2007 Handbooks

This unit builds on EDUC106, and is designed to provide students with an understanding of the place of education in contemporary society. It examines aspects of the context of education such as policy and the way policy is socially constructed. It notes the importance of policy in the lives of contemporary teachers, and the ways in which classroom practices is increasingly framed by policy settings. The unit also examines the way the culture of the school is responding to the context of the market, and the way issues of impression management, as manifested in websites and prospectuses and uniforms, have become constant preoccupations of schools as well as other education institutions. Finally, the unit examines the everyday culture of school and the theories underpinning what education ought to be like according to various liberal, libertarian and liberatory approaches to education.