Summary
Contents
About the SeriesThe SAGE Key Concepts series provides students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension.Key Concepts in Education provides students with over 100 essential themes, topics and expressions that Education students are likely to encounter, both during their courses and beyond in professional practice. Co-authored to draw on experiences of working within academia, local authorities and the classroom, the entries provide:a definition of the concepta description of the historical and practical contextan explanation of how the concept is appliedan evaluation of the concepthelpful references and suggested further readingThis book will be essential reading for students of Education, and an invaluable reference tool for their professional careers. About the AuthorsFred Inglis is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sheffield. Lesley Aers is a senior member of a local authority school improvement service and an Ofsted inspector. Both authors are former schoolteachers.
Power
Power
Nothing is more banal than to detect in the commonplace transactions of ordinary life the unacknowledged presence of, say, male power in the ritual humiliation of a wife, or status power when a university teacher puts down a student by sneering at her ignorance. Such incidents are real, repulsive and inevitable. But power in society, whether political or financial, whether carried off by the insolence of office or of inheritance, is also a social fact and the keystone of society. It confers authority; the state is the sole wielder of legitimate violence, and that violence – the police, the military, the prisons, the courts – is the ultimate expression of power, and the final sanction of the law.
So it is merely sentimental to point ...