Education as a capability. In Sen’s early writing, he used the term ‘basic capability’ to refer to activities or achievements that are fundamental for human life and made possible by access to relevant resources (Sen 1980). This offers us a relatively narrow view of education as a capability, where the ‘capability to be educated’ is realised once a basic level of knowledge is acquired. Functioning as an ‘educated person’ can have both intrinsic and instrumental value. Being educated is intrinsically important for human life, particularly within the CA framework, because the approach views human life as consisting in ‘having reason to value various beings and doings.’ On this account, therefore, affording people the positive (process) freedom to pursue achievements they value depends upon their capacity for critical reflection and self-knowledge; to develop one’s own preferences and ideas about the good life (Xxxxxx 2001; Xxxxxxxxxx 2016). The role of education, therefore, is to serve as an operating background on which future life choices might be made and which can enrich the quality of life. Indeed, this is a theme that runs through the following chapters. Furthermore, in considering her own list of basic capabilities, Xxxxxxx includes ‘Education and knowledge: being able to be educated and to use and produce knowledge’ (2003, p.72). An instrumental view on education as a ‘basic capability’ might be developed from this, which holds that achieving an education is good insofar as it enables achievement in other areas of life. For example, Xxxxx and Xxx have argued that education is important, in one respect, for increasing a nation’s human capital (Anand and Sen 2000, p.2038). Here, education can be viewed as an achievement or functioning that individuals make use of to enhance their employability and find work that is rewarding for them (see: Xxxxxx et al. 2010). This narrow view of education as a ‘basic capability’ is well-suited to social analysis in contexts 9 The term ‘basic capabilities’ is no longer used by Sen, but see early writings (Sen 1980) where there is unequal participation or completion of education, particularly in developing societies where gender and class can operate as barriers to securing a decent quality of life. Xxxxxxx Xxxxx (2007) has also argued that the ‘capability to be educated’ should be considered a basic capability. However, Xxxxx offers a thicker definition of this capability, defining it as ‘real opportunities both for informal learning and for for...
