The current educational arrangements of advanced liberal democracies continue to isolate various ethnic and racial groups. Disadvantaged minority students attend inferior schools. The overreliance on the curriculum as a design for teaching and learning renders school learning less relevant for ‘knowledge work’ jobs in network societies. The concept of a ‘networked common school’ addresses these problems. It envisions linking local schools in a social network mediated by networked computers. Teaching and learning will continue to take place at local sites, but significant face-to-face, inter-group learning will take place at regional learning centers, to be followed up by virtual group learning at distributed local sites.
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