Education, Social Mobility, and the Question of Meritocracy

Abstract

As I pointed out in chapter 2, education in the postwar years was the main provider of the state apparatus with highly “credentialized” individuals. In the remainder of this chapter, I shall present the most salient features of Greek postwar education and the underpinnings for the substantial reforms and expansion it underwent over this period of time. Moreover, I shall discuss the theoretical tenets of the debate about the role and function of education as it was being developed at the time in advanced Western countries and “exported” to the European periphery, such as Greece.