Short description:

In this lively and challenging book over 40 contributors have written short, accessible, informed and lively articles for students, teachers and others involved in education.

Long description:

Debating is out of fashion. No one raises the question of what has gone wrong when the entire political project of a society is seemingly reduced to 'education, education, education'.
The aim of this lively and challenging book is to provide the stimulus for further thinking about key educational issues by exposing and explaining the assumptions behind this obsession. Over forty contributors, all experts in their fields, have written short, accessible, informed and lively articles for students, teachers and others involved in education. They address broad questions that are central to any understanding of what is really going on in the education system.
Topics covered include: the new relationship of the state to education; the changed nature of schools; whether teachers are afraid to teach; the problems with circle time, anti-bullying strategies, citizenship education, and multiple intelligences; the retreat from truth and the demise of theory in teacher training, and much more.
Everyone learning to teach in primary and secondary schools and further education colleges will find this book relevant to their programmes. In particular the book would be useful for students on Education Studies courses.

'I found the book enjoyable, thought-provoking and occasionally infuriating, the sort of text that will engage even the most reluctant apprentice reader. Each chapter has a bibliography that guides the new reader to relevant literature, helpful to students but also to lecturers not experts in the field?a well organised and practical text that will support [] the large numbers of students studying education studies free from the intervention of the TTA and I would recommend all of them to buy it' - John Lee, British Journal of Educational Studies

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Debating education: A beginner's guide Part 1. The state of education 1. The formalisation of relationships in education 2. The interventionist state and the state of UK education 3. Educating the people 4. The philosophy gap Part 2. Policing the classroom 5. Re-enacting early childhood? 6. Afraid to teach? 7. Literacy singular or plural? For today or tomorrow? 8. 'Literacy' and the 'literary' 9. Schooling Year 6: inclusion or SATuration? 10. Circle time 11. Anti-bullying strategies in the UK 12. Menu change in education? Part 3. The search for lost values, communities and citizens 13. Just being there for us 14. Asserting children's rights 15. Education, children and social class 16. The subject of spirituality 17. Who is a good citizen? 18. Citizenship education: reflecting a political malaise Part 4. Changing times? Changing education 19. Greening education 20. Education as entertainment 21. ICT: don't believe the hype 22. Virtual learning or real learning? 23. The shattered mirror: a critique of multiple intelligences theory 24. An impoverished education for all Part 5. Lifelong learning: lifelong dependence 25. The rise of low self-esteem and the lowering of educational expectations 26. The trouble with lifelong learning 27. FE cannot save the economy 28. Taking control: fashioning the new citizen 29. Labour's fuel: lifelong learning policy as labour power production 30. 'Getting your lines right': scripted communication in professional contexts Part 6. The diminished academy 31. A profession in crisis? 32. Corporate involvement in Initial Teacher Training 33. The McDonaldization of lecturer training 34. The therapeutic turn in education 35. Academicus Superciliosus: the beasts revisited 36. Challenging students Part 7. The study of education 37. Practice makes imperfect 38. Why does truth matter? 39. Can everyone be a researcher? 40. Scholarship reinstated Postscript: What are the key debates in education?