The topic of instrumentalism has engaged many scholars of contemporary educational thought. One can distinguish the positions of anti-instrumentalism from those that stress noninstrumental values of education, both conceived in the context of neoliberal/neoconservative and consumption-driven reality. In this text, Maria Mendel enters into this…

In this essay, Scott Pratt develops the tension at work in "Democracy and Education" between conceptions of multiculturalism that emerge from Dewey's commitment to progress as a process of civilization and from his contrasting commitment to a vision of progress as a localized process that requires respect for boundaries and limits. The…

Two theories on the function and nature of educational change and the historical relationship between schooling and socialization of individuals are criticized. (JD)

Discusses the challenge and possibilities that the philosophy of revolutionary struggle poses for critical educators, focusing on globalization, the commercialization of education, Marxist and neo-Marxist philosophy, critical pedagogy for the new millennium, and critical pedagogy in the age of globalization. (SM)

Developments in the fields of medicine and education, in conjunction with social conditions and intellectual climate, influenced the promotion of school based sex education in the late nineteenth century and on into the twentieth century. The complexity of the relationship between education and society is illustrated through an examination of how…

Reviews "The Tact of Teaching," Max van Manen; "Practice Makes Practice," Deborah Britzman; "Teacher Education and the Social Conditions of Schooling," Daniel Liston and Kenneth Zeichner; "The Teacher: Theory and Practice in Teacher Education," Allen Pearson. The books focus on social influences and context, cultural pedagogy, educational theory…

Discusses the role of universities in maintaining democratic principles in multicultural America, noting universities are the main instrument democratic societies use to generate and transmit new knowledge and inculcate democratic values and respect for ethnic and racial differences. The article examines the opinions of author Jonathan Kozol. (SM)

Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities, examines inequality between urban and suburban education and encourages suburban residents to reflect on U.S. education since the 1970s and on the role of their communities in structuring the current savage inequalities. The book suggests affluent parents successfully transmit their ideology of inequality to…