Advancing a three-fold political agenda, this volume:

* illuminates how the meanings assigned to a whole vocabulary of words and phrases frequently used to discuss the role and reform of U.S. public schools reflect an essentially economic view of the world;

* contends that education or educational reform conducted under an economized worldview will only intensify the effects of the colonial relations of political and economic domination that it breeds at home and abroad; and

* offers a set of alternative concepts and meanings for reformulating the role of U.S. public schools and for considering the implications of such a reformulation more generally for the underlying premises of all human relationships and activities.

Toward these ends, the authors, in Part I, critically examine many of the most commonly used terms within the rhetoric of educational reform since the early 1980s and before.

Part II links today's economized worldview to curricular and instructional issues. These essays are especially important for comprehending how the organization of school curriculum privileges those disciplines deemed most central to market expansion--math and science--and how the political centrality of the economic sphere influences the nature of the knowledge presented in specific content areas.

Given that language constrains as well as advances human thought, the twin tasks of de-economizing education and decolonizing society will require a vocabulary that transcends the familiar terminologies addressed in Parts I and II. The entries in Part III cultivate the beginnings of such a vocabulary as the authors elucidate innovative concepts which they view as central to the creation of truly alternative educational visions and practices.

Illuminates how the meaning of language used to discuss the role & reform of US public schools reflects an essentially economic view of the world, and offers a set of alternative concepts & meanings for reformulating the role of US public schools.

Global economy / Noam Chomsky — Crisis / Karen A. Barnhardt — Choice / Joel Spring — Reform / Thomas S. Popkewitz — Leadership / Wanda Pillow — Accountability / David A. Gabbard — Discipline / Felecia M. Briscoe — Classroom management / William E. Doll, Jr. — Learning / Eleanor Blair Hilty — Literacy / Colin Lankshear — Ideology / Michael A. Weinstein — Empowerment / H. Svi Shapiro — Inclusive education / Linda Ware — Gifted education / Mara Sapon-Shevin — Desegregation / Marvin J. Berlowitz and Ivan Watts — Race / Joyce E. King — Class / Steve Tozer — Gender / Kathleen Bennett deMarrais — Curriculum / Brent Davis and Dennis J. Sumara — Arts education / Leila Villaverde — Language arts education / Alan A. Block — Bilingual education / Robert E. Bahruth — Cultural literacy / Donaldo Macedo — Multicultural education / Etta R. Hollins — Cultural studies / Crystal Bartolovich — Social studies education / E. Wayne Ross — Moral education / David E. Purpel — Service learning / George Perreault — Environmental education / C.A. Bowers — Global education / Robin Good and Madhu Suri Prakash — Science education / Helen Parke and Charles R. Coble — Math education / Maggie McBride and Kathryn Ross Wayne — Educational computing / C.A. Bowers — Educational technology / Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. — Technological literacy / Mark D. Beatham — Media literacy / Daniel Kmitta — Vocational education / Joe L. Kincheloe — Adult and continuing education / Vivian Wilson Mott — Critical pedagogy / Peter McLaren — Postcolonialism / Bernardo P. Gallegos — Critical race theory / Gloria Ladson Billings — Critical feminist pedagogy / Jeanne F. Brady — Biocentric education / Robin Good and Madhu Suri Prakash — Situated cognition / David Kirshner and James A. Whitson — Individualization / Leslie A. Sassone — Dialogue / Nicholas C. Burbules — Public franchise / Jeffrey Williams.