ABSTRACT
Increasingly in the last 10 to 15 years the published literature within the field of care education has become more specialised and focussed: an inevitable consequence of the information explosion and the wider scope of theoretical and practical knowledge being required of students in both the traditional and developing areas of professional training. Students within initial and post-initial training evidently need to have ready access to specialised theoretical and pedagogical resources relevant to the context of their future professional involvements which also develop special aspects of an area of study in a critically evaluative way. In the study of education and pedagogy, the analytical and experimental approaches of psychology, philosophy, sociology, social anthropology, etc., have provided insights into teaching and learning, into schooling and education. What is frequently missing from discipline-orientated studies is a real appreciation of context beyond the "general".
