ARTICLE IN PRESS

doi:10.1016/j.ije

International Journal of Educational Development 26 (2006) 451

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

Short notices

Doomed to Fail. The Built-in Defects of American Education

Paul A. Zoch, 2004, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, ISBN 1-56663-567-5, pages 237, price: US$26.95

This book, written by a practising teacher in America, questions what he sees as the common assumption ineducation, that there is a cause and effect relationship between teachers’ action and students’ learning. Hecontends that students in America are failing simply because they are not working hard enough. In the bookhe argues that this situation is the result of the continued influence of Behaviourist Theory on Americaneducational thinking, and he goes on to suggest that this has been reinforced by the interpretation of morerecent theories such as Multiple Intelligences. He concludes that the outcome has been an American schoolsystem in which learning is expected to be easy, struggle free and natural. A contrast is made with countriessuch as Japan, which he argues make no allowance for the individual differences between students but whichare identified by him as highly successful. The solution suggested for this problem is a rigorous, subject-basedNational Curriculum accompanied by a system of national testing. Teachers in countries such as the UK andelsewhere who operate such a system will draw their own conclusions.

Roy BartonUniversity of East Anglia, UK

E-mail: r.barton@uea.ac.uk

Discourse in Educational and Social ResearchMaggie Maclure, 2003 Buckingham: Open University Press ISBN 0335 21090 3 (pbk) 0335 20191 1 (hbk)231 pages

The conduct of research in education is usually seen as a question of ‘us’ researching ‘them’. This isespecially so in regard to researching education in the context of the so-called ‘developing societies’. Indeed,as Escobar and others have pointed out, the language used to describe/construct the ‘Third World’ (theSouth, less developed countries etc) by Western (the North, industrialised, advanced etc) implies adifference with strong power overtones. Whether it is Western researchers investigating education in theSouth or educated elite urban-based researchers in any society investigating educational practices in theirown society, it is always seen as one group seeking to understand ‘the other’. This book examines thisissue—the language used in educational research to construct so-called ‘realities’, the identities ofresearcher and researched. It does not specifically address the ‘development’ paradigm but looks ateducational and social research more widely. It takes many different kinds of examples. My concern wouldbe that it is itself strongly embedded in a Western culture—its examples range from the Simpsons onWestern TV to DH Lawrence; it needs its own deconstruction. But it has many very good and practicalthings to say to researchers in other contexts.

Alan RogersSchool of Education and Lifelong Learning,

University of East Anglia,

Norwich NR4 7TJ

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