Robert F. Arnove

How can youthful talent become world-class talent? Talent Abounds tells the stories of master teachers and their students who raise performance to peak levels in classical music and conducting, jazz, opera, modern dance, chess, mathematics, swimming and diving, and the culinary arts. The book is unique in its scope and depth of exploration of different fields of endeavor and the individuals who have shaped them. Readers hear the voices of famous performers, from Leonard Bernstein to Joshua Bell and Mark Spitz, as they describe their early family experiences and formative years, the progression of teachers and coaches they had, their performance careers, educational philosophy and teaching practices, and their legacies. Important questions are explored throughout: Is exceptional talent an innate quality? Even so, does its fulfillment depend on the intervention of expert teachers? How do social class, gender, and ethnicity influence access to instructional and performance opportunities? Can lessons learned in one particular national and cultural context or in one performance field be extended to other societies and fields? How does public policy shape the recognition and development of talent? The concluding chapter offers insights into how public education can nurture the talent of all individuals.

Profiles of Master Teachers and Peak Performers

Talent Abounds

Margaret Sutton

State/NGO Relations in Education

Civil Society or Shadow State?

Provides new perspectives on the dynamic interplay of global, national, and local forces as they shape the functions and outcomes of education systems. The book calls for a rethinking of the nation-state as the basic unit for analyzing school-society relations and emphasizes the need to study social movements in relation to educational reforms.

The Dialectic of the Global and the Local

Comparative Education

Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism is intended as a source book on the origins, workings, and consequences of modern general-purpose foundations. The text encompasses the activities of foundations--prinicpally Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford--in the production of culture and the formation of public policy. Particular attention is given to the policies of the big foundations in the fields of education and social science research. The authors write from the perspectives of history, sociology, comparative education, and educational policy studies. Their chapters are based on original research. While the contributors do not share a uniform ideological framework, they do have in common a structural point of view--they examine foundations with regard to their functioning in society. They analyze the implications of foundations' organizational characteristics, modus operandi, and substantive decisions for social control or social change. A distinguishing feature of Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism is its systematic, critical analysis of the sociopolitical consequences of these powerful institutions. A central thesis is that foundations like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford have a corrosive influence on a democratic society; they represent relatively unregulated and unaccountable concentrations of power and wealth which buy talent, promote causes, and, in effect, establish an agenda of what merits society's attention.

Robert F. Arnove

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