Schools

Education is seen as central to social mobility and equality and, following a drive to raise learners’ aspirations, an ‘aspiration industry’ has emerged. This book traces education policy developments and argues that for learners to have aspirations that do not require qualifications should be regarded as different, not wrong.

Drawing on student experiences and the perspectives of senior leaders, this book challenges orthodox thinking about school exclusion and advocates for a fairer education system for disadvantaged students.

The role that nurseries play in supplementing family care is an important subject – but in the UK, there is currently little consensus about what nurseries should provide, how they should be run, and who should pay for them. In this book, Helen Penn asks: is there a more considered way ahead?

Alice Bradbury discusses how the meritocracy myth reinforces educational inequalities and analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience might challenge how we classify and label children as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.

Re-examining C.Wright Mills’s legacy as a jumping off point, this original introduction to sociology illuminates global concepts, themes and practices that are fundamental to the discipline and rethinks and re-imagines what a critically committed, politically engaged and publicly relevant sociology should look like in the 21st century.

Based on a unique longitudinal study and offering a critical visual methodology of “collaborative seeing”, this book shows how a diverse community of young people in Worcester, MA used cameras at different ages (10, 12, 16, 18) to capture the centrality of care in their lives, homes and classrooms.

In 2014 the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, an alleged plot to ‘Islamify’ several state schools in Birmingham, caused a previously highly successful school to be vilified. Holmwood and O’Toole challenge the accepted narrative and show how it was used to justify an intrusive counter extremism agenda.

Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. It identifies the current system’s strengths and weaknesses and proposes radical changes to ensure fair education for all.

This book focuses on elective home education (EHE) in England and considers how the dominance of schooling has affected our ability to conceive of education as a diverse activity. It highlights the lack of governmental interest in alternative education and also considers the human rights issues, state involvement in education and parental choice.