Culture, history and change: Aspects of education

In New Zealand’s rapidly changing society, the character and role of education seem likely to require major adjustments both to meet the new demands of the 1990s and the twenty-first century, and to redress the disparities created by past policies and neglect. Towards this end a critical assessment of the institutions, characteristics and relationships of education as it has developed over the past century and a half is surely a prerequisite. Potentially of major importance as part of this general process ls a ‘new wave’ of educational history, conceived not in the traditional way of charting the growth and progress of educational institutions towards an enlightened present, but as a means of assessing the changing relations between New Zealand society and education in its broadest sense. Such a study should be significant for our understanding of education, culture, and New Zealand history, with some bearing also upon future educational policy. It involves a reassessment of the character of educational research no less than active engagement in the scholarship of sociologists and cultural historians.