WORK, EDUCATION AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE: RECONSIDERING SOME TWENTIETH‐CENTURY MYTHS

Suggests that the industrial democracies, poised to enter the next century, face many new and troubling challenges. Long‐term economic decline, growing social inequality and the transformation of core institutions such as the family and schools threaten not only our cherished sense of security but our very way of life. States that, in searching for solutions to some of our most pressing problems, we must look beyond the popular myths which promise easy answers through the application of “high‐tech” methods of production, supposedly creating a growing demand for highly educated “service”workers. Focusing instead on the underlying sources of the crisis,offers a critical, wide‐ranging view of the changing character of work and its relationship to technology, education, family, leisure,equality, and politics – pointing ultimately to some profound changes in institutions and societal values which are needed if we are successfully to navigate our way into the twenty‐first century and beyond. Gives practical guidelines and suggestions for implementing some of the more modest proposals.