A. Education and schooling are terms often used interchangeably, but in fact they differ. Education is learning about the particular ways of a given group and occurs throughout life, not just in school. Education is an informal process of learning. Schooling is formal education in an institution developed for this purpose. The purpose of schooling is to impart formal knowledge in a variety of disciplines. In some ways, schooling is more limited than education, but it also has considerable influence on the members of a society.
Brint (1998) discusses the societal importance of schooling and finds that the fact that schooling takes up such a large amount of young people's time shows how important it is to society. Society also spends a good deal of money on education and has produced a very large education "industry" to carry out its mandate (Brint, 1998, 3-4). The organization of the schools also shows how society views the process and its necessity. Schools are selective about what they teach, sequence the curriculum for more efficient learning, and set boundaries in relation to the outside world to exclude undesirable features of the ordinary environment (Bring, 1998, 8-9).
Schooling has been examined from different sociological perspectives, as Brint (1998) notes, indicating that these theories are structure in large part on comparison. The global view, says Brint, should be taken from a scientific point of view because "it allows us to compare more varied data" (Brint, 1998, 15-16). There are many forces operating on schools, and we cannot understand them if we limit ourselves to any country where only a few of these forces are operating. We can also learn from the experience of other cultures and apply what we learn to our own. Global comparisons allow us to take a broader perspective and to see the interconnectedness of different societies. We may believe we have a unique problem and can find that it is not un...