Has ethnicity become institutionalized as a political category? Drawing on international studies, including New Zealand, the book shows that this process of public policymaking creates artificial divisions that can become permanent and detrimental as well as being at odds with the social fluidity of modern societies. Preface by Jonathan Friedman.

Among the unintended and largely unforeseen consequences of globalization are the fundamental transformations of local relationships, both economic and cultural, that occur within communities drawn into the predominantly capitalist world economy. Democracy, once considered the essential political mode of regulation for successful capitalist economies, is being replaced by nondemocratic modes of social organization as localized responses to global forces, such as Maori tribalization in New Zealand, are subverted and transformed. A Political Economy of Neotribal Capitalism looks at the past...

This book explores the decline of the teaching of epistemic, conceptual knowledge in schools, its replacement with everyday social knowledge, and its relation to changes in the division of labor within the global economy. It argues that the emphasis on social knowledge in postmodern and social constructionist pedagogy compounds the problem, and examines the consequences of these changes for educational opportunity and democracy itself.

Knowledge and the Future of the Curriculum: International Studies in Social Realism is about the central purpose of schooling - to provide students with equitable access to powerful curriculum knowledge that is ultimately capable of taking them beyond their experiences. This collection presents a social realist understanding of the role of knowledge as a progressive option in support of social and educational justice. It moves beyond mere critique by offering a rationale for determining what should be taught and how it should be taught. It is an account justified by a theory of knowledge that...