The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction (Critical Introductions in Education)

'The Politics of Education' provides an introduction to both the political dimensions of schooling and the politics of recent educational reform debates. The book offers both undergraduates and starting graduate students in education an understanding of numerous dimensions of the contested field of education, addressing questions of political economy and class, cultural politics, race, gender, globalisation, neoliberalism, and biopolitics. Discussions work through contemporary reform debates that include some of the most widely discussed reform topics such as school privatisation, standardised testing, common core curriculum, discipline, and technology. The book covers contemporary educational debates and seriously considers views across the political spectrum from the vantage point of critical education, emphasising schooling for broader social equality and justice.

Kenneth J. Saltman is a professor in the Educational Policy Studies and Research Department and the Social and Cultural Foundations in Education graduate program at DePaul University. He is the author most recently of The Gift of Education: Venture Philanthropy and Public Education (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), which was awarded a 2011 American Educational Studies Critics Choice Book Award, The Failure of Corporate School Reform (Paradigm Publishers 2012),Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools (Paradigm Publishers 2007), which was awarded a 2008 American Educational Studies Critics Choice Book Award, and The Edison Schools (Routledge 2005). His recent edited collections include Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools 2nd Edition, with David Gabbard (Routledge 2010), Schooling and the Politics of Disaster (Routledge 2007), and The Critical Middle School Reader, with Enora Brown (Routledge 2005). He received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2006 on Globalization and Culture and is a fellow of the National Education Policy Center.