Examines the work of several contemporary social theorists and commentators, who have focused on conflicts in contemporary social values and beliefs and the cultural contradictions of capitalism. Endeavors to develop cultural understanding of schooling and social reproduction in society through recognition of the contradictory and dissonant nature…

Contemporary theories about the nature of modern bourgeois culture are reviewed briefly, and the contradictions of that culture are stressed. Christopher Lasch's criticisms of American schools in "The Culture of Narcissism" fail to recognize that self-liberating practices may stimulate intellectual growth. (PP)

Critical and revisionist historians of American education have generated a model of education in a capitalist society that has a functionalist orientation. However, this model does not properly acknowledge the importance of society's contradictions, disjunctions, and incoherence in social and educational change. (FG)