Education in Great Britain

Fully updated to cover changes affecting the National Curriculum until the year 2000, this clear and balanced guide is essential reading for parents and teachers who want a better understanding of our educational system.

A team of highly regarded contributors were invited to take a rational look at the future of primary schools, particularly during the first 20 years of the next millennium. They were asked to consider many questions, including: What are the roots of primary education? What is the justification for a radical agenda? How well is the system working and in what ways could it further optimize its effectiveness in the interests of the participants? What is a primary school, and what purpose does it serve, and what ends does it have in view? Are these ends appropriate for the future? What are the roles and identities of teachers, pupils and parents, and what are they going to be? What are the means by which primary education accomplishes its ends? What are the yardsticks against which it is judged? This book, then, represents the thinking of key scholars and researchers working in the area of primary education and will be essential reading for those involved with the education of primary aged children.

Understanding Schools and Schooling provides students with the knowledge about school policy and process that they need in order to address and respond to current trends and discourses in critical, well-informed ways that will enhance their teaching and job satisfaction. The book presents issues, questions and dilemmas and invites the reader to find their own answers through guided activities, discussion with colleagues and further reading. The book provides a philosophical context for teachers' developing classroom practice and empowers them to participate fully in local and national debate about the nature, purposes and future of compulsory education in the UK and elsewhere.

Now, in this firsthand look at school reform in Great Britain, John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe show how the landmark Education Reform Act of 1988 imposed a radically new framework on British education--a framework built on the same types of reform Act of 1988 imposed a radically new framework on British education--a framework built on the same types of reforms that American activists have been proposing for years.

This book looks at how future leadership is being forged in educational institutions in the Old World, the New World, and the most powerful nation in modern Asia. In a detailed comparative analysis of 40 secondary schools that can be expected to produce many future leaders, Duke examines the role of educational styles in shaping the character traits, attitudes, and perceptions that will ultimately influence leadership qualities. He argues that Japan's traditional and unchanging educational method is producing leaders who will be inadequately prepared to deal with the enormous international responsibilities and complex bilateral relationships that await the Asian superpower in the 21st century.

Education is "a country's biggest business" and the most important shared experience of those who live in it. A Century of Education provides an accessible, authoritative and fascinating overview of the role and nature of education in the twentieth century. Eminent historian of education, Professor Richard Aldrich has assembled a team of contributors, all noted experts in their respective fields, to review the successes and failures of education in the last century and to look forward to the next. A succinct overview of twentieth century social, economic, political and intellectual developments in the first chapter is followed by chapters on ten key topics. Each chapter has four sections: a review of the educational situation in 2000; a similar assessment in 1900; changes and continuities throughout the century; and a conclusion reviewing the lessons for today and tomorrow. This is a work of information, interpretation and reference, which demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of education during the twentieth century and identifies educational priorities for the twenty first. For anyone interested in what has become the most important Issue of our time, this unique book is set to become a classic text.

In 1997 Tony Blair broke with tradition by naming education as a major priority for the General Election Manifesto. In the past, Labour leaders had tended to give education a much lower priority. Despite this, Blair has been greatly criticised for his educational programme 1997-2001. Was he taking education away from traditional labour values of fairness and equality? Was Blair's 'Third Way' just 'Thatcherism in Trousers'? Denise Lawton approaches such questions by analysing labour education policies since 1900 and shows that from the very beginning the labour Party lacked unity and ideological coherence concerning education. Specifically, there has always been a tension between those like the early Fabians who saw educational reform in terms of economic efficiency, and the ethical socialists whose vision of a more moral society stressed the importance of social justice in education. After an assessment of Labour ideologies in the past, this book concludes with an examination of New Labour and the 'Third Way' in education and suggests some changes that will be necessary in the near future.