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The purpose of this course is to provide the foundations for one of the central ideas that motivates the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Education, Society and Culture BA: the idea that education is one of the most important lenses for understanding the world around us today. The close study of education is essential not just for understanding the nature and significance of teaching and learning in schools, colleges and universities, but also for developing our awareness of how education shapes (and is shaped by) the entire rest of society, outside of the formal education system itself. Some scholars speak of the rise of a schooled society, in which all social practices and institutions are increasingly influenced by and structured around ideas, values and discourses about education, learning, schooling, development, knowledge and skill. The goal of the course is to help students develop their own critical ability to recognise, reflect upon and analyse what it means to be living, as we all do today, in an ever more schooled society.Ìý

Teaching delivery:ÌýÌý

This module is taught in 10 weekly lectures and 10 weekly seminars. It also includes two dedicated workshops to support students in developing their research reports for the module’s final assessment. The teaching and assessment approach on this module are based in the traditions of critical pedagogy and popular education.Ìý

Indicative Topics:ÌýÌý

The module begins by introducing the idea of the schooled society, as well as the concepts and tools we need to think critically and reflexively about education in society. The module then proceeds by looking closely at the ways in which education plays a part in shaping a range of inter-connected social practices and institutions, including the individual lifecourse, geographical space, the private worlds of the family and the home, historical and contemporary relationships between communities around the world, informal and everyday forms of knowledge, learning and expertise, collective understandings of social justice, and the world of the workplace and labour market.ÌýÌý

Module Aims:ÌýÌý

The module has four overarching aims:

• (1) to learn how education is an important lens for understanding not just teaching and learning in the school system, but for analysing practices and institutions throughout society as a whole;
• (2) to learn how to check and question our own beliefs, assumptions and ideologies of education, so as to develop a more grounded, critical and compelling understanding of the many different kinds of (beneficial, harmful, reshaping, ineffectual, etc.) roles that education can play in society; (3) to learn how to become engaged and public researchers and thinkers; and
• (4) to learn how to develop a collective and democratic practice of intellectual and academic research and learning, that continually engages with, learns from and supports the research and learning of other students and colleagues around us.Ìý

Recommended readings:ÌýÌý

In previous years, key readings on the module have drawn from texts such as David Baker, The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture; John Willinsky, Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End; and Jo Littler, Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility.