107Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 103–116

to the topic under discussion. This is followed by‘Key points’ and then a review of the relevantresearch. This review leads to what are referred toas ‘ Informed practices’ and then ‘Key points’ , andeach chapter concludes with some useful furtherreading.

There is rather more in this book than someonelooking for a few quick tips which teaching inhigher education will require. It treats the subjectwith greater respect and professionalism. Itrequires the reader to think rather more about whatone is really doing in a teaching situation and is areminder that this too is a field of social practicewhich can be informed by the research for whichuniversities are supposed to have such greatrespect. I can imagine it being a useful resourcefor those running training programmes for new lec-turers, and it might indeed provide a useful coretext for such a programme.

I search in vain for the unifying theme whichruns through these four starkly contrasting booksabout contemporary higher education. What theyclearly illustrate however is that this field providesfertile territory for analysis, polemic and researchconnected to the many streams of contemporaryintellectual and political life—and one shouldexpect no less.

David Bridges,Van Hugel Institute, St Edmund’s College,

Cambridge CB3 0BN, UK

University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2003.08.006

Citizenship, democracy and lifelong learningEditors: Carolyn Medel-Anonuevo and GordonMitchell, UNESCO Institute for Education, Ham-burg, Germany, 2003, ISBN: 92-820-1128-3, pp190, with diagrams and tables

This book consists of a selection of paperspresented at a three-day international seminar on‘Strengthening Democracy and Critical Citizenshipthrough Lifelong Learning’ , which was part of the

UNESCO Institute of Education’s follow-up to itsFifth International Conference on Adult Education,CONFINTEA V, in Hamburg in 1997. In his Pref-ace, Adama Ouane, Director of the UNESCO Insti-tute for Education, places this collection of essaysin the long and proud history of UNESCO’s inter-est in and commitment to adult education and life-long learning as vital agents of democratic politicsand active citizenship. This theme is elaborated inthe editors’ brief Introduction in which they claim,among other things, that:

It is clear that all over the world, learningdemocracy and democratic practices do not stopwith formal education. It is evident that learningto be tolerant, learning to participate actively incommunity affairs, or learning to be critical, isa lifelong process. (xiii)

They add the caveat that the book is not intendedto be ‘an exhaustive discussion on citizenship,democracy and lifelong learning’ but rather that itsets out to ‘highlight questions that are not oftenraised …. [on the basis of] rich and diverse experi-ences from different countries and regions of theworld’ (xiii).

So, the first question is: what is to be made ofthis book in terms of the editors’ self-ascribedclaims and caveats?

There are nine essays in the collection, theirauthors and/or subject matter hailing (in runningorder) from Ireland, Ivory Coast, Belize, Colum-bia, USA (two papers), South Africa, Bulgaria andUkraine. This is certainly a ‘ rich and diverse’ rangeof source material. The nature of the book’s con-tents is equally varied and various:conceptual/policy analysis; language and politicalliteracy; political reform and pedagogy; crime,violence and moral education; sexual orientationand the struggle for citizenship; migration, democ-racy and citizenship; two (very different) accountsof intercultural education for democracy; and,finally, the challenge of training teachers for cit-izenship education.

But, in view of the positively mushroominggrowth of literature on education and citizenship,there is also, and necessarily, a second question tobe asked: what does this book add to the debate?

108 Book reviews / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 103–116

It certainly adds to the variety of that fashionableyet elusive notion of ‘voice’—and, equally cer-tainly, there is now widespread recognition of theneed for our concept of democracy to be expandedand reformulated in ways which are enriched bydifference. On the other hand, the corollary of thisfor democratic living is to find new educationalways of creating a dialogue between differences.Perhaps the best that can be said for this somewhatvariable collection of essays is that it containssome of the raw material for such a project.

Occasionally, one is brought up short and forcedto think about some of the kind of ‘questionsthat are not often raised’—questions, forinstance, about the possibilities and the limits ofdemocracy; both the potential and the problemsof teaching and learning democracy in contextsin which the material and cultural preconditionsfor citizenship are often denied; the evasionsand elisions that are at work when democraticpolitics is, apparently unconsciously, identifiedexclusively with the market system.

But it must be said that these interesting and dif-ficult questions are ones which are more oftenraised by the conscientious reader’s engagementwith the text as distinct from the writers’ pro-duction of it or, indeed, the editors’ managementof it.

The best that can be said is that some of theseessays (which, unaccountably, range from forty-two pages in length to a mere five) are interestingand thought provoking. In the absence of properediting, however, they amount to little more thana series of idiosyncratic and disconnected casestudies. Indeed, apart from their four page Intro-duction—slight by any serious academic stan-dard—it is not clear what the editors have actuallydone: there is no sectioning or thematising of thetext; there is no attempt to synthesise or problemat-ise or even to link the very varied contributions;there is no conclusion; there is no index! In theend, I don’ t even know what the argument is—andthat seems to me to be an unforgivable abrogationof editorial responsibility.

I eventually closed this book with what I amafraid is the increasingly familiar feeling that what

we need is not lots more new books on lifelonglearning, democracy and citizenship but rather justa few much better books—and, of course, determ-ined recourse to the best accounts the pastbequeaths us. There seems to be so little sense ofthe value of proper historical understanding or sys-tematic theoretical analysis in publishing epiphen-omena of this kind. As citizens of the world, wereally are entitled to expect better of UNESCO.

Ian Martin,University of Edinburgh, Higher and Community

Education, Edinburgh EH8 8AQ, UKE-mail address: ian.martin@ed.ac.uk

doi:10.1016/S0738-0593(03)00089-0

Education in the market place: Hong Kong’sinternational schools and their mode of operationYoko Yamato; Comparative Education ResearchCentre, The University of Hong Kong, HongKong, 2003, xiv + 117 pages, US$16, ISBN9628093576

This book is the direct outcome of a Mastersdissertation undertaken at the University of HongKong, and also of the author’s experience as anexpatriate mother trying to secure schooling placesfor her three children in Hong Kong. It touches ona growing, yet scarcely-researched, topic—that ofinternational schools. Yamato seeks to answer twomain questions: Who do the individual schools tar-get for their educational services? And at whatcost? This research is made especially exciting bythe fact that the Hong Kong government, unlikeseveral other East Asian governments, does notrestrict its citizens’ access to international schools.There has been a mushrooming of such schoolsover the past two decades. The author examineshow these schools attempt to position themselveswithin the market place of education.

Her data were collected in three phases: duringvisits to schools, examination of school documentsand websites, and interviews with school auth-orities. She freely acknowledges key limitations,such as depending excessively on schools’ self-