Chapter IV Sociology of the school system

In the sociology of education, two clearly differentiated areas of interest are distinguished
that correspond, respectively, to the macrosociology of education (its central theme is the
analysis of the school system and its relations with the society in which it is inserted) and
microsociology. of education that deals with the interaction processes that take place in the
classroom and in school, and everything that is involved in those processes.

The teaching-learning process that takes place in a school class occurs in the context of a
school and it does not operate in isolation, but rather constitutes an element of a larger
whole that is the school system. The sociology of education is the scientific study of
education as a phenomenon and as a social process in social contexts of different
amplitudes, in the macro perspective the context in question is the societal context,
considering the educational system as a subsystem of society. .

System and subsystem The concept of system refers to a set of elements that are
mutually integrated, that interact with each other and are interdependent. These elements
(or constituent parts of the system) form a whole with their own characteristics that do not
arise from the sum of these elements, but from their integration and acquire meaning only
in relation to the whole of which they are part, integration, interdependence and
interaction are the necessary conditions for a set of elements to be considered as a
system. Within the system, different processes are carried out, in which the different
elements that make up the system participate, and are aimed at achieving certain results
(outputs). For example, in the school system, students are 'processed' in some way in
order to achieve certain changes in their behavior; These changes respond to the
objectives or purposes assigned to education by educational policy. Results of this
'processing' are, for example, individuals who master reading and writing, know the
geography of the country, can solve problematic situations, have the necessary skills to
join the labor structure, love the country, respect the institutions. , they are supportive, etc.,
etc. Within a system, subsystems can be distinguished analytically.

Subsystems are smaller sets of the system that are integrated into it. The distinction
between system and subsystem is relative. For example, if the Argentine educational
system is taken as a system, the provincial educational systems can constitute
subsystems of it; If, on the contrary, the educational system of Córdoba is taken as a
system, municipal education can be treated as a subsystem of the provincial system. We
have stated before that educational systems are social systems. These, unlike other types
of systems, are open, they maintain a close and permanent connection with the context (or
environment, according to the technical terminology of system analysis) in which they are
inserted.

b) Environment social systems are open systems, therefore, they exert influences on the
context in which they are inserted and receive, in turn, influences from it. The concept of
environment designates, precisely, that context; It is defined as the set of elements that,
within certain limits, exert/receive such influences . If we place ourselves in the
perspective of global society, the educational system can be analyzed as a subsystem
within the broader system that is society, composed, in turn, of other subsystems
(economic, political, cultural, etc.) .

c) Structure Structure is a property of the system that refers to the relationships between
the constituent parts or elements of the system. In the case of school systems, two types of
structure are of interest that refer to different sets of relationships: academic and
administrative. . The first refers to the regulation of the school career of students and the
professional career of teachers. Generally, school systems are structured into levels,
cycles, modalities, etc., articulated among themselves, and teachers must meet certain
requirements to function as such at the different levels of the system. The ' administrative
structure' formally designates the relationships between the leading and managing bodies
of the system at the national or provincial level; This structure can be diagrammed in
graphs that we call organization charts. The two previous types of structures are formal
structures, that is, they are perfectly regulated by a series of provisions and resolutions that
define their characteristics and functions.

d) Function The concept of function designates the observable consequences of the

activity of any unit of social life that contribute to the maintenance of the balance of the
system. These functions can be manifest or latent . Manifest functions are those that, in
some way , are formally established and respond to the objectives for which they were
created ( the teaching of reading, writing and the rudiments of calculation, the creation of
discipline and work habits, etc. ). Latent functions are the results that arise from the
action without its participants deliberately intending it. (the emotional containment of some
children). Today the school and the teacher are fulfilling functions that, strictly speaking,
are not their own or specific (feeding the children, managing the school cafeteria, socially
assisting the students' families, etc.),

Archer understands by 'state educational system' a “collection of differentiated

institutions, national in scope, whose general control and inspection is, at least in part, the
responsibility of the State and whose processes and component parts are related to each
other.” A careful analysis of Archer's definition allows us to discover what conditions must
be met for a 'state educational system' to exist. Those conditions are the following:

 Existence of institutions whose function is formal education. These institutions receive

different names depending on the country or the educational level in question (schools,
colleges, institutes, universities, etc.).

 National character of these institutions. These must cover the entire country and be
articulated in such a way that the geographical mobility of students and teachers does not
put at risk the continuity of their respective careers within the system.
 Role of the State. The financing, management and supervision of the educational system
is a non-delegable function of the State, whether national, provincial or, eventually,
municipal, depending on the type of institutional organization adopted by the country in
question.

 Finally, the necessary relationship and integration between the processes and the parts
that constitute the system.

STRUCTURE : Each educational system has its own structure, both academic and
administrative management. The first is defined by the relationships between the different
levels, cycles and teaching modalities, and by the functions assigned to each of them. It
also involves the regulation of the school career of those who have access to the system,
the establishment of the conditions for entry, permanence, passage from one level to the
next, or from one modality to another, accreditation, etc. The second , the administrative
or management structure, implies the existence of administration, management and
supervision bodies of the corresponding activities, along with the definition of the roles
assigned to the respective officials.

An inherent property of the educational system is relative autonomy and refers to the fact
that the system has its own life and its own internal operating rules; It also has a relatively
independent evolution of external conditions,

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS

Unification

Unification refers to the scope and nature of school administration. It indicates the
incorporation or development of various establishments, activities and personnel under the
orbit of a central administration, specifically educational, of a national nature. This
translates into uniform controls that emanate from the center and regulate, partially or
totally, different aspects of a country's educational activity. The unification can vary in
extent and intensity. According to the form that this feature takes, we can speak of a
centralized educational system or a decentralized one; In centralized ones, the degree of
control and regulation exercised by the central government is total, while in decentralized
ones it is partial, limited to the establishment of regulations on certain types of activities,
some forms of instruction, certain types of institutions, some categories of teachers, etc.
For example, today our educational system is decentralized; The provision and control of
education is the responsibility of each of the jurisdictional governments. However, the
university level is an exclusive responsibility of the national government.

Systematization

Systematization refers to the degree of coordination that the system achieves. It consists
of the strengthening of relationships between parts, the development of relationships
between previously disconnected parts, the gradual addition of new elements and
relationships to the system or the combination of all these changes (Archer, 1982a). There
are two aspects of systematization, the existence of nationally valid exams , defined for
different levels and modalities, which fulfill a regulatory function of individuals' careers; and
on the other, the development of regular forms of recruitment, training and
certification of teaching staff, appropriate for each level and valid throughout the entire
system (E. from Babini, 1991).

Differentiation

The differentiation refers to the fact that the educational system is outlined as a unit
perfectly distinguishable from the rest of the social structure with its own roles, different
from those corresponding to other units of social life,

Specialization

This concept refers to the internal changes that occur in educational systems to meet
special needs: creating new establishments, adding new activities to existing ones,
delineating new roles, imposing other forms of recruitment and training of personnel,
adopting increasingly complex admission and placement of students, develop new
services, design teaching materials and school equipment, etc., etc. (for example, post-
graduate programs for secondary and primary level teachers, or the multiplication of
postgraduate courses in recent years.)

STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS AND PATTERNS FOR

CHANGE

Since their appearance, school systems have undergone important changes in their
internal configuration and in their relationships with society. Based on the concept of
'mophogenesis', it explains educational change considering both the phenomena external
to the system, as well as the structure and processes that take place within it. Thus,
change is the result of the continuous succession of morphogenetic cycles , composed
of three dialectical moments:

Structural conditioning

Interaction,

Structural elaboration.

Figure nº 1: The development of school systems

The development of school systems occurs in three crucial stages, each of which contains
innumerable morphogenetic cycles. The first stage corresponds to the emergence of the
system, and is called 'takeoff' ; the second is that of 'growth' ; and the third, that of
'inflation' .

Figure 1 presents the scheme proposed by Archer to illustrate his proposal on this topic.
 a) Take off ('take off') . The 'take-off' of school systems occurs as a result of the
competitive struggle between interest groups engaged in the control of education. The
conflict between these groups leads to the creation of new schools, and thus an increase in
enrollment. Along with this, a 'positive feedback' cycle begins whereby less educated
people aspire for more education for themselves and their children. According to Archer
(1984), there are two strategies in this competitive struggle for control of education.

i) Substitution, which consists of devaluing the existing monopoly through competition in

the educational market, building and maintaining new schools, recruiting, training and
paying new teachers to staff them.
ii) Restriction, which involves the use of the legal machinery of the State to deprive the
ownership group of its educational advantages, through the expropriation of buildings, the
confiscation of educational funds and the banning of teachers. In substitution educational
control is challenged by competition in the market; in restriction the objective is a legal
transfer of control

In the take-off stage, the relative autonomy of the system is low, there is an increase in the
number of schools and growth in enrollment, as a result of the competitive struggle between
interest groups and incipient national states for control of education.

b) Growth ('growth') Public financing results in a diversification of educational services

and these extend to broader sectors of society (more corporate groups have opted for
this), this second phase is predominantly the period of expansion of the middle level
education level. At this stage, the negotiation of interest groups with the State takes on
different forms, each of which leads to different results and produces particular patterns of
change. Archer distinguishes three types of negotiation: i) external transactions (through
them, interest groups negotiate directly with different parts of the educational system new
or additional educational services, in exchange for resources that are, generally, financial);
ii) internal initiation, which represents endogenous changes to the system, fundamentally
driven by education professionals (once teachers become professional, they manage more
funding and greater opportunities to satisfy their growing experience); and iii) political
manipulation, which involves negotiating change via central or local political authorities
(whereby corporate groups influence educational policy in proportion to their strength in
the political arena). External transactions introduced more offers, that is, the offer was
diversified (new careers, other modalities, etc.). Internal initiation led to longer schooling,
since this type of negotiation is basically driven by teachers who, by becoming
professional, seek to consolidate and expand their source of work. Political manipulation,
for its part, resulted in broader access to schooling, that is, the system achieves greater
coverage (new social sectors access education). We are now faced with a state
educational system, its relative autonomy is medium, the action of groups or corporations
that negotiate with the State is as important as primary actions and individual motivation
for education is positive, since education ensures , among other things, access to different
social goods (employment, job promotion, better salary, status, etc.).

c) Inflation , as the educational system matures, it begins to take on a life of its own,
becoming increasingly independent as a social institution and less regulated by other
subsystems of society. In general, there is an acceleration of positive reinforcement cycles
that operate between supply and demand, context and environment, macroscopic and
microscopic action. In short, with the vast increase in its size and scope of application, the
school system takes on a life of its own. According to Babini, “[The system] becomes a
less regulated, more independent institutional order (high relative autonomy). In the
inflation stage, the universalization of secondary education and the massification of higher
education occurs,

Table 1: Characteristics and patterns of change of centralized and decentralized school

systems

Why is education expanding, despite educational 'inflation'? If something

characterizes education in most countries in the world today, it is its constant expansion. It
is a fact that the growth spiral does not stop. According to sociologists, this is due, among
other things, to the fact that the consumption of education is directly related to a higher
general standard of living of the population, but they also mention other causes, such as
the following:

 The growing importance of specialized knowledge. which is an essential requirement for

economic development. Production increasingly requires adequate training not only from
the point of view of technical skills, but also in terms of the attitudes that are required today
for effective performance.

 Education is an important factor in access to social goods of various kinds: higher status,
better jobs, and therefore, higher monetary income, etc.  The valuation of education as a
factor of development and social integration. The modern world requires not only technical
skills for job performance, but also certain cultural conditions (values, behavioral patterns,
etc.) that facilitate coexistence in complex and culturally diverse societies.

The principle or law of zero correlation has a series of corollaries that explain why the
devaluation of a degree or educational credential, which at a given moment any person can
obtain, does not become an obstacle to the growth of the system but, for On the contrary, it
provokes it. According to E. From Babini (1991), these corollaries are the following:  The
educational level is transformed into achievement. When having a diploma does not allow
discrimination, other bases for discrimination begin to be used: the school that issued it, the
average obtained, the programs taken, or any other indicator of the quality of the
achievements achieved.  The transformation of utility. Although education does not serve
to achieve social benefits, its main instrumental value lies in the fact that it ensures access
to more education. A degree may be devalued in the labor market, but it is essential to be
able to continue studying.  Changing profits and losses. With more education we seek to
avoid the losses suffered by not having a certain educational level.  The law of who
comes last. No society has managed to expand education to the point of including groups
from the lowest socioeconomic strata in the system in the same proportion in which these
groups are represented in the population.  The moving target principle. When those who
arrive last at an educational level reach their educational goal, it reaches its zero
correlation and the target moves forward; the level is devalued and those who come last
cannot benefit from their achievement. In summary, the spiral of growth of school systems
is and will continue to be continuous because education, for the reasons we have just
seen, constitutes the key to having better opportunities for social insertion in today's world.

RELATIONSHIP OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM WITH OTHER SUBSYSTEMS OF

SOCIETY

We stated at the beginning that the core of a macrosociology of education is the study of
the relationships between the educational system and the other subsystems of society. For
strictly analytical purposes, we are going to distinguish three types of functions: social,
political and economic . In Figure 2 we present a diagram of the main functions assigned
to school systems.

Figure nº 2: Functions of school systems

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND CULTURE

Relating the educational system to the social structure means placing it at the very heart of
the stratification system and culture of a society; culture includes the normative, cognitive,
ideological and even material contents that serve as the basis for the process of social
interaction and they give it meaning. Social stratification, for its part, designates the
distribution of the members of a society in a hierarchy of positions to which are associated
different objective possibilities of accessing the ownership of resources that are socially
valued: material goods, prestige and power. The stratification system typical of capitalist
societies is the class system.

a) Transmission of culture It is the specific function of the educational system to instill the
culture of the society in which it is inserted; It is a reproductive organ of that culture. The
central ideas that all members of a society must learn to develop their sense of belonging
and form a united whole around a set of shared objectives can only be acquired through
participation in the educational system. No other socialization agency (family, media,
churches, etc.) meets the necessary conditions to adequately fulfill this function. Let's see
what those conditions are.  The inculcation process carried out by the school system
covers a large number of members because they are obliged, by order of the State, to
receive formal education.  The action that formal education exerts on the individual is
systematic, regular and extends over a long time, which is essential to guarantee effective
socialization.  The school system has a monopoly on transmission (it defines the content,
controls its distribution and certifies its acquisition) and is endowed with the necessary
legitimacy to do so, thereby reinforcing the effectiveness of its action.  The educational
system is the only one that is authorized to train the agents in charge of transmission
(teachers), selects them to fulfill that function and legitimizes them as officials of a higher
authority, the State and the nation. The subjects of education are not passive recipients of
the set of meanings that are transmitted in it; They are true actors, that is, active
individuals, capable of subjectively processing those meanings and, therefore, transforming
them. For their part, the agents of transmission (teachers) also contribute to the
transformation of the meanings they transmit, to the extent that they act as agents of
recontextualization of those meanings in the process of pedagogical communication
(Bernstein, 1998).

b) Social integration of the individual Incorporation into the educational system is an

essential condition in modern societies so that an individual can fully participate in social
life. Full participation requires more than just the possession of knowledge and skills; It also
demands mastery of the fundamental elements of the culture of the society to which one
belongs. Formal education is responsible for providing the individual with both. For
sociology, educating means much more than instructing. It is also responsible for 'shaping
the character, the manners, the way of being', that is, it instills regulative elements of
behavior (values, norms, ways of perceiving and judging others and the phenomena of
reality, etc.) . It is precisely these regulative elements that act decisively in the creation of
social cohesion and, consequently, in the integration of society.

c) Innovation is carried out in higher level educational institutions. It is there where new
knowledge and new technologies are produced from basic and applied research. also
contributing to changing cultural patterns, to generating new needs in individuals and in
society as a whole, to developing new activities, to improving people's living conditions, to
seeking other forms of individual and collective development, etc. (genetic manipulation,
artificial insemination, cloning, etc.).

d) Social selection . We understand by social selection the role that education plays in the
possibility that an individual has of achieving a certain position in the social stratification
system. We know that in the school system there is inevitably a selection process that has
social consequences. In other words, the degree of formal education achieved is not
indifferent from the point of view of someone's social status. There are two antagonistic
paradigms for the analysis of this function that, according to some analysts (Tedesco,
1987), are clearly insufficient to explain the problem today: the functionalist and the
reproductive. The functionalist paradigm maintains that formal education is a factor of
upward social mobility. . According to this view, in capitalist societies that adopt democracy
as a government regime and social lifestyle, an individual can modify his or her social
situation of origin if he or she makes an effort to do so. This idea is based on the
assumption that these societies provide the necessary opportunities for everyone to
improve their position in society based on their own behavior. It all depends on the
individual, their level of aspirations and the effort they put into satisfying those aspirations.
The first effort required of you has to do with school; This is a meritocratic institution that,
by definition, operates a selection process for individuals based on academic performance
and personal merit. Functionalists say nothing about the way in which objective conditions
(social origin, place of residence, etc.) define the possibilities that an individual has to
develop his aspirations and make the necessary effort to satisfy them. In short, from the
functionalist perspective, the school system is presented to the individual as a genuine
opportunity to improve their position in society, and social differences do not constitute a
major factor in determining academic performance and success. The reproductive
paradigm represents the opposite vision to the functionalist one and accentuates all the
contradictions inherent to it. This approach is based on a conception of the educational
system related to the Marxist tradition according to which, in capitalist societies, the school
is an ideological apparatus of the state (Althusser, 1974) at the service of the interests of
the dominant class, whose ideology is the in charge of transmitting and imposing. The way
in which the system is structured and the contents it transmits determine that, under the
appearance of a single school for all, two differentiated education networks are developed,
each of which is aimed at individuals of different social origins and the leads to different
positions in the structure of society. On the one hand, secondary and higher education
(secondary-higher network) for the children of the bourgeoisie, destined to occupy
command positions and positions of greatest responsibility in companies and in the
agencies of the state bureaucracy. On the other hand, basic and vocational education
(primary-professional network) to which the children of workers are oriented, and leads to
the performance of manual tasks and positions of subordination in public administration
organizations and companies. For the reproductive paradigm: if the system and the teacher
are at the service of the dominant classes, if things happen in such a way that the
injustices of capitalist domination cannot be eliminated unless the structural conditions
change.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

The educational system was born, basically, to satisfy a political need. Consequently, from
its beginnings, it fulfilled, and continues to do so, a fundamental political function that today
responds to the following objective: guaranteeing the validity of the democratic regime.
This primary political mission of the system can be translated, for analytical purposes, into
two main functions: political formation of the citizen and democratization of social
life . Multiple factors, internal to the system and external to it, limit the system in the
performance of these functions. Any analysis of the relationship between education and the
organization of political power must necessarily take them into account if we want to
acquire a complete vision of the real possibilities that education has to fulfill the mission
assigned to it.

a) Political training of the citizen Political training does not only imply the mastery of
some knowledge related to the democratic system, its institutions and the conditions
necessary for its functioning. It also involves instilling values and developing democratic
attitudes and practices in all actors in the educational system. These values are not pure
theoretical notions that are found in books and one can learn from reading them, but rather
they are norms that guide behavior and are exercised in the specific organizations of which
the individual is a part. When it comes to the educational system, they must exercise
themselves in school. If society has opted for pluralistic democracy as a political regime
and collective way of life, the educational system will have to define a curriculum that
instructs citizens in the principles of democracy and, at the same time, must instill the
values and adopt the rules. of conduct that respond to these principles to impose them in
daily practices. It is necessary to incorporate two sets of topics of a very complex nature
into the curriculum: i) the fundamental concepts of politics and the foundations of
democracy: the relationship between politics and power, ethics and politics, politics and
law, political reality of the country, organization and functioning of state and social
institutions, constitutional norms, etc.

ii) the components of democracy. It is necessary to make the student aware of what
'government of the people, for and by the people' means, the principle of universal
suffrage, popular sovereignty, the role and rights of minorities in the democratic regime, the
free exercise of the opposition, the independence of the powers of the State, the role and
responsibility of the individual in the management of public affairs, the importance of
political parties, the rule of law, the importance of participation and personal commitment in
the political sphere, etc. It is also necessary to keep in mind that the selection of content for
the political training of citizens must be accompanied by another series of educational
actions, some planned, others more spontaneous and informal, aimed at developing the
attitudes and skills essential for democratic life: ideological tolerance, individual
responsibility, respect for others, acceptance of diversity, etc. Attitudes and skills that must
necessarily be translated into concrete practices.

b) Democratization of social life Democratization is generally associated with the idea of

participation. From this point of view, the function of the educational system would be to
prepare the individual to take part in collective decisions and share the responsibilities that
this implies. According to Martínez Paz (1989), participation is, at the same time, a means
and an end, if its starting point is taken into account, which is the demand to contribute to
satisfying the most urgent human needs. But it is also a fundamental right of the person. If
we consider the conditions that must be met for real participation, the role of education
appears clearly, since it would be responsible for creating them. Martínez Paz, in the cited
work, points out the following conditions:  There is no possible participation without a
clear awareness of cultural identity, which places each human being in their society and in
their world: culture is acquired thanks to education.  For participation to be effective, there
must be as little intermediation as possible between the decision-making centers and the
participatory bases: through education, the institutional and legal supports for participation
are known.  An open, tolerant sociopolitical doctrine that accepts change and the
contribution of different social sectors. Another idea that is frequently associated with the
concept of democratization is that of equality in all aspects, social, cultural, legal, etc. In
this sense, education could contribute to the democratization of social life if it managed to
promote equal opportunities for access to different levels of education and guarantee
equality in the quality of results.

c) Limits of the educational system to fulfill its political functions Although education,
as we have just seen, can fulfill important functions in political matters, its real possibilities
of achieving the objectives it aims for in this field are limited by multiple factors. , some
related to the social context, others related to the educational system itself , in society the
conditions that facilitate democratic life must exist: validity of democratic principles
(freedom, equality, popular sovereignty), full functioning of democratic institutions (political
parties, parliamentary activity, the independence of the three powers of government).
State, universal suffrage, etc.) and, necessarily, a successful experience of democratic life.
Education by itself can do nothing in terms of political training, if the child or adolescent has
never seen a political party act, never seen Parliament function, or attended an electoral
event. The educational system can contribute little to the consolidation of the democratic
regime if citizens, due to their personal experience, associate democracy with economic or
social chaos, the authoritarianism of public officials, corruption or the ineptitude of political
leadership. Nor can education fulfill its political functions if democratic principles are not in
force in the educational system itself, nor is equality promoted in all its aspects,
discriminating against students in various ways, or creating differences between schools or
between regions. The contradiction between personal experience and institutional
discourse prevents the student from incorporating the fundamental cognitive and normative
elements to ensure the consensus that the existence and continuity of democratic life
requires. Finally, education does not fulfill its political functions if it does not promote, in the
development of daily tasks in schools, personal responsibility and discipline. Both
conditions must be satisfied by the actors of democratic life. The school is the environment
par excellence for the creation of these conditions in subjective consciousness. And in this
the role of teachers is crucial.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE AND THE LABOR MARKET

The educational system is assigned a fundamental economic function: the formation of

'human capital', which is equivalent to preparing individuals for their insertion into the labor
market and, therefore, into the productive structure of a country. Access to knowledge and
certain skills (and not just access to school) is now seen as the decisive element to actively
participate in new production processes (Filmus, 1993). What type of knowledge and what
skills are necessary now becomes the central issue. Another important function is the
production of new knowledge and with it, new technologies. We must also remember that
to fulfill its functions (not only economic ones), the system needs to be assigned the
necessary resources. These resources are always scarce, both in absolute and relative
terms. The educational sector is only one of the sectors that the State must serve with
them, so it is necessary to know how to adequately justify, to those responsible for its
administration and distribution, what they are needed for and how they will be used. New
knowledge is also required in order to achieve technological advances that help improve
the productivity of the economy. It is no secret that two of the factors in this equation,
'human capital' and knowledge, can only be provided by a quality educational system. To
sustain a system that meets this condition, the country must allocate a very significant
proportion of its GDP to the educational sector, and it must know how to manage it
efficiently. In summary, a low GDP implies fewer resources for the educational sector,
among other sectors; the lack of resources makes it difficult to develop an educational
system that can provide the high-quality 'human capital' and the new knowledge and
technologies that the growth of the economy requires; This determines, in turn, lower
productivity, fewer resources for education, etc., etc. We will limit ourselves to briefly
raising three important questions regarding it, those that in our opinion are most closely
related to the economic functions of education: i) the necessary articulation between the
educational system and the labor market; ii) the conditions that must be met for education
to be a factor of economic development; and iii) the pressures exerted from the economic
field on the educational system.

a) Articulation with the labor market The recent changes in the economic and social
conditions of the countries, especially the so-called 'emerging countries' (globalization and
deregulation of the economy, adjustment policies with high social costs, extension of the
education to social sectors that previously did not have access to it, devaluation of
educational credentials, deterioration of educational quality, underutilization of the
capacities created by education, etc.), have led to raising the relationship between
education -especially higher level- and labor market, in a different way (Filmus, 1996). In
order for the educational system to respond to two fundamental needs of societies, one of
a structural nature (providing 'human capital') and another of an individual nature (providing
the individual with the skills he needs to satisfy his personal expectations), it is necessary
that adequately resolves the problem of its articulation with the world of work. Achieving
this articulation is particularly difficult today. With regard to the structure of the labor
market, two closely related trends are currently observed: decentralization and flexibility.
The possibility of articulating both worlds lies in thinking about education, not only as
responsible for providing the knowledge, skills, attitudes, competencies, etc., that
performance in the labor market requires, but also as the place where one learns to learn,
the area to which each one can return whenever they need it or consider it necessary. The
way the world of work is structured today raises the need for continuing education. This
implies a substantial change in perspective on educational systems and forces us to think
about the design of new curricular proposals, other pedagogical strategies and, logically, to
rethink teacher training plans. But it also implies a change in the work culture and “a new
lifestyle and trajectory in which stable employment can no longer have a central place and
in which the alternation of productive and training periods increasingly tends to blur the
traditional boundaries between activity and inactivity.

b) Education and economic development Even taking into account the difficulties that
the educational system faces in achieving adequate articulation with the world of work and
the limitations it experiences in responding to the new demands of the productive structure,
there is no doubt that education plays a a fundamental role in the economic development
of a country. On the one hand, the formation of 'human capital' and the production of
knowledge, specific functions of the system, are today essential for the development of
productive activities (in any sector of the economy in question) and for the full participation
of the country in a globalized world. On the other hand, the labor market imposes as a
condition for opening entry to its ranks, the accreditation of a certain level of formal
education, even when the tasks that must be performed do not strictly require it. However,
the correlation between economic development and educational development is not as
direct, simple and mechanical as Schultz's theory suggested. For a real contribution of
education to occur in this aspect, some conditions must be met, among others, the
following: i) that the economic resources allocated to education are truly oriented towards
satisfying the demands of the country's productive structure; ii) that the competencies
created by the educational system can be effectively used by the economic structure; and
iii) that the norms, values, behavioral patterns, attitudes (the cultural contents that act as
regulators of behavior) that the educational system instills are favorable to change and
have incorporated the values of rationality and efficiency typical of the world. of the
production. As education develops in a specific sociocultural context, what is transmitted in
schools is, to a large extent, a reflection of the dominant patterns in that context. It can be
seen that education and development are interdependent: greater and more efficient
economic production requires a better trained workforce, more technicians, management
training, business capacity, etc., which means greater education. For its part, an expanding
economy generates more resources, and with it, greater investment possibilities in
education. Educational development and the wealth of a country vary together. Today we
can no longer affirm that one precedes the other (E. from Babini, 1991).

c) Pressures of the economy on the educational system . It is obvious that education

(like attention to the health and safety of the population, among others) is an activity that
causes expenses for the State and therefore for society. These expenses must be met with
resources that, by definition, are always scarce, regardless of the country in question, but
are even more so in developing countries like ours. As a result of this, the educational
system, whatever the purpose assigned to it, must try to use these resources as rationally
as possible. This economic pressure on the system could translate into two fundamental
demands: efficiency and control. The requirement for efficiency implies that the system's
objectives must be achieved with the greatest possible economy of resources (economic
and human); In short, it is about choosing the least expensive path to obtain a certain result
or 'product'. Control translates into the need to implement strict mechanisms to prevent
waste, inappropriate use or underutilization of available resources.