Search

(2000). How Should Educational Policymakers Address Conflicting Interests within a Diverse Society? Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 119-132.

A review of The Home Environment and School Learning: Promoting Parental Involvement in the Education of Children by T. Kellaghan, K. Sloane, B. Alvarez, and B. S. Bloom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Kellaghan is unhappy that I did not write a traditional review describing the book's purposes and contents, followed by comments on its success in achieving those purposes. Curriculum Inquiry prefers essay reviews. The essay review is intended to review broadly the issues raised by the book from the critic's perspective. At the same time, the reader should gain some understanding of what the book is about. The major argument in my review is that the book, with the exception of one short chapter, takes a narrow view of parental involvement in education on the assumption that it is the school's responsibility to promote and define parent involvement rather than parents' legitimate authority, as individuals and as members of communities, to determine the kind of education their children should have.

(1991). Bringing About Change in Teachers: Rationalistic Technology and Therapeutic Human Relations in the Subversion of Education. Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 65-90.

(1991). A Familiar Attack: Response to Carr and Rudduck. Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 97-103.

Secondary education will provide an all-round education for the whole child. It will provide vocational competence. It will teach the young to think, to make intelligent decisions, and to learn how to learn. It will provide an apprenticeship in the disciplines of knowledge and in contemporary technology. It will provide not only equality of opportunity to a nation's youth, but ultimately, social equality within an educated, democratic society. It will teach youth social graces, social competence, and character. It will help young people develop skills in and appreciation of the arts. It will help them become physically fit and give them skills to use in future leisure activities. It will teach young adults to review their existing value systems and to develop a coherent set that will be appropriately respectful of their worldwide and local community. It will help young people become competent in more than one language and it will consolidate their competence in the basic skills. Finally, it will prepare young people to lead fulfilling lives on the basis of good feelings towards others and about themselves.

This article will try to show that the oxymoron is neither as flutulent nor as contrary as it may appear at first sight. The radical reconstruction of education is one that requires some significant changes from present custom, involving the reexamination of the roots of our present processes. A conservative education is one that seeks to preserve and enhance the disciplines of knowledge, the fundamental values of our society, and the elements of our culture that are of most worth. This article begins by examining the fit between education and the larger society. Such an examination, within the context of a conservative ethic, does not imply that Canadian society epitomizes all that is best in a universe of possible societies. Nevertheless, there are some important implicit assumptions in the approach: that a society is unlikely to embrace for long a system of education that is antagonistic to its major aims and purposes (Durkheim 1956); that difficulties of many plans for educational change lie in their lack of relevance to the larger society; and that demonstration of the feasibility of an educational system is one prerequisite for its further consideration. I shall begin by examining the different ways in which a functional relationship between schooling and the larger society can be developed. I shall then show how some contemporary educational formulations can be placed within that taxonomy. Finally, I shall describe briefly the radical conservative option in an attempt to show that it is desirable as well as feasible.

(1982). Progress or Progressive Decline? A Response to Howard Russell's Review of Progress in Education by Nigel Wright. Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 419-432.

Nyberg, in commenting on my paper on radical conservatism, examines my position through the prism of his own distinction between socialization and education. He believes that I fail to make that necessary distinction and hence produce a false synthesis, when none is either desirable or possible. Specifically, he finds faults with my reliance on the terms fit and tradition, which, perhaps, he sees as unsatisfactory analogs for socialization and education. In responding, I shall examine the usefulness of his analysis of schooling in an attempt to determine whether or not my failure to reflect it illustrates an important shortcoming of my position. Socialization, to Nyberg, includes preparation for employment and citizenship. Education, in contrast, consists of the development of a capacity to enjoy the life of the mind. It is important to stress that Nyberg's statement is neither a theory nor a hypothesis but a classifying system. The question to be asked is whether this particular taxonomy is useful. Schooling in contemporary society is such a complex phenomenon that I, for one, do find it quite useful to carve up and categorize the different functions schools fulfill. Bereiter (1972), for example, made a useful division of the territory into three categories-training, custodial care, and education, with education being given much the same meaning as that attributed by Nyberg. The beauty of Bereiter's division was that it was fairly easy to see the boundaries of the three activities. There is little confusion between training and education, largely because Bereiter sees education as being exclusive of training. Similarly, custodial care consists of activities that provide neither training nor education. Nyberg's division is much less helpful. For him, socialization would appear to include a very large proportion of contemporary schooling and yet, even so, the distinction between it and education is not a clear one. Presumably instruction in a college of arts could be both socialization and education at the same time. Furthermore, different students could be either socialized or educated (or both) by the same instruction. For example, one student might be interested in a career as a professional musician, another only in selfexpression, and a third student in both. The second one, whom Nyberg would presumably wish to assess on the basis of self-fulfilment, might later change