Children make up over a quarter of the world’s population and childhood is the most “intensely governed sector of personal existence” (Rose, 1985, p. 121). This research will assess how much autonomy is given to a child in regards to the information they are legally obligated to consume, the weight of the incentive to recall this information and the punishments that may arise if the child is not complicit with their education or indoctrination.

The aims of my research are:

• To evoke awareness and discussion of ageism and argue that it is a legitimate form of discrimination when it is inflicted upon young people by the school system;
• To analyse different aspects of schooling and how these have the potential to be harmful;
• To discuss the more sinister educational theories about the origins, effects and intentions of schooling;
• To set a precedent for liberating and empowering children and argue that schooling does the opposite of this in the most literal sense.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) states that children have the right to be free from discrimination, violence and separation from parents; have the right to freedom of expression, thought, belief and religion; and the right to privacy, leisure and education. Children have the right to be free from child labour or “work that is dangerous or might harm their health” (UNCRC, 1989, article 32). Notably, the right to be free from child labour is specific to that which is dangerous. I will argue that this right should cover all labour, even that which is labelled as educational, and that ‘dangerousness’ is subjective. For example, it could be considered ‘dangerous’ for educational systems to ignore climate change, to uphold social inequality, to deliver a history curriculum that glorifies world wars or to provide a sex education that erases female pleasure and homosexuality. Labour can be written work and words can be powerful. Meighan and Harber (2007) state that “inaccuracies, distortions and biases are imbedded” in educational resources such as textbooks which “often” promote “nationalism, racism, sexism and social class bias” (p. 81). Due to its monumental outreach and mandatory attendance, the school system’s perpetuation of social inequality is problematic at best.

State-funded education became compulsory and accessible to the masses during the late-nineteenth century; however, it was not a linear progression from education being a privilege/decision, to becoming an obligation (Ball, 2018). It was not until 1881 that primary schooling was made compulsory while access to secondary schooling “very much depended on where [a child] lived” (Ball, 2018, p. 217). Similarly, today, the differences in locational access to schools (such as special schools, free schools and faith schools) are “stark” (p. 209). Universal access, however, was not enshrined in law until 1970 when local education authorities were to make education available to all disabled children.

Education for all does not mean equal opportunity for all: “a family living next to a school rated ‘Inadequate’ by Ofsted is over 60% more likely to be poor than one living next to an ‘Outstanding’ school” (SchoolDash, 2016 as cited in Ball, 2018, p. 226). These findings are not isolated. The growing body of research into social inequality in the school system has provided sufficient evidence that schooling perpetuates exaggerated levels of sexism, racism and classism (see Meighan & Harber, 2007) as compared to those observed in wider society.

Billington (2000) indicates that the idea of mass education in the 1800s was faced with political opposition due to the possibility that it would “de-stabilize the social order by encouraging a kind of learning and (political) knowledge which could serve to foment revolution” (p. 29). From the beginning, there has been a demand from those within the political sphere to warp mass education around elitist hierarchies.

Ageism towards young people is a topic that is not often spoken about and I predict that it will become more mainstream in the near future. Many academic texts that criticise schooling have no mentioning of ageism, despite it being a legitimate form of oppression akin to other forms of social inequality. Ageism is the justification of adults’ total dictatorship over children: as Illich Ivan states in Deschooling Society, “only by segregating human beings in the category of childhood could we ever get them to submit to the authority of the schoolteacher” (1971, p. 28). Illich presents the argument that schooling is not synonymous with education and that mandatory schooling is extreme and should be criticised. His text bravely and plainly condemns the state’s control of childhood, discovery and knowledge. As demonstrated by the above quotation, Illich (1971) tackles ageism (though does not use this word), claiming that it should not be a societal norm.

The school system could be described as a machine that prepares children for capitalist labour whilst dictating a child’s thoughts and behaviour. Discipline and Punish, written by the philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1991), meticulously unpicks the evolution of disciplinary institutions and reveals that state schools were designed based on prisons only a couple of hundred years ago. Panopticism, the surveillance model that was adopted for schools and prisons, was designed during the eighteenth century and implemented into society thereafter. Child poverty was a problem in England during the nineteenth century and this was exploited; Foucault suggests that the Victorian workhouse, an institution of physical child labour, bears a striking resemblance to the modern day school. The school, when dissected, reveals strange and suspicious uses of control:

‘Although those who concern themselves with details are regarded as folk of limited intelligence, it seems to me that this part is essential, because it is the foundation, and it is impossible to erect any building or establish any method without understanding its principles. It is not enough to have a liking for architecture. One must also know stone-cutting’. (Marshal de Saxe, p. 5, as cited in Foucault, 1991, p. 139)

Foucault viewed society from the “the ‘bottom up’” (Allen, 2014, p. 333), revealing the effects of panoptic power on the individual subject and the space they occupy, rather than simply the ideological, logical or economical justifications behind this model. He argues that the robotic nature of the school discourages individuality by penalising those who stray from the norm. This view is somewhat shared by educational philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre who argues for socio-political change to facilitate more meaningful education.