Recently critical scholars have shown a renewed interest in spatial relations in educational contexts. In this essay we use selections from Gulson and Symes's edited volume "Spatial theories of education" as a point of departure to examine what spatial analysis can contribute to the critical education traditions. We argue that, when done…

Given the increasing power of neoliberal and neoconservative agendas in education internationally, critically democratic policies and practices are now even more important. Yet, one of the major problems with critical work in education has been the fact that some of the academic leaders of the "critical pedagogy" movement and of critical…

In the process of discussing the significant contributions that Len Barton has made to the sociology of education and to disability studies, I argue that a good deal of critical analyses of power and inequality in education are impoverished by some of their essentialist and reductive tendencies. I use an example taken from disability rights to…

When the U.S. government released its 2007 census figures in January 2010, it reported that 12% of the U.S. population--more than 38 million people--were foreign born. First-generation people were now one out of every eight persons in the nation, with 80% coming from Latin America and Asia. This near-record transformation, one in which diasporic…

People live in a time where neoliberal positions, with their assumption that private is good and public is bad, are dominant. Yet, as the author and others have demonstrated, such positions consistently privilege particular and identifiable classed and raced groups. This is not accidental. Society, like many others throughout the world, is…

Connects taken-for-granted activities to the micropolitics of differentiation in institutions such as schools. This is done by employing theoretical traditions taken from cultural studies of science and from philosophies not often found within the science education community. Analyzes the mechanisms through which grading works as a technology of…

Argues that the New Right has translated economic doctrine into the language of experience and moral imperative through populist politics. Maintains that curriculum decisions are involved in political and cultural conflict as depicted by the question: Whose knowledge becomes official knowledge? Urges curriculum workers to speak for the progressive…

As the conservative restoration movement gains power in the educational arena, public schooling itself has come under attack. This book analyzes current educational debates and critiques the rightist proposals for change. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to cultural politics and education, and addresses hegemonic cultures. Chapter 2 examines…

Provides an overview of the main theories, developments, and literature of critically-oriented sociology. Pays particular attention to the politics of meaning including critical discourse analysis, identity politics, racial formation, and political economy and the labor process. Concludes with a discussion of the tensions between postmodern and…