Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age [Paperback]

Michael W. Apple (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1993 | ISBN-10: 0415907497 | ISBN-13: 978-0415907491 | Edition: 1

A powerful examination of the rightist resurgence in education and the challenges it presents to concerned educators, Official Knowledge analyzes the effects of conservative beliefs and strategies on educational policy and practice. Apple looks specifically at the conservative agenda's incursion into education through the curriculum, textbook adoption policies and the efforts of the private and business sectors to centralize its interests within schools. At the same time, however, he points out areas of hope for the future, showing how students and teachers have continued the struggle and are now successfully engaged in building more democratic education policies and practices. Finally, Apple writes in personal terms about his own teaching techniques and work with students which challenge some of the ideological and educational policies and practices of the Right.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Michael Apple is among the most distinguished scholars in the world who are involved in this struggle to build a critical and democratic education." -- Paulo Freire

"...a humanistic document for our positivistic educational times. ...Mike Apple has reaffirmed and amplified his unique contribution." -- Paul Willis

"7We may be living in a time of turning points and beginnings. This book not only energizes; it helps chart the way." -- Maxine Greene

About the Author

Michael W. Apple is John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the editor of the Critical Social Thought series (Routledge).

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (March 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415907497
• ISBN-13: 978-0415907491
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,603,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Officially Angry, November 28, 2011

By 

Ceek - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (Paperback)

This book has changed the way I "read" education. For example, a recent New York Times article raised the seemingly innocuous question of what public schools were doing for their highest achievers in an age of preoccupation with raising overall proficiency. The article cited recent research by the Fordham Institute. Official Knowledge cautions its reader to question the institutions working to shape the debate on education reform, so I looked the Fordham Institute up. Sure enough, it was a conservative nonprofit think tank with an agenda: the reinstatement of large-scale tracking in public schools. Tracking has been abandoned for almost twenty years after an avalanche of research demonstrated that it encouraged de facto segregation. Connecting these dots, I returned to my reading of Official Knowledge, and of how Apple describes the political, cultural, and economic philosophies of the conservative restoration running through the veins of much education research and its conclusions. This book helps you understand the underlying motivations of en vogue education reform, and question their true goals.

Apple attempts to describe a conservative ideological alliance that is actively remaking American public education today. As an example of this, he describes how neoliberal institutions seek to reconceptualize "democracy" to mean the freedom of market-style choice. In such a model, the citizen is reformed as a consumer. Thus, reforming schools means applying the market rules to public education and allowing schools to compete for students. Unsurprisingly, this movement supports voucher and charter movements, and is obsessed with using supposedly objective standardized tests as a means of classifying and stratifying our students into "high" and "low" flyers. In this mechanistic view of school, students are parts to be fashioned for the machinery of the economy; the sooner we can separate the widgets from the lug nuts, the better. He goes on to describe how neoliberal goals align with the values of neoconservatives and authoritarian populists, as well as a new managerial class that serves to carry out the measuring and accountability such a system demands.

The book is not perfect. Apple's goal is construct a grand narrative of how American education arrived at its current state rather than linger too long in the nitty gritty of case studies. When empirical evidence is produced, he focuses on what I would consider to be sideshow targets--the history of state textbook adoption policies, or the rise of Channel 1 for example, rather than, say, examples of how Texas-approved textbooks whitewash curriculum and deskill teachers. In these cases, we're expected to take his word for it.

Nonetheless, the book is remarkable in its prescience. Despite the second edition being written at the turn of the millennium, Apple correctly forecasts the rise of standardized testing as the arbiter of students' "progress" and identifies the conservative alliance advancing an ever-encroaching accountability and market-based "choice" culture that shifts blame for students' performance from socioeconomic conditions to teachers and the students themselves. History has proven many of Apple's theories correct, and makes Official Knowledge well worth reading for anyone interested in education.

4.0 out of 5 stars Capitalizm is here to stay, Democracy is for those who can pay., February 28, 2010

By 

Daniel J. Peterson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (Paperback)

"Offical Knowledge" is an incredible book which serves many purposes in the curriculum debate. Teachers who are feeling frustrated at the burgeoning, trivial official standards being dictated by State and Federal Government mandates will take heart to know that they are not alone. Teachers are trained for years to facilitate learning in their classrooms, but official knowledge is becoming a script. The only way for a new teacher to survive is to march lock-step to the dictates of agencies which are driven by political expediency. The capitalist masses (mob) are not interested in providing a relevant education to all children regardless of race, creed, national origin or socio-economic status. Unfortunately, this capitalist way thinking is so entrenched in U.S. society, and the symbolic solutions which Apple offers will never be adopted by the mob.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for the educator committed to equity, February 26, 2000

By 

Guillermo Mendieta (Los Angeles, California - The Achievement Council) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (Paperback)

In the same school as dewey, ira shor and others thinkers who have been able to clearly describe the connections between democracy, access to schooling and the curriculum. A must read for anyone who thinks we have the right to question both the policies and the content of schooling!