Book review: Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference Terry Wrigley, Pat Thomson and Bob Lingard (eds), reviewed by Jonathan Barnes
Abstract
IMPspimpImproving Schools1365-48021475-7583SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England10.1177/136548021243945410.1177_1365480212439454Book reviewBook review: Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference Terry Wrigley, Pat Thomson and Bob Lingard (eds), reviewed by Jonathan BarnesBarnesJonathanCanterbury Christ Church University, UK320121518990WrigleyTerryThomsonPatLingardBob (eds), Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon, pp., £24.99, ISBN 978 0 415 55860 0.© The Author(s) 20122012SAGE PublicationsChanging Schools pulls no punches. Its international authors share powerfully values-based and morally coherent attitudes to education. They see schools as having clear ‘educative, democratic and socially just purposes’, and the many case studies from six countries lend real weight to the fundamental argument that schools can be agents of positive social change. Uniting the chapters of this hopeful book is a coherent mix of related philosophies, exemplified in four continents and many different types of school. The common features include passionate care about: inclusive values, present and future environments, and local communities. With a bias toward communities subject to high degrees of deprivation, disaffection and disenfranchisement, the book focuses on relevant and meaningful experience of children and teachers. Its writers offer an ‘alternative lexicon of change’, and a ‘non-stupid optimism’ which sees difference as a powerful resource and