Universal Right to Education

• Contents: Preface. Justifying Human and Educational Rights. Justifying a Universal Right to Education for Indigenous and Minority Cultures. The Right to Education in a Global Culture and Economy. Universal Justification for Education and Children's Rights. A Universal Concept of Education: Human Rights Education and Moral Duties. A Universal Concept of Education: Guidelines for Literacy and Numeracy Instruction. Mediating the Effects of World Culture and Economy. Summary: The Universal Right to Education.

"Joel Spring's examination of education as a universal human right provides excellent historical background and information on recent international agreements affecting this right, as well as original contributions of justification, definitions, and guidelines for its implementation....the author's guidelines provide springboards for discussion in teacher education and among teachers in the field..."—Comparative Education Review"Timely, incredibly significant...fills a huge gap in the current educational literature. The focus on children's rights, broadly conceived, is both important and valuable....There are simply no comparable works available."—Timothy ReaganUniversity of Connecticut"This is a very important book. There is nothing like it in the field. It is more than timely--it is an urgent book, long overdue....What makes it so compelling is that the questions it poses are ones that are being hotly contested today in educational literature. Are there universal rights? Should education have a social justice agenda? Given the neoliberal agenda faced by both developed and developing countries throughout the world, the issues set forth for analysis could not be more pertinent at this time. Of course, there is another reason too why a book like this is so urgent--it deals with crucial issues that intersect current debates around class, race, gender, and sexuality....This book is exceedingly well grounded in current theory and research and contributes significantly to a cluster of intersecting fields, from sociology of education, to curriculum theory, to philosophy of education, to the politics of education....Its controversial approach will provoke wide public debate."—Peter McLarenUniversity of California at Los Angeles; author, Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, a