Beyond Schooling

David H. Hargreaves is Fellow Emeritus of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has been Professor of Education in the University of Cambridge and Reader in Education in the University of Oxford. He has also been Chief Inspector of the Inner London Education Authority, Chief Executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Chairman of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, and Policy Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education. He is a Foundation Academician of the Academy of the Social Sciences.

This powerful indictment of state-dictated schooling and of the gulf between data-driven performance and education leads into a passionately argued vision of how things could be. Both analysis and prescription draw on very wide reading, including sympathetically but critically presented anarchist perspectives. But they reflect, deeply, David Hargreaves’ long experience as a teacher, researcher, LEA chief inspector, government adviser and wide involvement in professional development. The style combines deep personal involvement with unfailingly lucid analysis. The book is a distinctive and distinguished achievementTony Edwards, Emeritus Professor Of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UKDominant models of schooling favoured by the UK and many other countries across the world have not only ceased to be fit for the imperatives of contemporary purpose. They also exemplify and extend a national and international betrayal of education.In times such as these, a book which names the malaise, identifies and analyses it key failings and proposes an imaginative, inspiring and profoundly life-affirming alternative is to be welcomed with open arms.Opportune, imaginative, deeply practical and utterly necessary, this remarkable book offers a contribution of immense national and international importanceMichael Fielding, Emeritus Professor, UCL Institute of Education, UKAfter 50 years in English education I thought I knew its history and the reforms it needs. How wrong I was. This book has forced me to question and reject some of my basic assumptions. The process was unsettling and exhilarating, challenging and truly educational.

• Chapter 1 The future of schooling: a distinctively different direction of travel; Chapter 2 Anarchism and the abolition of the State: an intention to murder, Russian-style; Chapter 3 Murdering the State, in American deschooler-style; Chapter 4 Anarchism English-style: State murder by other means; Chapter 5 The State and Schooling: some old and some new assailants; Chapter 6 Anarchist challenges to State schooling from the Right, American-style; Chapter 7 State schooling versus community education; Chapter 8 Utopia and the remaking of social and educational systems; Chapter 9 Power and resistance in society and in education; Chapter 10 Two paths to a new imaginary for education and schooling; Chapter 11 Education, not Schooling: realising the new imaginary; Bibliography