Education and the margins of the network society

Hall, M

Abstract

This paper reads between the lines of Manuel Castells' recent writing about the 'network society'. In his trilogy The Information Age, as well as in a series of reports and papers, Castells touches on the implications of the network society for higher education and for Africa. I start by outlining Castells' concept of the nature of work in the new global economy, and in particular his disctinction between 'individualised work' and 'generic labour'. This highlights the structural basis for social exclusion in the network society - a risk for geographical areas such as Africa, but also for the ghettos of the new metropoles. From this I move on to education and, specifically, the current claims for the potential of distance learning on the World Wide Web. Although Castells does not consider this field specifically in his work that is reviewed here, his models for the workings of networks allow us to understand some of the trends, and to infer their implications.

Citation

Hall, M. (2001). Education and the margins of the network society. In J. Muller, N. Cloete, & S. Badat (Eds.), Challenges of Globalisation: South African Debates with Manuel Castells (224-342). Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2001
• Deposit Date: Dec 14, 2009
• Pages: 224-342
• Book Title: Challenges of Globalisation: South African Debates with Manuel Castells
• ISBN: 063604775X
• Publisher URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CarmQs2V9icC&lpg=PR4&ots=GXsODC3ph8&dq=%22Challenges%20of%20Globalisation%22%20Muller&lr=&pg=PA224#v=onepage&q=&f=false