Introduction

Although short on specific advice, the book’s theories about educational practice, if found compelling, have profound consequences for thinking anew about the nature of teaching, learning and management and governance in schools. These theories about educational practice explore questions concerning the present value of, and need for, utopian thinking in discussions of the purposes of education and policy to meet the challenges of the new millennium. They also suggest a way of putting the hope back into the education process at a time when many teachers in schools are despairing of their work and feeling profoundly pessimistic about it as a result.