Peter Mandler - What is a good education?

Inequality operates throughout an individual’s life, not just through one’s education. Equal education can help address inequality but cannot solve it.

About Peter Mandler

"I am Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge.

I’m a historian of modern Britain and of the modern world. Over the last 20 years, I’ve aligned my work representing historians as academics and teachers with my research in education: I’ve become immersed in the recent history of education. My main interest is asking why people have gotten more and more education over the last generation or two."

Key Points

• Inequality operates throughout an individual’s life, not just through one’s education. Equal education can help address inequality but cannot solve it.
• Privileged children use their educational advantages to further intensify their advantages after leaving the education system.
• There is no economic reason for society to favour science skills. This bias discourages children who are better at other subjects such as creative arts.

One of the problems when researching the topic of education is that education generates a lot of myths. I want to do the job of a historian in busting those myths without necessarily depreciating the value of education. This is a necessary contrast to make; however, it may not be important for the reasons people think.

One such myth is that you need education to function in the workforce of the future. Another is that education is required to make a more equal society or, as commonly cited in Britain, education is needed for social mobility.

Education gives everyone the chance to improve themselves and their lives, but it isn’t particularly effective at accomplishing social mobility. This is true for the same reasons that education is not suitable for training people for specific jobs. This is partly because inequality is generated across our entire lives, not just during our school years.