Envisioning Education in a Post-Work Leisure-Based Society

This book is both an analytic and imaginative study of the future role of education in a leisure-based society. Grounded in a philosophical approach that draws on the work of Aristotle, Arendt, Keynes, and others, the volume deconstructs modern work-based society, as well as mainstream institutionalized education, which the author argues have systemically alienated students from their education, authorial agency, and society itself. The author argues for the value of intrinsic education, where the goals are based on students' own needs and interests, imagining new opportunities that can arise from the emergence of such a society.

“I … strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in either the future of education or the problems brought on by intelligent technology eliminating a large chunk of existing jobs without providing replacements for the displaced workers. The false hope that the newly unemployed will ‘learn to code’ is naive and out of touch … . We need to talk seriously about these things, and this book provides an informed opening for that discussion.” (J. M. Artz, Computing Reviews, December 9, 2020)

“Fully applying his excellent command of theory and practice, and his outstanding imagination, Eugene Matusov paints a broad picture of education for the leisure-based society. His book is for all those who are tired of circular arguments about education, as well as those who want to expand their understanding of the big picture.”
—Alexander M. Sidorkin, Professor and Dean in the College of Education, California State University, Sacramento, USA

“This brilliant new book addresses one of the most important yet under-emphasized educational problems we may soon face: ‘How do we re-conceive legacy educational institutions that we built to produce workers for an economy that is now vanishing before our very eyes?’ Matusov brings a formidable range of references to bear on such questions, and he has an effective way of giving us the theoretical insights with spoonfuls of engaging anecdotes (often personal). Among the stack of books on ‘education and the economy’ this onestands out because of its intellectual adventurousness and the likelihood, in this reader's estimation, that it will prove to be a prescient and helpful guide to our immense future challenges in this area.”
—David Blacker, Professor of Education, University of Delaware, USA

Eugene Matusov is Professor of Education at the University of Delaware, USA, and Editor-in-Chief of Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal. He investigates and works with sociocultural and Bakhtinian dialogic approaches to education.