ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the anomalies inherent in the current context of schools that appear to create conditions for disaffection. Disaffection is a policy issue and is not simply a problem for pupils, parents and teachers. However, underpinning my interest in disaffection are implicit concerns about individuals and their ability to function effectively, with choices, in society. However another view of what 'society' is, and what its ways of thinking are, can be obtained by looking at what it has created, what it does, and what the relationships are between its history and present and between its peoples. Knowledge in these subject based factual terms does not readily equate with the knowledge that children in the early years of schooling appear to have, or to learn within their curricula. One of the problems that exists for children is that they are in an essentially powerless position in relation to knowledge.
