Radical Traditions in Education in the 21st Century

For much of the twentieth century, education was powerfully if never decisively shaped by the activities of social and political movements. Covering a range of issues – from classroom practice to policy agenda - this book traces the impact of such movements on educational practice. It also considers their current predicament: one of the unstudied aims of the neo-liberal policies that have swept through education has been to sever the education/social movement connection, and in doing so to create new agencies of educational change, with very different orientations and commitments from those of the past. At the same time, however, as it seeks to sideline the past, policy orthodoxy also tries, in significant ways, seeks to make use of ideas and practices deriving from the practice of an earlier period.

Examining the continuing conflicts that attend the imposition of neo-liberal policies, the book explores the uncertain future of radical educational traditions. It draws attention to the significance of these issues for a research community that, itself under pressure from new policy orthodoxies, has often overlooked them.