Deron Boyles - Böcker

Argues against the "culture of science" currently dominating education discourse and in favor of a more critical understanding of various modes of inquiry.Winner of the 2010 Critics' Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies Association2009 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In The Politics of Inquiry, Benjamin Baez and Deron Boyles critique recent trends in education research to argue against the "culture of science." Using the National Research Council's 2002 report Scientific Research in Education as a point of departure, they contend that the entire discourse on education science reflects a number of distinct but mutually constitutive political forces or movements that use science and education to shape what we can think, and, thus, what we can become. These forces include the attempts to restrict democracy via scientism; the uses of academic classifications for organizing the world into social groups; the imperatives of the informational society, which seek precision in order to convert the world into "data" for easy governing; and the effects of transnational capitalist exchanges, which convert everything into a cost-benefit analysis, and which make us all complicit in ways we do not fully grasp. Baez and Boyles examine these forces and offer an alternative to the current pushes to make educational inquiry scientific.

Argues against the "culture of science" currently dominating education discourse and in favor of a more critical understanding of various modes of inquiry.Winner of the 2010 Critics' Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies Association2009 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In The Politics of Inquiry, Benjamin Baez and Deron Boyles critique recent trends in education research to argue against the "culture of science." Using the National Research Council's 2002 report Scientific Research in Education as a point of departure, they contend that the entire discourse on education science reflects a number of distinct but mutually constitutive political forces or movements that use science and education to shape what we can think, and, thus, what we can become. These forces include the attempts to restrict democracy via scientism; the uses of academic classifications for organizing the world into social groups; the imperatives of the informational society, which seek precision in order to convert the world into "data" for easy governing; and the effects of transnational capitalist exchanges, which convert everything into a cost-benefit analysis, and which make us all complicit in ways we do not fully grasp. Baez and Boyles examine these forces and offer an alternative to the current pushes to make educational inquiry scientific.

This work argues that private businesses use public schools as worker training sites, resulting in a devalued teaching force, students as uncritical consumers, and schools as economic markets. Boyles analyzes school-business partnerships, revealing false philanthropy and the ulterior motives behind fast-food reading campaigns and supermarket sales for schools promotions. This important book criticizes the practice of privatization itself, revealing it to be a conservative gambit to secure class differences, and not a simple extension of free market business influence into the public sector.

This work argues that private businesses use public schools as worker training sites, resulting in a devalued teaching force, students as uncritical consumers, and schools as economic markets. Boyles analyzes school-business partnerships, revealing false philanthropy and the ulterior motives behind fast-food reading campaigns and supermarket sales for schools promotions. This important book criticizes the practice of privatization itself, revealing it to be a conservative gambit to secure class differences, and not a simple extension of free market business influence into the public sector.

Originally published in 1998, American Education and Corporations, provides a detailed study of the effects of commercialisation on the public school system. The book provides a powerful indictment of corporate culture and its influence on American public schooling, within a clear theoretical framework. The book looks at the threat of corporate culture to public education and advocates an understanding of the democratic importance of schooling as a public good.

Originally published in 1998, American Education and Corporations, provides a detailed study of the effects of commercialisation on the public school system. The book provides a powerful indictment of corporate culture and its influence on American public schooling, within a clear theoretical framework. The book looks at the threat of corporate culture to public education and advocates an understanding of the democratic importance of schooling as a public good.

The Corporate Assault on Youth examines childhood as a social construction increasingly influenced by corporations and commercialism. Through case studies, critical analysis, and historical/philosophical research, the essays collected here expose the degree to which children are unwitting targets of marketing. With topics ranging from the presence of media branding in schools and school supplies to the subtler ways in which the public education system is influenced by corporate ideologies and purposes, this book draws much-needed attention to how educators, administrators, policymakers, parents, and children can become aware of, and counterbalance, the effects of the commercialism that is overwhelming students’ understanding of the world and their place within it.

We examine Hart’s peripatetic career as teacher, editor, journalist, lecturer, and public philosopher. It is biographical as well as an intellectual history of a fascinating character and prolific author.Our goal is to resurrect Hart’s intellectual life in order to more deeply understand the significant issues he not only confronted, but endured. These issues primarily include academic freedom and humanizing education, with their direct links to community organizing and Danish folk schools—themes that run throughout the book. Instead of seeing Hart’s intellectual life as a cautionary tale against forceful criticism, we offer a view consistent with Hart: we should embrace the “full and frank” sense of academic freedom in order to demonstrate a truly democratic mode of associated living in universities and civic communities. Respecting different views should not mean mollifying critique. The opposite, in fact, is in keeping with our view of the open exchange of ideas characteristic of free societies and legitimate institutions of higher education.Other themes of significance in this book include the status of the social foundations in teacher education, social welfare, pacifism, community organizing, the broader purposes of schools and universities in the U.S., and Hart’s commitment to adult education via Danish folk schools and rural community living. The politics of teacher education are legion, and this was no less so when Hart began his career in the early twentieth century. Debates were had about the degree to which normal schools, as two-year teacher training sites, should broaden their technical scope to include the liberal arts. This is the distinction between teacher training and teacher education. Those in favor of classroom management and efficient controls or methods for dispensing curriculum faced criticism from those who thought schools should be embryotic spaces for individual and democratic growth. Hart was clearly on the side of individual and democratic growth and this meant, in part, less order, less routine, and less bureaucratic imposition of standards from bureaucratic hierarchies. Positively, it meant engaging in debates that challenge students to think differently than they have ever thought before. As we show in the following pages, Hart was enormously successful at challenging ideas...and many people would rather not be challenged. As we noted above, this position results in demonstrating a “full and frank” enactment of academic freedom.

We examine Hart’s peripatetic career as teacher, editor, journalist, lecturer, and public philosopher. It is biographical as well as an intellectual history of a fascinating character and prolific author.Our goal is to resurrect Hart’s intellectual life in order to more deeply understand the significant issues he not only confronted, but endured. These issues primarily include academic freedom and humanizing education, with their direct links to community organizing and Danish folk schools—themes that run throughout the book. Instead of seeing Hart’s intellectual life as a cautionary tale against forceful criticism, we offer a view consistent with Hart: we should embrace the “full and frank” sense of academic freedom in order to demonstrate a truly democratic mode of associated living in universities and civic communities. Respecting different views should not mean mollifying critique. The opposite, in fact, is in keeping with our view of the open exchange of ideas characteristic of free societies and legitimate institutions of higher education.Other themes of significance in this book include the status of the social foundations in teacher education, social welfare, pacifism, community organizing, the broader purposes of schools and universities in the U.S., and Hart’s commitment to adult education via Danish folk schools and rural community living. The politics of teacher education are legion, and this was no less so when Hart began his career in the early twentieth century. Debates were had about the degree to which normal schools, as two-year teacher training sites, should broaden their technical scope to include the liberal arts. This is the distinction between teacher training and teacher education. Those in favor of classroom management and efficient controls or methods for dispensing curriculum faced criticism from those who thought schools should be embryotic spaces for individual and democratic growth. Hart was clearly on the side of individual and democratic growth and this meant, in part, less order, less routine, and less bureaucratic imposition of standards from bureaucratic hierarchies. Positively, it meant engaging in debates that challenge students to think differently than they have ever thought before. As we show in the following pages, Hart was enormously successful at challenging ideas...and many people would rather not be challenged. As we noted above, this position results in demonstrating a “full and frank” enactment of academic freedom.