The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education

"Amazing in its scale and scope, this collection is a glorious demonstration of the multitude of 'alternatives' which have been stimulated in recent decades by the global ubiquity of performance-driven national education systems. Whilst such creative opposition risks tangled incoherence, the collection is tamed and given progression by its three part structure of 'Thinking', 'Doing' and 'Acting' differently. And thus the book stands as a multi-faceted clarion call - to bravely, boldly, think outside the box." (Professor Andrew Pollard, Institute of Education, University College London, UK)

This state-of-the-art, comprehensive Handbook fully explores the field of alternative education on an international scale.

This state-of-the-art, comprehensive Handbook fully explores the field of alternative education on an international scale. Alternatives to mainstream schooling and education are becoming increasingly recognised as pertinent and urgent for better understanding what really works in successfully educating children and adults today, especially in light of the increased performance driven and managerially organised economic modelling of education that dominates. For too long we have wondered what “exactly” education done otherwise might look like and here we meet individual examples as well as seeing what alternative education is when a collection becomes greater than the sum of parts. The Handbook profiles numerous empirical examples from around the world of education being done in innovative and excitingly democratic and autonomous ways from Forest Schools and Home Education through to new technologies, neuroscience and the importance of solitude. The book also sets out important theoretical perspectives to inform us why seeing education through an alternative lens is useful as well as urgently needed.