Among the objectives that Chapter 1 seeks to achieve are these:
Readers should become acquainted with the basic conceptual tools used throughout the book, especially political economy, ideology, and schooling. They should begin to understand how each of these influences the other, though that influence will not be of equal proportion and varies from situation to situation.
By entertaining the view that good theorizing explains practical phenomena and therefore can guide practice, readers should begin to question the idea that "theory" and "practice" are opposed to each other; and question the idea that if something is theoretical, it probably is not practical.
This chapter presents basic distinctions among schooling, training, and education. Readers should recognize that education is a value-laden ideal that allows one to evaluate schooling and training practices for their educational worth.
Study of the classical Athenian period presents the opportunity for interpreting relationships among political economy, ideology, and schooling practices. The chapter illustrates how these basic tools of inquiry operate in historical cultural contexts different from our own.
Readers should begin considering the meanings and limitations of the concept of democracy in a cultural context. The chapter invites readers to notice the egalitarian impulses of an Athenian society that selected legislators by lottery, and to reflect critically on how a "democratic" culture can exclude most of its residents from political participation.
Readers are invited to begin thinking about the idea of a philosophy of education and the extent to which they are already developing such a philosophy.
Finally, a major purpose of this chapter is to equip each reader with "new eyes" with which to read and critically interpret the primary source reading from Aristotle's Politics.
