The Routledge Education Studies Textbook

Book excerpt: The Routledge Education Studies Textbook is an academically wide-ranging and appropriately challenging resource for students beyond the introductory stages of a degree programme in Education Studies. Written in a clear and engaging style, the chapters are divided into three sections that examine fundamental ideas and issues, explore educational contexts, and offer study and research guidance respectively. To support the development of critical thinking, debates between contributors are interspersed within sections and address the following questions: Do private schools legitimise privilege? Should the liberal state support religious schooling? Are developments in post-14 education reducing the divide between the academic and the vocational? Do schools contribute to social and community cohesion? Do traditional and progressive teaching methods exist or are there only effective and ineffective methods? Educational Research: a foundation for teacher professionalism? Each chapter opens with an overview of the rationale behind it and closes with a summary of the main points. At the end of every chapter key questions are posed, encouraging the student to critically reflect on the content, and suggestions for further reading are made. The Routledge Education Studies Textbook is essential reading for students of Education Studies, especially during second and third years of the undergraduate degree. It will be of interest to trainee teachers, including those working towards M Level. A companion volume, The Routledge Education Studies Reader by the same editors, contains key classic and contemporary academic articles and has been designed to be used alongside this Textbook.