The Society of Professors of Education (SPE), since 1902 has provided a forum for addressing the issues facing our discipline and vocation.  As you know, it is a particularly challenging time for the field, which has become bitterly contested territory on a national and international level.  At this historical moment, it is more important than ever for this professional organization—founded, among others, by John Dewey—to have voice in the debates that currently divide the educational landscape as well as public opinion.

To serve this end, we are inaugurating a new award for education scholarship, and we would like to invite you to nominate your favorite book of 2012 (no more than one, please) that furthers the purposes of the Society as stated in our Constitution:

1. promotion of an increasingly comprehensive understanding of the relationship between education and the social complexities in which professors of education function;

2. recognition and appropriate utilization of the inherent power and responsibility of the Society in voicing its interest in and concern for the realization of desirable educational ends; and

3. concern for fostering inquiry into the history, current status, and future alternatives of the education professoriate.

The process will be modeled on the American Educational Studies Association’s Critics Choice Book Awards, which are presented to a list of recipients every year.  The announcement of the list of winners will allow authors and publishers to note the accolade on CVs and marketing materials, strengthening the impact of the work.

If you would like to nominate a book for inclusion on the first list of award recipients, please contact Isabel Nunez (isabel.nunez@cuchicago.edu) with the bibliographic information by March 8.  Nominations of books published in 2011 will also be accepted.  We know that your selections will be important contributions to the literature, and we look forward to reading them.

Many thanks,

The SPE Book Award Committee

(Jan Armstrong, Donna Breault, Bernardo Gallegos, Ming Fang He, Mina Kim, Pamela Konkol, Craig Kridel, Jonathan Lightfoot, Isabel Nuñez, Bill Schubert, and Wade Tillett)