Making Sense of Mass Education

Gordon Tait is a Professor of Education at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He researches and teaches in the areas of the sociology and philosophy of education, ethics, legal decision-making, and qualitative research methods. Nerida Spina researches and teaches at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include educators' work, social justice, equity, education policy and the sociology of numbers. She has a particular interest in using institutional ethnographic research. Her research explores the everyday work of school leaders teachers and pre-service teachers, and the impact of policy on their practices and lives. In examining educators' work, she explores those practices that make a difference to the lives and long-term trajectories of young people and communities, as well as what gets in the way. Jenna Gillett-Swan is a researcher and Associate Professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Her work aims to understand and address inequity and threats to wellbeing in students' and teachers' educational experiences through participatory rights-based approaches to educational transformation and school improvement. She works with students, teachers, and leaders across primary, secondary and tertiary education contexts. Jenna is also the co-leader for the Voice and Wellbeing Research Program within the Centre for Inclusive Education. Peter O'Brien teaches and researches at the Queensland University of Technology. His research draws on studies of governmentality to explore the exercise of power and freedom in educational policy and practice in contemporary neoliberal polities.

Introduction; Part I. Re-assessing the Pillars: Modern and Postmodern Sociologies of Education; 1. Social class; 2. Race, ethnicity and indigeneity; 3. Gender; 4. Sexualities; Part II. The Foundations of an Alternative Approach: Education and Governance; 5. Governance; 6. Subjectivity; 7. Neoliberalism and Marketisation; 8. Pre-adulthood; 9. Datafication; Part III. Cultural Contexts of Contemporary Education; 10. The media; 11. Popular culture; 12. Technology; 13. Globalisation; Part IV. Philosophy and Mass Education; 14. Philosophy; 15. Ethics and the law; 16. Children's rights; 17. Truth and postcolonialism; 18. Alternative education; Conclusion: the central aims of this book.