Books in the Critical Education Policy and Politics series

Discusses the notion of knowledge cultures in relation to claims for the economy and the communicative turn, as well as cultural economy and the politics of postmodernity. This book also focuses on national policy constructions of the knowledge economy, fast knowledge and the role of the so-called new pedagogy and social learning.

Rahat Naqvi and Hans Smits' edited collection, Thinking about and Enacting Curriculum in "Frames of War" is centered on the theme of how the current global order creates precarious conditions for human life. The contributors respond to the challenges Judith Butler posed about the fragility of life and questions about how we apprehend, and take up ethically, our responsibilities for those who are considered "Other." The overarching objective of the book is the meaning of a call to ethics, and how discussion of framing and frames is a provocation to think about our responsibilities as curriculum scholars and practitioners.

Argues that education in the States and Britain has been radically transformed, through efforts to create curricular standards, and through an emphasis on accountability measured by standardized tests, and efforts to introduce market competition and private services into educational systems.

Better Worlds: Education, Art, and Utopia provides a fresh examination of utopia and education. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach and drawing on literature and the visual arts as well as traditional non-fiction sources, the authors explore utopia not as a model of social perfection but as the active, imaginative building of better worlds. Utopian questions, they argue, lie at the heart of education, and addressing such questions demands attention not just to matters of theoretical principle but to the particulars of everyday life and experience. Taking utopia seriously in educational thought also involves a consideration of that which is dystopian. Utopia, this book suggests, is not something that is fixed, final, or ever fully realized; instead, it must be constantly recreated, and education, as an ongoing process of reflection, action, and transformation, has a central role to play in this process.