While much mainstream educational research maintains that teacher unions should be outlawed or their powers greatly reduced, Bascia and her contributors, including many of the leading teacher union researchers working today, challenge this position. Instead, they recognize the important role teacher unions must play in defending public education and in minimizing the damage wrought by ill-thought-out educational policies. By avoiding idealization of these organizations and recognizing their limitations, Teacher Unions in Public Education demonstrates the necessity for union renewal for a successful education system.

1. Perspectives on Teacher Unions: History, Discourse, and Renewal; Nina Bascia PART I: HISTORIES 2. Gender and Status: Ontario Teachers' Associations in the Nineteenth Century; Harry Smaller 3. Defending Teachers' Rights and Promoting Public Education: Evolving and Emerging Union Strategies within a Globalized Neo-Liberal Context; Wendy Poole 4. Remembering, Re-Imagining, and Reviving Social Justice Teacher Unionism; Cindy Rottmann, Larry Kuehn, Christine Stewart, Jane Turner, and James Chamberlain PART II: DISCOURSES 5. Fragility and Volatility in Teacher Union-Governmental Relations; Nina Bascia and Pamela Osmond-Johnson 6. Model Citizen or Bad Influence? The Contested Nature of Teachers' Public Activism; Katy Swalwell 7. The Formal and Informal Contexts of Union Socialization; Ben Pogodzinski PART III: RENEWAL 8. Classroom, Community, and Contract: A New Framework for Building Moral Legitimacy and Member Activism in Teacher Unions; Kara Popiel 9. Why and How a Teacher Union Supports Autonomous Teacher Professional Development in an Age of New Managerialism; Charlie Naylor 10. Crossing Boundaries to Support Strategic Foresight; Jean-Claude Couture 11. Education Reform in England and the Emergence of Social Movement Unionism: The National Union of Teachers in England; Howard Stevenson And Justine Mercer 12. The Teachers' Trifecta: Democracy, Social Justice, Mobilization; Lois Weiner 13. Conclusion; Nina Bascia