Books in the Routledge Library Editions: Education series

Although the different contributions to this book range over a wide spectrum of substantive issues, they share a common interest. This is a concern to explore the ways in which notions of the relations between theory and practice, between belief and action, can be used to develop three kinds of sensitivity in the sociology of education. A sensitivity towards how school systems are created, maintained and made to function; towards developing a more refined, critical and constructive awareness of the reliability and validity of descriptions, analyses and explanations offered in this field of study; and a sensitivity towards the ways in which changes take place within the education system and how the insights and realisations generated in the discipline might be used to control such occurrences.

This volume considers how various sociological approaches to the exploration of the conditions of teachers¿ might be co-ordinated so as to produce a more penetrating and reliable understanding of the main dimensions of teachers¿ work. Three dimensions are selected for special attention: historical, institutional and interactional contexts in which teachers operate.

This book is written by people of varying ages and professions who have broken through from poor social beginnings, deprived backgrounds and many disadvantages into a high level of professional achievement. Starting in working class or slum environments in areas such as Sheffield, Wales, Manchester, Leeds, Huddersfield, London, Glasgow and Birmingham they describe their struggles and the ways in which they attempted to over-come their earlier deprivations.

This volume offers a conceptual justification and methodology for comparative studies of education matching developments in the social sciences and other comparative disciplines. It also relates comparative studies of education to the practical business of policy formulation at all levels. The author draws illustrations from educational reforms, but goes further in suggesting suitable procedures or institutions which might achieve soundly based policies and secure their implementation.

Assessment is a key area of interest and debate in education. Its increased use by governments as a powerful means of influencing educational practice are now features of the educational scene worldwide. This volume was the first major international review of such developments and it explores the impact of assessment on all areas of education, from teaching skills to policy-making.

This book discusses the way in which those born into the British empire were persuaded to accept it, often with enthusiasm. The study compares the perceptions of people at ΓÇÿhomeΓÇÖ, in the dominions and in the colonies. Across the diversity of imperial territories it explores themes such as the diverse nature of political socialisation, the various agents and agencies of persuasion, reaction to the ΓÇÿexperience of dominanceΓÇÖ by dominant and dominated, the paradoxical impact of the missionary and the subversive role of some women. It also considers the significant issues of colonial adaptation, resistance and rejection, and the post-imperial consequences of imperialism.

This book opens with a survey of the historical evolution of adult education in the UK and leads on to the study of the structure of adult learning. It discusses distance teaching opportunities such as the Open University and the National Extension College, and face-to-face teaching provision in adult education centres. It also looks at specific programmes such as the Adult Literacy Initiative in the mid-1970s, and at target groups like the adult unemployed, women and ethnic groups. Comprehensive and yet broad-ranging, this volume contains much new material that offers interesting insights into both present and future opportunities for adult education.

In 1699 John Aubrey began to compile notes for a scheme for the education of young gentlemen. The manuscript he left has never been published. The editor of the volume organized and re-arranged the text and has provided an historical Introduction and detailed notes. Aubrey gives a graphic account of education at the time. He displays a remarkable breadth of knowledge of the broad issues of history, law, mechanics, science and pedagogy and he was intensely curious about the practicalities of teaching language and number, the effects of puberty, diet, travel, games and music.

The main concern of the volume is the relation of theory to practice in education but the book also reviews the state of educational theory, and its relation to politics. Beginning with a group of papers on specific areas of the relation between theory and practice, the book goes on to discuss aspects of the curriculum, such as curricular principles in recent official reports, the newly emerging theme of general abilities, and controversial material in the curriculum. The theme of the third group of articles is personal autonomy, one of the very few generally supported educational aims of recent years, and a final group presents a retrospective view of the Plowden Report.

In recent years there has been a new mood in teacher education. The emphasis is on professional studies, on encouraging trainee teachers to think intelligently about how to tackle problems of the classroom.This book surveys the developments which are taking it further in both Britain and North America. It goes on to argue the case for consolidating the new approach in a thoughtful, structured and comprehensive way. It argues that teacher education should be regarded as a discipline in its own right; that teacher education should be increasingly school focused and problem-centered; that it needs to blend theory more effectively with practice. It argues that teacher training programmes should prepare teachers for an uncertain future in a changing world. This calls for an emphasis on process rather than content in programmes and the preparing of teachers who are self-directed.

This encyclopedia is the result of a highly selective enterprise that provides a careful selection of key topics in essays written by top scholars in their fields. Comprehensive and in-depth coverage of a limited number of countries, regions and themes is provided. The essays not only feature statistical and factual information but significant interpretation of those facts and figures. The chapters on themes and topics are both analytic and interpretative and deal with the most important topics relevant to higher education everywhere. More than a compendium of facts and figures the encyclopedia is a comprehensive overview of a growing field of research and analysis.

The nature of adult education at individual, group and community levels is the concern of this book. Definitions and patterns of adult learning are critically assessed in both this country and abroad, and the processes involved considered in detail. Both case studies and thematic articles have been included and are selected to illustrate the breadth of the field along a number of areas: formal, non-formal and informal education; face-to-face and distance education; from basic levels of education to higher education; from highly deterministic to more `open¿ or self-directed forms of education. It is felt that the study and practice of the education of adults can be best advanced by the adoption of such a broad view.

Literacy remains a contentious and polarized educational, media and political issue. What has emerged from the continuing debate is a recognition that literacy in education is allied closely with matters of language and culture, ideology and discourse, knowledge and power. Drawing perspectives variously from critical social theory and cultural studies, poststructuralism and feminisms, sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication, social history and comparative education, the contributors begin a critical interrogation of taken-for-granted assumptions which have guided educational policy, research and practice.

This encyclopedia is the result of a highly selective enterprise that provides a careful selection of key topics in essays written by top scholars in their fields. Comprehensive and in-depth coverage of a limited number of countries, regions and themes is provided. The essays not only feature statistical and factual information but significant interpretation of those facts and figures. The chapters on themes and topics are both analytic and interpretative and deal with the most important topics relevant to higher education everywhere. More than a compendium of facts and figures the encyclopedia is a comprehensive overview of a growing field of research and analysis.

As a result of its concerns with the social organization of knowledge at all levels, the sociology of education has become a central form of much contemporary sociological theory. All the papers in this collection are formulations of a `reflexive¿ method of theorizing within sociology of education. This is a mode of address, deriving partly from social phenomenology, which seeks to display the grounds of the theorists¿ speech as itself an essential feature of any informative dialogue. Major themes in education and in sociology are considered in this way, including the social form of rationality, the constitution of curricula, normative beliefs about Learning, the nature of literary study as liberal education and the character of scientific knowledge in the social world.