The media is full of reference to failing schools, troublesome pupils, underperforming boys, disappearing childhood and a teaching profession in crisis as more and more teachers contemplate abandoning their careers. Key Questions in Education looks at the current and historical debates of each of these issues, examining how a multitude of stakeholders have viewed, and still view, childhood and schooling. In highlighting how these same or similar issues have persistently been debated throughout time, John T. Smith shows something of their complexity and the need to break apart these key enduring questions in education. Each chapter covers a key question such as: How far should the state interfere in education? Should schools feed their pupils? and Why do children misbehave? Analysing each key question, chapters discuss how such issues were viewed or defined in the past, what solutions and outcomes were envisaged and compare and contrast how this relates to where we are now. Clear links are made throughout between historical sources and current ideology, policy, practice and research. In opening up these debates through case studies and vignettes, students are encouraged to reflect on how these contentious issues might be resolved and how this affects them as future educators.

This book has three interlocking themes. It is concerned first with the advance and subsequent decline of the Wesleyan Methodist efforts in education during the nineteenth century. Secondly, it is about Dr James Harrison Rigg, an irascible and self-opinionated Victorian minister who became Principal of Westminster Methodist Training College and President of the Methodist Conference. He had a dominant influence over his church for many years and dictated its education policy. He also gained the ear of many in government who were formulating educational legislation, and the book assesses his influence on government ideas. The final and overriding theme of the book is the anti-Catholicism within the Methodist church throughout the nineteenth century, which influenced Wesleyan attitudes towards government education policy in general and towards Anglican `Tractarian' schools in particular. The book is invaluable for students of nineteenth century religious history and is worthwhile for others interested in ecclesiastical history.

The media is full of reference to failing schools, troublesome pupils, underperforming boys, disappearing childhood and a teaching profession in crisis as more and more teachers contemplate abandoning their careers. Key Questions in Education looks at the current and historical debates of each of these issues, examining how a multitude of stakeholders have viewed, and still view, childhood and schooling. In highlighting how these same or similar issues have persistently been debated throughout time, John T. Smith shows something of their complexity and the need to break apart these key enduring questions in education. Each chapter covers a key question such as: How far should the state interfere in education? Should schools feed their pupils? and Why do children misbehave? Analysing each key question, chapters discuss how such issues were viewed or defined in the past, what solutions and outcomes were envisaged and compare and contrast how this relates to where we are now. Clear links are made throughout between historical sources and current ideology, policy, practice and research. In opening up these debates through case studies and vignettes, students are encouraged to reflect on how these contentious issues might be resolved and how this affects them as future educators.

Villages and towns in the Victorian era saw a great expansion in educational provision, and witnessed the rise of the elementary teaching profession, often provided and supported by local clergymen. This book investigates the social and economic relationships of such clergymen and teachers who worked co-operatively and at times in competition with each other, their relative positions typified by the comment of one contemporary clergyman as 'those of master and servant'. The inevitable result was a complex of movements in society in the final third of the nineteenth century that led to increasing clashes in villages, as one group (the clergy) sought to preserve its hold on its status and power, while the other (male and female teachers) attempted to secure their new role in society. The research presented is based on previously unused, original sources -- church documents, HMI reports, newspapers and journals and private papers. It is not confined, as is the case with so much recent research, to the Church of England, but breaks new ground in providing a comparative analysis of the social position and educational work of Roman Catholic and Wesleyan clergy, and their collaboration with their elementary school teachers. This book is essential reading for all those interested in Victorian Education.