ABSTRACT
Seymour B. Sarason, who was at the time of publication, still writing prolifically in his eighties, is one of the world's leading thinkers and writers on the culture of the school, particularly in terms of its relationship to educational change. Drawing on a background and training in clinical psychology, Sarason has, over his life, developed an extended oeuvre and eclectic perspective that both critiques a psychological view of educating while combining this view with more historical, cultural and political forms of understanding. Seymour B. Sarason was born in 1919 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jewish immigrant parents. His father, a 'cutter of children's clothes' was liked, though not especially respected in the family. It is only fitting that this ambitious outsider, rooted in tradition yet riveted by change, should make his entry to the university professorship obliquely. Sarason returns with persistent, insistent and sometimes perseverating regularity to a small number of core concerns.
