ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up the challenge for critical contextualised knowing about actually existing schools and provides a very brief reading of a collection of ethnographically informed studies that have examined schooling in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, Australia. The schools in the northern suburbs of Adelaide are serving one of the most socio-economically and educationally disadvantaged urban regions in Australia, and hence provide a global exemplar for considerations of policy logic and the urgent demand for reform. The chapter next introduces the 'northern suburbs'. The socio-economic context of the northern suburbs, which was mapped by Peel in Good, Times, Hard Times, is strongly evident across the period. Across the archive there is evidence that the basic sociology of teachers' work is very evident in schools in the northern suburbs. Teachers are still the key actors in schools but are unfortunately increasingly treated as objects of policy rather than subjects.
