The authors' goal is to explore how an alternative, politically viable public discourse on education can be constructed. They examine the kinds of conditions, concerns, and subjectivities that must be attended to in order to develop an effective and resonant new language that can re-focus the purposes of education in this society. The authors' agree that educational discourse must be transformed into a visible, morally and politically vital, public commentary and debate - one that can begin to address the social, cultural, and spiritual crises that now confront humanity.

DAVID E. PURPEL is Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the author of The Moral and Spiritual Crisis in Education (Bergin & Garvey, 1989).

SVI SHAPIRO is Professor and Chairman in the Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and the author of Between Capitalism and Democracy: Education and the Crisis of the Welfare State (Bergin & Garvey, 1990).