1st Edition

Schooling as Violence How Schools Harm Pupils and Societies

By Clive Harber Copyright 2005
    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    Asking fundamental and often uncomfortable questions about the nature and purposes of formal education, this book explores the three main ways of looking at the relationship between formal education, individuals and society:

    * that education improves society
    * that education reproduces society exactly as it is
    * that education makes society worse and harms individuals.

    Whilst educational policy documents and much academic writing and research stresses the first function and occasionally make reference to the second, the third is largely played down or ignored.

    In this unique and thought-provoking book, Clive Harber argues that while schooling can play a positive role, violence towards children originating in the schools system itself is common, systematic and widespread internationally and that schools play a significant role in encouraging violence in wider society. Topics covered include physical punishment, learning to hate others, sexual abuse, stress and anxiety, and the militarization of school. The book both provides detailed evidence of such forms of violence and sets out an analysis of schooling that explains why they occur. In contrast, the final chapter explores existing alternative forms of education which are aimed at the development of democracy and peace.

    This book should be read by anyone involved in education - from students and academics to policy-makers and practitioners around the world.

    1. Is Formal Education Always Good for You?
    2. Authoritarian Schooling
    3. Schooling and Violence
    4. Control, Surveillance, Reproduction and Perpetration : Inhuman Capital Theory
    5. Schooling as Terrorism : Physical punishment
    6. Schooling and Learning to Hate the 'Other'
    7. Schooling as Sexual Abuse
    8. Schooling Can make You Ill : Stress, Anxiety and Examinations
    9. Learning to Kill : Schooling and Militarisation
    10. Education for Democracy and Peace

    Biography

    Clive Harber is Head of the School of Education at the University of Birmingham. He has had a distinguished career in education and written very many papers, chapters and books in the field.

    Times Educational Supplement Book of the Week

    'For anyone interested in school systems, this book is essential reading ... [It] is stirring stuff for those who believe that the current mass-schooling system is fundamentally damaging to children's human rights.' - Terri Dowty, 0-19

    'Throughout the volume, Harber adopts a world-encompassing perspective, citing examples from a wide variety of nations to illustrate the ubiquitous nature of schooling violence.' - Educational Review