Book description

Engaging Teachers makes a deliberate attempt to reclaim the education discourse captured by new right politics and more closely connect it with a radical democratic agenda for schooling. On its agenda are education markets, policy, leadership, professionalism, and communities. Engaging with these is conceived on at least two fronts. First, as an invitation to teachers to become involved in reconstructing schooling for democratic purposes and in socially just ways. From this perspective, the politics of engagement is not simply a matter of acquiescence or resistance, but is informed by a commitment to generate alternatives: teachers, students, parents, and community members making things happen rather than having things done to them. Also signalled is an intent for teachers to use their pedagogical knowledge to work collectively, exploring and acting on common interests across uncommon ground. Second, the book explores possibilities for teachers to engage in these reconstructive efforts in attractive and meaningful ways. The attraction is decisions about education and those conditions that best enable its mission, rendered meaningful because of their ownership and engagement by all those affected.

Trevor Gale is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. He is an Executive Member of the Australian Association for Research in Education and is co-editor of the research journal Melbourne Studies in Education. He is co-author of Just Schooling.

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