A view from within:: revisiting Harry!Judge's American Graduate Schools of Education:: a view from abroad

Twenty-five years ago when Harry Judge published American Graduate Schools of Education: a view from abroad, he referred to his subject as a 'puzzle'. These institutions were in the midst of a transition from a focus upon the education of academically talented children mostly from affluent backgrounds to the schooling of children of disparate academic abilities often from non-affluent backgrounds. Further, many were ambivalent toward schooling as a focus for their schools of education, preferring more expansive definitions of education which minimised issues of schooling. Finally, most were strengthening their research capacities with infusions of disciplinary traditions and methodologies. Policy was emerging as a new specialty. The present emphasis, barely evolving when Judge wrote his book, now has schooling (particularly for the poor), and improvement of the practice of education, at the forefront. These shifting emphases have pushed educational researchers to investigate different questions, and their inquiry has been improved by the earlier disciplinary infusions. The evolution of these institutions remains much slower than the changing taste of the public, a circumstance that preserves much of the best of the past but does not incorporate rapidly enough new concerns, leaving the institutions subject to considerable criticism.