Chapter 36: Toward a Policy-Minded Sociocultural Theory of Student Literacy Learning:

Schooling has had multiple purposes in our nation’s history, some intended and others not. From a policy perspective, however, the clear purpose of schooling is preparing citizens for the modern economy. The challenge, from a policy perspective, is to know exactly what civil society and the economy of the twenty-first century, will demand of its citizens and workers to know and do. This can be difficult to ascertain when the technologies that drive economic advancement change so rapidly, as is currently the case. Rapid change leads to new demands on workers, on companies, and on schools. How can we train today for the jobs and communities of tomorrow? Indeed, the top 10 in-demand jobs projected for 2010 did not exist in 2004 (Gunderson, Jones, & Scanland, 2004). And what about the compatibility between the knowledge and skills demanded by changing economies, on the one hand, and the competences demanded by civil society, on the other?