ABSTRACT

This volume brings together an international set of contributors in education research, policy and practice to respond to the influence the noted academic Professor Michael Young has had on sociology, curriculum studies and professional knowledge over the past fifty years, and still has on the field to this day. It provides a critical analysis of his work and the uses to which it has been put in the UK and internationally, discussing implications for debates on the purpose of education and how school curricula, as well as programmes in other educational settings, could be run and teaching undertaken, based on his contribution.

Following Michael’s long and distinguished career – dating back to before Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education, which Michael edited in 1971 – recent years have seen an upsurge in both academic and policy interest in his work, including the new concern he expressed for knowledge in his 2007 book Bringing Knowledge Back In.

The book concludes with an appreciation and a response to the authors from Michael Young and a Coda from Charmian Cannon, who was on the Institute of Education panel that appointed Michael to his post in 1967. This timely book is a unique critique and celebration, written by experts whose own careers have been affected by Michael, and will appeal to all those with an interest in the work of Michael Young.

section 1|91 pages

Sociology of education

chapter 1|14 pages

Taking subject knowledge out and putting it back in again?

A journey in the company of Michael Young

chapter 2|12 pages

The new organon of Michael Young

chapter 3|14 pages

‘Beyond the present and the particular’

Similarities and differences between Michael Young’s and Charles Bailey’s arguments for the public provision of liberating forms of education for all

chapter 4|16 pages

Powerful sociological knowledge?

An analysis of the British Sociological Association and the Sociology School Curriculum in England

chapter 6|13 pages

What is educationally worthwhile knowledge?

Revisiting the case for powerful knowledge

section 2|75 pages

Curriculum studies

chapter 10|14 pages

The road to Future 3

The case of geography

chapter 13|13 pages

‘Making’ and ‘taking’ problems

The curriculum field and Michael Young

section 3|82 pages

Professional/vocational knowledge and education

chapter 14|17 pages

Professional knowledge in the 21st century

‘Immaterial’ labour and its challenge for the ‘trinary’

chapter 15|17 pages

From the ‘general’ to the ‘organic’ intellect

Reflections on the concepts of specialization and the curriculum of the future

chapter 16|15 pages

Learning from qualification reform

The value and limitations of the notion of powerful knowledge

chapter 18|15 pages

Conceptualising vocational knowledge

The high road, the middle road and the low road

section 4|20 pages

A response and memories

chapter 19|16 pages

Appreciation and a response

chapter 20|2 pages

Michael Young – some memories