Building knowledge cultures - Michael Peters

This book develops the notion of 'knowledge cultures' as a basis for understanding the possibilities of education and development in the age of knowledge capitalism. 'Knowledge cultures' refers to the cultural preconditions in the new production of knowledge and their basis in shared practices, embodying preferred ways of doing things often developed over many generations. These practices also point to the way in which cultures have different repertoires of representational and non-representational forms of knowing. The book discusses knowledge cultures in relation to claims for the new economy, as well as cultural economy and the politics of postmodernity. It focuses on national policy constructions of the knowledge economy, 'fast knowledge' and the role of the so-called 'new pedagogy' and social learning under these conditions.

Michael A. Peters is professor of education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of over twenty-five books and edited collections, including most recently Education, Globalization and the State in the Age of Terrorism (2005, Paradigm Publishers).
Tina Besley is visiting research professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of many papers for international journals and a number of books, including Counseling Youth: Foucault, Power and the Ethics of Subjectivity (Praeger).

Building Knowledge Cultures is perhaps one of the richest, philosophically oriented works to come along in quite some time-at least in the arena of higher education and development. [It] is an in-depth theoretical resource that goes to great lengths in elaborating key constructs and concerns linked to the knowledge economy, development, and the role of education. The 10 chapters (plus an "Introduction" and a "Postscript") are theoretically and conceptually illuminating, grounded to some extent in practical policy decisions and strategies. Overall, we see Building Knowledge Cultures as one of the more significant works on the new knowledge economy and the relevance of higher education.
The Review of Higher Education

This is a book of exceptional quality. By weaving philosophical insights and analyses of policies developed both by national and transnational agencies, Peters and Besley persuade us that we need to think about education in radically new ways, taking into account not only the contradictory dynamics of globalization but also the ways in which knowledge itself is being reconstituted by the new global economic formations.
Fazal Rizvi, University of Illinois

In the debut title in this new series, Peters and Besley offer ten original and reprinted chapters addressing educational policy from poststructuralist perspectives.
Reference and Research Book News

This is a very important book, outlining clearly some of the main trends that are happening on the global stage today, in regard to knowledge, education and information. It also relates these trends to philosophical thinking and to some of the great philosophers, as well as to practical implications. The book is full of very useful information, is deeply thought-provoking and is extremely well-referenced. It is definitely a book that all readers that are interested in the topic need to read for themselves. ...interested people will return to [it] again and again. We need more books like this.
Managing Information

Peters and Besley offer a compelling and wide-ranging account of a major contemporary event: the shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy. It is erudite, thought-provoking, and readable: a 21st Century book!
Stephen J. Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, University of London

Michael Peters and Tina Besley have written an extraordinary book about the meaning and politics of higher education in a globalized world dominated by the complex forces of hyper-capitalism. Rewriting the theoretical, political, and economic criteria through which to understand higher education in the new millennium, the authors provide an entirely original, critical, and productive assessment of both the politics of higher education and what it means as a vital institution for extending the promises of a global democratic future. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in both the reality and promise of higher education in a world driven by the competing tendencies of global capitalism and democratic values.
Henry Giroux, Global Television Network Chair in Communication Studies, McMaster University