"Shedd and Bacharach provide new insights, practical perspectives, and a scholarly justification for changing the archaic structure of our schools and the management of the professionals working in them... This unusually significant book will remain important for a long time to come." -- James W. Guthrie , director of Policy Analysis for California Education, School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

What do teachers need to know in order to teach well? How important is the depth and quality of teachers' content knowledge as a critical aspect of their ability to teach? How can teachers best be educated, and how can we assess their accomplishments as teachers? In what ways is the professional preparation of teachers comparable to the preparation of physicians and other members of learned professions? What kinds of educational research can provide deeper understanding of teaching, learning, and the reform of education? These are just some of the many questions answered in this landmark collection of Lee Shulman's best work. A pioneer in the field of teaching and teacher research, Shulman's work and thinking have long influenced teachers and researchers. But while Shulman is one of the most widely cited scholars in education, his writings have been scattered among a variety of books and journals—until now. The Wisdom of Practice at last makes Shulman's major works on K-12 education and teacher education available in one volume. His interests in teaching of all sorts—in K-12 schools, in teacher education, in graduate programs for educational researchers, in liberal education—have been diverse. The essays included touch on such wide-ranging topics as the psychology of school subjects, medical problem solving, teacher knowledge, performance assessment, teaching in higher education, the scholarship of teaching and learning, the characteristics and pedagogies of the professions, the role of cases in professional education and research, and the character of relevant and rigorous educational research.

Teachers and teacher educators have long been aware of the gap between the principles of education taught in university preservice programmes and the realities of classroom life. The current burgeoning interest in educational case methods is testimony to the promise of case-based teaching as a way of bridging that gap, and of easing the novice teacher's entry into the classroom. A case holds attributes of both theory and practice, enabling teachers and students alike to examine real-life situations under a laboratory microscope.

How could educated professionals have supported the Nazi movement and collaborated with Hitler's inhuman policies? Jarausch examines this fascinating and largely unexplored subject, tracing the social, ideological, and political development of three representative German professions--law, teaching, and engineering--from the late Empire to the early Federal Republic. Based on a reformulated professionalization theory and on authoritative statistics, he describes professional prosperity and prestige in the Second Reich and analyzes the social crisis brought on by hyperinflation, stabilization, and Depression during the chaotic Weimar years. Threatened with the loss of livelihood and frightened by cultural disorientation, many experts embraced neo-conservative ideas and cooperated in Hitler's seizure of power. Welcoming the apparent restoration of their authority in the early Third Reich, professionals collaborated in the racial purges and warping of ethics, practices, and organizations under Nazi rule. During the Second World War, the radicalization of SS terror threatened the very survival of the professions so that most practitioners were only too happy to be rescued by Allied victory. Exploring the reluctant democratization of the post-war professions, Jarausch concludes with a reflection on the lessons of the German experience for the relationship between professionalism and liberty.

What does it mean to be an expert? In "Rethinking Expertise", Harry Collins and Robert Evans offer a radical new perspective on the role of expertise in the practice of science and the public evaluation of technology. Collins and Evans present a Periodic Table of Expertises based on the idea of tacit knowledge - knowledge that we have but cannot explain. They then look at how some expertises are used to judge others, how laypeople judge between experts, and how credentials are used to evaluate them. Throughout, Collins and Evans ask an important question: how can the public make use of science and technology before there is consensus in the scientific community? This book has wide implications for public policy and for those who seek to understand science and benefit from it.