First grade, second grade — schooling as we know it divides children and classes into grades according to age and ability. This hasn’t always been the case, says Eli Meyerhoff. He links the advent of grade-divided schools in fourteenth-century Europe to a mindset and imaginary that fueled the emergence and development of capitalism.
Eli Meyerhoff, Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World University of Minnesota Press, 2019