help students form a "proper" model of what "others" are like
(later in life, most day-to-day is in ever-increasingly-specific bubbles)
ex. university (in my case, engineering, surrounded by students academically-inclined enough to get into engineering and with tastes/values where they want to be in engineering)
exposed to different value systems (morals, desires)
values are naturally in conflict (tradeoffs, you can't usually have everything)
resulting in a synthesis
some form of lowest-common-denominator
probably a good thing
"sharp" edges hewn off
what is "good" in this context anyway?
ie. what values are good for a people to have?
Neal Stephenson / Diamond Age
culture wars, enclaves of cultures
ex. Victorian culture "wins" b/c of values of hard-work, self-sacrifice, etc.
Religious Schools, Private Schools
largely exist to "create a bubble" so that values are protected from assimilation into the general-public-milieue/zeitgeist