UDK 316+32(063) Un 150

Uncertain Transformations New Domestic and International Challenges

Proceedings of the International Conference, Riga, November 9-11, 2006Rga, Latvijas Universitte, 2006. 390 lpp.Riga, University of Latvia, 2006. 390 pages

International Conference organised by University of Latvia Faculty of Social SciencesAdvanced Social and Political Research InstituteandStrategic Analysis Commission under the Auspicesof the President of the Republic of Latvia

Editors: Prof. aneta Ozolia and Dr. Nils Muinieks

Editorial Board: Prof. aneta Ozolia, Head, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of LatviaDr. Nils Muinieks, Director, Advanced Social and Political Research Institute, University of LatviaAssist. prof. Andris Runcis, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of LatviaProf. Aija Zobena, Head, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of LatviaProf. Aleksander Surdej, Cracow University of EconomicsDr. Lassi Heininen, University of Lapland

Project Coordinators: Inga Kanasta and Ieva Zlemeta

Latvian language editor: Vija Kaepe

Lay-out: Arnis akstiCover design: Ieva Tiltia

All the papers published in the present volume have been reviewed. No part of the volume may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

Latvijas Universitte, 2007

ISBN 9984-802-58-2

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Education and Its Consequences in a Changing World: A Challenge to the

Knowledge Society

Juris TipaStudent, University of Latvia

The homepage of Latvias Ministry of Welfare states that work is one of the most important human activities which provides the means for survival, creates the the foundation for creative thinking, self-realisation and social contacts.1 I doubt that anyone would deny this statement. I also doubt that someone would deny the importance of education as organised knowledge contributing to the development of the human personality. We could assume that both work and education determine the social value of people in our society and determine life opportunities and the quality of life. Inadequate or insufcient education can become a signicant barrierfor occupying a good position in the labour market, but the absence of work or low paid work can negatively affect a persons material situation and psychological well-being.

But what is education really and what does it give to us? How and by whom is education shaped? How is education related to the labour market? What consequences and risks does it involve and how should we deal with them? These are the questions that I will try to answer in my essay. To achieve these objectives, I will use the example of the generation in Latvia which is currently aged between 4555 years.

If we assume that there is a certain circulation of capital in the labour market, then education should also be perceived as a form of capital. Cultural capital is the famous term in sociology widely described by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He described three forms of capital economic, social and cultural. Economic capital mostly refers to economic resources, social capital to group membership, relationships and social networks created by people, and cultural capital can be seen in knowledge and skills. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital exists in three forms: embodied (a persons character and way of thinking formed by socialisation), objectied (things which are owned, such as scientic instruments or works of art)and institutionalised (educational qualications and their value can be measuredonly in relationship to the labour market). Thus, below, I discuss cultural capital in its institutionalised form. Bourdieu notes that cultural capital can be acquired and distributed through the family and educational system, so the family is the indirect reproducer of state and governmental values, and formal mass education is the direct reproducer of these institutionalised values. Moreover, Bourdieu implies that cultural

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capital can be converted into economic capital.2 This means that certain knowledge, education or skills can be converted into economical means, for example, into a higher income, a better job, etc.

Though Forms of Capital was written by Bourdieu more than 20 years ago, other authors have elaborated on the concept of cultural capital in similar ways more recently. In advanced societies, cultural capital is the counterpart of economic capital. Economic capital is not only shares and bonds and material goods. It is also know-how on how to handle monetary assets and how to behave in the world of corporations and nance. 3 From an economic viewpoint, the most important function of universal education is that it provides the economic subsystem with efcient and productive labour forcesSchools (used here as a generic term for alllevels of formal education) are thus thought of as the great socialisers.4 This means that we are all carriers and reproducers of cultural capital deposited by education.

Further, I will describe a particular generation in Latvia in the context of cultural capital and the labour market. My sybject is people who gained education during the Soviet Union (in the Latvian SSR) in the beginning of the 1980s and afterwards had to face the labour market in an independent capitalist Latvia after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. These persons are primarily in the age group 4550 years old. As theoretical background for this description, I will use a publication of Ritma Rungule and Ilze Koro!eva Old education in new conditions. In this publication, the authors describe longitudinal research on people who graduated from secondary schools in the Latvian SSR during the period 19831985. The study stressed their further education choices and pursued their success in the labour market thereafter. The authors described the education system in the Soviet Union as highly centralised (as we know, the economy was highly centralised as well in the USSR), standardised and highly regimented. A rapid increase in the spread of secondary education resulted in a decrease in quality due to its mass character. On the other hand, universities were not able to matriculate all the people who wanted to. Education was focused on meeting the needs of the country or society in general and not on the value that the individual could receive from education personally. Education was under the complete control of the government and was used for the needs of government. Often people were prepared to work only in a certain factory or certain job. Every ministry (or economic department) tried to open its own secondary specialised education or schools (PTU, technical college) to provide itself with a labour force. Students who graduated from these medium specialised education schools had fewer opportunities to enter university because of the narrow education they received in specialised education schools. The education system resulted in relatively young (1415) individuals in the Soviet Union being divided into educational paths which determined their future careers.

According to Rungule and Koro!eva, the majority of people in the Latvian SSR were involved in medium specialised education and a minority of them continued education in independent Latvia.5 This means that persons who received medium specialised education (both in PTU or a Technical college) in the Soviet Union received knowledge (usually technical) that was meant for a narrow range of functions within the plans of the regime and government. Education lost its long term value and became usable only for here and now actions. And with the same

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educational and labour experience background they had and still have to face new education and labour market strategies in independent Latvia.

After the fall of the USSR, education became a part of the free market. A majority of the factories for people educated in medium specialised institutions were shut down or went bankrupt. Skills these people received during their Soviet education period became inapplicable. This generation had to resocialise in terms of the knowledge and qualities demanded in the labour market which were not topical before (language skills, information technologies, client service skills, etc). Of course this caused a high rate of unemployment and low paid jobs among this generation. As Hans Melberg suggests, capitalism should be seen as a creative system because new inventions, new technologies, changing preferences and external shocks are constantly changing the structure of the markets.6 When new technologies are invented there is no demand anymore for workers who were doing certain functions before the invention of a particular technology. This also pertains to knowledge before the invention, a specic kind of knowledge was needed toperform the necessary functions. After the invention, different knowledge is needed for operating with new technologies. For those whose knowledge is not needed anymore in the labour market, gaining the demanded new knowledge (skills, education etc.) is becoming more and more complicated. For many, this is a serious tragedy, as he or she cannot earn the necessary means for surviving. Cultural capital earned has devaluated; in other words, the bankruptcy of factories and the regime also bankrupted the cultural capital of many people. People who are about 4550 years old and older are the most vulnerable social group in the labour market. If they lose a job, it is very hard to nd a new one because of lack of knowledge or culturalcapital in demand.7

This example demonstrates the statement of Ulrich Beck that: Risks have become an intellectual and political web across which tread many strands of discourse relating to the slow crisis of modernity and industrial society.8

Who could predict that the Soviet Union would fall? Who could predict that what we learned and practiced for decades would become inapplicable after a year? If we are not aware of the presence of risks, it doesnt mean they are not there.

In terms of modernity, changes that occurred after the fall of the USSR resulted in an individualisation of social agents. Every person not only became able to completely make his own social biography, but was even forced to do so. Risks that are attached to this process were redistributed from the governmental level (as in the Soviet Union) to the individual level (as in independent Latvia). According to Beck, this is one of the indicators of labour market "exibility redistribution of risksaway from the state and the economy towards the individual.9 Beck continues that the labour market in a free market economy functions as a motor of individualisation or individualisation of social inequality. People demand the right to develop their own perspective on life and act upon it. Sudden individualisation can be insecure or can cause a wave of unemployment. Individualisation is directly related to risk because it means separation of the individual from traditional support networks (community, family) which could be seen also as habitual support networks. Everyone who enters the labour market has to face its three dimensions education (choosing and planning ones educational course to became a producer of individual labour),

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mobility (to escape economic ruin a person is forced to take charge of his own life, which means that a person is removed from traditional patterns and arrangements) and competition (rests upon the interchangeability of qualications and therebycompels people to advertise the individuality and uniqueness of their work and their own accomplishments which results in individualisation among equals).10 As we can see, these conditions are not similar to the ones that were signicant for labourmarkets in the Soviet Union. Mobility and competition in general were indirect and mild because people were prepared to work in a certain position. It excludes signicant upward career mobility (direct upward mobility in the Soviet Union waspossible only within the Party and Unions, as business activities were illegal) and decreases competition (as noted before, in a centralised system there were more or less as many professionals prepared as were needed).

Conditions we have to face in the labour market also determine our behaviour according to our culture. This has also been indirectly described by Beck: Unemployed people have a lot of time on their hands and nancially are veryinsecure. But paradoxically, their receipt of unemployment benets obliges them todo nothing. They might be compared to thirsty people who have promised not to drink one drop of extra water because they are ofcially given one glass a day tomoisten their parched throat. Otherwise they are social cheats, whose transgression is harmful to the public good.11

However, I would like to argue that unemployment benets dont inescapablyoblige an unemployed person to do nothing. The choice between passivity and activity is determined by several factors - how else can we explain that one person is passive and does nothing, but another is actively looking for a job despite the unemployment benets. 12 It depends primarily on cultural capital, but of course also on other forms of capital mentioned by Bourdieu. For example, if a person is accustomed to double-morals since Soviet times, this habit became a part of his cultural capital. On the other hand, if we look into unemployment statistics of Latvia, we see that the highest unemployment is for the age group 4560 years.13 This is precisely the generation which graduated from secondary schools in the Latvian SSR around the beginning of the 1980s. The most active applicants for unemployment benets are also from this age group. It is no secret that people also have unofcialjobs in order to have a double income (the welfare benet plus the unofciallyearned income).14 This position is understandable, because the way these people were living was suddenly no longer possible and they had to adapt to completely new rules of the game. This caused signicant psychological discomfort, and thereis a lack of faith in the new system perhaps in 10 years there will be a need to resocialise again. From the here and now education in the Soviet regime, people of that generation are practicing a here and now labour market strategy. By this I mean their emphasis on any kind of immediate income, ignoring the long term perspectives, credit ratings, etc. Here again we can see the effect of cultural capital.

Looking at the current situation, it seems that higher education has taken the place held by medium specialised education during the Soviet period. Because of the easy accessibility of higher education (student credits, scholarships, etc.), it has partly lost its great importance in upward mobility and has turned into an institution which students continue after their graduation from secondary schools.15 What does

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this mean and where is it taking us? I would say that it is a new risk to face, and we are facing it already as a great divide between formal knowledge (theory) and particular skills (experience). It is quite common today for young people to become unemployed after graduating from university because they have no work experience (a good CV) which is demanded in the labour market. Paradoxically, these youngsters are in the same situation as the Soviet generation previously described. Of course both cases entail a social tragedy, but there is also a difference in most cases, unemployed university graduates are treated in the labour market as a social risk group, but people aged 4555 (and older) are not, despite the fact that unemployment rates can be similar. This Soviet generation is like a dying plant, and it seems that society is counting on a demographic wave to wash away this generation with its cultural capital. I think it is even more tragic, the emphasis is on the young generation, but the elderly people are almost taken to the forest, as the folk saying goes, to get rid of them.

Economic needs determine the educational system.16 This statement could be the conclusion of this paper, as in both the Soviet Union and independent Latvia the economy is one of the key factors determining the education system. In a centralised regime, education is fully planned, but in a capitalist regime it is based on freedom of choice and free market self-regulation (which limits the freedom of choice at the same time). People in both systems face risks, as the regime can change or the economic situation or market demands can change. Any of these changes affect cultural capital in the form of new demands for knowledge and skills. Education and added cultural capital is one of the main determinants of opportunities in the labour market. Of course, we are also dependent on our social networks (social capital) and wealth (economic capital), but speaking in general terms, our opportunities are based in cultural capital. As I emphasised about the current period, opportunities are particularly based on knowledge and skills in the form of cultural capital.

As elsewhere in the world, Latvia has gone through cultural capital transformation primarily caused by technological development and political change. The fast development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has brought about deep changes in our way of working and living, as the widespread diffusion of ICT is accompanied by organisational, commercial, social and legal innovations. Our society is now dened as the Information Society, a society in which low-costinformation and ICT are in general use, or as the Knowledge(-based) Society, to stress the fact that the most valuable asset is investment in intangible, human and social capital and that the key factors are knowledge and creativity.17

What kind of issues need to addressed in this changing world full of risks? Currently, the concept of life-long education is as topical as ever, as is e-learning, distance learning, continuing education, correspondence courses, etc. Basically it is anti-theory and anti-practice to say that You cant teach an old dog new tricks.18 Education shouldnt be perceived and treated as something age, time or institutionally limited, but more as a continuing process. In Bourdieus terms, we could say there is a need for permanently renewable cultural capital. Lifelong learning as an approach which is based on awareness of changes, preparedness, and "exibility. If the labour market is "exible, its clients should also be "exible.

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Paraphrasing Beck19:Labour market "exibility means: Cheer up, your skills andknowledge are not absolute, and no one can say what you must learn in order to be needed in the future.

3&'&3&/$&4Beck, Ulrich. Brave New World of Work (Polity Press, 2000).Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards New Modernity (Sage, 1993).Bornschier V., Herkenrath M., Knig C., The Double Dividend of Expanding Education for

Development, International Sociology, Vol. 20(4), (December 2005), pp. 506529.Bourdieu, Pierre. Forms of Capital, 1986, from http://www.viet-studies.org/Bourdieu_capital.

htm, viewed on 25.10.2006.Broady D., What Is Cultural Capital? Comments on Lennart Rosenlunds Social Structures

and Change, 2001, at http://folk.uio.no/potnes/6.%20Broady.pdf , viewed on 25.10.2006.

Melberg, Hans. Unemployment: Micro- or Macro-theories?, 1992, http://www.geocities.com/hmelberg/papers/921120.htm viewed on 27.02.2006, viewed on 25.10.2006.

Rungule, Ritma and Koro!eva, Ilze. Vec# izgl$t$ba jaunajos apst#k!os in Sabiedr!bas p"rmai#as Latvij" , ed. Aivars Tabuns, (R$ga: Jumava, 1998), p. 255 277.

Tabuns, Aivars. Publiskie intelektu#!i, Kult$ras Diena, 16.04.2005, pp. 1617.Tipa, Juris. Rigas unemployed aged 45 55 attitudes towards education, unpublished term

paper, 2005. European Union homepage of Knowledge society http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/

knowledge_society/index_en.htm, viewed on 27.10.2006. State agency of employment of Latvia, Report on employment statistics, http://www.nva.

lv/index.php?cid=1&mid=109&txt=104&from=0, viewed on 15.10.2006.http://www.lm.gov.lv/?sadala=253 Homepage of Welfare ministry of Republic of Latvia,

viewed on 27.10.2006.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning Lifelong learning, Wikipedia online encyclo-

pedia, viewed on 27.10.2006.

&/%/05&4 1

Homepage of the Ministry of Welfare of the Republic of Latvia athttp://www.lm.gov.lv/?sadala=253, viewed on 27.10.2006.

2 Pierre Bourdieu, , Forms of Capital (1986), from http://www.viet-studies.org/Bourdieu_

capital.htm, viewed on 25.10.2006. 3

D. Broady, What Is Cultural Capital? Comments on Lennart Rosenlunds Social Structures and Change, (2001) from http://folk.uio.no/potnes/6.%20Broady.pdf , viewed on 25.10.2006.

4 V. Bornschier, M. Herkenrath, C. Knig, The Double Dividend of Expanding Education

for Development, from International Sociology, Vol 20(4) December 2005: pp. 506529.

5 Ritma Rungule and Ilze Koro!eva, Vec# izgl$t$ba jaunajos apst#k!os,in Sabiedr!bas

p"rmai#as Latvij" , ed. Aivars Tabuns (R$ga: Jumava, 1998), pp. 255 277. 6

Hans Melberg, Unemployment: Micro or Macro theories? (1992) http://www.geocities.com/hmelberg/papers/921120.htm, viewed on 25.10.2006.

7 Juris Tipa, Rigas unemployed aged 45 55 attitudes towards education, unpublished

term paper, University of Latvia, 2005.

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8 Ulrich Beck, Risk society: Towards new modernity, (Sage publishers: 1993), p. 3.

9 Ulrich Beck, Brave new world of work (Polity Press: 2000), p. 3.

10 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards New Modernity (Sage: 1993), pp. 9294.

11 Ulrich Beck, Brave New World of Work (Polity Press: 2000), p. 90.

12 Juris Tipa, Rigas unemployed aged 45 55 attitudes towards education, unpublished

term paper, University of Latvia, 2005. 13

Report on employment statistics by the State agency of employment of Latvia, available at http://www.nva.lv/index.php?cid=1&mid=109&txt=104&from=0, viewed on 15.10.2006.

14 Juris Tipa, Rigas unemployed aged 45 55 attitudes towards education, unpublished

term paper, 2005. 15

Aivars Tabuns, Publiskie intelektu#!i, Kult$ras Diena, 16.04.2005, pp. 1617. 16

J. Demaine, Contemporary Theories in The Sociology of education (Macmillian Press: 1991), p. 121.

17 http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/knowledge_society/index_en.htm European

Union homepage of Knowledge society, viewed on 27.10.2006. 18

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning - Lifelong learning, Wikipedia online encyclopedia, viewed on 27.10.2006.

19 Beck U., 2000, Brave new world of work (Polity press), p. 3.