Knowledge Power And Educational Reform

This book is made up of a selection of writings from an international team of scholars, highlighting the contribution made to the field of educational policy and educational policy research by Basil Bernstein's work on the sociology of pedagogy. These contributors explore, analyse and engage with contemporary political reforms of education, contemporary pedagogic debates and the changing nature of professional knowledge, relationships and structures. The subjects covered include: particular concepts such as voice research the significance of social class in relation to the language, schooling and home cultures differences between official and pedagogic recontextualising fields formation of different types of identities the construction of the learner formation of teacher identities and use of pedagogic discourses analysis of performance-based educational reforms and its impact on pedagogy.

Selected writings from an international team of scholars, highlighting the contribution made to the field of educational policy and educational policy research by Basil Bernstein's work on the sociology of pedagogy.

Advancing a three-fold political agenda, this volume: * illuminates how the meanings assigned to a whole vocabulary of words and phrases frequently used to discuss the role and reform of U.S. public schools reflect an essentially economic view of the world; * contends that education or educational reform conducted under an economized worldview will only intensify the effects of the colonial relations of political and economic domination that it breeds at home and abroad; and * offers a set of alternative concepts and meanings for reformulating the role of U.S. public schools and for considering the implications of such a reformulation more generally for the underlying premises of all human relationships and activities. Toward these ends, the authors, in Part I, critically examine many of the most commonly used terms within the rhetoric of educational reform since the early 1980s and before. Part II links today's economized worldview to curricular and instructional issues. These essays are especially important for comprehending how the organization of school curriculum privileges those disciplines deemed most central to market expansion--math and science--and how the political centrality of the economic sphere influences the nature of the knowledge presented in specific content areas. Given that language constrains as well as advances human thought, the twin tasks of de-economizing education and decolonizing society will require a vocabulary that transcends the familiar terminologies addressed in Parts I and II. The entries in Part III cultivate the beginnings of such a vocabulary as the authors elucidate innovative concepts which they view as central to the creation of truly alternative educational visions and practices.

Focusing on comparative examination of educational reforms, this book explores the relation of state practices and educational knowledge to changes in culture and economics among nations. Countries with different state traditions and political regimes are studied to understand how national and global settings are interrelated in current restructuring of education and social welfare policies related to schooling. The regional cases focus on the policies of the European Union, restructuring efforts in Latin America, and family, child welfare, and early childhood policies in Eastern Europe. In addition, specific studies of national changes in Argentina, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Tanzania, South Africa, and the U.S. are presented. Educational Knowledge makes a unique contribution by bringing neo-Marxist theories, world systems, and post-modern cultural and political theories into a conversation about the changes that are occurring in the educational arena. This book will interest not only specialists in the field of education studying educational reform, but also economists, political scientists, sociologists, and comparative historians who examine the functioning of education within the larger context of modernization. Contributors include Benita Blessing, Marianne Bloch, Alejandra Brgin, Gunilla Dahlberg, Peter Drewek, Ines Dussel, Tony Edwards, Sharon Gewirtz, Lisa Hennon, Steve Kerr, Johan Müller, Antonio Novoa, Thomas S. Popkewitz, Jurgen Schriewer, Gillermiona Tiramonti, Carlos Alberto Torres, Frances Vavrus, and Geoff Whitty.

The reform of teacher education has been a focal point of state action in industrial countries since the early 1980s. Given this convergence of educational and governmental activity, the studies presented here are a significant departure from conventional discourse on reform, because they explore the ways that social regulation and political power operate through the processes of educational reform. This book considers the reform of teacher education to be an integral part of the larger system of social regulation that takes place in the arena of schooling. Reforms in teacher education involve complex sets of interactions among and within social institutions. These interactions help shape power relations and patterns of social regulation that operate through state, university, and school interactions. Nevertheless, the patterns that give direction and value to teacher education are not easily discerned in public discussions of educational change. Instead, many of the most important regulatory aspects of teacher education reform are partly obscured by a public discourse that focuses attention on formal responses to socioeconomic events, and that tends to divert critical attention away from the power that is exercised--and the interests that are served--during reform. This volume presents studies of reform in Australia, Finland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although these countries differ in their political and social histories, rates and levels of industrialization, and patterns of educational practice, there is a striking commonality in both the strategies that are employed to reform teacher education, and in the nature of social regulation that is a concomitant of reform.

The author investigates the discourse of contemporary educational reform using a thematic perspective (rather than a chronological one) of 19th- and 20th-century history. The book begins with an examination of the central conceptual and historical issues in the study of educational change.

Illuminates how the meaning of language used to discuss the role & reform of US public schools reflects an essentially economic view of the world, and offers a set of alternative concepts & meanings for reformulating the role of US public schools.