Based on extended, intensive fieldwork in an Australian high school, Challenging the System illuminates issues faced on a daily basis byteachers and educational administrators in many parts of the world. Forsey highlights the tensions arising between neo-liberal emphasis onindividual school communities as the engine for competitive excellence in education, and the need for those responsible for running publiceducation to maintain some degree of equity across the whole system. He shows that reforms based purely on market forces are not onlyundesirable, they are imposible to achieve. Governments do not want to lose control of highly significant cultural and political