Table Of ContentRadical Education and the
Common School
‘Radical Education and the Common School is a truly thoughtful book. It combines power-
ful social and educational criticism with a sensitivity to powerful possibility. Reading
it will demonstrate to critically democratic educators why we should be fully engaged
with thick versions of democracy in education.’ Michael W. Apple, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, US
‘Every now and then there comes a book on education to make the blood course
through your veins and steel your resolve that ‘It doesn’t have to be like it is’; you
know after reading it that something else better is possible. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of
the Oppressed and John Holt’s How Children Fail spring to mind. Well here’s another to
stand alongside their work. Written with passion and incisiveness in equal measure,
it will lift the spirits and re-energise all who are engaged in education not simply as
a means of earning a living but as a way of changing the world for the better.’ Tim
Brighouse, formerly London Schools Commissioner
‘This is a necessary book – particularly now! It is human and hopeful, but at the same
time realistic and challenging. It builds its argument on cases, on practice and on
experience to offer a different future for education – a democratic common school
that serves the needs of students, communities and society. It should be compulsory
reading for all would-be ministers of education.’ Stephen Ball, Institute of Education,
University of London, UK
‘This is an important, timely and passionate book which should be read by anyone
concerned with the future of education and democracy. In their clear-sighted vision
of the common school as a laboratory for building a sustainable, inclusive and demo-
cratic world, Fielding and Moss remind us not only that we can imagine alternative
and better futures, but that there are steps we can take to build them.’ Keri Facer,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
What is education, what is it for and what are its fundamental values? How do we
understand knowledge and learning? What is our image of the child and the school?
How does the ever more pressing need to develop a more just, creative and sustain-
able democratic society affect our responses to these questions?
Addressing these fundamental issues, Radical Education and the Common School: a demo-
cratic alternative contests the current mainstream dominated by markets and competi-
tion, instrumentality and standardisation, managerialism and technical practice. The
book argues instead for a new public education, showing it is possible to think and
practise differently. There are alternatives!
The authors argue for a radical education with democracy as a fundamental value,
care as a central ethic, a person-centred education that is education in the broadest
sense and an image of a child rich in potential. Radical education should be practised
in the ‘common school’, a school for all children in its local catchment area, age-
integrated, human scale, focused on depth of learning and based on team work. A
school understood as a public space for all citizens, a collective workshop of many
purposes and possibilities, and a person-centred learning community, working closely
with other schools and with local authorities. The book concludes by examining how
we might bring such transformation about.
Written by two of the leading experts in the fields of early childhood and secondary
education, the book covers a wide vista of education for children and young people.
Vivid examples from a range of stages of education are used to explore the full mean-
ing of radical democratic education and the common school and how they can work
in practice. It connects rich thinking and experiences from the past and present to
offer direction and hope for the future. It will be of interest and inspiration to all who
care about education – teachers and students, academics and policy makers, parents
and politicians.
Michael Fielding is Professor of Education and Peter Moss is Professor of Early
Childhood Provision, Institute of Education, University of London, UK.
Foundations and Futures of Education
Series Editors:
Peter Aggleton School of Education and Social Work, University of Sussex, UK
Sally Power Cardiff University, UK
Michael Reiss Institute of Education, University of London, UK
Foundations and Futures of Education focuses on key emerging issues in education as well
as continuing debates within the field. The series is interdisciplinary, and includes
historical, philosophical, sociological, psychological and comparative perspectives on
three major themes: the purposes and nature of education; increasing interdisciplinar-
ity within the subject; and the theory–practice divide.
Previous titles include:
Language, Learning, Context
Wolff-Michael Roth
Learning, Context and the Role of Technology
Rosemary Luckin
Education and the Family
Passing success across the generations
Leon Feinstein, Kathryn Duckworth and Ricardo Sabates
Education, Philosophy and the Ethical Environment
Graham Haydon
Educational Activity and the Psychology of Learning
Judith Ireson
Schooling, Society and Curriculum
Alex Moore
Gender, Schooling and Global Social Justice
Elaine Unterhalter
Education – An ‘Impossible Profession’?
Tamara Bibby
Being a University
Ronald Barnett
Schools and Schooling in the Digital Age
Neil Selwyn
School Trouble
Deborah Youdell
Forthcoming titles include:
Irregular Schooling
Roger Slee
The Struggle for the History of Education
Gary McCulloch
Radical Education and
the Common School
A democratic alternative
Michael Fielding and Peter Moss
First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2011 Michael Fielding and Peter Moss
The right of Michael Fielding and Peter Moss to be identified as authors of
this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fielding, Michael, 1945–
Radical education and the common school / by Michael Fielding and Peter Moss.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Educational innovations. 2. Education—Aims and objectives.
3. Educational change. 4. Education—Philosophy. 5. Radicalism. 6. Alternative education.
7. Education—Experimental methods. 8. Educational innovations—Europe—
Case studies. 9. Educational innovations—Great Britain—Case studies.
I. Moss, Peter, 1945– II. Title.
LB1027.F45 2011
370.11'5—dc22
2010022533
ISBN 0-203-83740-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978–0–415–49828–9 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–49829–6 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–83740–5 (ebk)
To the memory of Alex Bloom and Loris Malaguzzi who
understood why democracy matters and what we might
do to live and learn together more joyfully and more justly.
Contents
List of boxes and tables xi
Acknowledgements xiii
1 The state we’re in 1
Two tales of hope 3
Hope and despair 14
The politics of depoliticisation 21
Some missed opportunities 24
Putting education in perspective 33
Where to? 37
2 Democratic radical education 39
Towards a radical education 40
Values 40
Democracy at the heart 41
Ethics and relationships 44
The concept of education 46
Images 52
Rationale for a radical education 57
Drawing strength from the past 65
Critiques of progressivism 68
Democratic practice in radical education and the common school 73
3 The democratic common school 87
In defence of the school 88
The common school: what do we mean? 89
Why the common school? 107
The singularity of the common school 113
Responsibility of and for the common school 121
Inequality and choice: two thorny issues 128
