Andrew Pollard is Professor of Education Policy and Practice and supports educational research at the IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK. He was Director of the UK-wide Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). Pat Triggs is Research Associate at the University of Bristol, UK.

• Part 1: introduction and research methods; overview of issues; research design and methodology. Part 2: changing contexts; childhood in England in the 1990s; educational changes in the 1990s. Part 3: pupil experience; curriculum; teacher-pupil relationships; learning; assessment. Part 4: conclusion.

"This book is immensely important: it is engagingly written, clearly and helpfully structured, and compelling in both its detail and its broader intellectual canvas...an utterly devastating critique of contemporary approaches to educational reform" --Journal of Educational Change, 2003