Books in the Critical Social Thought series

In this text US educators describe systems which will educate diverse populations in their customs and heritages, and transform schools into places of intellectual vitality with strong connection to their local social environment.

In dialogues with eleven key thinkers in the area of critical education, this book documents how a tradition of study grew in the United States. Through in-depth interviews these thinkers talk about their personal experiences and their work.

This book is a longitudinal ethnographic study that provides insight into how the lives of these men and women have changed over the last two decades - and what their prospects might be for the future.

This collection looks at the influence of Raymond Williams on the work of radical intellectuals. It especially looks at the limitation of Williams' political vision and commitment.

Lays out a post-reform agenda that moves beyond the neo-liberal, competition framework to define a accountability, a pedagogy, and a leadership role definition. This book argues for the need to move away from inauthentic and inequitable approaches to school reform in order to start a conversation about an alternative vision of education.

In the colorblind era of Post-Civil Rights America, race is often wrongly thought to be irrelevant or, at best, a problem of racist individuals rather than a systemic condition to be confronted. This book interrupts this assumption by reaffirming a critical appreciation of the central role that race and racism still play in schools and society.

In a conservative educational climate that is dominated by policies like No Child Left Behind, one of the serious effects has been for educators to worry about the politics of what they are teaching and how they are teaching it. This title provides readers an argument for why curricula and teaching based on controversial issues are truly crucial.

Examines high-stakes standardized testing in order to illuminate what is really at stake for students, teachers, and communities negatively affected by such testing. This title traces standardized testing's origins in the Eugenics and Social Efficiency movements of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Examines Bell Hooks' works across various disciplinary divides, including her critique on educational theory and practice, theorization of racial construction, dynamics of gender, and spirituality and love as correctives in postmodern life. This book is suitable for scholars, professors, and students interested in issues of race, class and gender.

Across the US, test publishers, software companies, and research firms are swarming to take advantage of the revenues made by the No Child Left Behind Act. This title examines domains that the education industry has had particular influence on - home schooling, remedial instruction, management consulting, test development, and staff development.

Examines Bell Hooks' works across various disciplinary divides, including her critique on educational theory and practice, theorization of racial construction, dynamics of gender, and spirituality and love as correctives in postmodern life. This book offers a fresh perspective for scholars wanting to engage in the prominent work of Bell Hooks.

Offers an approach to understanding the complex and multi-dimensional perspectives of Black literate lives in the United States. This book reinterprets historiographies of Black self-determination and self-reliance to interrupt stereotypes of African American literacy practices.

Presents an analysis of 'rightist multiculturalism' in the curriculum battle for cultural supremacy. This book reveals the neo-conservative evolution and contradictory ideology of the Core Knowledge school reform movement.

This title examines the transitive relation between politics and actual classroom practice. They show that educational policy serves as political propaganda directed at an electorate desperate for change.

This stunning new edition retains the book's broad aims, intended audience, and multidisciplinary approach. New chapters take into account the more current backdrop of globalization, particularly events such as 9/11, and attendant developments that make a reconsideration of race relations in education quite urgent.

This book analyses the ways in which schools in urban areas are shaped and influenced by social, economic and political forces within the social environment. Utilizing research from schools in Chicago, the book will show how schools attempt to

A detailed account of how student performance and teacher accountability is being mapped through standardized tests. Amongst issues covered is that of "authentic learning" vs. "practice drill" learning.

The author of this book explores issues of race, class, and gender among white working class youths, and considers the roles of school and family in the production of the self.

McNeil blames the poor quality of high school instruction for the tensions between the social control purposes of schooling and the schools' educational goals.

Working Method focuses on the theory, method, and politics of contemporary social research. As ethnographic and qualitative research become more popular, noted scholars Weis and Fine provide a roadmap for understanding the complexities involved

A collection of essays which re-examine the work of Paul Willis, 25 years after the publication of his seminal 'Learning to Labor'. They examine the relationship between schooling and work, the lives of working class youth, the role of school as productive site of struggle and other important themes.

Carspecken's work illustrates new developments in critical social theory and applies them to ethnographic analysis in a way that is accessible to all.

Focuses on the difficult issues in urban education, putting street-savvy students at the forefront of the discussion on how to best make successful changes for inner city schools. Individual chapters discuss depictions of black America, the social complexity of the teacher-student relationship, and more.

A critical analysis of the actors and interests behind education policies, Mapping Corporate Education Reform uncovers the frequently obscured operations of educational governance and offers key insights into education reform at the present moment.

Ideal for scholars and students of critical pedagogy, philosophy of education, and political theory, this collection delineate the necessity of critical consciousness through education, and provides ways of speaking back against authoritarian control of imaginative and critical capacities.