First published in 1982, this work is a critical survey of contemporary educational debates and themes which took on new urgency and importance at the time. In particular, it explores the problematic nature of 'progressive education' and 'discipline'; the changes in the labour process and youth unemployment; the nature of the state and its relationship with schooling; the growth of state intervention and the specific forms of discrimination suffered by women and black people.

It argues that trends in education at the time can be explained by a Marxist analysis. It suggests that the changes taking place in schools and colleges were expressions of the contradictions of capitalism and of the state's attempt to restructure education.