The last half century has created deep tensions in how we analyze educational and social change. Educators, policymakers, and concerned citizens have had to cope with competing belief systems in evaluating and acting upon school policies and practices. This illuminating book untangles many of the roots of those persistent debates that have divided the nation for so long. It offers readers a critical opportunity to reflect on our continuing ideological struggles by examining popular books that have made a difference in educational discourse.
The editor has specifically selected key books on social and educational controversies that speak to wide audiences. They frame contextual issues that so-called «school reformers» have often neglected ¿ much to the detriment of any real educational progress. Ultimately, this text is meant to stir our consciences, to disorder our certainties, and to compel us to treat education and culture with both reason and passion. It is highly relevant for courses in social foundations of education, school reform, educational policy studies, philosophy of education, history of education, politics of education, curriculum studies, and teacher education.

Joseph L. DeVitis is a past president of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA), the Council of Learned Societies in Education, and the Society of Professors of Education. Two of his books have received Choice awards from the American Library Association and three have earned AESA Critics¿ Choice awards as outstanding books of the year.

Contents: Timothy Glander: Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education (1960) ¿ Gary K. Clabaugh: Raymond Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the Social Forces That Have Shaped the Administration of the Public Schools (1962) ¿ David Hursh: Paul Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education (1962) and The Community of Scholars (1964) ¿ Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon: Herbert Kohl, 36 Children (1967) ¿ Roberto H. Bahruth/Donaldo Macedo: Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1969) ¿ Richard Ognibene: Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969) ¿ William M. Reynolds: Charles E. Silberman, Crisis in the Classroom: The Remaking of American Education (1970) ¿ David Gabbard: Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (1971) ¿ Jean Ann Foley/Joseph C. Wegwert: Dan Lortie, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (1975) ¿ James M. Giarelli: Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (1976) ¿ Steven P. Camicia/Barry M. Franklin: Michael W. Apple, Ideology and Curriculum (1979) ¿ Joseph Watras: Mortimer J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (1982) ¿ John Beineke: Ernest L. Boyer, High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America (1983) ¿ Jessica A. Heybach: John Goodlad, A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future (1984) ¿ Brett Elizabeth Blake/Robert W. Blake, Jr.: Theodore R. Sizer, Horace¿s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (1984) ¿ Susan Schramm-Pate/Kenneth Vogler: Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (1985) ¿ Emily Nemeth/Karen Graves: E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (1987) ¿ Wendy Kohli: Maxine Greene, The Dialectic of Freedom (1988) ¿ E. Wayne Ross: Peter McLaren, Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (1988) ¿ John F. Covaleskie: John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, Politics, Markets, and Americäs Schools (1990) ¿ Sue Books: Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in Americäs Schools (1991) ¿ Melissa M. Jones: Michelle Fine, Framing Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of an Urban Public High School (1991) ¿ Lynda Stone: Nel Noddings, The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education (1992) ¿ D.G. Mulcahy: Jane Roland Martin, The Schoolhome: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families (1992) ¿ J.B. Mayo, Jr.: Gloria Ladson-Billings, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (1994) ¿ Kal Alston: Lisa Delpit, Other People¿s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (1995) ¿ Mark Garrison: David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle, The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on Americäs Public Schools (1995) ¿ John L. Rury: David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (1995) ¿ Aaron M. Kuntz: Jean Anyon, Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform (1997) ¿ Tian Yu: Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and «Tougher Standards» (1999) ¿ Michael P. Mueller: C.A. Bowers, Educating for Eco-Justice and Community (2001) ¿ Jan Armstrong/Tryphenia B. Peele-Eady: John Ogbu, Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement (2003) ¿ Leslie S. Kaplan/William A. Owings: Richard Rothstein, Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (2004) ¿ John Smyth: Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education: How Americäs Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future