Local Educational Order

The studies in this book take an ethnomethodological approach to educational phenomena. Ethnomethodology’s concern is with the locally accomplished and situated character of social order. With reference to educational phenomena, this means that ethnomethodology investigates how the ‘natural facts’ of educational life, such as daily activities in school classrooms, are produced as such in the first place, rather than taking for granted the recognisability of these facts and then theorising their explanation. In this sense, ethnomethodological studies contrast markedly with other approaches to the study of education. Each of the chapters in the book consists of a new and original study. Collectively, they exhibit the continuing vitality of this tradition and demonstrate ethnomethodology’s special commitment to the analysis of educational phenomena as locally ordered and accomplished.

The studies in this book take an ethnomethodological approach to educational phenomena. Ethnomethodology's concern is with the locally accomplished and situated character of social order. With reference to educational phenomena, this means that ethnomethodology investigates how the 'natural facts' of educational life, such as daily activities in school classrooms, are produced as such in the first place, rather than taking for granted the recognisability of these facts and then theorising their explanation. In this sense, ethnomethodological studies contrast markedly with other approaches to the study of education. Each of the chapters in the book consists of a new and original study. Collectively, they exhibit the continuing vitality of this tradition and demonstrate ethnomethodology's special commitment to the analysis of educational phenomena as locally ordered and accomplished.

Over the last fifty years, Canada's public schools have been absorbed into a modern education system that functions much like Max Weber's infamous iron cage. Crying out for democratic school-level reform, the system is now a centralized, bureaucratic fortress that, every year, becomes softer on standards for students, less accessible to parents, further out of touch with communities, and surprisingly unresponsive to classroom teachers. Exploring the nature of the Canadian education order in all its dimensions, The State of the System explains how public schools came to be so bureaucratic, confronts the critical issues facing kindergarten to grade 12 public schools in all ten provinces, and addresses the need for systemic reform. Going beyond a diagnosis of the stresses, strains, and ills present in the system, Paul Bennett proposes a bold plan to re-engineer schools on a more human scale as the first step in truly reforming public education. In place of school consolidation and managerialism, one-size-fits-all uniformity, limited school choice, and the "success-for-all" curriculum, Bennett advocates for a new set of priorities: decentralize school governance, deprogram education ministries and school districts, listen to parents and teachers, and revitalize local education democracy. Tackling the thorny issues besetting contemporary school systems in Canada, The State of the System issues a clarion call for more responsive, engaged, and accountable public schools.

Comparing Ethnographies presents cross-national comparisons that give researchers and students a fresh look at familiar concepts. How does it matter, for example, to think in terms of "majorities" rather than "minorities, "migrants" rather than "immigrants, or"intercultural education" rather than "multicultural education"? How does indigenous education or the work of teachers look different to ethnographers from differnt countries of the Americas? This engaging new volume edited by Kathryn Anderson-Levitt and Elsie Rockwell includes essays from experts throughout the Americas which help readers understand and learn from ethnographic educational research conducted across the Western Hemisphere, and also includes a practical guide to finding the relevant literature.

Government response to HCP 273, Session 2009-10.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Identity provides a clear and comprehensive survey of the field of language and identity from an applied linguistics perspective. Forty-one chapters are organised into five sections covering: theoretical perspectives informing language and identity studies key issues for researchers doing language and identity studies categories and dimensions of identity identity in language learning contexts and among language learners future directions for language and identity studies in applied linguistics Written by specialists from around the world, each chapter will introduce a topic in language and identity studies, provide a concise and critical survey, in which the importance and relevance to applied linguists is explained and include further reading. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Identity is an essential purchase for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Linguistics, Applied Linguistics and TESOL. Advisory board: David Block (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats/ Universitat de Lleida, Spain); John Joseph (University of Edinburgh); Bonny Norton (University of British Colombia, Canada).