This article reviews three books: (1) "Elite Education: International Perspectives" (edited by C. Maxwell and P. Aggleton); (2) "Class Choreographies: Elite Schools and Globalisation" (J. Kenway, J. Fahey, D. Epstein, A. Koh, C. McCarthy, and F. Rizvi); and (3) "Corporate Elite and the Reform of Public Education"…

This book makes the compelling argument that religion can be complicit in conflict and that a new secularism is vital to foster security. Using insights from complexity science, it shows how dynamic secularism can be used to accommodate diverse faiths and beliefs within worldly politics. Exploration of the interplay of religion and education in…

The author reviews three books that provide complementary and thought-provoking insights. The three books under review are: (1) "Reproducing class: education, neoliberalism, and the rise of the new middle class in Istanbul," by Henry J. Rutz and Erol M. Balkan; (2) "Technology, culture, family: influences on home life," by…

In "The Unschooled Mind," Howard Gardner opines that educators who misinterpret the near cannot adequately focus on the far. Instead of challenging and building on children's real understandings (often based on a five-year old's experience), many schools simply ignore them and fill their minds with new and distant information. The real…

Discusses and evaluates issues raised in E. D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy." Argues that investigation is still needed on the nature of curriculum, ideologies implicit in teaching, the ends of education, and motives for learning. (MM)

This book offers ways to answer questions about public trust in teachers. Discourses on teachers as transmitters of moral and cognitive virtues and on the unsatisfactory nature of competing models of theory-practice relationships are grounded in an interpretation of Aristotle's Phronesis as moral wisdom. Education is only one of the purposes of…

Reviews three books concerned with the relationship of education to social and economic development. Compares the books with regard to their definitions of development and their conclusions about the benefits of educational investment in developing countries, the success of international agencies in poor countries, and directions for future…

This article summarizes and comments on some of the major points made by Patricia Graham in "S.O.S.: Sustain Our Schools": U.S. schools never successfully educated all children; there is no "silver bullet" solution to the problems of schools; and many problems associated with schools actually come from failures in other realms of social policy.…

"Teaching for Social Justice," by Ayers, Hunt, and Quinn, advocates inclusion of social-justice concerns as part of schools' official curriculum. Although the authors do not move some issues far enough, the book can serve as a primer for teachers concerned about social justice and democratic values. (MLH)

This examination of fundamental educational questions serves as an excellent introduction to the philosophy of education. It includes persuasive arguments for severing the consideration of education from how well it prepares citizens for the marketplace and focusing on what education does for us as human beings. (SLD)

This commentary documents errors in the statistical analyses and interpretation of empirical evidence in "The Bell Curve" by R. Herrnstein and C. Murray (1994). "The Bell Curve" neglects the role of education and grossly overstates the case for IQ as a determinant of social success. (SLD)

Helen Gunter's "Rethinking Education: the Consequences of Jurassic Management" (1997) tackles the relevance of fashionable school management practices. Educational management has become a huge, lucrative multimedia enterprise that promotes management language and culture at the expense of pedagogy, professional collegiality, and scrutiny…

According to Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" (1994), public education cannot alter the economic, social, or political stratification of American society. Intelligence is supposedly being combined and concentrated, and there is no inexpensive, reliable method to raise IQ. Actually, the book justifies the economic status quo and a…

This paper reviews the book "Building Community in Schools," by Thomas Sergiovanni. The book's thesis--that schools are better understood as social rather than as formal organizations--is based on the assumption that the universal need for belonging and connection too often is unfulfilled in schools. The book recommends that school-reform efforts…

Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" claims that IQ is hereditary and that African Americans consistently score 15 points lower than other racial groups. Coolly received by academics, the book is being warmly embraced by Republican politicians endorsing fiscal austerity and social mean-spiritedness. The book rationalizes a…