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Every society invests a significant proportion of its economic resources in educating its youth. Despite the fact that there will usually be no economic return on this investment for at least twelve years after students enter school, there is consensus in most societies among business interests, policymakers, and the wider community regarding the importance of education for ensuring future economic productivity and social stability. The way any society organizes its education system reflects its current social priorities and the implicit images it continuously constructs of its own future identity.
Education is also the gateway to social and economic rewards for individual students and for the social groups they were born into and represent. There is a very substantial (and rapidly increasing) disparity in income between those who graduate from university and those who have obtained only a basic secondary school qualification.
In view of its importance for the future of society and the economic rewards for individuals and social groups associated with education, it is hardly surprising that debates about the organization of education have become extremely volatile in many countries. Elite groups in society — those with wealth, power, and privilege — invariably ensure that their children receive a quality education either within the public system or by opting out of the public system into the private school sector. Perhaps the most universal finding in comparative education is that schools tend to reproduce the broader social structure; those with cultural capital of various kinds (economic, linguistic, etc.) choose schools for their children that will reinforce the cultural capital of the home. The result is that these children enjoy major advantages over those whose home and school experiences provide them with much less access to these forms of cultural capital.
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