208 pages
228mm x 145mm
ISBN-10: 1 85856 302 X
ISBN-13: 978 185856 302 2
June 2003
Reprinted due to popular demand January 2005

The drive to improve schools is high on governments' agenda but what do we want for our children? Is education about meeting new targets in, say, mathematics or management, or is it about developing socially responsible, creative and enthusiastic learners?

Schools need to engage with issues of democratic citizenship, critical thinking, creativity and community - achievement in the widest sense. The young are growing up in a fast changing and troubled world, affected by global events, notably of 11 September 2001. They need schools which make each of them welcome, and which embody hope for a better future, an experience of democratic interaction, a vision of social justice.

This book produces a stringent critique of 'school effectiveness and improvement', and draws on curriculum, learning, intelligence, community, equality and inclusion, to offer a new vision of school development, with inspiring examples from across the world.

Terry Wrigley lectures in educational development at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Power to Learn and editor of the journal Improving Schools.

Terry Wrigley makes an excellent case for recognising the different qualities and different sorts of knowledge that working-class students and ethnically diverse communities can bring to school. There is real hope in the work reported here and Wrigley is right to show how it goes beyond the often arid formulations of effectivity and improvement. - British Journal of Educational Studies.