Schooling, Childhood, and Bureaucracy : Bureaucratizing the Child

In exploring the relationship between bureaucratic schooling and the individual child, Waters describes the persistence of educational inequality, child development, and the nature of bureaucracy. The conclusions point out how education bureaucracies frame both schooling and childhood as they relentlessly seek to create ever more perfect children.

Schooling, Childhood, and Bureaucracy uses sociological explanations to describe how the school system in the United States developed, and why reform is a constant. The American public school system is elemental to the reproduction of society''s ideals. Such ideals in turn affect how relationships between teachers, parents, children, schools, and the state develop. Most notably, this results in chronic demands for reform when the high ideals for individual children in terms of "school success," defined as test scores, student behavior, equity, and so forth, are inevitably never quite achieved. The reasons why are embedded in a tension between bureaucracy, and the love individual parents have for individual children.In exploring the relationship between bureaucratic schooling and the individual child, this book describes the persistence of educational inequality, child development, and the nature of bureaucracy. The conclusions point out how education bureaucracies frame both schooling and childhood as they relentlessly seek to create ever more perfect children.