Towards A Theory Of Schooling

This book is organized around two themes - it examines the changing form and function of post-medieval schooling and it speculates about the place of schooling in the social evolution of human species.

Illustrating the effect of class relationships upon the institutionalizing of elaborate codes in the school, the papers in this volume each develop from the previous one and demonstrate the evolution of the concepts discussed.

This country’s most challenging writer on education presents here a distillation, for the general reader, of half a decade’s research and reflection. His theme is dual: how children learn, and how they can best be helped to learn—how they can be brought to the fullest realization of their capacities. Jerome Bruner, Harper’s reports, has “stirred up more excitement than any educator since John Dewey.” His explorations into the nature of intellectual growth and its relation to theories of learning and methods of teaching have had a catalytic effect upon educational theory. In this new volume the subjects dealt with in The Process of Education are pursued further, probed more deeply, given concrete illustration and a broader context. “One is struck by the absence of a theory of instruction as a guide to pedagogy,” Mr. Bruner observes; “in its place there is principally a body of maxims.” The eight essays in this volume, as varied in topic as they are unified in theme, are contributions toward the construction of such a theory. What is needed in that enterprise is, inter alia, “the daring and freshness of hypotheses that do not take for granted as true what has merely become habitual,” and these are amply evidenced here. At the conceptual core of the book is an illuminating examination of how mental growth proceeds, and of the ways in which teaching can profitably adapt itself to that progression and can also help it along. Closely related to this is Mr. Bruner’s “evolutionary instrumentalism,” his conception of instruction as the means of transmitting the tools and skills of a culture, the acquired characteristics that express and amplify man’s powers—especially the crucial symbolic tools of language, number, and logic. Revealing insights are given into the manner in which language functions as an instrument of thought. The theories presented are anchored in practice, in the empirical research from which they derive and in the practical applications to which they can be put. The latter are exemplified incidentally throughout and extensively in detailed descriptions of two courses Mr. Bruner has helped to construct and to teach—an experimental mathematics course and a multifaceted course in social studies. In both, the students’ encounters with the material to be mastered are structured and sequenced in such a way as to work with, and to reinforce, the developmental process. Written with all the style and élan that readers have come to expect of Mr. Bruner, Toward a Theory of Instruction is charged with the provocative suggestions and inquiries of one of the great innovators in the field of education.

Stephen Ball's micro-political theory of school organization is a radical departure from traditional theories. He rejects a prescriptive 'top down' approach and directly addresses the interest and concerns of teachers and current problems facing schools. In doing so he raises question about the adequacy and appropriateness of the existing forms of organizational control in schools. Through case studies and interviews with teachers, the book captures the flavour of real conflicts in schools - particularly in times of falling rolls, change of leadership or amalgamations - when teachers' autonomy seems to be at stake.

It is an exceptionally thoughtful assessment of assessment, and I am (along with anyone else who broods about education) much in your debt. Jerome Bruner, personal communication with the authorWhen this award-winning book was originally published in 1994, a review in the TES said: Beyond Testing is a refreshingly honest look at the dilemmas faci

Most empirical researchers avoid the use of theory in their studies, providing data but little or no social explanation. Theoreticians, on the other hand, rarely test their ideas with empirical projects. As this groundbreaking volume makes clear, however, neither data nor theory alone is adequate to the task of social explanation—rather they form and inform each other as the inquiry process unfolds. Theory and Educational Research bridges the age-old theory/research divide by demonstrating how researchers can use critical social theory to determine appropriate empirical research strategies, and extend the analytical, critical – and sometimes emancipatory – power of data gathering and interpretation. Each chapter models a theoretically informed empiricism that places the data research yields in constant conversation with theoretical arsenals of powerful concepts. Personal reflections following each chapter chronicle the contributors’ trajectories of struggle and triumph utilizing theory and its powers in research. In the end this rich collection teaches education scholars how to deliberately engage with critical social theory in research to produce work that is simultaneously theoretically inspired, politically engaged, and empirically evocative.

This book summarizes and critiques theories of social and cultural reproduction as they relate to sociology of education.

This book critically assesses the learning that is required and provided within a learning society and gives a detailed sociological analysis of the emerging role of lifelong learning with examples from around the globe. Divided into three clear parts the book: looks at the development of the knowledge economy provides a critique of lifelong learning and the learning society focuses on the changing nature of research in the learning society. The author, well-known and highly respected in this field, examines how lifelong learning and the learning society have become social phenomena across the globe. He argues that the driving forces of globalisation are radically changing lifelong learning and shows that adult education/learning only gained mainstream status because of these global changes and as learning became more work orientated.