The key difference between education and indoctrination is that education refers to enabling the attainment of knowledge, skills, personal development, and habits using methods like teaching, training, and discussions in formal and informal settings, whereas indoctrination refers to propagandizing a person with ideas, opinions, beliefs, concepts, principles, ideologies and attitudes.
Both education and indoctrination are two terms that refer to educating a person or a group of people. However, there is a stark difference between the two.
CONTENTS
1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Education
3. What is Indoctrination
4. Education vs Indoctrination in Tabular Form
5. Summary – Education vs Indoctrination
What is Education?
Education can be defined as the simple process of learning with the use of methods like teaching, training, and discussion. Education does not only take place in formal settings like schools and universities, but also in places like home, workplace, and through social interactions. In most countries around the world, education is made compulsory up to a certain age. Fundamentally, formal education is divided into early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary. Education occurs under the guidance and supervision of instructors or educators. Theories of education and educational reforms are updated from time to time in formal education.
Formal education takes place in a classroom setting with well-trained teachers and educators, and all facilities are provided within the classroom. In informal education, students are given hands-on experience, and through this experience they gain, the students are made to gain knowledge. They have the freedom to question what they learn and to understand the subject matters more comprehensively.
What is Indoctrination?
Indoctrination is the process of educating a person with a set of beliefs and attitudes. ‘Teaching’ does not take place in the method of indoctrination. Indoctrination is a process of inculcating or propagandizing a person with ideas and beliefs and the adoption of these beliefs without proper understanding.
In the process of indoctrination, followers are not allowed to question the beliefs and ideas that are inculcated. Followers have to adopt those particular beliefs even though the concepts are not understood properly, and they have to accept them without questioning. Although indoctrination deals with the field of educating people, the term indoctrination reflects a negative connotation. The term may use in the contexts of religious doctrine, political persuasion, and anti-social doctrines.
What is the Difference Between Education and Indoctrination?
The key difference between education and indoctrination is that formal education occurs in a proper classroom setting under the supervision of qualified and trained teachers and educators, while indoctrination does not take place in a proper classroom or a proper learning environment under the supervision of specifically trained educators or any other instructors.
The other core difference is that education reflects a positive connotation and involves distributing knowledge among students, whereas indoctrination reflects a negative connotation in the distribution of the beliefs. Another major difference between education and indoctrination is that education focuses on different subject matters and facts, whereas indoctrination focuses on beliefs, attitudes, and opinions of particular philosophies. Furthermore, although the students who receive the education have the freedom to question what they learn, people who follow indoctrination are not expected to question the beliefs and ideas they are inculcated with.
Below is a summary of the difference between education and indoctrination in tabular form for side by side comparison.
Summary – Education vs Indoctrination
The key difference between education and indoctrination is that education is the process of receiving knowledge, skills, habits, and theories using methods like teaching and discussion in formal and informal settings, whereas indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, beliefs, and attitudes of certain philosophies. Though indoctrination looks like teaching in general, it is negatively valued, whereas education provides a positive connotation and reflection.
Reference:
1. “Education.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Image Courtesy:
1. “School-education-learning-1750587-h” By woodleywonderworks – (CC BY 2.0) via Commons Wikimedia
2. “Bundesarchiv Bild 147-0510, Berlin, Lustgarten, Kundgebung der HJ” By Bundesarchiv, Bild 147-0510 (CC BY-SA 3.0 de) via Commons Wikimedia