Necessity of Paradigm Shift in Criminological Theorizing

Introduction

The triad of education, human development and socio-economic transformation or otherwise is central to the understanding of the processes involved in the workings of modern society. Inadvertently, the cyclical relationship existing between these three has been documented in research (Virginia, 2005; 27). Of recent, education was described as one of the accelerators of human, social and economic development (Ifenkwe, 2013:007). The importance of education remains unquantifiable across major indices of socio-economic development. Fundamentally, education promotes mastery of some certain procedures to the point where they become unconscious and automatic, it also permits the application of the procedures to structure information into conceptual knowledge that is used consciously and deliberately (Abadzi, 2006). These attributes when put together make education unique in its contributions to relational advancement globally.

Traditionally, education serves as a potent instrument for eliciting conformism to institutional rules and regulations and men in their various classes are socialized with the view of sustaining social stability and progress. However, in modern society, a subset of deliberate educational application tilts towards the retardation of development in the context of actions that are inimical to the overall interest of the generality. Few occurrences in the technological age attest to the fact that educational application is not uni-lineal in its consequences for socio-economic development. Of a truth, there is a dual application of educational inputs and with its negative connotations unabatedly becoming registerable in crime and in a gamut of other anti-social behaviours globally. The manifest function of education that is commonly ushering and sustaining this turn of event is not farfetched. At inception, the defect of working against the interest of significant individuals and favouring few others has been the bane of education. This was aptly described by Coffey (2001) as differential outcomes of education.

In educational acquisition, the key democratic ideals of liberty and equality have always been in conflict in a nation with acute capitalist acumen (Brantlinger, 2007). Explaining this in a concise manner, Deleuze and Guattari (1983) disclosed that the emergence of monopoly capitalism radically transformed the social world: it swept away traditional social forms, as economic forces bite deeply into the symbolic textures of society itself (cited in Elliot, 2014:255). This symptom of destabilization then became recordable in the negativity attendant to educational skill utilization. Noblit and Pink (1995) argue that whereas the original philosophy for schooling hinges on achieving consensual relationship among diversely attributed populace, recent experiences have clearly shown that schooling is consistently promoting opposition, resistance and conflict in its consequences for societal survival. Apart from the factor located in biasness and inferiority attendant of diverse mode of knowledge dissemination according to Bourdieu, (1984), the unraveling scenario in the information technology age has now shown that school dropout is no longer sufficient reason for youth crime participation in the modern era. More significantly is the continued access of the vast majority of people to e-technology gadgets with its concomitant transformation of a relationship into virtuality.