This book brings the key ideas and concepts of social realism to bear on current debates in the fields of knowledge and curriculum. The key concern of this collection is to highlight matters related to knowledge and the influence these dimensions have on the formation of curricula, pedagogy, identity, and equity in educational contexts. Presenting new perspectives on the place of various types and forms of knowledge in contemporary education, this book explores two central questions, ‘what type of knowledge is most important to include in a curriculum?’ and ‘what is meant by disciplinary knowledge?’ The chapters use empirical examples to illustrate how the issues play out on a global stage, interweaving the social justice concern of equitable access to disciplinary knowledge throughout. In particular, the authors address the emerging theorisation of issues related to the decolonisation of curricula, the recontextualisation of ‘non-traditional’ knowledge into the curriculum, and teacher education. Offering new philosophical and theoretical perspectives, this book will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students examining the fields of knowledge and curriculum, and the sociology of education more broadly.

This volume covers issues in the sociology of knowledge, the educational system and policy, professional autonomy, vocational education, educational research and teaching, as well as the nature of such disciplines as cultural studies, English, science and the arts. The chapters also directly address the nature of sociology of education itself.The realist position developed in the book challenges two major currents of thought that have for a long time been prominent and influential in sociology and education: postmodernism and progressivism/constructivism. This well-edited collection of papers is provocative and original in that it represents a sustained, collective critique that offers a genuine alternative to these current orthodoxies.

What should we teach in our schools and vocational education and higher education institutions? Is theoretical knowledge still important? This book argues that providing students with access to knowledge should be the raison d’être of education. Its premise is that access to knowledge is an issue of social justice because society uses it to conduct its debates and controversies. Theoretical knowledge is increasingly marginalised in curriculum in all sectors of education, particularly in competency-based training which is the dominant curriculum model in vocational education in many countries. This book uses competency-based training to explore the negative consequences that arise when knowledge is displaced in curriculum in favour of a focus on workplace relevance. The book takes a unique approach by using the sociology of Basil Bernstein and the philosophy of critical realism as complementary modes of theorising to extend and develop social realist arguments about the role of knowledge in curriculum. Both approaches are increasingly influential in education and the social sciences and the book will be helpful for those seeking an accessible introduction to these complex subjects. Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculumis a key reading for those interested in the sociology of education, curriculum studies, work-based learning, vocational education, higher education, adult and community education, tertiary education policy and lifelong learning more broadly.

This volume brings together an international set of contributors in education research, policy and practice to respond to the influence the noted academic Professor Michael Young has had on sociology, curriculum studies and professional knowledge over the past fifty years, and still has on the field to this day. It provides a critical analysis of his work and the uses to which it has been put in the UK and internationally, discussing implications for debates on the purpose of education and how school curricula, as well as programmes in other educational settings, could be run and teaching undertaken, based on his contribution. Following Michael’s long and distinguished career – dating back to before Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education, which Michael edited in 1971 – recent years have seen an upsurge in both academic and policy interest in his work, including the new concern he expressed for knowledge in his 2007 book Bringing Knowledge Back In. The book concludes with an appreciation and a response to the authors from Michael Young and a Coda from Charmian Cannon, who was on the Institute of Education panel that appointed Michael to his post in 1967. This timely book is a unique critique and celebration, written by experts whose own careers have been affected by Michael, and will appeal to all those with an interest in the work of Michael Young.

A collection of the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training written by international experts The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training offers an in-depth guide to the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training (VET). With contributions from a panel of leading international scholars, the Handbook contains 27 authoritative essays from a wide range of disciplines. The contributors present an integrated analysis of the complex and dynamic field of VET. Drawing on the most recent research, thinking, and practice in the field, the book explores the key debates about the role of VET in the education and training systems of various nations. The Handbook reveals how expertise is developed in an age of considerable transformation in work processes, work organization, and occupational identities. The authors also examine many of the challenges of vocational education and training such as the impact of digital technologies on employment, the demand for (re)training in the context of extended working lives, the emergence of learning regions and skill ecosystems, and the professional development of vocational teachers and trainers. This important text: Offers an original view of VET’s role in both the initial and continuing development of expertise Examines the theories and concepts that underpin international perspectives and explores the differences about the purposes of VET Presents various models of learning used in VET, including apprenticeship, and their relationship with general education Explores how VET is shaped in different ways by the political economy of different countries Reviews how developments in digital technologies are changing VET practice Discusses the challenges for universities offering higher vocational education programs Draws on both recent research as well as historical accounts Written for students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of educational studies, human resource development, social policy, political economy, labor market economics, industrial relations, sociology, The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training offers an international perspective on the topic of VET.

This incisive Handbook brings together a wealth of innovative research from international curriculum and education experts to ask the question: what knowledge should be taught in school, how should it be taught, and for what purpose?

This new textbook offers a wide-ranging discussion of the key debates within the sociology of education. Covering everything from policymaking and the curriculum, to class, ethnicity and gender, and the ways that they and other social divisions intersect to produce inequalities, this timely publication provides a much-needed contribution to the study of education's vital role in contemporary society. With examples drawn from such diverse contexts as Australian pre-schools, Finnish higher education institutions and English further education colleges, the text presents students with an international perspective and encourages them to engage critically with some of the core questions that lie at the heart of the topic: what is the purpose of education? who decides what formal education entails? and what impact does education have on both society and individuals? Rachel Brooks's extensive knowledge of decades of scholarly work in education and sociology ensures the book is academically rigorous throughout, while the final chapter on emerging educational research means it is fully up to date. The text's accessible style is ideally suited to all those new to the topic and studying the sociology of education for the first time, whether this be from departments of sociology, childhood studies, social policy, or a range of other social science disciplines.

This edited book, as you can see from its title, is about learning, or at least about the concept and practice of learning. The contributors to this volume are focusing on two meta-concepts, knowledge and learning, on the relationship between the two, and the way these can be framed in epistemic, social, political and economic terms. Knowledge and learning, as meta-concepts, are positioned in various networks or constellations of meaning, principally: the antecedents of the concepts, their relations to other relevant concepts, and the way the concepts are used in the lifeworld. In this book the various authors explore a number of important concepts that are relevant to the idea of learning. These are meta-concepts such as epistemology, inferential role semantics, phenomenology, rationality, thinking, hermeneutics, critical realism and pragmatism, and meso-concepts such as probability, woman, training, assessment, education, system, race, friendship, Bildung, curriculum, ecology and pedagogy. Like David Scott’s first volume of On Learning, this collection focusing on philosophy, concepts and practices is a response to empiricist and positivist conceptions of knowledge. It challenges detheorised and reductionist ideas of learning that have filtered through to the management of our schools, colleges and universities; over-simplified messages about learning, knowledge, curriculum and assessment; and fostered the denial that values are central to understanding how we live and how we should live – the normative dimension to social policy and social theorising. This book is also an attempt at a Bildungstheorie.

This book brings the key ideas and concepts of social realism to bear on current debates in the fields of knowledge and curriculum. The key concern of this collection is to highlight matters related to knowledge and the influence these dimensions have on the formation of curricula, pedagogy, identity, and equity in educational contexts. Presenting new perspectives on the place of various types and forms of knowledge in contemporary education, this book explores two central questions, ‘what type of knowledge is most important to include in a curriculum?’ and ‘what is meant by disciplinary knowledge?’ The chapters use empirical examples to illustrate how the issues play out on a global stage, interweaving the social justice concern of equitable access to disciplinary knowledge throughout. In particular, the authors address the emerging theorisation of issues related to the decolonisation of curricula, the recontextualisation of ‘non-traditional’ knowledge into the curriculum, and teacher education. Offering new philosophical and theoretical perspectives, this book will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students examining the fields of knowledge and curriculum, and the sociology of education more broadly.

Sociological Thinking in Music Education presents new ideas about music teaching and learning as important social, political, economic, ecological, and cultural ways of being. At the book's heart is the intersection between theory and practice where readers gain glimpses of intriguing social phenomena as lived through music learning and teaching. The vital roles played by music and music education in various societies around the world are illustrated through pivotal intersections between music education and sociology: community, schooling, and issues of decolonization. In this book, emerging as well as established scholars mobilize the links between applied sociology, music, education, and music education in ways that intersect the scholarly and the personal. These interdisciplinary vantage points fulfil the book's overarching aim to move beyond mere descriptions of what is, by analyzing how social inequalities and inequities, conflict and control, and power can be understood in and through music teaching and learning at both individual and collective levels. The result is not only encountering new ideas regarding the social construction of music education practices in specific places, but also seeing and hearing familiar ones in fresh ways. Digital assets enable readers to meet the authors and the points of their inquiry via various audiovisual media, including videos, a documentary music film, and multi-lingual video précis for each chapter in English as well as in each author's language of origin.