My Account Wish List
Advanced Search
Print - Close Window
www.greenwood.com/catalog/C8029.aspx
All Greenwood Products
Education and Public Choice A Critical Account of the Invisible Hand in Education
Nesta Devine
Book Code: C8029
ISBN: 0-275-98029-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-98029-0
218 pages, photo
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 12/30/2004
List Price: $95.00 (UK Sterling Price: £54.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • [E]ducationists, especially teachers, need to examine the language of economics as applied to education with a suspicious and analytic care. Only then, Devine suggests, will we retrieve the sort of education that has room for altruism, kindness, differences and debate from the policy dustbin into which it has been thrown.
    —The Times Educational Supplement     June 10. 2005
Description: The single most important educational theory in schools and universities today is not derived from Dewey, Piaget, R. S. Peters, or any other significant researcher or theorist in education. It is "public choice" theory, which is derived from neo-classical economics. It is this theory that licenses talk of "accountability"; "provider capture"; "outcomes"; and "delivery" as the most significant aspects of education, and thereby sets aside the discourses of "responsibility"; "professionalism"; "social justice"; and "learning." Public choice theory is defined by its proponents as the application of economics to politics. It is based on the assumption that economics is the paradigmatic social science that can provide answers to all social questions. By reducing all political and social questions of a particular form of economics it reduces society to a market that is subject to the forces of supply and demand. Citizens become consumers rather than members of a civil society entitled to certain rights. This work describes public choice theory in its component parts and as a coherent and potent contemporary factor influencing education today.
LC Card Number: 2003058155
LCC Class: LC67
Dewey Class: 379
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571