Politics and the Primary Teacher

ISBN-13: 9780415549585 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 160 str.

Peter Cunningham

Opis

Primary schooling has always been a key focus/subject in/of educational research, but comparatively little has been written specifically on the politics of primary education, and it is rarely analysed as a political institution.

Over the last half-century perceptions of primary education have changed dramatically. A globalised economy and complex demographic and cultural change has radically altered the context for education and at the same time, research on child development has generated an emphasis on the early years of schooling as the phase in which the foundations of economic productivity and citizenship are irrevocably laid.A critical awareness of these events and factors is now as much a part of the primary teacher's professional equipment as an understanding of child development.

Politics and the Primary Teacher seek to objectively review the political process as it affects the work of schools and of the professionals who work in schools at national, regional and Local Authority levels, It book aims to:

• explore that which might easily be taken for granted in the political context of educational debate
• investigate the continuing evolution of the roles of the primary teacher and the primary school in relation to political, economic, social and cultural change
• encourage critical reflection amongst teachers on the political dimensions of the work they do

Chapter summaries, school-based tasks and annotated further reading sections are designed to facilitate awareness and understanding of politics as it is enacted in the current educational and professional context. It is both an informative factual resource and useful practical guide for primary teachers I the course of their professional training and development, as well practitioners, course providers and school leaders.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements  Abbreviations  1. Introduction: Exploring primary politics  2. The Primary School as a political institution  3. Curriculum: the politics of subject knowledge  4. Curriculum: the politics of citizenship, health and well-being  5. Pedagogy: a political issue?  6. Workforce and politics  7. National accountability: audit and inspection  8. Local accountability: school, community and local democracy  9. Going Forward  Appendix: Politics and primary education – a recent history 1964-2011  Bibliography

O autorze

Peter Cunningham is Bye-Fellow of Homerton College, Cambridge and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London.