The Education Myth cover art

The Education Myth

How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy (Histories of American Education)

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Education Myth

By: Jon Shelton
Narrated by: Keith McCarthy
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

The Education Myth questions the idea that education represents the best, if not the only, way for Americans to access economic opportunity. As Jon Shelton shows, linking education to economic well-being was not politically inevitable. In the 18th and 19th centuries, for instance, public education was championed as a way to help citizens learn how to participate in a democracy. By the 1930s, public education, along with union rights and social security, formed an important component of a broad-based fight for social democracy.

Shelton demonstrates that beginning in the 1960s, the political power of the education myth choked off powerful social democratic alternatives like A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin's Freedom Budget. The nation's political center was bereft of any realistic ideas to guarantee economic security and social dignity for the majority of Americans, particularly those without college degrees. Embraced first by Democrats like Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, Republicans like George W. Bush also pushed the education myth. The result, over the past four decades, has been the emergence of a deeply inequitable economy and a drastically divided political system.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"A provocative and inspired intervention into debates about education, inequality, and the political realignments of the last half century." (Lily Geismer, Claremont McKenna College)

"Required reading for anyone concerned about the fate of American democracy." (Jennifer C. Berkshire, coauthor of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door)

"A definitive account of how education policy displaced a broader social democratic agenda in the US, and how education has defined the fault lines of contemporary politics." (Cristina Viviana Groeger, Lake Forest College)

©2023 2023 Cornell University (P)2023 Redwood Audiobook
Education Social Classes & Economic Disparity Economic disparity Economic inequality Education Myth
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Vanishing Middle Class cover art
RIP GOP cover art
The Democrat Party Hates America cover art
The Puppeteers cover art
They're Not Listening cover art
Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone cover art
Winner-Take-All Politics cover art
American Amnesia cover art
Congress, Presidents, and American Politics cover art
Positive Populism cover art
Defeating Big Government Socialism cover art
Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? cover art
Thinking Like an Economist cover art
The Politics Industry cover art
Defeating the Dictators cover art
Bigger Than Bernie cover art

What listeners say about The Education Myth

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.