Project

The position of schools is currently being challenged in various ways by the rise of new knowledge-based technologies and institutions. We appear to be living at a time in which what historian Lawrence Cremin referred to as the “configurations of education" are undergoing major changes. These changes in the relations among the set of institutions that have an educational role and effect are disturbing the position that schools have held for the past century.

EdLab is examining the current state and future possibilities for schools as institutions within modern societies. The range of possibilities under consideration includes everything from the gradual dissolution of formal schooling to the re-positioning and re-purposing of schools to play entirely new roles in the constellation of educational options available.

EdLab activities in this area involve both analyses of the current situation of schools of all types as well as pilot projects to design schools that take new forms and play new roles in the evolving education sector.

edlab@tc.columbia.edu