Official Knowledge ─ Democratic Education in a Conservative Age

"This third edition of Official Knowledge, the classic text from one of the worlds most distinguished education scholars, encourages educators once again to critically examine the relationship among knowledge, power, and education. Rather than simply asking whether students have mastered a particular subject matter or done well on ubiquitous tests, Michael W. Apple instead challenges readers to probe the deeper questions of whose knowledge the curriculum represents and how it came official? The award-winning Official Knowledge offers a powerful examination of the rightist resurgence in education and the challenges it presents to concerned educators. Updates and features of the 3rd edition include: A new and detailed preface that situates it within the current debates within education. Updates throughout all chapters, with a special focus on Chapter 2, Why the Right is Winning, to document how the Right has changed our commonsense about what counts as a good school, good curricula, good teaching, to such an extent that even the Obama Administrations policies for educational reform incorporate much of the neoliberal agenda. A new section on the current controversies over curriculum and textbooks, focusing on the very conservative changes in textbook policies and content in Texas and Arizona. The addition of an autobiographical chapter so that the arguments of the book make sense in terms of the concrete struggles over education over a lifetime of work"--

Michael W. Apple is John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London.