Alternative Approaches on Society, State, Educational Reform, and Educational Policy

The main goal of this chapter is to describe and examine critically five issues that have been historically approached in a different way by critical theorists and functionalist researchers: (a) the role of education and state in modern societies; (b) the nature and goals of educational reforms and its rhetoric; (c) the reasons that would explain why some reforms become successful and why others fail; (d) the concepts of policy, public policy and educational policy; and (e) alternative trends in the process of development and implementation of educational policies. In order to see what elements and visions distinguish critical theory from the functionalist research tradition the chapter outlines initially the main assumptions guiding the critical and the functionalist tradition with particular emphasis in the former philosophical approach and then discusses the arguments and assumptions grounding both traditions in relation to the five subjects above mentioned above.