Over the years that I have been writing the Reviewing Policy section of this journal, I have paid particular attention to critical conceptual and empirical work that either overtly supports or directly challenges the taken-for-granted assumptions that tend to guide dominant policies in education. These policies may deal with larger issues…

What roles can and should teachers' unions play in the deliberations, debates, and conflicts over school reform in a time when education sits at the center of so much of our economic, political, ideological, and cultural tensions? Lois Weiner's new book, "The Future of Our Schools: Teachers Unions and Social Justice," speaks…

In Someone Has to Fail, Labaree (2010) offers an admirably concise overview of the history and promise of education reform in the United States, combining insights from the history of education, policy studies, and a refreshingly accurate and nuanced account of what it is like to actually manage a classroom environment. While in this essay we…

The documentary "Waiting for Superman" has become one of those rare things, a (supposed) documentary that generates a wider audience. It also is one of the more recent embodiments of what Nancy Fraser (1989) labels as the "politics of needs and needs discourses." Dominant groups listen carefully to the language and issues that come from below.…

In the elections of 2006 and 2008, progressive and liberal groups in the United States broke through key bulwarks of the Right to capture some of the highest hills on the political landscape. Although progressives and liberals now control key positions, the Right still holds wide swaths of terrain and still exercises considerable power in shaping…

People live in a time where neoliberal positions, with their assumption that private is good and public is bad, are dominant. Yet, as the author and others have demonstrated, such positions consistently privilege particular and identifiable classed and raced groups. This is not accidental. Society, like many others throughout the world, is…

As part of the continuing series of the Reviewing Policy section, this article examines some of the recent literature on the creation-evolution controversy. These controversies are placed within a larger analysis of the growth of authoritarian populist movements in the United States. The article then focuses attention on debates both over a number…

The authors maintain that higher education has tamely responded to pillory by political conservatives. This essay advocates for Michael Berube's defense of liberalism in higher education, "What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education." The writers also counter what they view as conservative attacks on…

The publication and distribution of "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" (Freire, 1974) was a landmark event in the field of education. Since its original publication and subsequent translation into many languages, Freire has influenced millions of people worldwide as the corpus of his work has been disseminated during the past 30-plus years. For better or…

This article raises questions about current educational reform efforts now underway in a number of nations. Research from a number of countries is used to document some of the hidden differential effects of two connected strategies - neo-liberal inspired market proposals and neo-liberal, neo-conservative, and middle class managerial inspired…

A review of "Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools," by Amy Binder, claims it is a valuable analysis that employs a social movement perspective to uncover the dynamics involved in proposals for and the politics of curriculum change, especially in highly contested curriculum areas. (Contains 13 references.)…

Argues that the ultimate effect of many recent educational "reforms" will be to exacerbate existing inequalities. Examines how such inequalities are publicly justified by the use of moral and biological logic systems. Explores the use of these arguments, such as those crystallized in Herrnstein and Murray's "Bell Curve," to support conservative…

The imminent educational crisis is at once economic, political, cultural, and ideological. Curriculum is discussed in relationship to Marxist ideology, conflict in the labor force, and political practice. (JN)

Correspondence theories imply that there are specific characteristics, behavioral traits, and skills that an economy requires of its workers. These economic needs determine what goes on in all other sectors of society, particularly in the school. The hidden curriculum is then differentiated by economic class and economic potential. (JN)

The dominance of curriculum evaluation based on achievement test results is challenged, and a set of strategies that are more responsive to the socioeconomic reality of schools are suggested. Because evaluation places value on an outcome, alternative methods can be developed only by including ideological and economic "functions" of the educational…