Less Like a Robot: A Comparison of Change in an Inner-City School and a Fortune 500 Company

Abstract

This study—a comparison of change in an inner-city school and a Fortune 500 company—investigates how the work that we are asking our children to do in elementary school relates to the ways that work is changing in the information economy. The findings for this study are both striking in their simplicity and practical in their implications, showing that the traditional contradiction between socially progressive education and preparation for work is, at least in some areas, waning; that work done by many different specialists in the past is being put back together, allowing workers to do “more of the whole job” and leaving them feeling “less like a robot.”