This book completes the series of readers for the Open University's undergraduate course EU208 Exploring Educational Issues. It brings together informed writings from a variety of research paradigms. One of the major themes of the book is the current controversy over early years education. It explores the nursery voucher scheme, the relationship between school and parents, the goals of education, and how quality can be controlled. The book also examines issues of inequality in terms of class, race and gender, and offers readers a chance to re-evaluate themselves and their children within new frameworks of thought, practice and policy.

This book completes the series of readers for the Open University's undergraduate course EU208 Exploring Educational Issues. It brings together informed writings from a variety of research paradigms.
One of the major themes of the book is the current controversy over early years education. It explores the nursery voucher scheme, the relationship between school and parents, the goals of education, and how quality can be controlled.
The book also examines issues of inequality in terms of class, race and gender, and offers readers a chance to re-evaluate themselves and their children within new frameworks of thought, practice and policy.

It is not only the UK education system which has recently undergone a process of change, although it has certainly been one of the most dramatically affected. Free market conceptions have played their part in these changes, particularly throughout the European Union. This collection therefore focuses on the economic and social contexts for education both in the UK and internationally, and how these have had an impact on the education systems of different countries. The authors write from a wide range of standpoints, some supportive and some critical of the new paradigms, but all focus on the traditions which have been subjected to ideological attacks, and in the processes and outcomes of those attacks.

It is not only the UK education system which has recently undergone a process of change, although it has certainly been one of the most dramatically affected. Free market conceptions have played their part in these changes, particularly throughout the European Union. This collection therefore focuses on the economic and social contexts for education both in the UK and internationally, and how these have had an impact on the education systems of different countries.
The authors write from a wide range of standpoints, some supportive and some critical of the new paradigms, but all focus on the traditions which have been subjected to ideological attacks, and in the processes and outcomes of those attacks.