The promise, embraced by governments around the world, is that the knowledge economy will provide knowledge workers with a degree of autonomy and permission to think which enables them to be creative and to attract high incomes. What credence should we give to this promise? The current economic crisis is provoking a reappraisal of both economic and educational policy. Policy makers and educationists across the world see education as central to economic competitiveness. However, this book asks fundamental questions about the relationship between the economy and education since, in contrast to policy makers’ rhetoric, the relationship between the two sectors is not straightforward. An unorthodox account of the knowledge economy and economic globalisation suggests that autonomy in the workplace and permission to think will be only given to the elite. In this view many aspirant well-educated middle-class young workers are doomed to disappointment. In this book, leading scholars from the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand discuss these issues and interrogate the assumptions and links between the different elements of education and how they might relate to the economy. Even if we assume that the official view of the knowledge economy is correct, are we educating young people to be autonomous, creative thinkers? Are current policies relating to knowledge, learning and assessment consistent with the kinds of workers and skills required for the knowledge economy? Educating for the Knowledge Economy? will appeal to academics, policy makers, teachers and students interested in the central role of education in the knowledge economy.

In New Zealand there has been a major struggle between educationists and the Treasury. The recently published Picot Report on administration and education offers something to both Left and Right the government hand has accepted its major conclusions. In the light of these recent developments, the papers in this volume, drawn from a recent conference instigated by the Royal Commission on Social Policy, provide a commentary on the fast moving scene in policy terms.

Product Description: What unites the contributors to this book is an opposition to Thatcherite policies on education and an agreement upon the need for the development of democracy in education. This volume highlights the importance of an area of neglected theoretical and practical concern: the development of a critique of the philosophy and policies of the new Right, and of credible alternative policies...read more

Product Description: Inequalities in educational opportunity have been a persistent feature of all school systems for generations, with conventional explanations of differences in educational attainment tending to be reduced to either quantitative or non-quantitative 'list' theories...read more

Product Description: Debates about good governance are increasingly focused on the coordination failure that occurs when several agencies are required to act in concert with each other, and this monograph looks at just such a case in the South African government's efforts to "join up" education and work to produce a skilled labor force...read more

Product Description: Today, economic success is seen as depending on the creation of a high-skilled workforce. This is the first book to offer a comparative examination of national routes to a 'high skill' economy. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: This text argues that the faith in educational markets is misplaced. Throughout the English speaking world and now Western Europe and parts of East Asia, parental choice and educational markets are being seen by politicians and policy advisors as the apanacea to problems of low educational standards and social exclusion...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: This book is for everyone concerned with the social study of education, placing it at the center of political and sociological debate about post-industrial societies. The fifty-two papers examine major changes that have taken place in the late twentieth century, giving students a comprehensive introduction to both the nature of these changes and to their interpretation in relation to long-standing debates within education, sociology, and cultural studies...read more

Product Description: This collection reviews debates and reforms in education in the light of recent theories of post-Fordism. The contributors argue that advances in technology and mass communications have made it increasingly plausible to talk about the rise of the "information" society...read more