Political Sociology of Educational Knowledge

Introduction

Bringing together the sociology of knowledge, cultural studies, and post-foundational and historical approaches, this book asks what schooling does, and what are its limits and dangers.

Focus of the Book

The focus is on how the systems of reason that govern schooling embody historically generated rules and standards about what is talked about, thought, and acted on; about the "nature" of children; about the practices and paradoxes of educational reform.

Systems of Reason and Issues

These systems of reason are examined to consider issues of power, the political, and social exclusion.

Transnational Perspectives

The transnational perspectives interrelate historical and ethnographic studies of the modern school to explore how curriculum is translated through social and cognitive psychologies that make up the subjects of schooling, and how educational sciences "act" to order and divide what is deemed possible to think and do.

Central Argument

The central argument is that taken-for-granted notions of educational change and research paradoxically produce differences that simultaneously include and exclude.