Overview

This book confronts one of the most enduring and controversial issues in education – the nexus between poverty and underachievement. The topic has become a key contemporary battleground in the struggle to raise standards. Living on the Edge maps and compares a number of competing explanations, critiques inadequate and deficit accounts, and offers a more convincing and useful theory. The authors challenge the view that problems can be fixed by discrete initiatives, which in many instances are deeply rooted in deficit views of youth, families and communities. The book systematically interrogates a range of explanations based outside as well as inside schools. It draws upon positive examples of schools which are succeeding in engaging marginalized young people, providing worthwhile forms of learning, and improving young lives. It is a ‘must read’ for anyone concerned about or implicated in the struggle for more socially just forms of education.

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9781433116858

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?Living on the Edge' tackles tough issues about class, poverty and justice that are of central importance for teachers, parents, policy-makers - and young people. The book combines clear writing, good scholarship, and firm commitment. Clearing a path through the forest of misleading ideas about educational disadvantage, Smyth and Wrigley show the educational damage done by current market-driven policies and testing systems. Bringing together the experience of creative teachers and schools that work well in tough circumstances, they show how schools can make positive and immediate gains for fairness and good education. (Raewyn Connell, University Chair, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney) This book addresses what is now the central but unaddressed issue in education policy in developed societies - the abhorrent, debilitating and humiliating relationship between poverty and schooling. Smyth and Wrigley rigorously and painfully lay out this relationship and all its aspects and shame us all - policymakers most of all! This is a book that cannot, must not be ignored. (Stephen Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London) ?Living on the Edge' tackles tough issues about class, poverty and justice that are of central importance for teachers, parents, policy-makers - and young people. The book combines clear writing, good scholarship, and firm commitment. Clearing a path through the forest of misleading ideas about educational disadvantage, Smyth and Wrigley show the educational damage done by current market-driven policies and testing systems. Bringing together the experience of creative teachers and schools that work well in tough circumstances, they show how schools can make positive and immediate gains for fairness and good education. (Raewyn Connell, University Chair, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney) This book addresses what is now the central but unaddressed issue in education policy in developed societies - the abhorrent, debilitating and humiliating relationship between poverty and schooling. Smyth and Wrigley rigorously and painfully lay out this relationship and all its aspects and shame us all - policymakers most of all! This is a book that cannot, must not be ignored. (Stephen Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London)

'Living on the Edge' tackles tough issues about class, poverty and justice that are of central importance for teachers, parents, policy-makers - and young people. The book combines clear writing, good scholarship, and firm commitment. Clearing a path through the forest of misleading ideas about educational disadvantage, Smyth and Wrigley show the educational damage done by current market-driven policies and testing systems. Bringing together the experience of creative teachers and schools that work well in tough circumstances, they show how schools can make positive and immediate gains for fairness and good education. (Raewyn Connell, University Chair, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney) This book addresses what is now the central but unaddressed issue in education policy in developed societies - the abhorrent, debilitating and humiliating relationship between poverty and schooling. Smyth and Wrigley rigorously and painfully lay out this relationship and all its aspects and shame us all - policymakers most of all! This is a book that cannot, must not be ignored. (Stephen Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London)

Author Information

John Smyth is Research Professor of Education, University of Ballarat, Australia and Emeritus Professor, Flinders University. His most recent books include Hanging in with Kids in Tough Times (Peter Lang, 2010), Critical Pedagogy for Social Justice, and From Silent Witnesses to Active Agents: Student Voice in Re-engaging with Learning (Peter Lang, 2012). Terry Wrigley is Visiting Professor of School Improvement, Leeds Metropolitan University, England and Senior Honorary Research Fellow, University of Ballarat. He is editor of the international journal Improving Schools. His books include The Power to Learn (2000), Schools of Hope (2003), Another School is Possible (2006), Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference (eds. 2012), and Social Justice Re-examined (eds. 2012).

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