ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 provides the conceptual and theoretical framing of the book and poses the two main research questions, guiding the inquiry into the epistemology of a science of education in the contemporary field of school education. The major argument of the book is outlined in this chapter where we claim that genuine education is being reduced to comprise essentialist inputs such as particular teaching strategies, and outputs consisting of an array of assessment requirements for students, teachers and school communities which in effect are all founded on an economizing calculus. Our argument draws upon French Social Theory, specifically the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, along with key Deweyan elements of philosophical thought in order to focus on how powerful forces of governance thwart the educative growth of students and seduce classroom teachers into understanding their role as being primarily one of technicism. The chapter explores what we consider are the political and economic origins of the contemporary policy compulsion to constitute a “science of education”, with concomitant effects on how classroom teachers have come to understand and enact their practice in schools.
