In this significant contribution to critical educational studies, Backer rethinks common interpretations of Althusser as unable to recognize human agency and re-establishes Althusser's ideas in conversations about social and cultural reproduction. This is the most comprehensive and nuanced reading of Althusser's thinking about education available in the English language.

Isaac Gottesman, Lenore Tingle Howard '42 Associate Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Education, Connecticut College, USA

Backer delivers a detailed critique of the ideologies pervading critical education studies today, and offers a much-needed route towards an Althusserian pedagogy. Backer shows us that pedagogy, much like philosophy, is a battleground. His original reading of Althusser introduces a decisive theoretical weapon onto this terrain.

Samuel J.R. Mercer, Lecturer in Social Policy, School of Social Sciences, Liverpool Hope University, UK