This book explores some of the central issues in the definition and evaluation of excellence and quality in education. Using comparative and international methodology, the contributors from around the world highlight and discuss some of the key factors of the quality debate at national, institutional and classroom levels. Excellence and Quality in Education offers an invaluable insight into the current polemics surrounding the technocratic push for quality in education.

Sociological and anthropological literature has examined how contemporary western society has become a “risk society.” Education and the Risk Society is the first volume to explore this seminal concept through the lens of education. Drawing on a theoretical literature that has great potential as a lens to view changes in neoliberal discourses of global capitalism from both critical and generative perspectives, Education and the Risk Society presents situated, empirical studies investigating an uncertain world as people practice it on the ground, through language and activity, within educational settings.