Re Schooling Society

This text describes and explains the sense of uncertainty faced by educators as the millenium approaches. It highlights the many transitions taking place in all aspects of public life and education during the postmodern phase of late capitalism by using examples from the study of childhood, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and organization of education. It also considers attempts made so far by policy makers in the western industrialized nations to come to terms with rapid cultural and social changes whilst, at the same time, trying to maintain competitive economies to meet the growing challenge of the emergent Pacific Rim nations.

This text describes and explains the sense of uncertainty faced by educators as the millenium approaches. It highlights the many transitions taking place in all aspects of public life and education during the postmodern phase of late capitalism by using examples from the study of childhood, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and organization of education. It also considers attempts made so far by policy makers in the western industrialized nations to come to terms with rapid cultural and social changes whilst, at the same time, trying to maintain competitive economies to meet the growing challenge of the emergent Pacific Rim nations.

What future is there for formal schools and schooling in an increasingly digital age? Are educational technologists justified in arguing for the re-construction of school processes and practices along digital lines? Do contemporary digital technologies simply render the educational institution entirely obsolete? This paper outlines – and then critiques - the radical forms of digital ‘re-schooling’ and ‘de-schooling’ that are often argued for within current academic debates over educational technology community. Instead the paper explores a number of opportunities for using digital technologies to work with schools as they currently are, rather than against them. In particular an ‘agenda for adjustment’ is presented that, if implemented, could see schools revitalised as sites of innovative, imaginative and empowering digital technology use.

“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife,” wrote John Dewey in his classic work The School and Society. In School, Society, and State, Tracy Steffes places that idea at the center of her exploration of the connections between public school reform in the early twentieth century and American political development from 1890 to 1940. American public schooling, Steffes shows, was not merely another reform project of the Progressive Era, but a central one. She addresses why Americans invested in public education and explains how an array of reformers subtly transformed schooling into a tool of social governance to address the consequences of industrialization and urbanization. By extending the reach of schools, broadening their mandate, and expanding their authority over the well-being of children, the state assumed a defining role in the education—and in the lives—of American families. In School, Society, and State, Steffes returns the state to the study of the history of education and brings the schools back into our discussion of state power during a pivotal moment in American political development.

This book provokes a conversation about what supportive schooling contexts for both students and teachers might look like, and considers how schooling can contribute to a more socially-just society. It takes as its starting point the position of the most marginalised students, many of whom have either been rejected by or have rejected mainstream schooling, and argues that the experiences of these students suggest that it is time for schools to be reimagined for all young people. Utilizing both theory and data, the volume critiques many of the issues in conventional schools that work against education, and presents evidence ‘from the field’ in the form of data from unconventional schooling sites, which demonstrates some of the structural, relational, curricular and pedagogical changes that appear to be enabling schooling for education for their students. It will be essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of education, sociology and social work, and will also be of great interest to practising teachers.

Drawing on current scholarship, Education and Society takes students on a journey through the many roles that education plays in contemporary societies. Addressing students’ own experience of education before expanding to larger sociological conversations, Education and Society helps readers understand and engage with such topics as peer groups, gender and identity, social class, the racialization of achievement, the treatment of immigrant children, special education, school choice, accountability, discipline, global perspectives, and schooling as a social institution. The book prompts students to evaluate how schools organize our society and how society organizes our schools. Moving from students to schooling to social forces, Education and Society provides a lively and engaging introduction to theory and research and will serve as a cornerstone for courses such as sociology of education, foundations of education, critical issues in education, and school and society.