Research and writing on secondary education is often a specialised treatment of isolated themes. This reader draws together the most significant work of recent years across a whole range of themes to give students and new teachers an overview of some of the most important issues and challenges that faced secondary teachers in the 1990s. It looks at the central players - the children and the teachers - at the classrooms in which they work together; at the curriculum, both implicit and overt; and at the wider community and political context of secondary education. Divided into sections to allow easy access to material of interest, the book covers: * learners * teachers * classrooms * curriculum * schools. Throughout, the reader addresses the crucial issues of effectiveness, quality and achievement and how these will influence the work of the secondary teacher in the coming years.

Table of Contents:
Part 1. Introduction 1. Legislation and Development in Secondary Eucation: An Introduction 2. Why no Pedagogy in England? Part 2. Learners 3. A Question of Ability? 4. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences 5. Widening the Education Concept 6. How Children Learn ... Implications for Practice 7. Adolescence 8. Sex Roles and the School 9. Acknowledging Disadvantages 10. Cultural Factors in Child-rearing and Attitudes to Education 11. Learner Needs or Learner Rights? 12. What Do Students Think about School? Part 3. Teachers 13. What Makes a Good Teacher? 14. Teacher Expertise 15. Teachers First Encounters with their Classes 16. Those Who Understand: Knowledge growth in teaching 17. Teaching as a Professional Activity 18. Teacher Expectations 19. Teachers and Cross-cultural Counselling Part 4. Classrooms 20. Life in Classrooms 21. Classroom Variables 22. Managing Groupwork 23. Classrooms, Language and Communication 24. Sex Stereotyping in the Classroom 25. Managing Classes 26. Computers, Curriculum and the Learning Environment 27. New Technology and its Impact on Classrooms Part 5. Curriculum 28. The Core Curriculum: An international perspective 29. The Entitlement Curriculum 30. Grounding Comes First 31. The National Curriculum: Origins, context and implementation 32. Academic Drift - Towards a New Focus for the Education System 33. Assessment: A changing practice 34. Assessment and the Improvement of Education 35. Assessment and Gender 36. Methods of Assessment: Value for money Part 6. Schools 37. The Organisation of the Secondary School 38. The Quality of Schooling: Frameworks for judgement 39. Measuring Added Value in Schools 40. Standards in Literacy and Numeracy 41. Black Children's Experience of the Education System 42. Primary - Secondary Transfer after the National Curriculum 43. Involving Parents