Schooling The Smash Street Kids

First published in 1998, this volume is based upon an ethnographic study of white and black in a mixed comprehensive school conducted during the 1980s and explores differentiation in the classroom, looking at gender, colour and class differences within groups of students. The findings are discussed in the light of the strong debate within the sociology of education that took place during the 1970s and 1980s concerning academic achievement and underachievement. Amanda Palmer reveals, in contribution to this debate, that class origins played a primary role in the formation of pupils’ attitudes towards school and that class, race and gender were involved in how teachers reacted to pupils

Schooling the Estate Kids chronicles the trajectory of one Kent secondary school which was twice dubbed ‘the worst school in England’ in the national press. Serving a high poverty neighbourhood, The Ramsgate School was challenged by national targets, low levels of attainment of the school intake at 11 and difficulties of recruitment and retention of quality staff. The local housing estates were amongst the most deprived in the country and shared the school’s negative reputation. The school became The Marlowe Academy in 2005 with new leadership and a new building (in 2006). Student numbers increased, attendance and attainment came close to the national average and the atmosphere in the school was transformed, though the characteristics of the pupils in terms of special needs (twice the national average) and deprivation (more than twice the national average entitled to free school meals) remained unchanged. This book questions the notion that school improvement and school leadership are key areas to focus on when the socio-economic circumstances of pupils, poverty, dwarf all the other factors which are related to the educational progress of students.

Since the global financial crisis of 2007-08 the question of the aims of schooling have assumed greater importance. There has been no ‘return to normal’, yet young people are encouraged to ‘Keep calm and go to university’. Culture and the Political Economy of Schooling explores the possibilities for the emergence of a progressive agenda for schooling. Culture and the Political Economy of Schooling provides educators and social scientists with the essential background required to understand changes in schooling since the Second World War. It introduces theories of the economic crisis, and explores their educational implications, before going on to provide accounts of how politics and culture have shaped debates about schooling. This cultural political economy approach is applied to issues such as social class, race, the brave new worlds of work, the dangerous rise of creative education, and the increasingly urgent question of inequality. The final parts of the book explore the educational challenges of the Anthropocene and the changing conceptions of knowledge in schools and finally consider alternatives to contemporary schooling. The students in our schools today will face a future framed by the twin crises of economy and environment, prompting an urgent rethink of education. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, this book is an essential guide for thinking about the past, present and futures of education. It will be of great interest to researchers and graduate students of education studies, curriculum studies, sociology of education, education politics and education policy.

This book presents an ethnographic study of the experiences of teenage boys in an Australian high school. It follows a group of thirteen to fifteen year olds over a period of more than two years, and seeks to understand why so many boys say they hate school yet enjoy being with one another in their daily confrontations with the formal school. The study acknowledges the ongoing significance of the "boys' debate" to policy-makers and the media, and therefore to teachers and parents, but moves it on from issues of gender construction and the panic about achievement to the broader question of what it is to experience being schooled as a boy in the new liberal educational environment.

In light of the profound changes confronting the Child Welfare landscape, social work practitioners are expected to understand both the current and anticipated inter-relationships between social work and education. A clear introduction to social work in an educational setting, this book supports students on the social work degree course and builds on the success of the Transforming Social Work Practice series, which is based on common learning principles.

The decision to transfer a pupil from mainstream to special education can have a profound effect on the child's life. This text exposes the often arbitrary way in which such a decision is made, making a comparison of deviant pupils from a mainstream school with deviant pupils in a special unit.

The decision to transfer a pupil from mainstream to special education can have a profound effect on the child's life. This text exposes the often arbitrary way in which such a decision is made, making a comparison of deviant pupils from a mainstream school with deviant pupils in a special unit.