Living on the Edge

confronts one of the most enduring and controversial issues in education—the nexus between poverty and underachievement.

John Smyth is Visiting Professor of Education and Social Justice at Huddersfield Centre for Research into Education and Society, University of Huddersfield (UK). He is Emeritus Research Professor of Education, Federation University Australia, and Emeritus Professor of Education, Flinders University of South Australia. He is an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a former Senior Fulbright Research scholar and has received several awards from the American Educational Research Association for his research. His most recent books include The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology (2017), The Socially Just School: Making Space for Youth to Speak Back (2014) and Doing Critical Educational Research: A Conversation with the Research of John Smyth (Peter Lang, 2014). His research interests are in critical policy sociology, social justice and ethnographic forms of research. Terry Wrigley is Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, England, and editor of the international journal Improving Schools. His books include The Power to Learn (2000), Schools of Hope (2003), Another School Is Possible (2006), Changing Schools: Alternative Ways to Make a World of Difference (2012) and Social Justice Re-examined (2012). His research interests are in child poverty, inequality and school policy. Peter McInerney is an independent scholar, former high school teacher and former Research Associate at Federation University Australia. He has authored several books with John Smyth including Becoming Educated: Yong People’s Narratives of Disadvantage, Class, Place and Identity (Peter Lang, 2014), From Silent Witnesses to Active Agents: Student Voice in Re-engaging with Learning (Peter Lang, 2012), ‘Hanging in with Kids in Tough Times’: Engagement in Contexts of Educational Disadvantage in the Relational School (Peter Lang, 2010) and Teachers in the Middle: Reclaiming the Adolescent Years of Schooling (Peter Lang, 2007). His research interests are in forms of school reform that promote social justice.

“ tackles tough issues about class, poverty and justice that are of central importance for teachers, parents, policy-makers—and young people. The book combines clear writing, good scholarship, and firm commitment. Clearing a path through the forest of misleading ideas about educational disadvantage, Smyth and Wrigley show the educational damage done by current market-driven policies and testing systems. Bringing together the experience of creative teachers and schools that work well in tough circumstances, they show how schools can make positive and immediate gains for fairness and good education.”—Raewyn Connell, University Chair, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney

“Smyth and Wrigley offer a lively and important intervention into current debates about the importance of class that challenges the real-and-imagined totality of capitalist schooling. It is sure to ruffle cherished beliefs about teaching and learning…readers will find this book to be both provocative and engaging.”—Gregory Martin,

“ should be compulsory reading for all policy-makers and educators in the developed world (the minority world), and then perhaps decisions about where funding should be allocated would be more easily solved.”—Kathryn Paige,

“ critiques [the] straight-jacket testing agenda that is crippling quality education and exacerbating the problems of poverty… It asserts that quality teaching and learning is a social justice issue.”—Janine Kitson,

“There is no doubt that is an example of leading critical scholarship… There is much to commend in this new book, but perhaps my highest praise is that I will be recommending it to my policy-making colleagues.”—Brenton Prosser,

“ is a profoundly important book, and given that the policies of the present UK government are likely to make the situation worse, a timely one for British readers. I hope it will be widely read.”—Derek Gillard,

“One of the strengths of the book is the care and detail with which arguments are built, thereby silencing possible criticism of bias due to the (frankly stated) adherence by the authors to critical sociological traditions.”—Kitty te Riele,

“This book is an essential reading for anyone requiring a sophisticated understanding for how education and class interrelate in ways that reinforce and reproduce social stratification and inequality.”—Carlo Raffo,

“This timely book should be a wake-up call for the commentariat, policy makers, as well as, educators and researchers that so-called bootstrapping has always been an individual solution to what is in reality a class-related and community-wide problem… Those who read this book will be better equipped whether they are teachers, policy makers or politicians to create for .”—David Zyngier,

“Smyth and Wrigley do a fantastic job of slowly scaffolding their argument around the concept of what class and poverty really are (and what they are not) and how students, families, communities, teachers, and schools are impacted by those things… I found myself exclaiming ‘Yes!’ and ‘Of course!’…throughout the book…. I commend the authors for their comprehensive look at class and poverty and how they impact schooling.”—Scott Farver,

“Smyth and Wrigley’s book is an uncompromising exploration of the factors that contribute to the continuing marginalisation by schools of children [of disadvantage]… This book would have transformed my thinking and practices [as a beginning teacher]. It will do the same for any educator and policy-maker intent on achieving more socially just schooling.”—Jane Pearce,

“This is an inspirational and timely book…surprisingly few books on social justice and education tackle the topic of poverty, and even fewer tackle it as comprehensively and coherently as .… This is a book of hope.”—Hanneke Jones,

“ …is a highly readable and productively usable book. It is also a timely, necessary and unblinking account of neoliberalism’s power as it diminishes education to a bruising ‘bottom line’. As Stephen Ball urges [in his endorsement], it is a book that ‘cannot and must not be ignored’.”—N. Geoffrey Bright,

“This book addresses what is now the central but unaddressed issue in education policy in developed societies—the abhorrent, debilitating and humiliating relationship between poverty and schooling. Smyth and Wrigley rigorously and painfully lay out this relationship and all its aspects and shame us all—policymakers most of all! This is a book that cannot, must not be ignored.”—Stephen Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London