ABSTRACT

Provocative and engagingly written, Beyond Schooling offers a challenging perspective on State schooling in England and the unrelenting increase in centralisation from the late 1960s until the present day. Exploring how the education of our children and young people should be recaptured from the State as the country moves into a precarious future, this book:

  • argues that any fundamental reconsideration of schooling has much to learn from an anarchist analysis;
  • introduces readers unfamiliar with anarchism to the main themes of this political philosophy and practice and their relationship to the political left and right;
  • shows how an anarchist perspective on education raises deep issues about the community and the use of power;
  • questions the notions of full-time schooling and age-grading, alongside conventional conceptions of the teaching profession and the potential educational role of parents as work declines or disappears.

In its original reflections on the state of contemporary schooling and the paths to future reform, Beyond Schooling is a must-read for anyone seeking a new vision for the future of education and schooling.

chapter 1|12 pages

The future of schooling

A distinctively different direction of travel

chapter 2|16 pages

Anarchism and the abolition of the state

An intention to murder, Russian-style

chapter 4|18 pages

Anarchism English-style

State murder by other means

chapter 5|21 pages

The state and schooling

Some old and some new assailants

chapter 7|21 pages

State schooling versus community education

chapter 11|28 pages

Education, not schooling

Realising the new imaginary