This book advances a powerful critique of neoliberalised education - privatization, marketisation, new public managerialism, increasing control and surveillance of schools and colleges - in eight of the rich countries of the world: USA, Canada, England and Wales, Finland, Greece, Taiwan, Israel, and Japan.
Essential reading for students of Japanese society, An Introduction to Japanese Society now enters its third edition. Here, internationally renowned scholar, Yoshio Sugimoto, writes a sophisticated, yet highly readable and lucid text, using both English and Japanese sources to update and expand upon his original narrative. The book challenges the traditional notion that Japan comprises a uniform culture, and draws attention to its subcultural diversity and class competition. Covering all aspects of Japanese society, it includes chapters on class, geographical and generational variation, work, education, gender, minorities, popular culture and the establishment. This new edition features sections on: Japan's cultural capitalism; the decline of the conventional Japanese management model; the rise of the 'socially divided society' thesis; changes of government; the spread of manga, animation and Japan's popular culture overseas; and the expansion of civil society in Japan.
This critique of World Bank operations examines the effects of this organization on the societies in which it operates. Highly critical of the Bank's practices in its 50 years of operation, the author demonstrates how the Bank has become virtually unaccountable and a law unto itself. He describes how the Bank has supported oppressive regimes and loaned money to support large projects which have displaced local populations. He argues further that the Bank's current policies of structural adjustment are arresting the development of Third World countries.
Draws together a wealth of knowledge from a varied list of contributors all of whom recognise the importance of promoting equality in secondary schools.
Negotiating Spaces for Literacy Learning addresses two paradoxical currents that are sweeping through the contemporary educational field. The first is the opening up of possibilities for multimodal communication as a result of developments in digital technologies and the sensitivity to multiliteracies. The second is the increasing pressure from standardised testing, accountability and performance measurement which pull curricular and pedagogical practices out of alignment with the everyday informal practices and interests of teachers and learners and narrow opportunities for diverse expressions of literacy. Bringing together an international team of scholars to examine the tensions and struggles that result from the current educational climate, the book provides a much-needed discussion of the intersection of technologies of literacies, education and self. It does so through diverse approaches, including philosophical, theoretical and methodological treatments of multimodality and governmentality, and a range of literacies - early years, primary school, workplace, digital, middle school, secondary school, indigenous, adult and place. With examples taken from all stages of education and in several countries, the book allows readers to explore a range of multimodal practices and the ways in which governmentality plays out across them.
This volume examines the role of neoliberalism and its impact on education in South Asia. It contends that education is in a state of crisis across the world. This is reflected not only in the way the state has withdrawn to pave way for private capital but also in the manner in which knowledge and ways of understanding the world are being challenged by manipulation and adverse influences. A process of ‘factoryisation’ is underway as disciplining of human minds and redefinition of the purpose of human existence are being geared to fall in line with the needs of private capital. The book brings together incisive contributions from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal to explore newer possibilities to deal with the educational crisis, and looks at a range of critical themes in education: pedagogy, teacher–learner relationship, teacher education, the state of the university, and policy. Rich in content, critical and insightful, this book will be a valuable addition for scholars and researchers of education and education policy, sociology, public policy and South Asian Studies.
As the economy constricts, it seems living with a chronic sense of fear and anxiety is the new normal for a growing number of urban females. Many females are susceptible to victimization by cumulative strands of violence in school, their communities, families and partnerships. Exposure to violence has been shown to contribute to physical and mental health problems, a propensity for substance abuse, transience and homelessness, and unsurprisingly, poor school attendance and performance. What does a girl do when there is no place to get away from this, and even school is a danger zone? Why have so many educators turned their attention away from the reality of violence against girls? Why is there a tendency to categorize such violence as just another example of the general concept of "bullying?" Critical educators who research the effects of current market logics on the schooling of marginalized youth have yet fully to focus on this issue. This volume puts the reality of violence in the lives of urban school girls back on the map, investigates answers to the above questions, and presents suggestions for change.
Around the world, curriculum – hard sciences, social sciences and the humanities – has been dominated and legitimated by prevailing Western Eurocentric Anglophone discourses and practices. Drawing from and within a complex range of epistemological perspectives from the Middle East, Africa, Southern Europe, and Latin America, this volume presents a critical analysis of what the author, influenced by the work of Sousa Santos, coins curriculum epistemicides, a form of Western imperialism used to suppress and eliminate the creation of rival, alternative knowledges in developing countries. This exertion of power denies an education that allows for diverse epistemologies, disciplines, theories, concepts, and experiences. The author outlines the struggle for social justice within the field of curriculum, as well as a basis for introducing an Itinerant Curriculum Theory, highlighting the potential of this new approach for future pedagogical and political praxis.
Over the past thirty years, whilst Japan has produced a diverse set of youth cultures which have had a major impact on popular culture across the globe, it has also developed a succession of youth problems which have led to major concerns within the country itself. Drawing on detailed empirical fieldwork, the authors of this volume set these issues in a clearly articulated ‘social constructionist’ framework, and put forth a sociology of Japanese youth problems which argues that there is a certain predictability about the way in which these problems are discovered, defined and dealt with. The chapters include case studies covering issues such as: Returnee children (kikokushijo) Compensated dating (enjo kōsai) Corporal punishment (taibatsu) Bullying (ijime) Child abuse (jidō gyakutai) The withdrawn youth (hikikomori) and NEETs (not in education, employment or training) By examining these various social problems collectively, A Sociology of Japanese Youth explains why particular youth problems appeared when they did and what lessons they can provide for the study of youth problems in other societies. This book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese society and culture, the sociology of Japan, Japanese anthropology and the comparative sociology of youth studies.
From the 23rd to 26th of November 2009 in La Palma island, in the Canaries, the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE) organized an international symposium entitled PISA under Examination: Changing Knowledge, Changing Tests, and Changing Schools. During four days seventeen leading scholars of Europe and America presented their contributions to debate the different problematiques of the remarkable phenomenon represented by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA. PISA is not merely an educational event. It is also a media circus which involves the public rehearsal for reasons for failure or success; and even, in some cases, public and political and academic explanations about why 'failure' was not really that, and why 'success' was not really that either. At the centre of all these indications, we find the growing influence of international agencies on education and schooling which is decisively contributing to a marketisation of the field of education, in the context of an increasingly multilevel and fragmented arena for educational governance based on the formulation, the regulation and the transnational coordination and convergence of policies, buttressed at the same time by the diffusion of persuasive discursive practice. Organized in four sections entitled The Comparative Challenges of the OCDE PISA Programme, PISA and School Knowledge, The Assessment of PISA, School Effectiveness and the Socio-cultural Dimension, PISA and the Immigrant Student Question, and Extreme Visions of PISA: Germany and Finland, the contributions of this book offers a comprehensive approach of all these challenging and significant issues written from different and distinct research and academic traditions.