‘All over the world, the school has an anti-educational effect on society.’ Fifty years ago, Ivan Illich’s book Deschooling Society offered a radical challenge to the very institution of the school. How far might it be relevant to the world after lockdown?
Category Archives: Education
Enemies of promise? Education, culture and meritocracy under the Conservatives
The argument for restoring ‘traditional’ forms of education is based on dubious claims about social justice. Why the argument for meritocracy needs to be challenged.
Teaching Culture: The Missionary Position
The attempt to civilize the uncultured masses is coming back into style. I look back to the Leavisite approach to popular culture, and its place in the history of English teaching.
The curriculum of Brexit: culture, education and power the Michaela Way
‘Powerful knowledge’, Media Studies and technology
What are the problems with theories of ‘powerful knowledge’, and how might they apply to teaching about (and with) media and technology?
The changing currency of ‘cultural capital’
The English schools inspectors are apparently looking for schools to teach ‘cultural capital’. But what does cultural capital mean, and how is it changing?
Decolonising the curriculum… again?
The call to ‘decolonise the curriculum’ isn’t new. But why does it seem that so little progress been made?
Finnish envy
A coherent new government report from Finland shows how media literacy policy should be done.
Cultural Studies and the evasion of education
A postscript to my blogs about Raymond Williams: what happened to the educational dimensions of Cultural Studies?
Raymond Williams on Culture and Education 2: The Long Revolution
Revisiting three key texts from sixty years ago: what do they have to say to us today?
