Education has been defined on the basis of its functional role for society. A typical theory defining education in instrumental terms is the structural functionalism. This model describes education as an essentially rational institution for sorting and selecting talented individuals in an increasingly complex and industrialized society teaching/training cognitive skills and transmitting consensual values to the young. This model has been challenged by a radical paradigm. According to the paradigm, schools are institutions preserving the power of existing ruling class/status group rather than facilitating the mobility of talent; institutions which, far from teaching democratic and humane values, must repress the natural talents, intelligence, and creativity of children to reproduce capitalist laicos relations. Although the radical padigm is critical of the functional paradigm, it also has depicted education in instrumental terms. In this respect, we need to give a new thought to the meaning of education. Questions relating to the meaning of education should focus on the autonomy of education from wider society and the initiation of education for social change. As the first step to answer the questions, this paper analytically compares educational and social theories including functionalism and radicalism. The frame of reference to understand the relationship between education and social change is divided into three dimensions; target of change, method of change, and role of education. First, the typical target can be either individual or structure. Individual approach, which refers to functionalism/liberalism and humanism/romanticism, is a theoretical model in which social change and development is dependent upon enhancement of individual attributes. And structural approach, which means structural Marxism and ideological Marxism, criticizes the individual appronach as conservative and argues that structure should be changed for genuine social change. Second, there are two typical methods of social change; gradualism and radicalism. Gradualism places emphasis on the possibility of concrete programs for social change, and radicalism morally argues for the necessity of change toward an ideal society. Gradualism refers to functionalism/liberalism and ideological Marxism. Radicalism includes humanism/romanticism and structural Marxism. Combination of the two dimensions (target & method), each of which has two sub-classes, makes four cells; ⑴ individual-gradual, ⑵ individual-radical, ⑶ structural-gradual, and ⑷ structural-radical. Each cell is matched to functionalism/liberalism, humanism/romanticism, ideological Marxism, and structural Marxism, respectively (Figure 1). Since society is thought to be the absolute, education has usually been recognized as playing a functional role for social development. This kind of role can be named instrumentalism. However, if we reject the above presupposition, we can logically hypothesize and build a voluntaristic theory of education. The theory assumes that education can initiate social change. Instrumentalism is specified into functionalism/liberalism and structural Marxism, while voluntarism includes humanism/romanticism and ideological Marxism (Figure 2). Influence of education on social change has been limited by defining education solely in instrumental and passive terms. If we accept autonomy of education from society we can develop an initiative theory of education and expand the power of education. This paper is an attempt to move a step toward it.