Are the disciplines of education ghosts of a productive past or creative and useful forms of inquiry? Are they in a demographic and organisational crisis today?

The contribution of the 'foundation disciplines' of sociology, psychology, philosophy, history and economics to the study of education has always been contested in the UK and in much of the English-speaking world. But such debates are now being brought to a head in education by the demographic crisis. Recent research has shown that with the an ageing population of education academics, in ten years' time, there could be very...

This text reappraises the British and American experience in curriculum studies, the curious way in which it has been dominated by certain ideas and introduces the reader to alternative ways of perceiving, defining and approaching its problems.

Large scale assessment influences national and international educational policy debates and reforms. Assessment data is increasingly used as a government instrument. However, within the contemporary realm of the current global testing regime both the cultural and the historical conditions of assessment are often neglected. This volume is therefore devoted to the reconstruction of "assessment cultures" (interpretation patterns, discourses, instruments, practices) and their involved groups of actors. The contributions cover examples of Western European, Eurasian, East Asian, Latin, and North...