Perfezionamento e meccanizzazione : lezioni dalla sociologia delleducazione

The purpose of this essay is to show how the relationship between self-perfection and mechanization was perceived in the works of three classics of sociology of education: Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. The author shows how, in conjunction with the industrial revolution, the traditional pedagogical hierarchy that for millennia had favored the liberal arts over the mechanical arts has been reversed, and how this process has stimulated reflections in the context of classical sociology. The essay also assesses the visions of the future of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, by using the tools offered by Karl Mannheim's Wissenssoziologie, so as to bring to the surface any ideological and utopian elements of their theories.