The symbolic animal: Foundations of cultural transmission and acquisition

Abstract

In this section I present a number of key writings on the nature of education and culture. My aim is to illuminate how the very foundations of the educational process are rooted in the human penchant for making meaning out of experience and communicating that meaning to others. I hope to show that, in a very real sense, education is culture, that is, education involves the continual remaking of culture as human beings transmit and acquire the symbolic meanings that infuse social life.