Most of the contributions present definite points of view. For example, in the first section Musgrave argues that the Commission ‘will probably raise aspiration rather than achievement, thereby increasing frustration’, Kleinig attacks the doctrine that schools should be neutral and D’Urso, probing the ‘hidden curriculum’ of social norms,  alleges that schools both assume, and reinforce, the powerlessness of students.

Alongside the schemes of the reformers appears examples of the critical reactions of those who challenge their assumptions and wish to reassert ‘traditional values’. Conway attacks progressive education and Williams responds on behalf of the Council of Educational Standards to Carozzi’s article on literacy. However, perhaps the full flavour of the reaction to what he calls the ‘New Education’ can be found in the annual address of a private school headmaster, K.W. Jones: ‘Progressivism is now back in vogue in Australia and threatens to do as much mischief here as it had done in America over the past four decades … ‘student power’ is part of a wider, international movement of contrived anarchy.’

Other sections of the book contain a greater proportion of hard facts. For example a section on ‘Life in Schools’ includes some of the evidence of student dissatisfaction which provided an important stimulus for the drive for educational reform. Alongside more familiar material there is an eye-opening study of truancy by McKinna and Reynolds. Poole and Simkin, reporting on the La Trobe University 15-18 year old Project, look at some implications of student aspirations: Do students really make vocational choices? Should we ‘urge leavers to become stayers in a tight job market’?

Specific attention is given to two important topics: sex roles in education and the position of minority groups. Some titles will suggest the range of this material: ‘Educationally Underprivileged Women’, ‘Some Greek Sex Roles … ’, ‘The Question of Aboriginal Intelligence … ’, ‘Compensatory Education: A Subtle Form of Racism?’, ‘Aboriginal Education – Separate Schools or Not?’

With the tide apparently running so strongly against the reformers some may question the contemporary relevance of much of the material. But because the current trend is above all a reaction against the beliefs and programs of the reformers, any discussion of contemporary issues in education must centre on the latter and their validity.

The potential readership for a book of this kind is greater than one limited to professional discussions of pedagogy and curriculum. Other books with similar aims known to this reviewer all tend to be more academic and more ‘professional’ in tone, appearing to be written more specifically by and for ‘educationists’. Moreover, although the latest of them was published as recently as 1972, they all seem now to be curiously dated.

D'Urso and Smith’s approach is less systematic and comprehensive, and certainly does not always provide a careful ‘balance’ of opinion. Moreover some of the material is ephemeral in nature. However, because they have tried to identify the key issues and select material which will point up those issues sharply, the book may well achieve its objectives better than even an updated version of its competitors.

An over-anxiety to make educational discussions ponderous and scholarly and a tendency towards a false impartiality are the curses of discourse about education. Often in this book the authors are expressing their opinions on questions about which they feel strongly. Therefore the material tends to be more readable and more likely to provide a basis for thought and discussion, both for tertiary students and for that section of the general public interested in the directions and dilemmas of contemporary schools. Sometimes the price of this approach is shallowness in treatment. For example, the central issue of equality of opportunity is inadequately treated.

Sometimes one wishes that the editors had followed their policy even further. A few of the more academic items suffer from the faults of much academic research, wrapping up very limited data in pseudo-theoretical jargon to tell us what we knew already.

The most serious deficiency is more straight descriptions of what is actually happening in individual Australian schools, particularly those which are actually introducing changes. However, this is not primarily the editors’ fault: such material is hard to come by.

Many readers of this varied collection will ask themselves: how philosophical, theoretical or scientific should discussions of education be? I hope they will read the piece by the late Henry Schoenheimer entitled ‘Are Teachers Getting Lazy?’ It begins with Henry sweeping out his one-room school in ‘the early tropic dusk’ during the Great Depression and finishes with a passionate appeal to teachers to ‘conceptualise and introduce a new global humanism before virulent, nascent, acquisitive-aggressive fascism completely engulfs us.’ Along the way there is a typically shrewd and provocative articulation of the schools’ dilemma: ‘The fathers have eaten the sour grapes of the acquisitive morality and the children’s teeth have been set on edge.’