This book offers and opinionated analysis of today’s polemics surrounding the topic of education and society. Aronowitz and Giroux present a conceptual framework for charting the future directions educational theory and practice might take and continue the debate begun in their previous book, Education Under Siege, which was named one of the most significant books in education by the American Educational Studies Association in 1986.
"In Postmodern Education Aronowitz and Giroux are architects of the imagination, presenting essays of political, social, and cultural criticism aimed at altering the ways we understand the existing social order and act to change the conditions of our lives.” AfterimageFor over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans’ faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices.
In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to “reinvent” schooling?
Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.
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