Critical Issues in Education: Dialogues and Dialectics

Critical Issues in Education is designed to be used in courses that examine current, relevant pro-and-con disputes about schools and schooling. By exploring the major opposing viewpoints on these issues, the text encourages education students to think critically and develop their own viewpoints. The clear writing and dramatic dialectic approach are conducive to dynamic classroom discussions that help students grasp the many sides of these complex issues. Three integrating themes provide a solid framework for examining the nineteen topics covered. Each part begins with a chapter-length introduction that provides background material and organizing themes for the issues that follow. Each issue is then presented from two divergent viewpoints, each one written in advocate language to be as compelling as possible. The book's objective, in addition to informing the reader about the issues, is to develop critical thinking skills within the context of education. The fourth edition includes updated research and scholarship, updated bibliographic references, and three new chapters (“Beginning Reading – Is there one best approach to literacy?” “Gender – Should gender differences affect schools and schooling?” and “Mainstreaming and Inclusion – How should we provide for students with special needs?”).

Jack L. Nelson a professor of education at Rutgers, obtained his doctorate from the University of Southern California. He is experienced teacher in schools at the elementary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels; his university teaching experience includes California State University, Los Angeles; the State University of New York at Buffalo; San Jose State University; and Cambridge University. Nelson has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University, University of Colorado; and Curtin University and the University of Sydney in Australia. Critical Issues in Education is his sixteenth book; he has also published about 150 articles and reviews. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Contemporary Authors.

Stuart B. Palonsky is professor of education and director of the Honors College at the University of Missouri-Columbia. A former public school teacher in New York and New Jersey, Palonsky earned his doctorate at Michigan State University. His publications include 900 Shows a Year, an ethnographic study of high school teaching from a classroom teacher’s perspective. In addition, Palonsky has published numerous articles and reviews in educational and social science journals, and has presented scholarly and professional papers on educational issues at national association conferences.

Kenneth Carlson is a professor of education at Rutgers. After serving as a teacher of secondary school in New York State, he earned his doctoral degree at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Among his publications is the book, Radical Ideas and the Schools, and a variety of journal publications on educational topics. Carlson was principal investigator on a three-year National Institute of Education study of compensatory education; he has also conducted research on urban schools and on issues of educational equity, sexism, and censorship. He has served as associate dean for teacher education, president of the state council of the American Association of University Professors, and as chair of the Rutgers University Senate.