Postmodernism

Douglas Kellner

From the perspective of postmodern theory, modern education is seen as the mass education that began in the nineteenth century with standardized curriculum, grades, degrees, and public accreditation. It is criticized as homogenizing, normalizing, and imposing the norms, practices, and values of the dominant society on the young. Modern education, from this perspective, corresponds in the field of education to mass production and consumption characterizing modern societies, and an era dominated by corporations, the state, military, and educational institutions marked by bureaucracy, a technical system of instrumentalized rules and regulations, and mass conformity. Proposals for a reconfiguration of education to suit a postmodern philosophy and electronic technology have been made. This entry contrasts the modern and postmodern views and looks at their application to education. Modern education is connected to an era of print technology and literacy based on reading books. As Marshall McLuhan argued in the mid-1960s, in works ...

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