Education, Change and Society

The highly successful Education, Change and Society helps students situate educational activity in its broad social and policy contexts. In Australia the way that schools, school funding, school markets, universities and the responsibilities of government for education are organised have all been subject to radical reform in recent decades. It has never been more important for students of education to be able to understand the connections between the local and the global in explaining contemporary educational change.

Every chapter not only describes and analyses what is going on, but each interprets the evidence in particular ways. Discussion of the issues raised in this book is encouraged, and students are given every opportunity to analyse and question. Also, pedagogical features throughout encourage discussion of the issues raised. Some of the questions explored include:

How do Aboriginal students experience Australian schools?

Who writes education policy documents and what purpose do they hold?

Why did state, private and corporate schools emerge as they did in Australia?

How do social class and gender differences affect schooling and its outcomes?

What constitutes the work of teachers, and can teachers 'make a difference'?

How has the role of research become increasingly significant in education and to teachers in particular?