ABSTRACT

Sociocultural Studies in Education: Critical Thinking for Democracy fills a void in the education of educators and citizens in a democracy. It explores some of the fundamentals around which disagreements in education arise. It presents a process with which those new to these debates can understand often confusing and entwined sets of facts and logics. This book leads the reader through some general concepts and intellectual skills that provide the basis for making sense out of the debates around public education in a democracy.

This book can be seen as a primer on how to read texts about education. It acknowledges that good teachers must be not only trained to teach, but also educated about education. It presents the various themes and currents found within the arguments and narratives that people use to represent public education. It assumes that the more those interested in education know about how to see through the rhetoric, the better they will be at discerning whose interests are served by which texts.

part I|54 pages

Basic Concepts

chapter 1|7 pages

On Education and Democracy

chapter 3|16 pages

Text Critique

part II|55 pages

Philosophy of Education

chapter 6|15 pages

Philosophical Reasoning about Education

Three Common Approaches

chapter 7|9 pages

Relations-Based Ethics

An Ethic of Care and Relational Pedagogy

chapter 8|14 pages

Ethics of Social Justice

Social Reconstructionism and Critical Pedagogy

part III|57 pages

Ideology and Education

chapter 9|12 pages

Introduction to Ideology

chapter 10|20 pages

Political-Economic Ideologies

The Conservative Coalition

chapter 11|24 pages

Political-Economic Ideologies

The Progressive Coalition

part IV|97 pages

Educational Narratives in Sociocultural Context

chapter 14|13 pages

Narratives of Race

chapter 18|6 pages

Conclusion

Education and Democracy