Reductive Human Capital Theory

Human Capital Theory

Human Capital Theory posits that education has an instrumental role, the acquisition of skills and competencies for the promotion of economic goals <ref>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780080448947005777</ref> , where students (future workers) accumulate human capital to increase their value in the marketplace by bringing more expertise and effectiveness to their job tasks <ref>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780081019214000142</ref>

Reductive Human Capital Theory

Zachary Stein, author of Education in a Time Between Worlds, uses the term Reductive Human Capital Theory to mean reducing the purpose of education to be only for wage labour employment in a capitalist society<ref>https://perspectivainsideoutcom.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/zachary-stein-on-education-in-a-time-between-worlds/#:~:text=But%20reductive%20human%20capital%20theory,turn%20create%20the%20next%20society. https://perspectivainsideoutcom.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/zachary-stein-on-education-in-a-time-between-worlds/#:~:text=But%20reductive%20human%20capital%20theory,turn%20create%20the%20next%20society.</ref>:

This brings us on to another theme, which is what you describe as “the inadequacies of approaches to education based on reductive human capital theory.” What’s wrong with education to get a job?

Nothing. In fact, there is something is profoundly correct about human capital theory, in so far as social system need people who can fill the jobs that need to be done. If you are a society that builds ships you need to educate ship builders, or you will no longer be a ship building society, within a single generation.

But reductive human capital theory says that education is only about that. And that is particularly about wage labor employment in a capitalist society. This is very different from the broader and more correct idea that educational systems need to create the humans that in turn create the next society.

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