Examinations, Inequality, and Curriculum Reform: An Essay Review of Richard Teese’s Academic Success and Social Power: Examinations and Inequality (2nd ed.) (Melbourne, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013, 303 pp., ISBN 979-1-925003-12-3)

All educational reforms have particular histories. And all of them are driven not only by technical considerations but also profoundly by cultural, political, and economic projects and by ideological visions of what schools should do. In this contribution to my Reviewing Policy section of Educational Policy, I discuss a significant contribution to our understanding of these projects. “Academic Success and Social Power” focuses on the growth of crucial aspects of a number of these visions, on the conflicts that they often entail, and on who continues to benefit the most from them over time. Richard Teese directs most of his attention to the reform of curriculum and to the social field of power that determines or at least sets limits on what is considered important knowledge. In the process, what he has produced can serve as a model for how critical education studies of culture and power should go on.