Just say know? Schooling the knowledge society

This review essay challenges the practice of rooting educational theory in the economic assumptions that underlie the current championing of a knowledge society. It examines the approaches of three recent works: one book, Andy Hargreaves's Teaching in a Knowledge Society, and two edited collections, Barry Smith's Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society and Peter Jarvis's The Age of Learning. These works deal with the concept of a knowledge society in terms of the professional development of teachers, the cognitive development of students, and the role of adult education. While these books pose critical and interesting challenges to the idea of a knowledge society, they also speak, as a whole, to the need for a more coherent defense among educators of knowledge's place within a public sphere that is imagined to exist on a global scale. This defense is especially important in the face of an increasingly commercialized approach to knowledge that is affecting schools and universities alike.