Education and Power

First published in 1982,Education and Powerremains an important volume for those committed to education. It is in this text that Michael Apple articulates his theory on educational institutions and the reproduction of unequal power relations and provides a thorough examination of the ways in which race-gender-class dynamics are embedded in, and reflected through, curricular issues. While many of the theories set forward in this book are now taken for granted by the left in education, they were nothing short of revolutionary when first proposed. In the preface to the second edition, Apple suggests that we need to take seriously the complicated and contradictory economic, political and cultural structures that provide for some of the most important limits on, and possibilities for, critical education. He re-examines his earlier arguments and reflects on what has happened since the first edition was published. His reflections are twofold: many of the problems he predicted have notonly have to come to pass but have worsened; more optimistically, he notes that therearereal schools in real communities where people are creating and defending a socially just and caring education. This honest appraisal of the role schools play in an unequal society provides a searching appraisal of where these spaces are.