In Emergent Issues in Education, leading scholars in comparative education and in the politics, sociology, anthropology, and economics of education illuminate worldwide trends in critical issues that confront policymakers and practitioners in different national settings.

Among the topics raised and analyzed are the organization, governance, and financing of education; the content of curriculum, texts, and tests; and the quality and nature of teacher training. Among the issues examined is the tension that has emerged between the imperative to achieve equality of educational opportunity and the concern of educational decision makers to maintain and upgrade the quality of academic offerings.

Aspects of this tension are manifested in the reform movements of the 1980s, especially the "excellence movement" that has resurfaced in the United States. Reform movements are evident in countries that have experienced increased enrollment at all levels of schooling in the post-World War II period. In the United States, as elsewhere, there has been a reassessment of the relevance of education to the economy and polity, and of the role of government and industry in education.