Compulsory Education

With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers’ bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. This second edition describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto’s "guerrilla teaching." John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. His other titles include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).

What should be the relationship between early childhood and compulsory education? While it's widely assumed that the former should prepare children for the latter, there are alternatives. This book contests the 'readying for school' relationship as neither self-evident nor unproblematic, and explores some alternative relationships.

This practical guide to the numerous diverse contexts within Further Education today provides a valuable resource for intending or experienced teachers, trainers and support workers within post-compulsory education who are working towards professional awards based on National Standards. It contains material on such key aspects of professional development as planning, delivering, assessing and evaluating teaching and learning. Information is also provided on such influential factors as the Common Inspection Framework, Ofsted, Learning and Skills Council and the Basic Skills Agency.

“This is an American story, unsettled by contradictions, constituted by unresolvable loss and open-ended hope, produced through brutal exclusivities and persistent insurgencies. This is the story of Lincoln prison.” In her Introduction, Sabina E. Vaught passionately details why the subject of prisons and prison schooling is so important. An unprecedented institutional ethnography of race and gender power in one state’s juvenile prison school system, Compulsory will have major implications for public education everywhere. Vaught argues that through its educational apparatus, the state disproportionately removes young Black men from their homes and subjects them to the abuses of captivity. She explores the various legal and ideological forces shaping juvenile prison and prison schooling, and examines how these forces are mechanized across multiple state apparatuses, not least school. Drawing richly on ethnographic data, she tells stories that map the repression of rightless, incarcerated youth, whose state captivity is the contemporary expression of age-old practices of child removal and counterinsurgency. Through a theoretically rigorous analysis of the daily experiences of prisoners, teachers, state officials, mothers, and more, Compulsory provides vital insight into the broad compulsory systems of schooling—both Inside prison and in the world Outside—asking readers to reconsider conventional understandings of the role, purpose, and value of state schooling today.

This book looks at the issues facing teachers and trainers currently working in the field of post compulsory education including questions of vocationalism, managerialism, professionalism, accountability, and educational research. Although aimed in part at raising awareness of such issues and the contrasting views which might be held it is intended that readers will use the book to develop an active engagement with these issues. This may be achieved through reflection and evaluation within their own professional context but also through embarking on their own research projects. The book is split into three sections. The first section deals with issues raised by locating post compulsory education within a wider social, political and economic context. The second section looks at issues raised by considering post compulsory education in its organizational context. The third section looks at methodological issues connected with conducting research in post compulsory settings. The format for each section includes overviews with self-assessment exercises, followed by different authors pursuing particular lines of inquiry, finishing with suggestions for ways in which readers might engage in debate and research.

This book explores the overall landscape of compulsory education policy development in China from multiple perspectives to uncover the stages, features, problems and suggestions in Chinese compulsory education system, locally, nationally and internationally. In addition, this book also presents specific historical educational policy shifts for policymakers and stakeholders to investigate the compulsory education strategy over the long term. Specifically, the Chinese compulsory education policy landscape involves investigating changes to the legal environment, management policies, as well as practices for teachers and curriculum and teaching materials. These discussions contribute to the readers’ comprehensive and systematic understanding of compulsory education policy development in contemporary China.

With an emphasis on developing higher-order learning skills, such as reflection, critical evaluation and action research, this book provides a comprehensive guide to contemporary and contextual issues within post-compulsory education. This book: * Helps students fulfill Qualified Teacher in Further Education (QTFE) criteria * Provides information and advice on provision for the 14-19 sector * Is structured specifically around the FENTO values * Includes mind-maps charting links to FENTO standards * Provides help with assignments through reflective questions and discussion points