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This paper is a response to that of Moore and Muller 'The Discourse of Voice and the Problem of Knowledge and Identity in the Sociology of Education', which appeared in Volume 20 of this journal. It starts by summarising and endorsing their criticisms of 'voice discourses' but argues that their case is weakened by their failure to distinguish clearly between the 'debunking of knowledge' associated with the postmodernist theories that underpin 'voice discourses' and the general propositions of a social theory of knowledge. The idea that knowledge has a social as well as an epistemological basis is now widely accepted in philosophy as well as sociology. The paper draws on a paper by Stephen Toulmin and makes a distinction between anthropological and sociological approaches to the idea of knowledge having a social basis. It goes on to use some ideas from the author's recent work on the issue of knowledge specialisation to suggest the kind of contribution that a sociological approach to knowledge can make to current curriculum issues as well as to educational policy more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines New Right argument on educational provision, including the establishing of a voucher scheme and the introduction of elements of a 'free market' into public sector education. The paper examines the right-wing allegation that educationalists have 'captured' the school curriculum and the argument on the need for 'consumer capture' of education. It discusses the New right tactic of privatization by stealth, and the argument that gradualism provides the most effective means of securing educational reform. The paper discusses arguments put forward by the right on the idea of a General Teaching Council (GTC) and argument on the need for the development of a teacher labour market freed from national salary scales. It goes on to examine Mary Warnock's proposals for a GTC and her views of teacher education. The paper examines the likely effects of the implementation of right-wings education policy, concluding that the 1988 Education Reform Act will prepare the ground for the privatization of education and the development of a teacher labour market of the kind proposed by the New Right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of an international controversy which erupted in 1982 over state authortsed changes to Japanese history textbooks. The dispute is analysed in terms off our convergent political, economic and social dynamics. These are the crucial nature of the Japanese state and its educational arm in Japan, the roots and focuses of post-1945 political struggle, the pattern of Japanese postwar development, and the impact of recession and second cold war. The changes to history textbooks are considered to be a state response to promote domestic stability and to legitimise Japan's remilitarisation. The case study highlights the relationship between the state and the educational sphere. It emphasises the political nature of curriculum and curriculum content and challenges the ideology of a 'non-political' educational sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper overviews part of a wider study of femmist teachers, born and educated in New Zealand in the years immediately following World War Two The method used is life history analysis, which explores 'biography, history and social structure.' The first part discusses the post-war educational context through analysing contradictions in curriculum policies and expectations for girls' education and exploring the relevance of these to the resurgence of feminism as a mass social movement amongst 'educated' women of the time. The second part presents two case studies of the school experiences of two New Zealand women who have, as adults, become educators and come to identify themselves as feminists. The focus of the case studies is on the strategtes those women developed to deal with the contradictions in their lives and to trace the beginnings of their political radicalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]