As schooling has become more commodity-based, the place and position of learning and curriculum has been transformed and new perspectives are needed to understand these rapidly changing times. By studying life histories and life politics we can gain insights into the relationship between peoples' private missions and meanings, and their public tasks and targets. For the last thirty years Professor Ivor Goodson has been researching, thinking and writing about some of the central and enduring issues in education, contributing over forty books and six hundred articles to the field. This single volume brings together twenty of his key pieces for the first time. Goodson opens with an autobiographical introduction to a range of curriculum studies, which pioneered a new way of studying schooling, and he contextualizes his selection within the development of the field. Chapters in this prestigious book cover: curriculum history and policy; classroom pedagogy and strategies for professional development; and life history, narrative and educational change.