A new kind of conservatism has evolved and has taken center stage in many nations, one that is best seen as "conservative modernization." Although parts of these conservative positions may have originated within the New Right, they are now not limited to what has traditionally been called the Right. They have been taken up by a much larger segment…

Examines the complex ways that teachers experienced the September 11th attack, discussing its effects on pedagogy and on the urge to have schools participate in a complicated set of patriotic discourses and practices that swept the nation following the event. The paper asserts that educators must recognize their own contradictory responses to the…

Shows how encounters with unresponsive local school districts can lead parents to affiliate with conservative movements, describing cultural assumptions and fears underpinning the cultural and religious right, examining a textbook controversy that led to the formation of rightist sentiments, and discussing attempts at countering the growth of…

The connections between class and gender must be recognized if attempts to rationalize and proletarianize teaching are to be understood. Behaviorally-specified curriculum, prepackaged programs, and repeated testing and accountability measures represent attempts by state governments and by male administrators to wrest control of instruction from a…

The fact that most elementary school teachers are female provides a key to understanding why there are often attempts by state bureaucrats, industry, and academics to control the curricular and teaching practices in classrooms. It also explains why these externally derived controls are often transformed by teachers once they are in their…

This article examines equality in education within the context of two larger conflicts--the breakdown of the largely liberal consensus that guided much educational and social policy since World War II and the growth of the new right and conservative movements. (IAH)

When the problems to be solved are structural problems of society, it is argued, blaming teachers is simply shifting the focus. Also discussed are potential effects of the Holmes Group proposals on who enrolls in teacher education, who is hired by school systems, and what is the science of education. (MT)

The ideology behind the educational justifications for a national curriculum and national testing can damage members of society who have the most to lose. The paper analyzes the conservative agenda, discusses connections between national curricula and testing, increasing privatization, and choice plans, and notes resulting patterns of differential…