This is a book about two stories of education. In one story there is a vocabulary of means, efficiency, bureaucracy, inspection and science; in the other, one of autonomy, democracy, emancipation and action research. One is the story of positivist managerialist approaches to education, the other is the story of reflective teaching. This book displaces both of these stories. By applying the techniques of deconstruction, Stuart Parker overturns the assumptions common to both of these positions and, in doing so, jettisons (...) some widely cherished beliefs about education, autonomy and rationality. Moving beyond current debates, this book articulates a new manifesto for education in postmodernity and highlights the implications for educational practices and institutions. (shrink)

Postmodernism and Education responds to the interest in postmodernism as a way of understanding social, cultural and economic trends. Robin Usher and Richard Edwards explore the impact which postmodernism has had upon the theory and practice of education, using a broad analysis of postmodernism and an in-depth introduction to key writers in the field, including Lacan, Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard. In examining the impact which this thinking has had upon contemporary theory and practice of education, Usher and Edwards concentrate particularly (...) upon how postmodernist ideas challenge existing concepts, structures and hierarchies. (shrink)

'It is great to see the re-publication of the classic Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. The extensive new material is erudite, informative and important, particularly locating consumer culture in the context of global climate change and postmodernism within a framing that seriously displaces the 'west' from centre-stage' - John Urry, Lancaster University The first edition of this contemporary classic can claim to have put 'consumer culture' on the map, certainly in relation to postmodernism. This expanded new edition includes: - A fully (...) revised preface that explores the developments in consumer culture since the first edition - A major new chapter on 'Modernity and the Cultural Question' - An update on postmodernism and the development of contemporary theory after postmodernism - An account of multiple and alternative modernities - The challenges of consumer culture in Japan and China The result is a book that shakes the boundaries of debate, from one of the foremost writers on culture and postmodernism of the present day. (shrink)

The 'postmodern condition,' in which instrumentalism finally usurps all other considerations, has produced a kind of intellectual paralysis in the world of education. The authors of this book show how such postmodernist thinkers as Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard illuminate puzzling aspects of education, arguing that educational theory is currently at an impasse. They postulate that we need these new and disturbing ideas in order to "think again" fruitfully and creatively about education.

This work by one of North America's leading educational theorists and cultural critics culminates a decade of social analyses that focuses on the political economy of schooling, Paulo Freire and literacy education, hip-hop culture, and multicultural education. Peter McLaren also examines the work of Baudrillard as well as Bourdieu's reflexive sociology.Always in McLaren's work is a profound understanding of the relationship among advanced capitalism, the politics of knowledge, and the formation of identity. One of the central themes of this volume (...) is the relationship between the political and the pedagogical for educators, activists, artists, and other cultural workers. McLaren argues that the central project ahead in the struggle for social justice is not so much the politics of diversity as the global decentering and dismantling of whiteness. This volume also contains an interview with the author. (shrink)

Using a theoretical and historical investigation, this study presents a poststructuralist critique of subject-centred reason against the background of the modernity/postmodernity and "information society" debates.

This study aims to demolish the most malicious misconceptions of the subject of postmodernism by explaining why it is so emotionally and politically disturbing. It shows that postmodernism is less a theory than a condition of social life brought about by the trouble modernity has got itself into.