ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter makes the case for an edited collection of chapters acknowledging the contribution that Ivor Goodson’s work has made to knowledge and scholarship within the research field of education. It shares the approach sent out to potential contributors, all of whom had in various ways and contexts worked with Goodson, in which they were invited to write a piece which referenced his work in whatever way they chose. The submitted chapters were grouped under the headings: ‘The public intellectual himself’; ‘Professional lives and life politics’; ‘Reforming education and educational reform’; ‘Narrative perspectives’. Our view is that the pieces give a sense of the man, his work and its integrity and of the contribution he has made as a cosmopolitan public intellectual through his research, writing and theorising. They illustrate his conviction that historically contextualised life narratives can make private troubles public concerns, raise questions about social justice, provoke resistance and maybe begin to redress some of the inequities that beset us in these days.
