Education : Philosophy & Social Aspects

The author examines the role of the university and its relationship to the community. He provides success stories of schools and communities that are forming positive partnerships in the community. more...

Price: $39.95

Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education looks at fifty of the twentieth century''s most significant contributors to the debate on education. This includes reviews on the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Elliot Eisner, Hans J Eysenck, Michel Foucault, Henry Giroux and Susan Isaacs, to name but a few. Together with Fifty Major Thinkers on Education this book provides a unique history of educational thinking. Each essay gives key biographical information, an outline of the individual''s principal achievements and activities, an assessment of his or her impact and influence and a list of their major writings and suggested further reading. more...

Price: $19.95

The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century. With characteristic subtlety and verve, Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value. Key FeaturesPresents an account of the problematic relationship between postmodernism and the university as an institutionAddresses the problems facing an academic who wishes also to function as an intellectualOffers a critical survey of the emerging fields of social epistemology and the sociology of philosophy Discusses the ethics and politics of public intellectual life, especially given its largely improvisational character more...

Price: $34.50

Exploring the social and contextual forces that shape the appearance of academic ability and disability, this work shows how these forces influence the perception of academic underachievement by minority students. more...

Price: $35.95

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist spends a year with a legendary high school guidance counselor who gets kids into the right colleges by focusing on self-discovery rather than test scores, grades, and the other traditional tools of the trade. Gwyeth Smith, known as Smitty, has made a national reputation by flouting the conventions of the college application ritual. He often steers kids from the SAT to the ACT, which he considers a more straightforward test that produces higher scores. He urges parents to home in on hidden bargains, scour the country for scholarships, and challenge financial aid offices rather than take out large loans. He will sometimes talk a seeming shoo-in candidate out of setting her sights on the prestigious Ivy League while goading another long-shot student into aiming for that same Ivy League school. His unorthodox approach is grounded on the principle that getting into college shouldn’t just be about getting in; it should be a kid’s first great moment of self-discovery. David L. Marcus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former education writer for U.S. News & World Report, follows Smitty and “his” kids around Oyster Bay High, a diverse public school in Long Island, New York, as he works his unique magic on their applications and their lives. Smitty’s kids run the gamut from the sweet but pathologically disorganized boy next door to the valedictorian who applies to twenty-eight schools. As the year unfolds, Smitty deals in his own ingenious way with almost every complication that can bedevil the applications process. What about the kid who doesn’t test well? The kid who plunges into depression after being rejected by Columbia? The overachieving Korean American boy worried about reverse discrimination? Smitty has answers for all of them. While Smitty excels at easing the pressure of the college hunt, his success comes from imposing a different—and deeper—challenge. He makes kids articulate (orally and in writin more...

Price: $25.95