Political Relationship and Narrative Knowledge: A Critical Analysis of School Authoritarianism

(Hardback)

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Armitage taught for one year in a British grammar school from 1971 to 1972 when the school amalgamated with a secondary modern school to form a comprehensive school. He followed the political practices and episodes of the amalgamation in relation to their political and educational significance. The amalgamation seemed to result in an ineffective and underperforming school and he tried to introduce practical and constructive changes. His narrative describes his political struggle to reform the school in the face of an anti-democratic and authoritarian culture. The causes of failure are analyzed, and the real, complex, and messy functioning of a school system uncovered. The need to understand the politics and culture of schooling is advocated. A model of micropolitical action and responsibility is demonstrated that could help result in improvement of educational institutions.

Reviews

"Rarely if ever have I read such a subtle critique of the pathetic inadequacy of an authoritarian practice in a single institution....This is a book far greater than the sum of its parts and deserves a wide readership among social scientists and theorists."-Bernard Crick Chairman of the UK official advisory group on The Teaching of Citizenship and Democracy in Schools
"This is a considerable and learned work by an educationalist steeped in contemporary authorities. We might expect to have found such an erudite author quite early in his career pontificating in the rarefied groves of Academe. Instead, ...he is slogging it out at the coal-face as an assistant teacher. I want to say that the Narrative for me had a compelling fascination....Certainly it is a book for all educationalists."-Jack Hodges Author of The Maker of the Omnibus: Lives of English Writers Compared (1993) and The Heart of the Writer: The Public and Private Lives of English Writers (1994)

Author Bio

PETER B. ARMITAGE is an independent writer and researcher and lives in Annandale, Virginia.