Publisher's Synopsis
This carefully structured reader provides a focus for thinking about education in the context of a society that now--in the final years of this millennium--is faced with a range of critical, sometimes catastrophic, issues and problems. These include: poverty and growing social injustice, racism and sexism, and other forms of exclusion; the depersonalization of social and political life; the moral and spiritual decay of the culture; and the ecological deterioration of the planet. Although this volume focuses on American society, there is also concern with the larger global community.
The book is intended to work on two levels. First, it helps readers develop an awareness of how education is connected to the wider social structures of social, cultural, political, and economic life. Second, it encourages not only a critical examination of our present social reality but also a serious discussion of alternatives--of what a transformed society and educational process might look like. The editors' goal in this text is to deliberately engage readers in connecting the work of teachers to an ethically-committed, politically-charged pedagogy.
