This book examines the relationship between democracy and schooling and argues that schools are one of the few spheres left where youth can learn the knowledge and skills necessary to become engaged, critical citizens. Not only is the legacy of democracy addressed through the work of John Dewey and others, but the democratic possibilities of schooling are analyzed through a range of issues extending from the politics of teacher authority to the importance of student voices. These issues have only become more vital in an era of neoliberalism and "smaller government," as Giroux discusses at length in this new updated edition.

Warren Nord's thoughtful book tackles an issue of great importance in contemporary America: the role of religion in our public schools and universities. According to Nord, public opinion has been excessively polarized by those religious conservatives who would restore religious purposes and practices to public education and by those secular liberals for whom religion is irrelevant to everything in the curriculum. While he maintains that public schools and universities must not promote religion, he also argues that there are powerful philosophical, political, moral, and constitutional reasons for requiring students to study religion. Indeed, only if religion is included in the curriculum will students receive a truly liberal education, one that takes seriously a variety of ways of understanding the human experience. Intended for a broad audience, Nord's comprehensive study encompasses American history, constitutional law, educational theory and practice, theology, philosophy, and ethics. It also discusses a number of current, controversial issues, including multiculturalism, moral education, creationism, academic freedom, and the voucher and school choice movements.

At a time of increasing pressure for teachers to become more professional and more technically competent, this book examines in a critical fashion whether teachers should be considered experts. Written in straightforward and accessible prose, Welker examines the concept of expertise through the ideas of notable educational thinkers in the twentieth century—beginning with E.P. Cubberley and George S. Counts and concluding with a chapter on critical theory and the ideas of Maxine Greene and Henry Giroux. Other chapters examine such thinkers as Willard Waller, Daniel Lortie, Alan Tom, Philip Jackson, and Ivan Illich. Each chapter establishes an historical and ideological context and evaluates how the social character of the expert matches the responsibilities. While the idea of the teacher assuming the role of educational expert is gaining increased credibility in the current reform movement, this book shows that the concept fails to describe the senses of moral and social competence required of the teacher. Also the notion of the expert teacher might stand in the way of teachers forming the type of public partnerships necessary for them to complete their tasks adequately.

Schools have been traditionally defined as institutions of instruction, but the authors of this volume challenge that position in order to generate a new set of cultural categories and constructs through which the nature and process of schooling can be more appropriately understood. Giroux and McLaren develop a theory of schooling that takes into account not only the more traditional relationship between teaching and learning, but also the import of wider cultural dynamics such as language, mass culture, popular culture, the state, theories of readership, ethnographic research, and subcultural studies.

During the past decade there has been a series of radical changes to the educational system of England and Wales. This book argues that any serious study of these changes has to engage with complex questions about the role of education in a modern liberal democracy. Were these educational changes informed by the needs and aspirations of a democratic society? To what extent will they promote democratic values and ideals? These questions can only be adequately addressed by making explicit the political ideas and the underlying philosophical principles that have together shaped the English educational system. To this end, the book provides a selective history of English education which exposes the connections between decisive periods of educational change and the intellectual and political climate in which it occurred. It also connects the educational policies of the 1980s and 90s to the political ideas of the New Right in order to show how they are part of a broader political strategy aimed at reversing the democratic advances achieved through the intellectual and political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book proposes that a democratic educational vision can only effectively be advanced by renewing the 'struggle for democracy' - the historical struggle to create forms of education which will empower all citizens to participate in an open, pluralistic and democratic society.

For 50 years, educator and sociologist Geoff Whitty resolutely pursued social justice through education, first as a classroom teacher and ultimately as the Director of the Institute of Education in London. The essays in this volume - written by some of the most influential authors in the sociology of education and critical policy studies - take Whitty’s work as the starting point from which to examine key contemporary issues in education and the challenges to social justice that they present. Set within three themes of knowledge, policy and practice in education, the chapters tackle the issues of defining and accessing ‘legitimate’ knowledge, the changing nature of education policy under neoliberalism and globalization, and the reshaping of teacher workplaces and professionalism – as well as attempts to realize more emancipatory practice. Whitty’s scholarship on what constitutes quality and impact in educational research is also explored. Together, the essays open a window on a life in the sociology of education, the scholarly community of which it was part, and the facets of education policy, practice and research that they continue to reveal and challenge in pursuit of social justice. They celebrate Whitty as one of the foremost sociologists of education of his generation, but also as a friend and colleague. And they highlight the continued relevance of his contribution to those seeking to promote fairer and more inclusive education systems.

Those making decisions about education today argue that market strategies promote democratic educational reform, when really they promote market reform of education. Michael Engel argues against this tendency, siding with democratic values and calls for a return to community-controlled schools.

This is the first full-length study of the life and career of Brian Simon (1915-2002), leading Marxist intellectual and historian of education in twentieth-century Britain. Using documentary sources that have only recently become publicly available, it reveals the remarkably broad range of Simon’s life as student, soldier and school teacher, Communist Party activist, and educational academic, campaigner and reformer. In a sympathetic biography that yet retains critical distance, the authors analyse Simon’s contribution to Marxism and the CP, explore the influence of both on his work as a historian of education and trace the significance of his Marxist beliefs, political associations and historical approach to the cause of educational reform. In so doing, they consider the full nature and limitations of Simon’s achievements in his struggle for education. Unlike many Marxist scholars he remained loyal to the CP in the 1950s, which damaged his reputation as a public intellectual. Nevertheless, his support for comprehensive education helped to promote egalitarian educational reforms in Britain, although he was later unable to provide sufficient resistance to the 1988 Education Reform Act and to a decline in the position of the comprehensive schools. In all this, the significance of Simon’s family, and especially his relationship with his wife Joan is to the fore. Joan and Brian forged a formidable 60-year partnership, in politics and the CP as well as in life, that lasted until Brian’s death in January 2002.

This book is an examination of the reception of critical race theory (CRT) in America’s legal education system. Critical race theory has been roiling legal education since the aftermath of Obama’s presidency. The killings of unarmed Black people fueled Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in law schools, which created a sense of urgency behind the plea for the law to do more to stop the killings of unarmed Black people. Some BLM-led protests called for faculty and administers to be fired if they didn’t act. There has been an upsurge of states legislating against the teaching of CRT, and law schools are struggling to respond. How should legal education view CRT? What are the neutral unifying values in the law that offer hope in the fight to alleviate the wave of racism that seems to continually batter law schools and society as a whole? This book looks for answers, and encourages the recommittal to the foundationalist beliefs of free speech, equality, and the due process of law.

This book offers nuanced analyses of the narratives, spaces, and forms of citizenship education prior to and during the aftermath of the January 2011 Egyptian Revolution. To explore the dynamics shaping citizenship education during this significant socio-political transition, this edited volume brings together established and emerging researchers from multiple disciplines, perspectives, and geographic locations. By highlighting the impacts of recent transitions on perceptions of citizenship and citizenship education in Egypt, this volume demonstrates that the critical developments in Egypt’s schools, universities, and other non-formal and informal spaces of education, have not been isolated from local, national, and global debates around meanings of citizenship.