrid programs  can take classes at several field stations throughout Maine and enjoy the beautiful nature surrounding the campus for outdoor recreation.

Sustainable Initiatives

Some highlights from Unity Environmental University’s many sustainable initiatives:

• All programs include at least one sustainability learning outcome
• All research courses are focused on sustainability research
• Reduced building energy use by 25% across campus
• 100% of food waste is recycled into energy 
• Campus features a  net-zero LEED Platinum-certified classroom/office building

While many schools value sustainability, Unity stands out because  everything  we do is about sustainability. We also recognize our responsibility to model how a sustainable business can operate in a manner that’s fiscally viable and socially responsible.

Make An Impact At Unity Environmental University

While the phrase ‘education is power’ may sound cliche, it is also resoundingly true. Higher education has the power to transform individuals and societies. Unity Environmental University understands its power to make a positive impact on the world. That’s why we were the first university to divest from fossil fuels. 

This year, we celebrated our  largest incoming class ever , showing that students want an education system that aligns with their values. In addition to our commitment to sustainability, we offer flexibility to students with start dates all year round for our  online degree programs .

Start Your Journey

Looking for Answers

Get More Info

© Unity Environmental University 2024. “America’s Environmental University.™”

Privacy Overview

Conclusions

What this handout is about.

This handout will explain the functions of conclusions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you evaluate conclusions you’ve drafted, and suggest approaches to avoid.

About conclusions

Introductions and conclusions can be difficult to write, but they’re worth investing time in. They can have a significant influence on a reader’s experience of your paper.

Just as your introduction acts as a bridge that transports your readers from their own lives into the “place” of your analysis, your conclusion can provide a bridge to help your readers make the transition back to their daily lives. Such a conclusion will help them see why all your analysis and information should matter to them after they put the paper down.

Your conclusion is your chance to have the last word on the subject. The conclusion allows you to have the final say on the issues you have raised in your paper, to synthesize your thoughts, to demonstrate the importance of your ideas, and to propel your reader to a new view of the subject. It is also your opportunity to make a good final impression and to end on a positive note.

Your conclusion can go beyond the confines of the assignment. The conclusion pushes beyond the boundaries of the prompt and allows you to consider broader issues, make new connections, and elaborate on the significance of your findings.

Your conclusion should make your readers glad they read your paper. Your conclusion gives your reader something to take away that will help them see things differently or appreciate your topic in personally relevant ways. It can suggest broader implications that will not only interest your reader, but also enrich your reader’s life in some way. It is your gift to the reader.

Strategies for writing an effective conclusion

One or more of the following strategies may help you write an effective conclusion:

• Play the “So What” Game. If you’re stuck and feel like your conclusion isn’t saying anything new or interesting, ask a friend to read it with you. Whenever you make a statement from your conclusion, ask the friend to say, “So what?” or “Why should anybody care?” Then ponder that question and answer it. Here’s how it might go: You: Basically, I’m just saying that education was important to Douglass. Friend: So what? You: Well, it was important because it was a key to him feeling like a free and equal citizen. Friend: Why should anybody care? You: That’s important because plantation owners tried to keep slaves from being educated so that they could maintain control. When Douglass obtained an education, he undermined that control personally. You can also use this strategy on your own, asking yourself “So What?” as you develop your ideas or your draft.
• Return to the theme or themes in the introduction. This strategy brings the reader full circle. For example, if you begin by describing a scenario, you can end with the same scenario as proof that your essay is helpful in creating a new understanding. You may also refer to the introductory paragraph by using key words or parallel concepts and images that you also used in the introduction.
• Synthesize, don’t summarize. Include a brief summary of the paper’s main points, but don’t simply repeat things that were in your paper. Instead, show your reader how the points you made and the support and examples you used fit together. Pull it all together.
• Include a provocative insight or quotation from the research or reading you did for your paper.
• Propose a course of action, a solution to an issue, or questions for further study. This can redirect your reader’s thought process and help them to apply your info and ideas to their own life or to see the broader implications.
• Point to broader implications. For example, if your paper examines the Greensboro sit-ins or another event in the Civil Rights Movement, you could point out its impact on the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. A paper about the style of writer Virginia Woolf could point to her influence on other writers or on later feminists.

Strategies to avoid

• Beginning with an unnecessary, overused phrase such as “in conclusion,” “in summary,” or “in closing.” Although these phrases can work in speeches, they come across as wooden and trite in writing.
• Stating the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion.
• Introducing a new idea or subtopic in your conclusion.
• Ending with a rephrased thesis statement without any substantive changes.
• Making sentimental, emotional appeals that are out of character with the rest of an analytical paper.
• Including evidence (quotations, statistics, etc.) that should be in the body of the paper.

Four kinds of ineffective conclusions

• The “That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It” Conclusion. This conclusion just restates the thesis and is usually painfully short. It does not push the ideas forward. People write this kind of conclusion when they can’t think of anything else to say. Example: In conclusion, Frederick Douglass was, as we have seen, a pioneer in American education, proving that education was a major force for social change with regard to slavery.
• The “Sherlock Holmes” Conclusion. Sometimes writers will state the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion. You might be tempted to use this strategy if you don’t want to give everything away too early in your paper. You may think it would be more dramatic to keep the reader in the dark until the end and then “wow” them with your main idea, as in a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The reader, however, does not expect a mystery, but an analytical discussion of your topic in an academic style, with the main argument (thesis) stated up front. Example: (After a paper that lists numerous incidents from the book but never says what these incidents reveal about Douglass and his views on education): So, as the evidence above demonstrates, Douglass saw education as a way to undermine the slaveholders’ power and also an important step toward freedom.
• The “America the Beautiful”/”I Am Woman”/”We Shall Overcome” Conclusion. This kind of conclusion usually draws on emotion to make its appeal, but while this emotion and even sentimentality may be very heartfelt, it is usually out of character with the rest of an analytical paper. A more sophisticated commentary, rather than emotional praise, would be a more fitting tribute to the topic. Example: Because of the efforts of fine Americans like Frederick Douglass, countless others have seen the shining beacon of light that is education. His example was a torch that lit the way for others. Frederick Douglass was truly an American hero.
• The “Grab Bag” Conclusion. This kind of conclusion includes extra information that the writer found or thought of but couldn’t integrate into the main paper. You may find it hard to leave out details that you discovered after hours of research and thought, but adding random facts and bits of evidence at the end of an otherwise-well-organized essay can just create confusion. Example: In addition to being an educational pioneer, Frederick Douglass provides an interesting case study for masculinity in the American South. He also offers historians an interesting glimpse into slave resistance when he confronts Covey, the overseer. His relationships with female relatives reveal the importance of family in the slave community.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Douglass, Frederick. 1995. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. New York: Dover.

Hamilton College. n.d. “Conclusions.” Writing Center. Accessed June 14, 2019. https://www.hamilton.edu//academics/centers/writing/writing-resources/conclusions .

Holewa, Randa. 2004. “Strategies for Writing a Conclusion.” LEO: Literacy Education Online. Last updated February 19, 2004. https://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/conclude.html.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

Essay on Importance of Education

• Updated on  
• Aug 17, 2023

Education is very important for success in life. A well-educated person not only succeeds in life but also takes his society and country to new heights. Education develops essential skills like decision-making, problem-solving, and mental agility. Education helps a person to be self-aware and to solve problems in personal and professional life. In this article, we have provided an essay on the importance of education and points to note before writing the same. Moreover, you would find short essays and long essays that can be used to present in school.

Check out our 200+ Essay Topics for School Students in English .

Table of Contents

• 1 Points to Note While Writing an Essay on the Importance of Education
• 2 10 Lines on the Importance of Education
• 3 Importance of Education Sample Essay (100 words)
• 4 Importance of Education Sample Essaneighbouringy (250 words)
• 5 Importance of Education Sample Essay (400 words)
• 6 10 Popular Quotes on Education
• 7 What Will Your Child Learn From This Essay on the Importance of Education?

Points to Note While Writing an Essay on the Importance of Education

Certain points must be included while writing an essay. It makes the essay more detailed and helps the reader to understand the topic in a better way. An essay on the importance of education must include the following.

• While writing a short essay make sure that it is to the point 
• A longer essay must contain an introduction, body, and conclusion.
• Facts about education and the personal perspective of the writer must be included
• Think about the importance of educated individuals in society and write about them
• You can also write about the job market and the role education plays in it.

Also Read: Essay on Democracy

10 Lines on the Importance of Education

Education is important for several reasons. Here are 10 lines on the importance of education that can be added to the essay. Students can also describe these points to make the essay more descriptive and coherent.

• Education is a basic need for every individual to live in the modern world
• Education helps us to understand technological systems and services
• An educated person can easily take up a job based on interest 
• Without an education, a person will lose the opportunity to be successful in life
• Moreover, education protects an individual from being cheated and exploited by others
• Educated citizens are a valuable asset to the company
• It also helps society to adapt to change and discard old and unproductive ways of conduct and thinking 
• Thus, it enables all sections of society to prosper 
• Particularly, it enables poor sections of society to prosper and develop
• Education helps an individual to uplift the society and community
• Education is extremely important for the development of individuals. Hence, children from all sections of society must be educated.

Also, Read; Essay on My Aim in Life

Importance of Education Sample Essay (100 words)

Education is crucial for the importance of the nation and its citizens. Education is about gathering knowledge and training the mind to think. Moreover, it helps a person to apply the knowledge gained to solve problems.  Education is important in the modern world, as it helps a person to learn about the world and new technologies. It can also empower people and help them to gain employment opportunities . Educated individuals can impart their knowledge to the next generation and thus contribute to society.  They also contribute to the development of the nation and society in general. Thus, the importance of education can’t be denied.

Importance of Education Sample Essaneighbouringy (250 words)

Men and women have to be educated as it helps in the development of a healthy society.  Educated individuals help in the progress of society. It is the highly educated individuals who lay the basic foundation of a developed country. Moreover, education helps in the personal development and empowerment of individuals. It develops in a person the knowledge, and critical thinking skills required to be successful in life. These skills increase self-awareness and help individuals to make informed decisions. Thus, people gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and help them to follow their interests, passions, and talents.

Education helps in growth and innovation. A well-educated workforce is more skilled and productive. Thus, they are more competitive in the global marketplace. Research , technological advancements, and entrepreneurship skills can all be credited to educated individuals. It is the sword that can be used against misinformation and ignorance. A well-educated person is more likely to make a good decision and resist manipulation. Moreover, education promotes healthy lifestyles among individuals.  Educated people are more likely to follow a healthy lifestyle and preventive healthcare measures. 

In conclusion, we can say that education helps in societal advancement and economic, and personal development. It helps individuals to make informed decisions and pushes society for innovation and growth. Education helps to uproot illiteracy and inequality in society. It encourages individuals to take better care of themselves and the environment they live in. Moreover, it encourages people to understand their duties, rights , and responsibilities toward their country.

Importance of Education Sample Essay (400 words)

Education is important for the development of the individual, nation, and society. It empowers individuals to take better decisions for themselves and for the environment they live in. Education provides an individual with the knowledge and skills that are necessary to navigate the complexities of life. It is crucial for personal growth, societal development, and global progress.

Education empowers an individual to think critically and develop analytical skills. It ignites curiosity in humans and encourages them to explore, learn and adapt to changes. Moreover, it helps individuals to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and set meaningful goals. Thus, it helps in the holistic development of an individual. Thus, a well-educated individual can contribute to the progress of the society. It develops empathy, and tolerance, and contributes to a stable and prosperous community. It also helps in the reduction of social inequalities and discrimination and encourages people to actively participate in the democratic functioning of the government. When individuals have access to education it means that they can get employment opportunities as well. Thus, education can help in eradicating poverty and increase economic growth. Moreover, it helps in increasing the living standards of families.

Globally, education helps to drive innovation, develop international cooperation, and deal with global issues. Scientific breakthroughs, advancement of technology, and innovations are all a result of education. Moreover, it helps in cross-cultural understanding and exchange of values and ideas. Global challenges such as climate change, and medical issues can be easily dealt with due to education. Society becomes better equipped to provide sustainable solutions for the betterment of all.

 Education can break down gender inequalities. Therefore, it can empower women and marginalized sections of the community. When societies recognize the importance of education, it helps in promoting equitable access to opportunities. Educating the girl child can result in a reduction in child mortality rates. Thus, it helps in social progress.

The importance of education can’t be denied. It results in personal development, international collaboration, and the development of society. Education provides knowledge and skills that are necessary for navigating through the challenges of life. Moreover, it helps in progress of the society and dealing with global challenges like environmental crises. Thus, education helps in creating a prosperous, and just world.  Education can help an individual achieve his dreams and aspirations. Most of the successful people in the world are educated. In the future educated individual will be a person who knows and can apply it to solve problems.

10 Popular Quotes on Education

Here are 10 popular quotes on education. Feel free to add them to your essay on importance of education or similar academic topics.

‘Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.’ – Albert Einstein

‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ – Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

‘Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.’ – Malcolm X

‘The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.’ – Martin Luther King Jr.

‘The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.”‘- Plutarch

‘Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.’ – John Dewey

‘Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.’ – Oprah Winfrey

‘The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn…and change.’ – Carl Rogers

Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.’ – Confucius

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.’ – Benjamin Franklin

What Will Your Child Learn From This Essay on the Importance of Education?

An essay on the importance of education will help a student to learn to express ideas and knowledge simply. It will also help them to express their ideas in a lengthy format. 

An essay on the importance of education will help a student understand the significance of education in the modern world. Moreover, it will make them realize the privilege of a good education later in life.

Also Read: Essay on My Brother in 200 Words

Ans. Education helps a person develop critical thinking and decision-making skills. It helps empower a person to deal with the personal and professional challenges of life. An educated person can make rational and informed decisions while dealing with challenges.

Ans. Education helps in the development of the mind, and the growth of society and the nation. An educated society is an empowered society. Individuals of such a society can make informed decisions and can work towards the social, economic, and political development of the nation.

Ans. The main aim of education is to acquire knowledge and skills. It helps a person adjust to the environment and achieve goals.

Check out our Popular Essay Topics for Students

This was all about essay on the importance of education. We hope the samples listed above will help students with their essay writing practice. For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.

Blessy George

Blessy George works as a Content Marketing Associate at Leverage Edu. She has completed her M.A. in Political Science and has experience working as an Intern with CashKaro. She has written extensively on studying abroad, English Test preparation, visas, and online courses. During her free time, she likes to read and write poetry, and songs.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

education, community-building and change

What is education? A definition and discussion

Education is the wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning and change undertaken in the belief that we all should have the chance to share in life.

Mark k smith explores the meaning of education and suggests it is a process of being with others and inviting truth and possibility., contents : introduction • education – cultivating hopeful environments and relationships for learning • education, respect and wisdom • education – acting so all may share in life • conclusion – what is education • further reading and references • acknowledgements • how to cite this piece, introduction.

When talking about education people often confuse it with schooling. Many think of places like schools or colleges when seeing or hearing the word. They might also look to particular jobs like teacher or tutor. The problem with this is that while looking to help people learn, the way a lot of schools and teachers operate is not necessarily something we can properly call education. They have chosen or fallen or been pushed into ‘schooling’ – trying to drill learning into people according to some plan often drawn up by others. Paulo Freire (1973) famously called this banking – making deposits of knowledge. Such ‘schooling’ too easily descends into treating learners like objects, things to be acted upon rather than people to be related to.

Education, as we understand it here, is a process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery. It is, as John Dewey (1916) put it, a social process – ‘a process of living and not a preparation for future living’. In this view educators look to learning and being with others rather than acting upon them. Their task is to educe (related to the Greek notion of educere ), to bring out or develop potential both in themselves and others. Such education is:

• Deliberate and hopeful. It is learning we set out to make happen in the belief that we all can ‘be more’;
• Informed, respectful and wise. A process of inviting truth and possibility.
• Grounded in a desire that at all may flourish and share in life . It is a cooperative and inclusive activity that looks to help us to live our lives as well as we can.

In what follows we will try to answer the question ‘what is education?’ by exploring these dimensions and the processes involved.

Education – cultivating hopeful environments and relationships for learning

It is often said that we are learning all the time and that we may not be conscious of it happening. Learning is both a process and an outcome. As a process, it is part of being and living in the world, part of the way our bodies work. As an outcome, it is a new understanding or appreciation of something.

In recent years, developments in neuroscience have shown us how learning takes place both in the body and as a social activity. We are social animals. As a result, educators need to focus on creating environments and relationships for learning rather than trying to drill knowledge into themselves and others.

Teachers are losing the education war because our adolescents are distracted by the social world. Naturally, the students don’t see it that way. It wasn’t their choice to get endless instruction on topics that don’t seem relevant to them. They desperately want to learn, but what they want to learn about is their social world—how it works and how they can secure a place in it that will maximize their social rewards and minimize the social pain they feel. Their brains are built to feel these strong social motivations and to use the mentalizing system to help them along. Evolutionarily, the social interest of adolescents is no distraction. Rather, it is the most important thing they can learn well. (Lieberman 2013: 282)

The cultivation of learning is a cognitive and emotional and social activity (Illeris 2002)

Alison Gopnik (2016) has provided a helpful way of understanding this orientation. It is that educators, pedagogues and practitioners need to be gardeners rather than carpenters. A key theme emerging from her research over the last 30 years or so that runs in parallel with Lieberman, is that children learn by actively engaging their social and physical environments – not by passively absorbing information. They learn from other people, not because they are being taught – but because people are doing and talking about interesting things. The emphasis in a lot of the literature about parenting (and teaching) presents the roles much like that of a carpenter.

You should pay some attention to the kind of material you are working with, and it may have some influence on what you try to do. But essentially your job is to shape that material into a final product that will fit the scheme you had in mind to begin with.

Instead, Gopnik argues, the evidence points to being a gardener.

When we garden, on the other hand, we create a protected and nurturing space for plants to flourish. It takes hard labor and the sweat of our brows, with a lot of exhausted digging and wallowing in manure. And as any gardener knows, our specific plans are always thwarted. The poppy comes up neon orange instead of pale pink, the rose that was supposed to climb the fence stubbornly remains a foot from the ground, black spot and rust and aphids can never be defeated.

Education is deliberate. We act with a purpose – to build understanding and judgement and enable action. We may do this for ourselves, for example, learning what different road signs mean so that we can get a license to drive; or watching wildlife programmes on television because we are interested in animal behaviour. This process is sometimes called self-education or teaching yourself. We join with the journey that the writer, presenter or expert is making, think about it and develop our understanding. Hopefully, we bring that process and understanding into play when we need to act. We also seek to encourage learning in others (while being open to learning ourselves). Examples here include parents and carers showing their children how to use a knife and fork or ride a bike; schoolteachers introducing students to a foreign language; and animators and pedagogues helping a group to work together.

Sometimes as educators, we have a clear idea of what we’d like to see achieved; at others, we do not and should not. In the case of the former, we might be working to a curriculum, have a session or lesson plan with clear objectives, and have a high degree of control over the learning environment. This is what we often mean by ‘formal education’. In the latter, for example, when working with a community group, the setting is theirs and, as educators, we are present as guests. This is an example of informal education and here two things are happening.

First, the group may well be clear on what it wants to achieve e.g. putting on an event, but unclear about what they need to learn to do it. They know learning is involved – it is something necessary to achieve what they want – but it is not the main focus. Such ‘incidental learning’ is not accidental. People know they need to learn something but cannot necessarily specify it in advance (Brookfield 1984).

Second, this learning activity works largely through conversation – and conversation takes unpredictable turns. It is a dialogical rather than curricula form of education.

In both forms, educators set out to create environments and relationships where people can explore their, and other’s, experiences of situations, ideas and feelings. This exploration lies, as John Dewey argued, at the heart of the ‘business of education’. Educators set out to emancipate and enlarge experience (1933: 340). How closely the subject matter is defined in advance, and by whom, differs from situation to situation. John Ellis (1990) has developed a useful continuum – arguing that most education involves a mix of the informal and formal, of conversation and curriculum (i.e. between points X and Y).

Those that describe themselves as informal educators, social pedagogues or as animators of community learning and development tend to work towards the X; those working as subject teachers or lecturers tend to the Y. Educators when facilitating tutor groups might, overall, work somewhere in the middle.

Acting in hope

Underpinning intention is an attitude or virtue – hopefulness. As educators ‘we believe that learning is possible, that nothing can keep an open mind from seeking after knowledge and finding a way to know’ (hooks 2003: xiv) . In other words, we invite people to learn and act in the belief that change for the good is possible. This openness to possibility isn’t blind or over-optimistic. It looks to evidence and experience, and is born of an appreciation of the world’s limitations (Halpin 2003: 19-20).

We can quickly see how such hope is both a part of the fabric of education – and, for many, an aim of education. Mary Warnock (1986:182) puts it this way:

I think that of all the attributes that I would like to see in my children or in my pupils, the attribute of hope would come high, even top, of the list. To lose hope is to lose the capacity to want or desire anything; to lose, in fact, the wish to live. Hope is akin to energy, to curi­osity, to the belief that things are worth doing. An education which leaves a child without hope is an education that has failed.

But hope is not easy to define or describe. It is:

An emotion . Hope, John Macquarrie (1978 11) suggests, ‘consists in an outgoing and trusting mood toward the environment’. We do not know what will happen but take a gamble. ‘It’s to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk’ (Solnit 2016: 21).

A choice or intention to act . Hope ‘promotes affirmative courses of action’ (Macquarrie 1978: 11). Hope alone will not transform the world. Action ‘undertaken in that kind of naïveté’, wrote Paulo Freire (1994: 8), ‘is an excellent route to hopelessness, pessimism, and fatalism’. Hope and action are linked. Rebecca Solnit (2016: 22) put it this way, ‘Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope… To hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future makes the present inhabitable’.

An intellectual activity . Hope is not just feeling or striving, according to McQuarrie it has a cognitive or intellectual aspect. ‘[I]t carries in itself a definite way of understanding both ourselves – and the environing processes within which human life has its setting’ ( op. cit. ).

This provides us with a language to help make sense of things and to imagine change for the better – a ‘vocabulary of hope’. It helps us to critique the world as it is and our part in it, and not to just imagine change but also to plan it (Moltman 1967, 1971). It also allows us, and others, to ask questions of our hopes, to request evidence for our claims. (See, what is hope? ).

Education – being respectful, informed and wise

Education is wrapped up with who we are as learners and facilitators of learning – and how we are experienced by learners. In order to think about this, it is helpful to look back at a basic distinction made by Erich Fromm (1979), amongst others, between having and being. Fromm approaches these as fundamental modes of existence. He saw them as two different ways of understanding ourselves and the world in which we live.

Having is concerned with owning, possessing and controlling. In it we want to ‘make everybody and everything’, including ourselves, our property (Fromm 1979: 33). It looks to objects and material possessions.

Being is rooted in love according to Fromm. It is concerned with shared experience and productive activity. Rather than seeking to possess and control, in this mode, we engage with the world. We do not impose ourselves on others nor ‘interfere’ in their lives (see Smith and Smith 2008: 16-17).

These different orientations involve contrasting approaches to learning.

Students in the having mode must have but one aim; to hold onto what they have ‘learned’, either by entrusting it firmly to their memories or by carefully guarding their notes. They do not have to produce or create something new…. The process of learning has an entirely different quality for students in the being mode… Instead of being passive receptacles of words and ideas, they listen, they hear , and most important, they receive and they respond in an active, productive way. (Fromm 1979: 37-38)

In many ways, this difference mirrors that between education and schooling. Schooling entails transmitting knowledge in manageable lumps so it can be stored and then used so that students can pass tests and have qualifications. Education involves engaging with others and the world. It entails being with   others in a particular way. Here I want to explore three aspects – being respectful, informed and wise.

Being respectful

The process of education flows from a basic orientation of respect – respect for truth, others and themselves, and the world. It is an attitude or feeling which is carried through into concrete action, into the way we treat people, for example. Respect, as R. S. Dillon (2014) has reminded us, is derived from the Latin respicere , meaning ‘to look back at’ or ‘to look again’ at something. In other words, when we respect something we value it enough to make it our focus and to try to see it for what it is, rather than what we might want it to be. It is so important that it calls for our recognition and our regard – and we choose to respond.

We can see this at work in our everyday relationships. When we think highly of someone we may well talk about respecting them – and listen carefully to what they say or value the example they give. Here, though, we are also concerned with a more abstract idea – that of moral worth or value. Rather than looking at why we respect this person or that, the interest is in why we should respect people in general (or truth, or creation, or ourselves).

First, we expect educators to hold truth dearly . We expect that they will look beneath the surface, try to challenge misrepresentation and lies, and be open to alternatives. They should display the ‘two basic virtues of truth’: sincerity and accuracy (Williams 2002: 11). There are strong religious reasons for this. Bearing false witness, within Christian traditions, can be seen as challenging the foundations of God’s covenant. There are also strongly practical reasons for truthfulness. Without it, the development of knowledge would not be possible – we could not evaluate one claim against another. Nor could we conduct much of life. For example, as Paul Seabright (2010) has argued, truthfulness allows us to trust strangers. In the process, we can build complex societies, trade and cooperate.

Educators, as with other respecters of truth, should do their best to acquire ‘true beliefs’ and to ensure what they say actually reveals what they believe (Williams 2002: 11). Their authority, ‘must be rooted in their truthfulness in both these respects: they take care, and they do not lie’ op. cit.).

Second, educators should display fundamental respect for others (and themselves) . There is a straightforward theological argument for this. There is also a fundamental philosophical argument for ‘respect for persons’. Irrespective of what they have done, the people they are or their social position, it is argued, people are deserving of some essential level of regard. The philosopher most closely associated with this idea is Immanuel Kant – and his thinking has become a central pillar of humanism. Kant’s position was that people were deserving of respect because they are people – free, rational beings. They are ends in themselves with an absolute dignity

Alongside respect for others comes respect for self. Without it, it is difficult to see how we can flourish – and whether we can be educators. Self-respect is not to be confused with qualities like self-esteem or self-confidence; rather it is to do with our intrinsic worth as a person and a sense of ourselves as mattering. It involves a ‘secure conviction that [our] conception of the good, [our] plan of life, is worth carrying out’ (Rawls 1972: 440). For some, respect for ourselves is simply the other side of the coin from respect for others. It flows from respect for persons. For others, like John Rawls, it is vital for happiness and must be supported as a matter of justice.

Third, educators should respect the Earth . This is sometimes talked about as respect for nature, or respect for all things or care for creation. Again there is a strong theological argument here – in much religious thinking humans are understood as stewards of the earth. Our task is to cultivate and care for it (see, for example, Genesis 2:15). However, there is also a strong case grounded in human experience. For example, Miller (2000) argues that ‘each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to spiritual values such as compassion and peace’. Respect for the world is central to the thinking of those arguing for a more holistic vision of education and to the thinking of educationalists such as Montessori . Her vision of ‘cosmic education’ puts appreciating the wholeness of life at the core.

Since it has been seen to be necessary to give so much to the child, let us give him a vision of the whole universe. The universe is an imposing reality, and an answer to all questions. We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied, having found the universal centre of himself with all things’. (Montessori 2000)

Last, and certainly not least, there is a basic practical concern. We face an environmental crisis of catastrophic proportions. As Emmett (among many others) has pointed out, it is likely that we are looking at a global average rise of over four degrees Centigrade. This ‘will lead to runaway climate change, capable of tipping the planet into an entirely different state, rapidly. Earth would become a hell hole’ (2013: 143).

Being informed

To facilitate learning we must have some understanding of the subject matter being explored, and the impact study could have on those involved. In other words, facilitation is intelligent.

We expect, quite reasonably, that when people describe themselves as teachers or educators, they know something about the subjects they are talking about. In this respect, our ‘subject area’ as educators is wide. It can involve particular aspects of knowledge and activity such as those associated with maths or history. However, it is also concerned with happiness and relationships, the issues and problems of everyday life in communities, and questions around how people are best to live their lives. In some respects, it is wisdom that is required – not so much in the sense that we know a lot or are learned – but rather we are able to help people make good judgements about problems and situations.

We also assume that teachers and educators know how to help people learn. The forms of education we are exploring here are sophisticated. They can embrace the techniques of classroom management and of teaching to a curriculum that has been the mainstay of schooling. However, they move well beyond this into experiential learning, working with groups, and forms of working with individuals that draw upon insights from counselling and therapy.

In short, we look to teachers and educators as experts, We expect them to apply their expertise to help people learn. However, things don’t stop there. Many look for something more – wisdom.

Wisdom is not something that we can generally claim for ourselves – but a quality recognized by others. Sometimes when people are described as wise what is meant is that they are scholarly or learned. More often, I suspect, when others are described as ‘being wise’ it that people have experienced their questions or judgement helpful and sound when exploring a problem or difficult situation (see Smith and Smith 2008: 57-69). This entails:

• appreciating what can make people flourish
• being open to truth in its various guises and allowing subjects to speak to us
• developing the capacity to reflect
• 
  being knowledgeable, especially about ourselves, around ‘what makes people tick’ and the systems of which we are a part
• being discerning – able to evaluate and judge situations. ( op. cit. : 68)

This combination of qualities, when put alongside being respectful and informed, comes close to what Martin Buber talked about as the ‘real teacher’. The real teacher, he believed:

… teaches most successfully when he is not consciously trying to teach at all, but when he acts spontaneously out of his own life. Then he can gain the pupil’s confidence; he can convince the adolescent that there is human truth, that existence has a meaning. And when the pupil’s confidence has been won, ‘his resistance against being educated gives way to a singular happening: he accepts the educator as a person. He feels he may trust this man, that this man is taking part in his life, accepting him before desiring to influence him. And so he learns to ask…. (Hodes 1972: 136)

Education – acting so that all may share in life

Thus far in answering the question ‘what is education?’ we have seen how it can be thought of as the wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning. Here we will explore the claim that education should be undertaken in the belief that all should have the chance to share in life. This commitment to the good of all and of each individual is central to the vision of education explored here, but it could be argued that it is possible to be involved in education without this. We could take out concern for others. We could just focus on process – the wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning – and not state to whom this applies and the direction it takes.

Looking beyond process

First, we need to answer the question ‘if we act wisely, hopefully, and respectfully as educators do we need to have a further purpose?’ Our guide here will again be John Dewey. He approached the question a century ago by arguing that ‘the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth’ (Dewey 1916: 100). Education, for him, entailed the continuous ‘reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases the ability to direct the course of subsequent experience. (Dewey 1916: 76). His next step was to consider the social relationships in which this can take place and the degree of control that learners and educators have over the process. Just as Freire (1972) argued later, relationships for learning need to be mutual, and individual and social change possible.

In our search for aims in education, we are not concerned… with finding an end outside of the educative process to which education is subordinate. Our whole conception forbids. We are rather concerned with the contrast which exists when aims belong within the process in which they operate and when they are set up from without. And the latter state of affairs must obtain when social relationships are not equitably balanced. For in that case, some portions of the whole social group will find their aims determined by an external dictation; their aims will not arise from the free growth of their own experience, and their nominal aims will be means to more ulterior ends of others rather than truly their own. (Dewey 1916: 100-101)

In other words, where there are equitable relationships, control over the learning process, and the possibilities of fundamental change we needn’t look beyond the process. However, we have to work for much of the time in situations and societies where this level of democracy and social justice does not exist. Hence the need to make clear a wider purpose. Dewey (1916: 7) argued, thus, that our ‘chief business’ as educators is to enable people ‘to share in a common life’. I want to widen this and to argue that all should have a chance to share in life.

Having the chance to share in life

We will explore, briefly, three overlapping approaches to making the case – via religious belief, human rights and scientific exploration.

Religious belief. Historically it has been a religious rationale that has underpinned much thinking about this question. If we were to look at Catholic social teaching, for example, we find that at its heart lays a concern for human dignity . This starts from the position that, ‘human beings, created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27), have by their very existence an inherent value, worth, and distinction’ (Groody 2007). Each life is considered sacred and cannot be ignored or excluded. As we saw earlier, Kant argued something similar with regard to ‘respect for persons’. All are worthy of respect and the chance to flourish.

To human dignity a concern for solidarity is often added (especially within contemporary Catholic social teaching). Solidarity:

… is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all. On Social Concern ( Sollicitudo rei Socialis . . . ), #38

Another element, fundamental to the formation of the groups, networks and associations necessary for the ‘common life’ that Dewey describes, is subsidiarity . This principle, which first found its institutional voice in a papal encyclical in 1881, holds that human affairs are best handled at the ‘lowest’ possible level, closest to those affected (Kaylor 2015). It is a principle that can both strengthen civil society and the possibility of more mutual relationships for learning.

Together, these can provide a powerful and inclusive rationale for looking beyond particular individuals or groups when thinking about educational activity.

Human rights. Beside religious arguments lie others that are born of agreed principle or norm rather than faith. Perhaps the best known of these relate to what have become known as human rights. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it this way:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 26 further states:

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms….

These fundamental and inalienable rights are the entitlement of all human beings regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status (Article 2).

Scientific exploration. Lastly, I want to look at the results of scientific investigation into our nature as humans. More specifically we need to reflect on what it means when humans are described as social animals.

As we have already seen there is a significant amount of research showing just how dependent we are in everyday life on having trusting relationships in a society. Without them even the most basic exchanges cannot take place. We also know that in those societies where there is stronger concern for others and relatively narrow gaps between rich and poor people are generally happier (see, for example, Halpern 2010). On the basis of this material we could make a case for educators to look to the needs and experiences of all. Political, social and economic institutions depend on mass participation or at least benign consent – and the detail of this has to be learnt. However, with our growing appreciation of how our brains work and with the development of, for example, social cognitive neuroscience, we have a different avenue for exploration. We look to the needs and experience of others because we are hard-wired to do so. As Matthew D. Lieberman (2013) has put it:

Our basic urges include the need to belong, right along with the need for food and water. Our pain and pleasure systems do not merely respond to sensory inputs that can produce physical harm and reward. They are also exquisitely tuned to the sweet and bitter tastes delivered from the social world—a world of connection and threat to connection. (Lieberman 2013: 299)

Our survival as a species is dependent upon on looking to the needs and experiences of others. We dependent upon:

  Connecting: We have ‘evolved the capacity to feel social pains and pleasures, forever linking our well-being to our social connectedness. Infants embody this deep need to stay connected, but it is present through our entire lives’ ( op. cit. : 10) Mindreading: Primates have developed an unparalleled ability to understand the actions and thoughts of those around them, enhancing their ability to stay connected and interact strategically… This capacity allows humans to create groups that can implement nearly any idea and to anticipate the needs and wants of those around us, keeping our groups moving smoothly ( op. cit. : 10) Harmonizing: Although the self may appear to be a mechanism for distinguishing us from others and perhaps accentuating our selfishness, the self actually operates as a powerful force for social cohesiveness. Whereas   connection   is about our desire to be social, harmonizing   refers to the neural adaptations that allow group beliefs and values to influence our own. ( op. cit. : 11)

One of the key issues around these processes is the extent to which they can act to become exclusionary i.e. people can become closely attached to one particular group, community or nation and begin to treat others as somehow lesser or alien. In so doing relationships that are necessary to our survival – and that of the planet – become compromised. We need to develop relationships that are both bonding and bridging (see social capital ) – and this involves being and interacting with others who may not share our interests and concerns.

Education is more than fostering understanding and an appreciation of emotions and feelings. It is also concerned with change – ‘with how people can act with understanding and sensitivity to improve their lives and those of others’ (Smith and Smith 2008: 104). As Karl Marx (1977: 157-8) famously put it ‘all social life is practical…. philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; ‘the point is to change it’. Developing an understanding of an experience or a situation is one thing, working out what is good and wanting to do something about it is quite another. ‘For appropriate action to occur there needs to be commitment’ (Smith and Smith 2008: 105).

This combination of reflection; looking to what might be good and making it our own; and seeking to change ourselves and the world we live in is what Freire (1973) talked about as  praxis. It involves us, as educators, working with people to create and sustain environments and relationships where it is possible to:

• Go back to experiences . Learning doesn’t take place in a vacuum. We have to look to the past as well as the present and the future. It is necessary to put things in their place by returning to, or recalling, events and happenings that seem relevant.
• Attend and connect to feelings . Our ability to think and act is wrapped up with our feelings. Appreciating what might be going on for us (and for others) at a particular moment; thinking about the ways our emotions may be affecting things; and being open to what our instincts or intuitions are telling us are important elements of such reflection. (See Boud et. al. 1985).
• Develop understandings . Alongside attending to feelings and experiences, we need to examine the theories and understandings we are using. We also need to build new interpretations where needed. We should be looking to integrating new knowledge into our conceptual framework.
• Commit . Education is something ‘higher’ according to John Henry Newman. It is concerned not just with what we know and can do, but also with who we are, what we value, and our capacity to live life as well as we can . We need space to engage with these questions and help to appreciate the things we value. As we learn to frame our beliefs we can better appreciate how they breathe life into our relationships and encounters, become our own, and move us to act.
• Act . Education is forward-looking and hopeful. It looks to change for the better. In the end our efforts at facilitating learning have to be judged by the extent to which they further the capacity to flourish and to share in life. For this reason we need also to attend to the concrete, the actual steps that can be taken to improve things.

As such education is a deeply practical activity – something that we can do for ourselves (what we could call self-education), and with others.

Conclusion – so what is education?

It is in this way that we end up with a definition of education as ‘the wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning undertaken in the belief that all should have the chance to share in life’. What does education involve?

We can begin with what Aristotle discusses as hexis – a readiness to sense and know. This is a state – or what Joe Sachs (2001) talks about as an ‘active condition’. It allows us to take a step forward – both in terms of the processes discussed above, and in what we might seek to do when working with learners and participants. Such qualities can be seen as being at the core of the haltung and processes of pedagogues and educators (see below). There is a strong emphasis upon being in touch with feelings, attending to intuitions and seeking evidence to confirm or question what we might be sensing. A further element is also present – a concern not to take things for granted or at their face value (See, also, Pierre Bourdieu on education , Bourdieu 1972|1977: 214 n1).

Beyond that, we can see a guiding eidos or leading idea. This is the belief that all share in life and a picture of what might allow people to be happy and flourish. Alongside is a disposition or haltung   (a concern to act respectfully, knowledgeably and wisely) and interaction (joining with others to build relationships and environments for learning). Finally, there is praxis – informed, committed action (Carr and Kemmis 1986; Grundy 1987).

The process of education

At first glance, this way of answering the question ‘what is education?’ – with its roots in the thinking of  Aristotle , Rousseau , Pestalozzi and Dewey (to name a few) – is part of the progressive tradition of educational practice. It seems very different from ‘formal tradition’ or ‘traditional education’.

If there is a core theme to the formal position it is that education is about passing on information; for formalists, culture and civilization represent a store of ideas and wisdom which have to be handed on to new generations. Teaching is at the heart of this transmission; and the process of transmission is education…

While progressive educators stress the child’s development from within, formalists put the emphasis, by contrast, on formation from without— formation that comes from immersion in the knowledge, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and visions of society, culture, civilization. There are, one might say, conservative and liberal interpretations of this world view— the conservative putting the emphasis on transmission itself, on telling, and the liberal putting the emphasis more on induction, on initiation by involvement with culture’s established ideas.(Thomas 2013: 25-26).

As both Thomas and Dewey (1938: 17-23) have argued, these distinctions are problematic. A lot of the debate is either really about education being turned, or slipping, into something else, or reflecting a lack of balance between the informal and formal.

In the ‘formal tradition’ problems often occur where people are treated as objects to be worked on or ‘moulded’ rather than as participants and creators i.e. where education slips into ‘schooling’.

In the ‘progressive tradition’ issues frequently arise where the nature of experience is neglected or handled incompetently. Some experiences are damaging and ‘mis-educative’. They can arrest or distort ‘the growth of further experience’ (Dewey 1938: 25). The problem often comes when education drifts or moves into entertainment or containment. Involvement in the immediate activity is the central concern and little attention is given to expanding horizons, nor to reflection, commitment and creating change.

The answer to the question ‘what is education?’ given here can apply to both those ‘informal’ forms that are driven and rooted in conversation – and to more formal approaches involving a curriculum. The choice is not between what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ – but rather what is appropriate for people in this situation or that. There are times to use transmission and direct teaching as methods, and moments for exploration, experience and action. It is all about getting the mix right and framing it within the guiding eidos and disposition of education.

Further reading and references

Recommended introductions.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Collier Books. (Collier edition first published 1963). In this book, Dewey seeks to move beyond dualities such as progressive/traditional – and to outline a philosophy of experience and its relation to education.

Thomas, G. (2013). Education: A very short introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simply the best contemporary introduction to thinking about schooling and education.

Boud, D., Keogh, R. and Walker, D. (eds.) (1985). Reflection. Turning experience into learning . London: Kogan Page.

Bourdieu, Pierre. (1972|1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. First published in French as Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, précédé de trois études d’ethnologie kabyle, (1972).

Brookfield, S. (1984). Adult learners, adult education and the community . Milton Keynes, PA: Open University Press.

Buber, Martin (1947). Between Man and Man. Transl. R. G. Smith. London: Kegan Paul .

Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming Critical. Education, knowledge and action research. Lewes: Falmer.

Dewey, J. (1916), Democracy and Education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 edn.). New York: Free Press.

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think. A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. (Revised edn.), Boston: D. C. Heath.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Collier Books. (Collier edition first published 1963).

Dillon, R. S. (2014). Respect. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). [ http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/respect/ . Retrieved: February 10, 2015].

Ellis, J. W. (1990). Informal education – a Christian perspective.   Tony Jeffs and Mark Smith (eds.)   Using Informal Education. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Emmott, S. (2013). 10 Billion . London: Penguin. [Kindle edition].

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Freire, P. (1994) Pedagogy of Hope. Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed . With notes by Ana Maria Araujo Freire. Translated by Robert R. Barr. New York: Continuum.

Fromm, E. (1979). To Have or To Be . London: Abacus. (First published 1976).

Fromm, E. (1995). The Art of Loving . London: Thorsons. (First published 1957).

Gallagher, M. W. and Lopez, S. J. (eds.) (2018). The Oxford Handbook of Hope . New York: Oxford University Press.

Gopnik, A. (2016). The Gardener and the Carpenter. What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children . London: Random House.

Groody, D. (2007). Globalization, Spirituality and Justice . New York: Orbis Books.

Grundy, S. (1987). Curriculum. Product or praxis . Lewes: Falmer.

Halpern, D. (2010). The hidden wealth of nations . Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Halpin, D. (2003). Hope and Education. The role of the utopian imagination . London: RoutledgeFalmer.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress. Education as the practice of freedom , London: Routledge.

hooks, b. (2003). Teaching Community. A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.

Hodes, A. (1972). Encounter with Martin Buber. London:   Allen Lane/Penguin.

Illeris, K. (2002). The Three Dimensions of Learning. Contemporary learning theory in the tension field between the cognitive, the emotional and the social. Frederiksberg: Roskilde University Press.

Kant, I. (1949). Fundamental principles of the metaphysic of morals (trans.  T. K. Abbott). New York: Liberal Arts Press.

Kaylor, C. (2015). Seven Principles of Catholic Social Teaching. CatholicCulture.org. [ http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7538#PartV . Retrieved March 21, 2015].

Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs. the climate . London: Penguin. [Kindle edition].

Liston, D. P. (1980). Love and despair in teaching. Educational Theory . 50(1): 81-102.

MacQuarrie, J. (1978). Christian Hope . Oxford: Mowbray.

Marx, K. (1977). ‘These on Feurrbach’ in D. McLellan (ed.) Karl Marx. Selected writings . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Moltmann, J. (1967). Theology of hope: On the ground and the implications of a Christian eschatology . New York: Harper & Row. Available on-line: http://www.pubtheo.com/page.asp?PID=1036

Moltmann, J. (1971). Hope and planning . New York: Harper & Row.

Montessori, M. (2000). To educate the human potential . Oxford: Clio Press.

Rawls, J. (1972). A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rorty, R. (1999). Philosophy and Social Hope . London: Penguin.

Sciolli, A. and Biller, H. B. (2009). Hope in the Age of Anxiety. A guide to understanding and strengthening our most important virtue. New York: Oxford University Press.

Seabright, P. (2010). The Company of Strangers. A natural history of economic life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Smith, H. and Smith, M. K. (2008). The Art of Helping Others . Being Around, Being There, Being Wise . London: Jessica Kingsley.

Smith, M. K. (2019). Haltung, pedagogy and informal education, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education . [ https://infed.org/mobi/haltung-pedagogy-and-informal-education/ . Retrieved: August 28, 2019].

Smith, M. K. (2012, 2021). ‘What is pedagogy?’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education . [ https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-pedagogy/ . Retrieved February 16, 2021)

Thomas, G. (2013). Education: A very short introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Kindle Edition].

United Nations General Assembly (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights . New York: United Nations. [ http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ . A ccessed March 14, 2015].

Warnock, M. (1986). The Education of the Emotions. In D. Cooper (ed.) Education, values and the mind. Essays for R. S. Peters . London: Routledge and Keegan Paul.

Williams, B. (2002). Truth & truthfulness: An essay in genealogy . Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

Acknowledgements : Picture: Dessiner le futur adulte by Alain Bachellier. Sourced from Flickr and reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) licence. http://www.flickr.com/photos/alainbachellier/537180464/

The informal-formal education curriculum diagram is reproduced with permission from Ellis, J. W. (1990). Informal education – a Christian perspective. Tony Jeffs and Mark Smith (eds.) Using Informal Education . Buckingham: Open University Press. You can read the full chapter in the informal education archives: http://infed.org/archives/usinginformaleducation/ellis.htm

The process of education diagram was developed by Mark K Smith and was inspired by Grundy 1987. It can be reproduced without asking for specific permission but should be credited using the information in ‘how to cite this piece’ below.

This piece uses some material from Smith (2019) Haltung, pedagogy and informal education and (2021) What is pedagogy? (see the references above).

How to cite this piece : Smith, M. K. (2015, 2021). What is education? A definition and discussion. The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education . [ https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-education-a-definition-and-discussion/ . Retrieved: insert date ].

© Mark K Smith 2015, 2021

Last Updated on April 9, 2024 by infed.org

Science Teachers' Learning: Enhancing Opportunities, Creating Supportive Contexts (2015)

Chapter: 9 conclusions, recommendations, and directions for research.

Conclusions, Recommendations, and Directions for Research

In many ways, the message of this report is a simple one: all students deserve to understand and enjoy science, and helping teachers offer rich instruction will require building similarly rich learning environments for all science teachers. Creating such environments entails creating meaningful formal professional development programs and other opportunities for teachers to learn, as well as implementing policies and practices in schools that nurture cultures of learning for teachers and students alike.

As simple as this message may seem, the proverbial devil is in the details. As the new vision for the science education of K-12 students set forth in the Next Generation Science Standards (hereafter referred to as NGSS) and A Framework for K-12 Science Education (hereafter referred to as the Framework) has evolved, it is one that engages students in learning scientific and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. To achieve this new vision, teaching and learning in science classrooms will need to change, and so, too, will professional learning opportunities for teachers. This chapter summarizes the committee’s major conclusions and recommendations for effecting the needed changes, which are based on the evidence reviewed in this report and on the committee members’ collective expertise. We begin with the conclusions that flow directly from the analyses of existing literature in each chapter. We then lay out a set of conclusions the committee drew after looking across these analyses.

CONCLUSIONS

In reviewing the available research related to issues of contemporary science teacher learning, the committee drew a series of interrelated conclusions:

Conclusion 1: An evolving understanding of how best to teach science, including the NGSS, represents a significant transition in the way science is currently taught in most classrooms and will require most science teachers to alter the way they teach.

This vision of science learning and teaching draws on a long tradition of reform in science education that has emphasized the need for all students to learn significant disciplinary core ideas, coupled with scientific and engineering practices that are part of inquiry. In addition, the vision emphasizes the need to integrate knowledge through crosscutting concepts. To teach science in these ways, teachers will need to move away from traditional models of instruction that emphasize memorizing facts and covering a large number of discrete topics, focusing instead on core ideas, studied in depth, through active student engagement in investigations and opportunities to reflect on and build scientific explanations for phenomena.

Conclusion 2: The available evidence suggests that many science teachers have not had sufficiently rich experiences with the content relevant to the science courses they currently teach, let alone a substantially redesigned science curriculum. Very few teachers have experience with the science and engineering practices described in the NGSS. These trends are especially pronounced both for elementary school teachers and in schools that serve high percentages of low-income students, where teachers are often newer and less qualified.

Although professional development is available to all teachers, the committee found no evidence that elementary, middle, and high school science teachers have adequately rigorous opportunities to learn content related to the courses they teach, the new vision of science education, or how to teach to that new vision in challenging and effective ways. Instead, professional development appears to be more piecemeal, with few—if any—opportunities for the majority of teachers to engage in sustained study of science, scientific practices, and effective science instruction. High school teachers have some of these opportunities, while middle and elementary school teachers, who themselves may not have had much preparation in science and science teaching in their initial teacher prepa-

ration experiences, have fewer. Again, this situation is most pronounced in schools that serve high percentages of low-income students, and in which teacher turnover is especially high, leading to a less experienced and qualified workforce.

Conclusion 3: Typically, the selection of and participation in professional learning opportunities is up to individual teachers. There is often little attention to developing collective capacity for science teaching at the building and district levels or to offering teachers learning opportunities tailored to their specific needs and offered in ways that support cumulative learning over time.

While teachers in U.S. schools are required to participate regularly in professional development, mandated professional development tends to be generic, with little attention to systematically meeting the needs of science teachers. Many teachers pursue their own learning, taking summer professional development courses, volunteering to participate in curriculum development and/or review, working with preservice teachers, or taking on the role of professional developer or instructional coach. However, these individual pursuits are seldom linked to a well-articulated theory of teacher learning over time or a systemic vision of how to develop individual and collective teacher capacity.

Conclusion 4: Science teachers’ learning needs are shaped by their preparation, the grades and content areas they teach, and the contexts in which they work. Three important areas in which science teachers need to develop expertise are

• the knowledge, capacity, and skill required to support a diverse range of students;
• content knowledge, including understanding of disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and scientific and engineering practices; and
• pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science, including a repertoire of teaching practices that support students in rigorous and consequential science learning.

The set of professional knowledge and skills that informs good teaching is vast. Central to this knowledge base are the knowledge and skill needed to teach all students, mastery of science and science practices, and understanding and skill in teaching science. The committee acknowledges that there are other domains of knowledge equally essential to effective science teaching, and chose to focus on these three as there is considerable science-specific research on how these domains enable high-quality

teaching. The capacity to teach all students science depends on teachers’ respect for and understanding of the range of experiences and knowledge that students from diverse backgrounds bring to school, and how to capitalize on those experiences in crafting rigorous instruction. Knowledge of the sciences one is assigned to teach, of how those sciences are related to one another and to other fields like engineering, and knowledge and skill in how best to teach students science also are essential to high-quality instruction as envisioned in the NGSS and Framework.

This new vision of science teaching and learning will require new learning on the part of all teachers in all of these domains. The knowledge that students bring with them from their families and communities that is relevant to disciplinary core ideas, scientific and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts is an area yet to be fully explored. In general, many teachers have had limited opportunities to engage in scientific and engineering practices themselves, much less to explore them in connection with the disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts that animate the new vision. New curricula and instructional experiences will need to be crafted—with input from and the active engagement of teachers themselves—to bring that vision to life in U.S. classrooms. The knowledge demands of this new vision will require that the entire community—science teachers, teacher educators, professional developers, and science education researchers, as well as institutions of higher education, cultural institutions, and industry all of which invest in professional development—to create new, ongoing opportunities for teachers to rise to these new standards and to document what they learn from their efforts along the way.

Conclusion 5: The best available evidence based on science professional development programs suggests that the following features of such programs are most effective:

• active participation of teachers who engage in the analysis of examples of effective instruction and the analysis of student work,
• a content focus,
• alignment with district policies and practices, and
• sufficient duration to allow repeated practice and/or reflection on classroom experiences.

The national interest in the power of professional development to enhance teacher quality has led to considerable investments in such programs and in research on what makes them effective. While the goal of linking professional development to student learning outcomes through

research remains somewhat elusive, a great deal has been learned from the careful work of researchers and professional development leaders who have iteratively built professional learning programs for teachers. More research remains to be conducted in this area, but the research in science education, as well as mathematics, suggests that professional development of sufficient duration to allow teachers to deepen their pedagogical content knowledge and practice new instructional methods in their classrooms can lead to improved instruction and student achievement. Hallmarks of high-quality professional learning opportunities include focus on specific content that is aligned with district or school curriculum and assessment policies, as well as the proactive and professional engagement of teachers are hallmarks of high-quality professional learning opportunities.

Conclusion 6: Professional learning in online environments and through social networking holds promise, although evidence on these modes from both research and practice is limited.

The potential to use new media to enhance teacher learning is undeniable. Social networking and online environments hold promise for meeting the “just-in-time” learning needs of teachers, and for providing access to science expertise and science education expertise for teachers in schools and communities that lack rich resources in these domains. While these areas have yet to be fully explored by teacher developers and science education researchers, the committee sees considerable potential for these resources as research accumulates concerning their effective use.

Conclusion 7: Science teachers’ professional learning occurs in a range of settings both within and outside of schools through a variety of structures (professional development programs, professional learning communities, coaching, and the like). There is limited evidence about the relative effectiveness of this broad array of learning opportunities and how they are best designed to support teacher learning.

Recently, there has been increasing commitment to creating schools where both students and teachers can learn. This heightened interest in “embedded professional learning” can take many forms, including professional learning communities; professional networks that reach across districts, the state, or the country; induction programs for early-career teachers; and coaching and mentoring for teachers wishing to improve their practice. Since teachers spend the majority of their professional time in classrooms and schools, it seems wise to capitalize on efforts to design

settings that support their professional learning, both individually and collectively and to expand research in those settings.

Conclusion 8: Schools need to be structured to encourage and support ongoing learning for science teachers especially given the number of new teachers entering the profession.

A growing body of research documents the generative conditions established for teacher learning when schools foster collective responsibility for student learning and well-being. However, the evidence base related to learning opportunities for teachers in schools and classrooms is weak, especially with regard to science. This, too, appears to be an area with too much potential to ignore. In particular, building school infrastructure that systematically develops the science and science teaching expertise necessary to engage all students meaningfully in the new vision embodied the Framework and NGSS can work proactively to ameliorate differences between schools that have ready access to such expertise and those that struggle to connect with it.

Conclusion 9: Science teachers’ development is best understood as long term and contextualized. The schools and classrooms in which teachers work shape what and how they learn. These contexts include, but are not limited to school, district, and state policies and practices concerning professional capacity (e.g., professional networks, coaching, partnerships), coherent instructional guidance (e.g., state and district curriculum and assessment/accountability policies), and leadership (e.g., principals and teacher leaders).

Teachers’ capacity to teach science well over time is intimately related to the environments in which they teach. The policies and practices that shape instruction vary from teacher evaluation to curriculum and accountability to teacher assignment. For example, teachers cannot teach science courses that do not align with their preparation. Nor is it productive for the feedback teachers receive concerning their annual evaluations to run counter to messages about effective science instruction embodied in curriculum policies.

Conclusion 10 : School and district administrators are central to building the capacity of the science teacher workforce.

Conditions in schools and districts can create contexts that allow teachers to take better advantage of professional learning opportunities both within the workday and outside of school. These conditions might

include, for example, required professional development time and other learning opportunities designed to foster better understanding of how to teach the redesigned science curriculum. Administrators can direct resources (e.g., location of teachers, scheduling of classes, materials budget) toward science and teachers’ learning in science. They also can send messages about the importance of science in schools. As instructional leaders, they need to understand the vision for science education in the Framework and NGSS and align policies and practices in the school to support this vision.

Conclusion 11: Teacher leaders may be an important resource for building a system that can support ambitious science instruction. There is increasing attention to creating opportunities for teachers to take on leadership roles to both improve science instruction and strengthen the science teacher workforce. These include roles as instructional coaches, mentors, and teacher leaders.

Expertise in both science and pedagogy in science is an important component of building capacity in schools and districts. The development of science teacher leaders can be an important mechanism for supporting science learning for all teachers. The range of new roles for teacher leaders—lead teacher, curriculum specialist, mentor, collaborating teacher, instructional coach, professional development leader—holds considerable potential for enhancing the science teacher workforce. Not only do these teacher leaders engage in advanced study of science and science teaching themselves, but they also take on roles that involve helping fellow teachers learn. Such leaders can guide school- or district-based professional learning communities, identify useful resources, and provide feedback to teachers as they modify their instructional practices. While little research exists on the effects of these leaders on teacher learning more generally, the committee sees these new roles as a potentially powerful mechanism for improving science teacher quality collectively.

In addition to the above conclusions, all of which are drawn from chapter-specific analyses, the committee drew two additional conclusions based on the big picture emerging from these related, but separate analyses.

Conclusion 12: Closing the gap between the new way of teaching science and current instruction in many schools will require attending to individual teachers’ learning needs, as well as to the larger system of practices and policies (such as allocation of resources, use of time, and provision of opportunities for collaboration) that shape how science is taught.

The committee’s view of science teacher learning is both individual and collective. That is, we see science teacher learning as an issue of building the capacity not only of individual teachers, but also of the science educator workforce more generally, particularly the capacity of science teachers in a school or district. The demands of schooling are such that distributed expertise is essential and building capacity across a group of teachers needs to be the goal. In addition, enhancing the collective teacher workforce is not simply a matter of ensuring that teachers, individually and collectively, have the necessary knowledge and skill. It is also necessary for schools, districts, school networks, and states to develop practices and policies including teacher hiring and retention, teacher evaluation, curriculum and accountability guidance, and school staffing and school/district leadership that enable good science teaching. Contexts shape the work of teaching, and enhancing science instruction in the United States will require new policies as well as well-prepared teachers.

Conclusion 13: The U.S. educational system lacks a coherent and well-articulated system of learning opportunities for teachers to continue developing expertise while in the classroom. Opportunities are unevenly distributed across schools, districts, and regions, with little attention to sequencing or how to support science teachers’ learning systematically. Moreover, schools and districts often lack systems that can provide a comprehensive view of teacher learning; identify specific teacher needs; or track investments—in time, money and resources—in science teachers’ professional learning

This is not a new observation, but it is a continuing problem. Despite a wealth of opportunities for science teacher learning offered in schools and districts and through cultural institutions and industry—ranging from summer institutes to research apprenticeships to curriculum development to Lesson Study—the majority of the nation’s science are impoverished in terms of targeted, coherent, aligned, and cumulative opportunities to enrich their understanding and practices in teaching all students challenging science. Piecemeal approaches have not redressed this well-established problem.

New incentives and investments to redesign/restructure science teachers’ learning opportunities in schools, districts, school networks, and partnerships are needed. In particular, leadership by administrators at the school and district levels is critical to promoting and supporting the enabling conditions for science teachers to learn. Teacher leaders also play a critical role in these efforts. Approaches for elementary, middle, and high schools may need to vary, but in every case, school systems need ways to identify the myriad opportunities that exist for teacher learning, when and under what conditions these opportunities are aligned with one

another, and how scarce resources can best be used to maximize opportunities for teacher learning and growth.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND POLICY

Teachers matter, but they do not work in a vacuum. Their ability to elevate students’ scientific understanding depends on the schools, districts, and communities in which they work and the professional communities to which they belong. The recommendations below are intended to address the issues identified in the conclusions with particular attention to the ways that the current education system needs to be changed in order to support teachers’ ongoing learning as they respond to the demands placed by current reforms in science education.

Here, we focus on how schools and school systems (such as districts or charter networks) can improve the learning opportunities for science teachers. Focusing on this level of the system is essential, given the important roles played by principals and teacher leaders in connecting the rhetoric of visions such as that embodied in the Framework and NGSS to the realities of how teachers and students spend their time. Below we offer some specific recommendations for practices and policies we view as necessary to enhance ongoing teacher learning. Because the research base in this area is so uneven, often lacking science-specific studies related to the issues raised in this report, we think that these recommendations go hand-in-hand with research needs, and we offer recommendations for meeting these needs later in this chapter.

The following recommendations are not intended to be in chronological order—Recommendation 1, for example, does not have to be carried out first. Indeed, a plan for acting on recommendations toward the goal of enhancing science teacher learning to meet student learning goals is needed, and that plan might entail acting on a small number of recommendations, ordered in a way that capitalizes on current practice and policy and accelerates change.

In an ideal world, all these recommendations would be implemented. But in the real and complex world of schooling, it is important to start with one recommendation, building momentum, and with a long term goal of acting on the full set. Equally important is that acting on these recommendations will require additional resources (money, material, time, and personnel) or significant shifts in priorities. Such tradeoffs are inevitable, but investing in the individual and collective capacity of the workforce is essential to the improvement of science teaching in the United States. Finally, the committee presumes that acting on these recommendations

will require the engagement of teachers, teacher leaders, and administrators as partners in creating strong systems of science teacher learning.

Recommendation 1:

Take stock of the current status of learning opportunities for science teachers: School and district administrators should identify current offerings and opportunities for teacher learning in science—using a broad conceptualization of teacher learning opportunities, and including how much money and time are spent (as well as other associated costs). Throughout this process, attention should be paid to the opportunities available for teachers to learn about

• approaches for teaching all students,
• science content and scientific practices, and
• science pedagogical knowledge and science teaching practices.

When identifying costs, administrators should consider both traditional professional development time and other supports for learning, such as curriculum, teacher evaluation, and student assessment/accountability. Given differences in the learning needs of elementary, middle, and high school teachers, expenditures and time allocations should be broken down by grade level and by school and district level. Plans to address any inequities across classrooms or schools should be developed with an eye toward policies and practices that will equitably distribute teacher expertise and teacher learning opportunities across the system.

Recommendation 2:

Design a portfolio of coherent learning experiences for science teachers that attend to teachers’ individual and context-specific needs in partnership with professional networks, institutions of higher education, cultural institutions, and the broader scientific community as appropriate: Teachers and school and district administrators should articulate, implement, and support teacher learning opportunities in science as coherent, graduated sequences of experiences toward larger goals for improving science teaching and learning. Here, too, attention should be paid to building teachers’ knowledge and skill in the sciences and scientific practices, in science pedagogical content knowledge, and in science teaching practices. It is critical to support teachers’ opportunities to learn how to connect with students of diverse backgrounds and experiences and how to tap into relevant funds of knowledge of students and communities.

District personnel and school principals, in collaboration with teachers and parents, should identify the specific learning needs of science teachers in their schools and develop a multiyear growth plan for their

science teachers’ learning that is linked to their growth plan for students’ science learning. Central to this work are four questions:

• In light of our school’s/district’s science goals for our students, what learning opportunities will teachers need?
• What kinds of expertise are needed to support these learning opportunities?
• Where is that expertise located (inside and outside of schools)?
• What social arrangements and resources will enable this work?

Using a variety of assessments/measures designed to provide the kind of concrete feedback necessary to support (teacher and program) improvement, school principals, in collaboration with teachers and school partners, should regularly consult data form such sources as (teacher observations, student work, and student surveys or interviews) to assess progress on the growth plan. It will also be important to consider the larger contexts in which the plan will unfold and how existing policies and practices regarding personnel (hiring, retention, placement) and instructional guidance (curriculum and assessment) can enable or limit the plan.

Recommendation 3:

Consider both specialized professional learning programs outside of school and opportunities for science teachers’ learning embedded in the workday: A coherent, standards and evidence-based portfolio of professional learning opportunities for science teachers should include both specialized programs that occur outside of the school day and ongoing learning opportunities that are built into the workday and enhance capacity in schools and districts. Development of this portfolio will require some restructuring of teachers’ work in schools to support new learning opportunities. School and district leaders will need to develop policies and practices that provide the necessary resources (fiscal, time, facilities, tools, incentives).

As school and district leaders identify professional learning opportunities for science teachers, they should work to develop a portfolio of opportunities that address teachers’ varied needs, in ways that are sensitive to the school or district context. School and district leaders should not only make this portfolio of opportunities available to teachers; but also actively encourage, through their leadership and provision of resources, teachers’ engagement in these opportunities, and provide time during the school day for teachers to engage meaningfully in them. Furthermore, school and district leaders should work with teams of teachers to build coherent programs of science teaching learning opportunities, tailored to individual teachers and the school as a whole. The portfolio of teacher

learning opportunities should include structured, traditional professional development; cross-school teacher professional communities, and collaborations with local partners.

Recommendation 4:

Design and select learning opportunities for science teachers that are informed by the best available research: Teachers’ learning opportunities should be aligned with a system’s science standards, and should be grounded in an underlying theory of teacher learning and in research on the improvement of professional practice, and on how to meet the needs of the range of adult and student learners in a school or district. Learning opportunities for science teachers should have the following characteristics:

• Designed to achieve specific learning goals for teachers.
• Be content specific, that is, focused on particular scientific concepts and practices.
• Be student specific, that is, focused on the specific students served by the school district.
• Linked to teachers’ classroom instruction and include analysis of instruction.
• Include opportunities for teachers to practice teaching science in new ways and to interact with peers in improving the implementation of new teaching strategies.
• Include opportunities for teachers to collect and analyze data on their students’ learning.
• Offer opportunities for collaboration.

Designers of learning opportunities for teachers including commercial providers, community organizations, institutions of higher education and districts and states, should develop learning opportunities for teachers that reflect the above criteria.

When selecting learning opportunities for teachers, district and school leaders and teachers themselves should use the above criteria as a guide for identifying the most promising programs and learning experiences. District and state administrators should use these criteria to provide guidance for teachers on how to identify high-quality learning experiences.

District and state administrators should use (and make public) quality indicators to identify, endorse, and fund a portfolio of teacher learning opportunities, and should provide guidance for school leaders and teachers on how to select high-quality learning experiences in science appropriate to specific contexts.

Recommendation 5:

Develop internal capacity in science while seeking external partners with science expertise: School and district leaders should work to build school- and district-level capacity around science teaching. These efforts should include creating learning opportunities for teachers but might also include exploring different models for incorporating science expertise, such as employing science specialists at the elementary level or providing high school science department heads with time to observe and collaborate with their colleagues. When developing a strategy for building capacity, school and district leaders should consider the tradeoffs inherent in such choices.

School and district leaders should also explore developing partnerships with individuals and organizations—such as local businesses, institutions of higher education or science rich institutions—that can bring science expertise.

Crucial to developing relevant expertise is developing the capacity of professional development leaders. Investing in the development of professional developers who are knowledgeable about teaching all students the vision of science education represented in the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards Lead States, 2013) and the Framework (National Research Council, 2012) is critical. It is not sufficient for these leaders to be good teachers themselves; they must also be prepared and supported to work with adult learners and to coordinate professional development with other policies and programs (including staffing, teacher evaluation, curriculum development, and student assessment).

Recommendation 6:

Create, evaluate, and revise policies and practices that encourage teachers to engage in professional learning related to science: District and school administrators and relevant leaders should work to establish dedicated professional development time during the salaried work week and work year for science teachers. They should encourage teachers to participate in science learning opportunities and structure time to allow for collaboration around science. Resources for professional learning should include time to meet with other teachers, to observe other classrooms, and to attend discrete events; space to meet with other teachers; requested materials; and incentives to participate. These policies and practices should take advantage of linkages with other policies For example, natural connections can be made between policies concerning professional development and teacher evaluation. Similarly, administrators could develop policies that more equitably distribute qualified and experienced science teachers across all students in school, districts, and school networks.

At the elementary level, district and school leaders should work to

establish parity for science professional development in relationship to other subjects, especially mathematics and English language arts.

Recommendation 7:

The potential of new formats and media should be explored to support science teachers’ learning when appropriate: Districts should consider the use of technology and online spaces/resources to support teacher learning in science. These tools may be particularly useful for supporting cross-school collaboration, providing teachers with flexible schedules for accessing resources, or enabling access to professional learning opportunities in rural areas where teachers may be isolated and it is difficult to convene in a central location.

As noted, the above recommendations focus on schools and districts/school networks, as the committee sees work at that level as a necessary condition for realizing the vision of the Framework and NGSS. Without the work of teachers, professional development leaders, and school leaders at the local level, the promise of these visionary documents cannot be realized.

Of course, working at that local level—while necessary—is not sufficient to change how science is taught across the United States and determining whether all children have access to high-quality science learning experiences. Within and across states, as well as nationally, science education needs to be elevated through policies, practices, and funding mechanisms. Without that kind of support, the local and essential work described in these recommendations will fall short. Other reports of the National Research Council (2014, 2015) include recommendations targeted to the state level that identify policies such as those related to assessment (National Research Council, 2014), high school graduation requirements (National Research Council, 2015), and teacher certification (National Research Council, 2015) that can help create supportive contexts for improving science education. The National Research Council (2013) also has issued recommendations for a national indicator system that would make it possible to track improvement in STEM education reforms, covering domains of state policy, curriculum, accountability, and teacher quality, and the National Science Teachers Association has issued a number of relevant position statements on accountability, teacher preparation and induction, leadership, and professional development. 1

As states, districts, and schools move forward with initiatives aimed at improving supports for science teachers’ learning, they should leverage these and other relevant resources that have been developed by such national organizations as the National Science Teachers Association, the

______________

1 See http://www.nsta.org/about/positions/#list [November 2015].

Council of State Science Supervisors, and Achieve, Inc. and are available online. These organizations also are creating networks of science educators who are exploring the Framework and NGSS and sharing ideas about implementation of the vision set forth in those documents. It is a massive undertaking to support all students, teachers, and schools in rising to the challenges of the new vision of science teaching and learning. And while the committee’s recommendations focus on a set of strategic activities that schools and districts might undertake to make progress, the science teachers, scientists, science teacher educators, and professional development leaders who constitute the membership of these organizations can contribute much to an enriched understanding of how to support ongoing teacher learning.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RESEARCH

Considerable research exists, both in science education and in education more generally on which to draw, for insights into the wise development of policies, programs, and practices that will enhance teacher learning. At the same time, much remains to be learned. The committee identified several areas of research that would inform the work of school leaders interested in supporting ongoing teacher learning. Before offering our recommendations for future research, we reiterate the major gaps in the research literature.

• No system is in place to collect data on the science teacher workforce, their qualifications, experience, and preparation. This is due in part to differences across states in both teacher certification and data collection; the problem is exacerbated by a lack of measures that could be used to do comparative work. The authors of the National Research Council (2010) study of teacher preparation make a similar observation.
• No system is in place to collect data on general trends in science teaching and learning. This gap will challenge the collective capacity to assess any progress that may be made on meeting the challenges of the vision in the Framework and the NGSS. The observations in the National Research Council report Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-21 STEM Education (2013) are similar. Studies vary in both their conceptions of good science teaching and how teaching is measured, compromising the capacity to ascertain general trends.
• No system in place to collect data about the myriad professional learning opportunities that teachers encounter in and out of

school. The committee found enormous variation in teacher learning opportunities, with no centralized way to determine general trends or the effectiveness of various programs or combinations of experiences. This observation is similar to a conclusion drawn by the authors of the National Research Council (2010) report on teacher preparation.

• While there is a body of research on formal science professional development, that research tends to focus on individual programs and to rely heavily on teacher self report. Few studies used research designs involving control or comparison groups and incorporating pre/post measures of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, instruction, and students’ outcomes. Without such studies, it is difficult to draw strong conclusions about effectiveness. The field lacks consistently used, technically powerful measures of science teachers’ knowledge and practice, as well as measures that capture the full range of student outcomes. There are a handful of noteworthy exceptions to this pattern (e.g., Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011).
• Substantially less research exists on other, potentially equally important opportunities for science teacher learning, including professional learning communities, mentoring and coaching, online learning, teacher networks, and teacher evaluation. In general, the evidence base related to learning opportunities for teachers that are embedded in schools and classrooms is weak, especially with regard to science.
• Almost no studies address school organization and context and how they might affect the impact of professional development programs. Little to no published research exists on the effects of recruitment, retention, and staffing policies on the quality of the science teaching workforce and of science instruction in schools and districts.
• Research on how and under what conditions principals and leaders affect the quality of science learning in their schools has yet to be conducted. Also lacking in the research literature are studies of how teachers learn to become leaders, as well as research that examines the role, expertise, or preparation of science professional development providers and facilitators.

Research Recommendation 1: Focus Research on Linking Professional Learning to Changes in Instructional Practice and Student Learning

In general, more research is needed to understand the path from professional learning opportunities to changes in teacher knowledge and

practice to student learning and engagement in terms of both individual teachers and the teacher workforce more generally. To be maximally helpful, that research should attend to the contexts in which teachers learn and teach (see Figure 8-2). The contextual factors that shape and are shaped by teachers’ learning opportunities, include teacher hiring, staffing, and assignment policies and practices; student and school demographics; resource distribution and use; instructional guidance; teacher evaluation; and school organization.

Research Recommendation 2: Invest in Improving Measures of Science Instruction and Science Learning

Fundamental to most research aimed at linking science teacher learning to student science learning and engagement is the development of publicly credible, technically sound, and professionally responsible measures of relevant teacher and student outcomes. Because teaching and learning also have subject-specific aspects, these outcome measures need to sample broadly from the practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts outlined in the new vision of science teaching and learning. The committee cannot emphasize enough the centrality of good measures of teacher and student learning, particularly for addressing gaps in all of the domains cited above. This issue is noted in the National Research Council report Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 STEM Education (National Research Council, 2013) as well. Lacking good outcome measures, considerable resources will continue to be devoted to professional learning opportunities with a limited ability to gauge their effects. Such measures would enable a great deal of needed research.

Research Recommendation 3: Design and Implement Research That Examines a Variety of Approaches to Supporting Science Teachers’ Learning

The committee urges a broad conceptualization of professional learning and thus research that examines how teachers learn from portfolios of learning opportunities, including both off-site and embedded professional development (e.g., study groups, professional learning communities, lesson study). Of particular benefit would be research assessing the effects of the interactions among various learning opportunities, as well as the particular contributions of different kinds of learning experiences to teacher knowledge and practice. The conduct of such research would require having much better documentation of the range of learning opportunities in which teachers participate and that were designed intentionally to build upon, extend, and enhance one another. Moreover, any investment in

teacher learning ought to be designed to document its effects; this would mean designing strong research in tandem with professional learning experiences, whether those experiences are based in cultural institutions, industry, universities, or schools. As is the case with all of the research recommended here, attention should be paid to contextual variation and how aspects of state, district, and school context mediate and/or moderate the effects of professional learning opportunities on teacher practice and student learning.

Typical research on professional learning is small scale, conducted by the program designers or providers, and uses locally developed measures. Although a growing number of studies entail carrying out large-scale, rigorous examinations of professional development interventions that link teachers’ learning to student outcomes, the results of those studies are mixed. The collective body of small-scale research has produced some insights, but understanding of the nature and effects of the range of professional learning opportunities will remain limited without large-scale studies that include multiple programs and are not as dependent on teacher self-report. A wide range of research methodologies have important roles in shedding light on science teacher learning, as does the use of multiple measures of teacher knowledge and practice and student engagement and learning.

Research Recommendation 4: Commit to Focusing on Meeting the Needs of Diverse Science Learners Across All Research on Professional Development

The committee urges that research on science teacher learning focus on opportunities that help teachers meet the needs of diverse students while teaching to the standards. Accomplishing this goal will require developing and studying professional learning programs—in and outside of schools—that interweave attention to science content with attention to the needs and experiences of all students, including English language learners, special education students, gifted and talented students, and diverse learners. Compelling research exists in many of these areas. But teachers do not teach diverse learners on Tuesdays and science on Wednesdays; they teach the two together, and supportive professional learning experiences for teachers will integrate knowledge across a range of domains. For example, teachers would be aided in achieving the new vision by research documenting how they can tap into students’ funds of knowledge when teaching a specific scientific practice or disciplinary idea. In other words, research that attends to the development of all three dimensions of teacher knowledge and skill discussed in this report—the

capacity to respond to all learners, disciplinary scientific knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge—is essential.

Research Recommendation 5: Focus Research on Exploring the Potential Role of Technology

When relevant, attending to the potential role of technology in enabling teacher learning would help schools and school districts take advantage of the capabilities of new technologies in enabling teacher learning. Such research could focus on online or hybrid professional development programs, face-to-face learning opportunities that take advantage of the use of technology in pursuit of ambitious instruction, the use of technology to teach to the new vision of science learning, or the support of online professional networks of teachers.

Research Recommendation 6: Design and Implement Research Focused on the Learning Needs of Teacher Leaders and Professional Development Providers

The field also needs research on the development of teacher educators, professional development leaders, and teacher leaders more generally. Learning to teach teachers is related to but distinct from learning to teach. Research documenting and explaining how skilled teacher developers acquire relevant knowledge and practice would help improve the quality of professional learning across the myriad settings in which it takes place.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

First, given current efforts toward developing new curriculum and assessment materials aligned with the Framework and NGSS, it would be strategic to design research that documents what teachers learn in developing and implementing those materials, especially in their classrooms and with the range of supports provided to help them. As teachers and schools embrace the new vision for science teaching and learning, teachers, teacher leaders, principals, and professional development staff will be learning a great deal. Research should document that learning so that efforts to reform science instruction can learn productively from that experimentation.

Second, many fields of research relevant to science teaching and learning currently do not address what science teachers and their students learn. Science education would benefit greatly from being integrated into programs of research concerning instructional reform, English language

learners, how to reach and teach diverse student populations, teacher preparation, and teacher evaluation.

Finally, given that many schools and school networks are currently engaged in efforts to improve teacher learning opportunities, some of the research envisioned here might draw on design-based implementation research, networked improvement communities, strategic education partnerships, or other research designs. These research traditions—which are designed as collaborations among various stakeholders (schools, teachers, policy makers, and researchers) and committed to responding quickly to data and shifting course when necessary—holds great promise for helping teachers and schools respond in a timely fashion to the mandate to raise standards and teach all children scientifically rich curricula.

Heller, J.I., Daehler, K.R., Wong, N., Shinohara, M., and Miratrix, L.W. (2012). Differential effects of three professional development models on teacher knowledge and student achievement in elementary science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 49 (3), 333-362.

National Research Council. (2010). Preparing Teachers: Building Evidence for Sound Policy. Committee on the Study of Teacher Preparation Programs in the United States, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core ideas. Committee on a Conceptual Framework for New K-12 Science Education Standards, Board on Science Education. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2013). Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 STEM Education: A Nation Advancing? Committee on the Evaluation Framework for Successful K-12 STEM Education. Board on Science Education and Board on Testing and Assessment, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2014). Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards. Committee on Developing Assessments of Science Proficiency in K-12. Board on Testing and Assessment, Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2015). Guide to Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards . Committee on Guidance on Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards. Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Next Generation Science Standards Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Roth, K., Garnier, H., Chen, C., Lemmens, M., Schwille, K., and Wickler, N.I.Z. (2011). Videobased lesson analysis: Effective science PD for teacher and student learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48 (2), 117-148.

Currently, many states are adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or are revising their own state standards in ways that reflect the NGSS. For students and schools, the implementation of any science standards rests with teachers. For those teachers, an evolving understanding about how best to teach science represents a significant transition in the way science is currently taught in most classrooms and it will require most science teachers to change how they teach.

That change will require learning opportunities for teachers that reinforce and expand their knowledge of the major ideas and concepts in science, their familiarity with a range of instructional strategies, and the skills to implement those strategies in the classroom. Providing these kinds of learning opportunities in turn will require profound changes to current approaches to supporting teachers' learning across their careers, from their initial training to continuing professional development.

A teacher's capability to improve students' scientific understanding is heavily influenced by the school and district in which they work, the community in which the school is located, and the larger professional communities to which they belong. Science Teachers' Learning provides guidance for schools and districts on how best to support teachers' learning and how to implement successful programs for professional development. This report makes actionable recommendations for science teachers' learning that take a broad view of what is known about science education, how and when teachers learn, and education policies that directly and indirectly shape what teachers are able to learn and teach.

The challenge of developing the expertise teachers need to implement the NGSS presents an opportunity to rethink professional learning for science teachers. Science Teachers' Learning will be a valuable resource for classrooms, departments, schools, districts, and professional organizations as they move to new ways to teach science.

READ FREE ONLINE

Welcome to OpenBook!

You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

Show this book's table of contents , where you can jump to any chapter by name.

...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

Switch between the Original Pages , where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter .

Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

View our suggested citation for this chapter.

Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

Get Email Updates

Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free ? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released.

• Essay Samples
• College Essay
• Writing Tools
• Writing guide

Creative samples from the experts

↑ Return to Essay Samples

Argumentative Essay: Getting a Good Education

Getting an education is compulsory in the developed world, but so many of us don’t appreciate it enough. We should value our education a lot more and work harder, because it is compulsory for so many different reasons and adds so much value to our lives. There are so many positive outcomes of education, but most of them come under the two banners of allowing us to develop personally, and improving our life chances.

Learning gives us so much that we otherwise wouldn’t have. Besides the obvious skills and facts that we learn, we learn self-discipline and self-motivation, timekeeping skills, social and communication skills and so much more. We also gain confidence and self-esteem through completing tasks and being praised for good work, as well as learning right and wrong as we are punished for any wrongdoing from a young age. Being educated is shown to increase people’s sense of self-worth, life satisfaction and overall happiness, so ultimately being a well-rounded person with lots of potential of happiness is a major outcome of education.

This development in itself increases our chances in life and our potential to do the things we want to do, as social skills gained allow us to form good relationships, and all of the other skills will help when it comes to getting a job. There is, unsurprisingly, a positive correlation between the level of education that people receive and the amount of money they earn. People that are educated are less likely to be unemployed or be on low wages with which they can barely feed their families. They are more likely to afford a nice house in a good area, a nice car, and regular family vacations. Educated people are also less likely to go to prison, because they will be able to provide for their families without crime and are less likely to be violent as they can communicate better with language.

Getting a good high school education also improves our chances of being able to go to college . This further study adds so many different skills to your arsenal that employment prospects and earning potential become better again. Whatever level someone has studied to though, a good education will get them further than someone with little or no education.

This is because of the marketable skills that they have gained. Literacy and basic math skills are at the foundation of independent living and being able to work. Good communication skills and ability to work both with a team and independently are often a basic requirement for any job, and these are developed in the education system through group and individual projects. All in all, education gives us so many skills that it is necessary for both happiness and success in life.

Follow Us on Social Media

Get more free essays

Send via email

Most useful resources for students:.

• Free Essays Download
• Writing Tools List
• Proofreading Services
• Universities Rating

Contributors Bio

Find more useful services for students

Free plagiarism check, professional editing, online tutoring, free grammar check.

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Writing a Paper: Conclusions

Writing a conclusion.

A conclusion is an important part of the paper; it provides closure for the reader while reminding the reader of the contents and importance of the paper. It accomplishes this by stepping back from the specifics in order to view the bigger picture of the document. In other words, it is reminding the reader of the main argument. For most course papers, it is usually one paragraph that simply and succinctly restates the main ideas and arguments, pulling everything together to help clarify the thesis of the paper. A conclusion does not introduce new ideas; instead, it should clarify the intent and importance of the paper. It can also suggest possible future research on the topic.

An Easy Checklist for Writing a Conclusion

It is important to remind the reader of the thesis of the paper so he is reminded of the argument and solutions you proposed.

Think of the main points as puzzle pieces, and the conclusion is where they all fit together to create a bigger picture. The reader should walk away with the bigger picture in mind.

Make sure that the paper places its findings in the context of real social change.

Make sure the reader has a distinct sense that the paper has come to an end. It is important to not leave the reader hanging. (You don’t want her to have flip-the-page syndrome, where the reader turns the page, expecting the paper to continue. The paper should naturally come to an end.)

No new ideas should be introduced in the conclusion. It is simply a review of the material that is already present in the paper. The only new idea would be the suggesting of a direction for future research.

Conclusion Example

As addressed in my analysis of recent research, the advantages of a later starting time for high school students significantly outweigh the disadvantages. A later starting time would allow teens more time to sleep--something that is important for their physical and mental health--and ultimately improve their academic performance and behavior. The added transportation costs that result from this change can be absorbed through energy savings. The beneficial effects on the students’ academic performance and behavior validate this decision, but its effect on student motivation is still unknown. I would encourage an in-depth look at the reactions of students to such a change. This sort of study would help determine the actual effects of a later start time on the time management and sleep habits of students.

Related Webinar

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

• Previous Page: Thesis Statements
• Next Page: Writer's Block
• Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

• Academic Residencies
• Academic Skills
• Career Planning and Development
• Customer Care Team
• Field Experience
• Military Services
• Student Success Advising
• Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

• Center for Social Change
• Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
• Office of Degree Acceleration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

• Doctoral Writing Assessment
• Form & Style Review
• Quick Answers
• ScholarWorks
• SKIL Courses and Workshops
• Walden Bookstore
• Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
• Student Safety/Title IX
• Legal & Consumer Information
• Website Terms and Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Accessibility
• Accreditation
• State Authorization
• Net Price Calculator
• Contact Walden

Walden University is a member of Adtalem Global Education, Inc. www.adtalem.com Walden University is certified to operate by SCHEV © 2024 Walden University LLC. All rights reserved.

ESSAY SAUCE

FOR STUDENTS : ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY

Essay: The purpose and importance of a good education

Essay details and download:.

• Subject area(s): Education essays
• Reading time: 12 minutes
• Price: Free download
• Published: 29 November 2015*
• File format: Text
• Words: 3,406 (approx)
• Number of pages: 14 (approx)

Text preview of this essay:

This page of the essay has 3,406 words. Download the full version above.

Abstract: I believe that every student is different but special in their own way. Every student should be instilled with good values so that they can grow up to be good valuable men and women. They deserve to be educated in a positive environment where they feel safe, comfortable, motivated and engaged in their learning. As an educator, I will work hard to guide and help prepare life-long learners so that they can choose their future decisions wisely. I feel education is very important in every aspect and the focus should be on more than just the subjects being taught. I think teaching involves one to go above and beyond the basics. Since each student is unique, one may require more than the other so putting focus on the student’s needs are just as important. It is my belief that all students have the ability to learn with assistance. I am a true believer of open communication because students need to feel they can come and talk to their teacher whenever they need to. The main purpose of education is to help students gain the knowledge and skills so that they will be able to function in society. Students need to be provided with the necessary skills so that they can learn to become productive citizens. There are many advantages that are associated with receiving an education. Students will be able to contribute to their community and help make it a better place to live. Education basically helps shape society because it helps students learn to become more sociable and helps them develop relationships with their peers. Students will be more qualified for different job positions if they have a good solid education. Education is vital to each student’s life, therefore, by working hard to provide the best instruction possible will help train students to become future leaders and will lead to a better life. Worldview and Philosophy of Life I think each of us perceive the world differently because we all are different and experience different things in life. Life is basically what you make of it and you’re in control of your own actions. I think if you always view the world as being negative then you will not be happy in life. We all know there are good and bad things happening all over the world so I think it is important for us to work together to try and make the world a better place. We learn from our surroundings and life requires every person to make choices and consequences follow those choices. This is why it is so important for each person to choose their decisions wisely and do what is right. The actions a person displays help others determine what type of person they are so we should always display good attitudes and behavior. The world is full of challenges but if you work hard you can overcome them. Sometimes I feel when we go through certain things we are being tested. No matter what I am going through or how bad the situation seems I know that God is in control and he will handle it because my faith lies in him. Truly believing in this is what helps me get through life on a daily basis. Having a loving, supportive family and living a happy life is something that is necessary for me and I am very appreciative of it. Showing others you care for them and that your there for them is what makes life worth living. Striving to pursue your goals and dreams is something else that makes a huge difference in a person’s life. It gives people a reason to strive harder and when that dream or goal is achieved it’s the best feeling ever. I want to succeed in life so failure is not an option. I have to keep striving to make my dreams come true because I am responsible for making that happen. In regards to me, life is about being happy, loving God, people, and helping to make a difference in the lives of others. Philosophy of Schools & Learning Education is essential to every student’s life as well as their future. Students can have a prosperous life by receiving a good quality education. My thoughts are that students need to learn from the books along with other various materials just as I did while growing up. The classroom curriculum should be decided by their teacher and the teacher should set clear goals as to what is expected from the students. Students should work hard to achieve their goals because it will certainly be worth it in the end. According to essentialism, ‘Schools should not radically try to reshape society but schools should transmit traditional moral values and intellectual knowledge that students need to become model citizens’ (knight, 2006). The school should stress the importance of values because some children are not taught these at home. Teaching children good values helps build their character and helps them become respectable people. In regards to education, I think society is important because this is a place where we all live so we should work to make it a better place. Classroom management is something else that helps the classroom run smoothly. Students need to be taught discipline and respect because it is important for them to respect themselves so they can learn to respect others. The teacher needs to be firm and enforce the rules to all the students because displaying immoral behavior disrupts learning for everyone. According to B.F. Skinner, ‘rewards motivate students to learn material even if they do not fully understand why it will have value in their futures’ (Sadker, 2005). Students do deserve some type of recognition and praise when they have acted and done what they were supposed to. Furthermore, even though curriculum is a major part of the learning process, educating students goes beyond subject matter because sometimes students have issues that interfere with their learning. This is why the teacher has to find out what the student is lacking and try to help the student successfully achieve what they need to learn. Instructional Practice Learning involves a person acquiring the knowledge or skills that is being taught to them. This can occur through methods such as observation, listening or through hands on learning. Some things that cause students to learn is staying focused because it helps them to understand and learn the content being introduced to them. Experiencing or going through certain things can also lead to learning. When student’s minds are stimulated this causes them to think critically and leads to learning whatever their teacher may be teaching. As a teacher I will encourage participation because this is another way for students to learn. One of the most important things I think a teacher should do is build rapport with their students because this will help them learn what qualities their student’s possess. As far as the classroom, I will do my best to make sure it is organized so that everything flows smoothly. Some strategies that I will implement in my class is the use of visuals and many other hands on activities. Since students learn differently they need to be provided with a variety of ways to learn. I will do my best to make my lessons interesting because this helps motivate students and engage them more in the learning process. Different types of technology will be used to help aid in the learning process. ‘Research literature throughout the past decade has shown that technology can enhance literacy development, impact language acquisition, provide greater access to information, support learning, motivate students, and enhance their self-esteem’ (O’Hara & Pritchard, 2014). I will provide challenging assignments and will let my students work in groups so they can build social skills and also learn things from each other. Open discussions will be used because each student needs to feel comfortable sharing their ideas and among others in the class. In my class I will allow students to be involved in decision making regarding different assignments. I will use assessments to monitor my students learning and will provide prompt feedback on assignments. I will do this because I need to know if they are understanding and if not I can work on alternative ways to help them understand. What I hope to accomplish by using these strategies is that each student will be able to successfully learn to the best of their ability. It is my hope that all of their basic subject skills improve and they can leave the class with more knowledge than they came in with. I want my students to grow into the habit of loving to read along with learning. I want them to build critical thinking skills and encourage them that they can do anything if they believe, strive hard enough and put their minds to it. I want them to think of me as a positive role model and someone who they can always come talk to. My goal is to help guide them down the right path so that they can grow up and be responsible individuals and life long learners. Teacher-Learner Relationships Students have many responsibilities inside and outside of school. The most important role is for them to come to class ready to learn. They need to attend class daily because they will get behind and it is hard to catch up if they are constantly absent. Arriving on time is important because missing parts of the instruction can lead to not understanding the assignments. Students need to stay focused and on task so that test, classroom and homework assignments can be completed accurately and on time. Students need to come to class prepared and bring all the necessary supplies to class to do classroom assignments and projects. They are to participate in classroom discussions and activities. Teachers have many different roles in the classroom they lead, train and guide students. They are responsible for supplying students with the necessary information to help them learn the subject matter. They prepare lesson plans that is used as a guide to teach the students. They assess the student’s weaknesses and their strengths along with preparing them for test. They job is to set clear goals and expectations for their students so that there will be no misunderstanding. One of their main task is to focus on how their student is achieving. Classroom management is the teacher’s responsibility because if the classroom is not managed learning is disrupted. They supervise students and enforce rules for the classroom to make sure the students behave and treat each other with respect. They grade papers and meet with parents for teacher conferences to provide progress on their children. They make sure the class is a safe, nurturing environment for the students to learn. I think teachers must be role models for their students to follow and show them how they should act so this will follow them throughout their life inside and outside of school. Teacher’s work does not stop when they leave school they still have things to do outside of the class that relates to them preparing activities and lessons for their students. Furthermore, they mentor and challenge students to become better learners and leaders for the future. Diversity When you have diverse students in your class and there always will be, it is really just a way of thinking that all students are different but in their own way. This could be due to their abilities, race, culture, background, belief or just by their personal differences. ‘It should be clear, then, that ‘diversity’ indicates a wide range of backgrounds and experiences that contribute to our students’ uniqueness. ‘Diversity’ does not simply refer to race. Thus, it is accurate to assert that all classrooms are a combination of diverse learners. If every student is unique, then every classroom is diverse. The next step is to identify how to best help all students live up to their potential as unique individuals’ (Okun, 2012). Even though students are different, teachers still are responsible for developing ways to meet each of their needs. Differentiated instruction can be used for diverse learners. Their content needs to be delivered in various ways such as through lectures, handouts, hands on activities, or even videos. Teachers also have to use strategies to make sure the students understand what they’re working to teach them. Technology is also a good tool to use to help students learn. This enhances their learning because they can use it to build new skills and for practice. The important thing to remember is that they all learn differently because some are hands on learners while others may be auditory or visual. Teachers have to work hard to try and meet the needs of all their students. All students deserve the opportunity to learn and to be treated fairly no matter the differences. Teachers must have high expectations for all of their students and strive to help them reach their goals. One advantage of being diverse is when students are in the same class with other students they can learn from each other’s differences. Some students can adjust to a different environment quickly but it may be hard for some others to. Teachers face many challenges when providing instruction in a diverse classroom. This is why it is important for the teacher to remember when planning activities for the students to consider all their differences such as their background or culture. There are many school factors that affect the success of culturally diverse students ‘ the school’s atmosphere and overall attitudes toward diversity, involvement of the community, and culturally responsive curriculum, to name a few. Of all of these factors, the personal and academic relationships between teachers and their students may be the most influential. (Teacher Vision, 2015) This is where the teacher comes in and provide the upmost support to try and cater to the needs of the students. In a diverse classroom it is not only the teacher that faces challenges but the students as well. This is why building that relationship and working together can help both the teacher and student which can lead to academic success. Issues of Importance Growing up I always knew I wanted to work to help children in some way but I was not sure where I would end up in the process. My hopes are much more than helping them learn to grow up and be successful students but I want to help make them better people. I am sure many people would say my field of choice which is Special Education would be most difficult but I say it takes patience, caring and loving what you do to help these students learn because they truly deserve it just like any other student. It is important to make students feel welcome and open to share ideas along with including them in all activities. There are several things that I feel are important to my philosophy of education. Since the classroom is a place where students will be daily I think classroom management is imperative for learning to take place. When I was a student I know I wanted to be in a positive environment where I could concentrate to learn. Distractions causes issues for everyone and prevents learning from occurring. Curriculum is important because it is the core of learning and this must be delivered in an understanding manner because this is what helps the students learn. I certainly want to make sure my students are understanding what I am teaching so using the appropriate methods to check for understanding is necessary. If students do not understand then the teacher may need to find a better way to deliver the information. If something else is the reason then the teacher must work on finding a solution. Parents play a huge part in their child’s education. The first place children start learning at is in the home. Parent’s jobs are to help encourage and support their child’s learning. Most of the time children look at their parents as role models so it is important for parents to stress the importance of education. Parents need to be involved in their child’s education and that means making sure homework is completed, reading with their child and just basically working with them at home to help with improvement. The teacher and parents need to work together so that they are both in agreeance on things and in making sure the child is doing what they are supposed to. One issue that I think is critical in education is standardized testing. There are advantages and disadvantages of this type of testing but I think they should be eliminated because it causes too much stress on the students and the teachers. I know they want to make sure the students are learning and the teachers are doing their jobs but I think something else should be done. I really do not understand how students are able to concentrate when taking this test because I am sure there are some who are so worried about not passing it or being promoted to the next grade. For example, ‘Many students, particularly those experiencing reading and/or learning problems, have experienced frustration while taking standardized tests. Their subsequent academic performance is not necessarily representative of actual abilities’ (Rakes & McWilliams, 1978). In regards to this type of testing, I just think another alternative should be sought and one that is less stressful for everyone. Maybe it would be a good idea for schools to use the benchmark assessments, classroom work and homework to check for student performance. This is just how I feel about the situation in regards to what I have saw my own children go through when it was time to take the end of year test. I think there are many more challenges that schools face, for instance some children get bullied while others maybe struggling with learning. As teachers we just have to work hard to see that these issues get resolved and work to help them reach their academic goals. Conclusion In conclusion, getting a good education is imperative in today’s society. I truly feel the main purpose of education is to help educate students so that they will be able to function in society. I think if you are a good effective teacher who cares about your students then everything else will fall into place such as them growing up and taking charge of their own life. Students are with each teacher for one year before moving to the next grade but that one year can lead to many accomplishments and memories that the student will carry on throughout their life. Students need a good education for various reasons and one being to obtain a good paying job. Getting educated can help prepare you for this job because you will definitely need to have good reading and math skills in which you learn in school. We also need it so we will be able to think critically to solve problems we may have throughout our lives. As mothers and teachers we should want our children to grow up to be good citizens and future leaders. Mothers and teachers have a big impact on a student’s education because both are responsible for helping the student academically achieve. When I think of life and education I think ‘the sky is the limit’ meaning if you believe, work hard and put your mind to it you can do and achieve anything. References Rake, T. A., & McWilliams, L., (1978). Bridging the gap: Two Alternatives to Standardized Testing. The English Journal, Vol. 67, No. 7 (Oct., 1978), pp. 46-50 Teacher Vision, (2015). Strategies for Teaching Culturally Diverse Students. Retrieved June 25, 2015 from https://www.teachervision.com/teaching-methods/resource/6039.html Knight G. R., (2015). Philosophy & Education: An Introduction in Christian Perspective (4th Edition). Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press. Sadker, M. P., & Sadker, D., M. (2005). Teachers, Schools and Society.7th Edition, Retrieved June 26, 2015 from http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0072877723/student_view0/chapter9/index.html Okun, M., (2012). How Does Student Diversity Affect Teachers’ Priorities in Differentiating Instruction? International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 12 Special Issue O’Hara, S. & Pritchard, R., (2014). What is the Impact of Technology on Learning? Retrieved July 3, 2014 from http://www.education.com/reference/article/what-impact-technology-learning/

...(download the rest of the essay above)

About this essay:

If you use part of this page in your own work, you need to provide a citation, as follows:

Essay Sauce, The purpose and importance of a good education . Available from:<https://www.essaysauce.com/education-essays/essay-the-purpose-and-importance-of-a-good-education/> [Accessed 19-04-24].

These Education essays have been submitted to us by students in order to help you with your studies.

* This essay may have been previously published on Essay.uk.com at an earlier date.

Essay Categories:

• Accounting essays
• Architecture essays
• Business essays
• Computer science essays
• Criminology essays
• Economics essays
• Education essays
• Engineering essays
• English language essays
• Environmental studies essays
• Essay examples
• Finance essays
• Geography essays
• Health essays
• History essays
• Hospitality and tourism essays
• Human rights essays
• Information technology essays
• International relations
• Leadership essays
• Linguistics essays
• Literature essays
• Management essays
• Marketing essays
• Mathematics essays
• Media essays
• Medicine essays
• Military essays
• Miscellaneous essays
• Music Essays
• Nursing essays
• Philosophy essays
• Photography and arts essays
• Politics essays
• Project management essays
• Psychology essays
• Religious studies and theology essays
• Sample essays
• Science essays
• Social work essays
• Sociology essays
• Sports essays
• Types of essay
• Zoology essays

Essay on Education for School Students and Children

500+ words essay on education.

Education is an important tool which is very useful in everybody’s life. Education is what differentiates us from other living beings on earth. It makes man the smartest creature on earth. It empowers humans and gets them ready to face challenges of life efficiently. With that being said, education still remains a luxury and not a necessity in our country. Educational awareness needs to be spread through the country to make education accessible. But, this remains incomplete without first analyzing the importance of education. Only when the people realize what significance it holds, can they consider it a necessity for a good life. In this essay on Education, we will see the importance of education and how it is a doorway to success.

Importance of Education

Education is the most significant tool in eliminating poverty and unemployment . Moreover, it enhances the commercial scenario and benefits the country overall. So, the higher the level of education in a country, the better the chances of development are.

In addition, this education also benefits an individual in various ways. It helps a person take a better and informed decision with the use of their knowledge. This increases the success rate of a person in life.

Subsequently, education is also responsible for providing with an enhanced lifestyle. It gives you career opportunities that can increase your quality of life.

Similarly, education also helps in making a person independent. When one is educated enough, they won’t have to depend on anyone else for their livelihood. They will be self-sufficient to earn for themselves and lead a good life.

Above all, education also enhances the self-confidence of a person and makes them certain of things in life. When we talk from the countries viewpoint, even then education plays a significant role. Educated people vote for the better candidate of the country. This ensures the development and growth of a nation.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Doorway to Success

To say that education is your doorway to success would be an understatement. It serves as the key which will unlock numerous doors that will lead to success. This will, in turn, help you build a better life for yourself.

An educated person has a lot of job opportunities waiting for them on the other side of the door. They can choose from a variety of options and not be obligated to do something they dislike. Most importantly, education impacts our perception positively. It helps us choose the right path and look at things from various viewpoints rather than just one.

With education, you can enhance your productivity and complete a task better in comparison to an uneducated person. However, one must always ensure that education solely does not ensure success.

It is a doorway to success which requires hard work, dedication and more after which can you open it successfully. All of these things together will make you successful in life.

In conclusion, education makes you a better person and teaches you various skills. It enhances your intellect and the ability to make rational decisions. It enhances the individual growth of a person.

Education also improves the economic growth of a country . Above all, it aids in building a better society for the citizens of a country. It helps to destroy the darkness of ignorance and bring light to the world.

FAQs on Education

Q.1 Why is Education Important?

A.1 Education is important because it is responsible for the overall development of a person. It helps you acquire skills which are necessary for becoming successful in life.

Q.2 How does Education serve as a Doorway to Success?

A.2 Education is a doorway to success because it offers you job opportunities. Furthermore, it changes our perception of life and makes it better.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

What is Ethical Leadership and Why is it Important?

Ethical leadership is not only the right thing to do, it is key to driving an organization's success.

Valerie Kirk

Errors, bad behavior, and poor judgment in leadership can negatively impact a company’s brand and reputation. For business success, it’s critical for organizations to fill their C-suite with ethical leaders.

Ethical leadership involves leaders and managers making decisions based on the right thing to do for the common good, not just based on what is best for themselves or for the bottom line. While profits are important, ethical leaders take into consideration the needs of customers, communities, and employees in addition to company growth and revenue when making business decisions. 

Ethical leaders encourage their team members to model this behavior, too. They help to build a workplace culture that values transparency, collaboration and inclusion, and where everyone feels safe to share their voice.

They can also help organizations recruit and retain top talent. Professionals are increasingly seeking out companies whose leaders strive to do the right thing. Generation Z, who will make up 25 percent of the workforce by 2025, demands leadership ethics more than generations that came before them. 

“Gen Z is not going to negotiate. They have really strong values and ethics, and they don’t bend them because of intimidation or because they are just getting a paycheck,” said Michael McCarthy, instructor at Harvard Division of Continuing Education’s Professional & Executive Development and host of the “ Happy at Work ” podcast. “The idea of letting harmful or hurtful behavior slide is not acceptable.”

Leaders who weigh ethical considerations before making key business decisions drive a company’s long-term success. 

The 6 Main Principles of Ethical Leadership

Having ethical leaders isn’t as simple as hiring “good” people. Companies should strive to fill their leadership ranks with people who embody the principles of ethical leadership. The six main principles include: 

Respect includes valuing others’ skills and contributions. While historically respect in the workplace may have been one-way (leaders demanding respect from employees), in an ethical work environment, respect is mutual. 

Mutual respect leads to healthier workplace relationships where both sides appreciate and support what the other is doing and feel secure in talking through issues and challenges. Healthy relationships create positive work environments, which drives increased productivity.

Current and upcoming business leaders should take mutual respect into account as workforce expectations continue to shift.  

“I tell current leadership to respect Gen Z. They have values and morals, and you’re going to have a better organization because of them,” McCarthy said. “They aren’t going to put up with the old hierarchy that doesn’t offer mutual respect.” 

2. Accountability

Ethical leaders hold themselves accountable for their actions. They make decisions based on integrity and stand behind their work. They also lead by example, communicate openly about challenges, and don’t look to place blame on others for any shortfalls.

Leaders make ethical decisions based on doing what is right for employees, customers, and the community. Because these constituents are always top of mind for ethical leaders, they often have a strong sense of service. They engage in activities such as charitable giving and volunteer work to give  back to their communities — and encourage their teams to do the same. 

Leaders who are transparent build trust amongst their organizations and amongst customers. 

To build and maintain trust, leaders must be good communicators who speak openly and honestly about issues. Regardless of the issue’s severity or unpopularity, leaders’ responsibility to be clear and candid  empowers others to make the right decisions with the information they have. 

Honesty and transparency also help to build a brand’s reputation, leading to long-term customer loyalty.

Justice is not just about following the law, but about ensuring that everyone is getting what they deserve. Ethical leaders approach situations with a focus on treating everyone fairly, and they expect their teams to treat each other and customers the same way. Through their actions, they build equitable work environments where everyone feels respected. 

6. Community

Ethical leaders view their companies as communities and consider everyone involved when evaluating situations and making decisions. By viewing their organizations this way, they build equity and inclusion into their decision-making process and create work environments that encourage collaboration across teams. 

Learn more about Harvard DCE’s Ethical Leadership program

Examples of Positive and Negative Ethical Leadership

The following three examples are of companies that were faced with ethical dilemmas and how different leadership styles led to vastly different outcomes. 

Johnson & Johnson

One of the most famous examples of ethical leadership was the case of the Tylenol cyanide poisonings in the early 1980s. Seven people died of cyanide poisoning, and the only connecting factor was that they had all taken extra-strength Tylenol. During investigation, it was discovered that the tablets were laced with cyanide.

Johnson & Johnson’s leaders acted quickly and pulled all Tylenol products off the shelves — 31 million bottles, worth over $100 million — and stopped all production and advertising. The swiftness of their decision, although costly, put customers’ well-being first and saved lives.

They partnered with law enforcement to find the perpetrator and subsequently developed the first-ever tamper-resistant packaging. They were transparent with the public about what they were doing to ensure this tragedy never happened again. 

The Tylenol brand recovered from the incident, largely because of Johnson & Johnson’s ethical leadership team’s swift action and transparent care for customers.

In 2008, JetBlue left passengers stranded on the tarmac at the John F. Kennedy International Airport for more than five hours during a snowstorm. The delay had a ripple effect — JetBlue had to cancel more than 1,000 flights over the following five days.

In response, JetBlue’s CEO wrote a letter of apology to customers. He also directed his team to draft a customer bill of rights, which outlined customers’ rights to information about flights and information about compensation in the event of delays or cancellations.

The CEO also participated in a public apology tour, taking full responsibility for the incident rather than blaming it on the weather.

His transparency and accountability created trust with customers, who stayed loyal to the airline.

Wells Fargo

In September 2016 , it was revealed that employees of Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States, opened millions of unauthorized accounts in order to meet aggressive sales targets. This widespread fraudulent activity was the result of a work culture that prioritized quantity over quality and pushed employees to engage in unethical practices.

Company leaders denied knowledge of fraudulent practices. The bank was hit with significant financial penalties, but because of the lack of accountability, they damaged the trust of their customers and investors. They reported a 50 percent profit loss in the quarter following the scandal.

Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership

Companies cannot underestimate the power of different leadership styles on their growth and long term success. Those who practice ethical leadership have positive corporate cultures where employees are engaged, motivated, and feel good about coming to work. Companies without ethical leadership face lower productivity and high turnover rates, impacting the organization’s bottom line.

Ethical leaders aren’t just born with these skills — they develop them over years of experience and training. 

Harvard DCE Professional & Executive Development offers a two-day Ethical Leadership program that helps leaders develop skills to make ethical choices and lead companies through challenging dilemmas. 

Topics covered include: 

• Making ethical decisions with conflicting responsibilities 
• Building a moral framework within yourself and the organization
• Understanding the role of employees in both their professional and personal lives 
• Navigating a slippery slope when seemingly good people do bad things
• Building a corporate culture that values moral behavior

Learn more about the ethical leadership program, including how to register.  

Leaders looking to expand their ethical leadership skills should also consider the two-day Authentic Leadership program , where they will learn how to develop mindfulness and authenticity to build trust, create engagement, and promote productivity. 

Explore all Executive Leadership and Management courses

About the Author

Valerie Kirk is a freelance writer and corporate storyteller specializing in customer and community outreach and topics and trends in education, technology, and healthcare. Based in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay, she spends her free time exploring nature by bike, paddle board, or on long hikes with her family.

How to Successfully Negotiate a Salary Increase

Don’t be intimidated! With some preparation, research, and practice, you can master negotiation strategies to get the salary you deserve.

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

How Rochester adult shop promotes sexual health, education for all

Sex shop caters to all, with toys and wellness items. it's a newer rochester gem with a higher-end vibe..

An adult boutique in Rochester called Medusas has been bringing a sex-positive outlook to a once-taboo subject, and the couple behind it has their sights set on more community education.

Across the street from the Bug Jar, at 226 Monroe Ave., Medusas has a welcoming vibe. They call their store cat, Tiffany, their HR manager. It is popular with all groups, and Pride month is a huge business season for them.

Kristy Gabel is a nurse practitioner. She owns and runs the store with her business and life partner, Randy Gill.

Amid the sex toys, fancy underclothing and health products, the couple radiates joy and friendliness. It's unlike the adult boutiques of a generation ago — by design.

Sex into the mainstream in Rochester NY: Store gains fans

"Sex is becoming more of a household conversation now. ... It's more becoming a community thing," said Gill, who is a drug and alcohol counselor. "We got into the adult industry at a very unique time because we're like on the precipice of, we're still kind of living in the old world, but there's like that new world really seeping in."

It shows in the shop, which caters to all including the LGBTQ+ community. They also embrace the fact that Medusa is a common empowerment symbol used by survivors to mark that they have faced sexual assault.

Just because you open an adult boutique doesn't mean it has to be a hole in the wall where you are nervous walking through the parking lot, they explained. Their business has an elevated and mainstream feel.

"Our store is based on education," Gill said. "People will come in, and they'll be like, 'Is all of this normal? Like this seems so weird.' I'm like, well, we're still in business. I can assure you people are using it.

So, I think as we change in our culture, people are becoming more aware. Like, hey, this isn't just some like seedy thing that people are doing. Like this is just a normal part of life."

Getting good reviews, this store represents their life savings

The couple, who just bought a house together in Rochester, rented and renovated the space for more than four months to open in October 2022. They hope to build out the store space a bit more in the future. But what is there now is well-presented in an open space with tall ceilings and two separate, connected rooms.

They are getting good reviews. A recent five-star review on Google was effusive.

Gabel had saved money from doing travel nursing during COVID. And Gill had been saving, too. So Medusas represents their life savings in action. They both work in the store, with no other employees. Besides the cat.

They work with Trillium's center for sexual wellness and Planned Parenthood. They have hosted a booth at Rochester Museum & Science Center and have done some workshops with a local society.

"It's a space for everybody — it doesn't matter how old you are as long as you are an adult, or what your identity or body shape is," Gabel said. "We're here for the community."

William Ramsey is an editor with the Democrat and Chronicle.