ABSTRACT
In our introductory chapter, we used the metaphor of the ghost to explore the relation between the disciplines of education, their material bases in universities, their recruitment and career patterns and the major shifts taking place again in the university sector. Was there, we wanted to know, still a place for the disciplinary shaping of education research or had their analytical power largely been replaced by routinized method and atheoretical empiricism? Were the educational disciplines still relevant to contemporary education enquiry and, if they were, what was their current state? Our interest in such questions arose first and foremost from our sense that, during our working lives in university and college education, education disciplines had shifted in relative power in the academy and between themselves, that recruitment had waxed and waned but that, at the same time, publication output had vastly increased. We therefore felt that there was a need for a retrospective look at the current situation to make sense of it for future advantage. Looking forward, we were also aware that a great shift of people, resources and ideas is about to take place in UK universities: the massification of universities is perhaps halting, its stratification is perhaps increasingly being accepted; the loss of a significant age group, who entered in the first widening of university access as disciplinary specialists, who are retiring. This is within the context of tightening audits, forceful knowledge economy objectives and greater cross-border work of contemporary universities. These tendencies created the core problematics of the book as we considered the place of disciplines in education today. Our primary focus, and that of most of our contributors, has been the UK, though with some additional reflections from the USA and Europe. Of course we recognize that not all universities internationally share the same structures and material bases for disciplinary-based work in education. However, we would suggest that, despite diverse histories internationally, there are today global influences that, by discourse, economic lever or new university mission, create a common ground for analysis in many parts of the world.
