This work explores the meaning of equality and freedom of education in a global context and their relationship to the universal right to education. It also proposes evaluating school systems according to their achievement of equality and freedom. The author's inter-civilizational analysis of educational rights focuses on four of the world's major civilizations: Confucian, Islamic, Western and Hindu. He begins by considering educational rights as part of the global flow of ideas and the global culture of schooling. He also considers the tension this generates within different civilizational...

Poverty is an educational issue because it affects children's physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Especially in current times, taken-for-granted ideas about poverty and poor children must be scrutinized and reconsidered. That is the goal of this book. Poverty and Schooling in the U.S.: Contexts and Consequences is in part a plea for educators and future educators to undertake the intellectual and emotional work of learning more about the social causes, as well as the sometimes life-altering consequences of poverty. Although such efforts will not eradicate poverty, they can help...

In this popular text Joel Spring provocatively analyzes the ideas of traditional and non-traditional philosophies from Confucianism to human rights regarding the contribution of education to the creation of a democratic society. The goal is to explore how governments use education to control and manage their populations, and to examine forms of education that claim to free people from authoritarian control.

Wheels in the Head, a critically original work now in its third edition, is widely used as a text for courses on philosophical, social, political, and historical...