The Politics of Knowledge in Education [Paperback]

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.

1. The Politics of Knowledge  2. Localisation  3. Trust and the Modern Imaginary  4. Knowledge and Authority  5. Social Relations of Symbolic Production  6. Social Relations of Trust  7. Social Realism and the Sociology of Education  8. Knowledge and Culturalism  9. Localised Knowledge  10. Controlling Knowledge  11. What Should Be Taught at School

Elizabeth Rata is Associate Professor in the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland.