Schools as Dangerous Places

Book excerpt: The lack of serious study on how dangerous schools as institutions can be is a little surprising given that the matter was put squarely on the research agenda in persuasive fashion by Waller back in 1932. The lack of response to the possibilities opened up means that a vibrant research agenda still awaits construction. This book will stimulate debate on the matter from the historical perspective. It consists of fifteen chapters drawing on historical case studies from the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia written by international scholars in the field. These chapters are helpfully grouped into three sections. The first section focuses on certain dangers to which pupils were exposed in the past and on certain dangerous practices which they promoted. The second section examines dangers to which teachers were exposed in the past along with dangerous practices which they themselves promoted. In the final and third section, the chapters explore the dangers to which teachers and students were exposed in the past at the university level. Throughout the book, the emphases range from dangers emanating from the institutions themselves and the patterns of relationships that developed in them, to what occurred due to particular ideologies and practices connected with sport, sex, religion, and science. Schools as Dangerous Places delivers a historical perspective of schools in a manner that is most unusual. This unique study helps us examine education through a very different lens.