Conclusion: The Liberal Legacy

Abstract

The aim of this book has been to analyse the social origins of certain historically specific forms of education known as national education systems. These were defined as systems of formal schooling at least partly funded and supervised by the state which provided universal education for all children of school age in a given nation. A set of educational institutions constituted a national system when it supplied the majority of the nation’s needs in formal education and did so through an integrated and coordinated network of institutions. For the most part such systems were consolidated in the nineteenth century and they represented the precursors of modern state schooling.