Cultural Politics and Education

Another book recommendation: Cultural politics and education by M. Apple

Michael Apple offers a powerful analysis of current debates and a compelling indictment of rightist proposals for change. Apple presents the causes and effects of further integrating schools into the corporate agenda, as well as current calls for a national curriculum and national testing, privatization and voucher plans, and fundamentalist religious pressures to censor textbooks. He demonstrates who will be the winners and losers culturally and economically as the conservative restoration gains in strength, bringing with it an even greater restratification of knowledge and students in terms of race, class, and gender.

Abstract: As the conservative restoration movement gains power in the educational arena, public schooling itself has come under attack. This book analyzes current educational debates and critiques the rightist proposals for change. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to cultural politics and education, and addresses hegemonic cultures. Chapter 2 examines the most significant proposals for educational "reform" that have come from the neoliberal and neoconservative alliance. The chapter's major focus is on proposals for a national curriculum and a program of national testing. It argues that one of the perverse effects of a national curriculum will be to legitimize inequality. Chapter 3 analyzes conservative ideological positions and how they threaten schools. However, the chapter also demonstrates how the bureaucratic structures and responses of schools sometimes actually create the conditions under which right-wing movements grow and thrive. It incorporates new-Gramscian, postmodern, and poststructural traditions. The fourth chapter examines the social construction of dropping out as a problem and situates it within the real economy. It presents students' accounts of their educational experiences and encounters with the realities of the free-market economy. Chapter 5 presents a conclusion to the work.

The Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

A Recommended Read: The Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing by Jones, Jones and Hargrove

To better understand how high-stakes accountability has influenced teaching and learning, this book takes an in-depth look at the myriad consequences that high-stakes tests hold for students, teachers, administrators, and the public. By focusing on these tests and spending large amounts of time on test preparation and driving teachers to teach low-level, rote memorization, schools are essentially wiping out non-tested subjects such as science, social studies, physical education, and the arts. Although testing is promoted as a strategy for improving education for all, research shows that testing has differential effects on students with special needs, minority students, students living in poverty, and those for whom English is a second language. The Unintended Consequences of High Stakes Testing unpacks the assumptions and philosophical foundations on which testing policies are based. The authors' arguments are grounded in extensive interviews and research. Through an examination of research, these authors show that high-stakes testing promotes students' dependence on extrinsic motivation at the cost of intrinsic motivation and the associated love of learning-which has tangible impacts on their education and lives. 

Features: Examines how high stakes testing from the perspectives of teachers, students, and adminstrators. Considers how testing impacts the curriculum including tested subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics as well as non-tested subjects such as science, social studies, physical education, and the arts. -Documents how teachers and administrators engage in test preparation and discusses ethical and unethical test preparation practices. -Reviews the evolution of testing through history and how it mpacts the curriculum. -Examines the differential effects of testing on students with special needs, minority students, students living in poverty, and those for whom English is a second language.

The Diploma Disease: Education, Qualification And Development

A book I read two years ago as part of my MA in International Education and Development which even though it is old; it was 1st Published in 1976, and then updated in 1997, I feel reflects some of the problems within the UK and US educational systems today. 

The Diploma Disease: Education, Qualification And Development by Ronald Dore

Schools used to be for educating people, for developing minds and characters. Today, as jobs depend more and more on certificates, degrees and diplomas, schooling has become more and more a ritualized process of qualification-earning. Professor Dore traces the underlying causes of this change through the educational histories of Britain, Japan, Sri Lanka and Kenya, showing how the late development effect makes what is a worrying problem for the rich countries in the North a disaster for the poorer countries of the South. 

Educating the "Right" Way, Markets, Standards, God and Inequality by Michael W. Apple

Book Recommendation