Understanding Education

Stephen Kemmis is Professor Emeritus, School of Education, Charles Sturt University. He is the co-author, with Wilfred Carr, of Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research (London: Falmer); with Robin McTaggart and Rhonda Nixon, of The Action Research Planner (Singapore: Springer); and, with Jane Wilkinson, Christine Edwards-Groves, Ian Hardy, Peter Grootenboer, and Laurette Bristol, of Changing Practices, Changing Education. His current interests include practice theory, action research, and reflective practice. Especially today, when education is besieged by the institutions of schooling at every level, he remains fundamentally curious about the nature, the study, and the conduct of education as it is reinvented in changing times and circumstances. Christine Edwards-Groves is an Associate Professor (Literacy Studies) in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University. Her current research and publications involve two intercon nected fields: i) the nature and role of interaction for excellence in education practices in contemporary literacy classrooms and professional development; and ii) examining exemplary educational leadership, professional development practices and classroom pedagogy and their effects on students’ academic and social practices. Christine’s involvement in empirical ethnographic research in these fields has led to ongoing professional activity and research at international, national and state levels. She is currently a leading national literacy scholar in the specialised field of classroom interaction, dialogic pedagogies and explicit literacy teaching. She contributes regularly at number of international, national and state literacy and educational research conferences. A/Prof Groves is member of the NSW Education Ministers Advisory Committee for Literacy and Numeracy, and co-chair of the Global Assembly for Knowledge Democracy focused on participatory action research.

Preface.- 1 Studying Education.- 2 The Double History of Schooling: The History of a Practice and the History of an Institution.- 3 The Politics of Education: Reproduction and Transformation.- 4 Education, Practices, and Practice Architectures.