The ‘Reason’ of schooling: historicising curriculum studies, pedagogy, and teacher education

Abstract

<p>Thomas Popkewitz accentuates knowledge about systems of reason that govern educational policy. His research on pedagogy and teacher education includes historical, ethnographic, and comparative studies of national educational reforms in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Southern Africa, and the USA. Two of his books (Paradigms and Ideology in Educational Research and A Political Sociology of Educational Reform) have won awards for their contribution to educational studies. His most recent edited book, The 'Reason' of schooling: Historicizing curriculum studies, pedagogy and teacher education makes a significant contribution to the field of curriculum studies, highlighting the most current global concerns in education. The book makes three significant contributions to the field of practice and policy: discussions around the intersections of various historical trails informing decision-making, the science of education as social discourse to change social conditions, and social epistemology as a strategy to revise critical studies of education. Popkewitz effectively emphasises 'Reason' of schooling as political. He clarifies political as students who attempt to learn, the qualities of the expert teacher, cultural boundaries and its implications for present boundaries in schooling. An in-depth view of the quality of teacher education is highlighted as a current global concern, with Peterson, Olsson, and Krejsler (Chapter 13) claiming that a 'better teacher' and the 'teacher of tomorrow are operating as visions for the future' (p. 205).</p>