Education, Capitalism and the Global Crisis focuses on Andrew Gamble’s book The Spectre at the Feast and its analysis of the background to, conduct of, and possible consequences and opportunities brought about by, the current global economic crisis. The views expressed represent a range of responses to Gamble’s analysis and examination of the crisis, both in different locations and from different perspectives. They reflect upon the broader social, political and even emotional dimensions of what is taking place as well as trying to understand the true nature of the crisis.

What is key is how the state sets about ‘managing’ this crisis. The authors seek to answer a wide range of pertinent questions, such as: to what degree will the state continue to balance between economic and fiscal management as against the needs of the weak and vulnerable? What should be and what is the role of state welfarism in a time of recession? How will different nation states respond to this crisis? What is the role of education policy in these complicated times? What is the role of the education state?

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education Policy.

'The most insightful paper in this collection, for me at least, was that by Goodson which focuses on the narratives of educational reform in several European countries. He suggests that what appear to be different narratives are in fact similar, but they appear different because they wear the cultural vestments of the nations in which narratives are situated.' - Stephen Murgatroyd, Lifelong Learning in Europe Journal 2012

Stephen Ball is the Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK. He is the author of The Education Debate: Policy and Politics in the 21st Century (2008) and Education Plc: Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education (2007). Meg Maguire is Professor of Sociology of Education at King’s College London, UK. She is co-author of Becoming a Teacher: Issues in Secondary Teaching (2011) and Changing Urban Education (2010). Ivor Goodson is Professor of Learning Theory at the University of Brighton, UK and Research Associate at the Von Hugel Institute, University of Cambridge, UK. He is author of Through the Schoolhouse Door (2010) and Investigating the Teacher’s Life and Work (2008).