Beginning with descriptions of the ways in which children make sense of their experience and the world, such as fantasy, stories and games, Egan constructs his argument that constituting this foundational layer are sets of cultural sense-making capacities, reflected in oral cultures throughout the world.

Beginning with descriptions of the ways in which children make sense of their experience and the world, such as fantasy, stories and games, Egan constructs his argument that constituting this foundational layer are sets of cultural sense-making capacities, reflected in oral cultures throughout the world. Egan sees education as the acquisition of these sets of sense-making capacities, available in our culture, and his goal is to conceptualize primary education in a way that over comes the dichotomy between progressivisim and traditionalism, attending both the needs of the individual child and the accumulation of knowledge.

'Egan has not only supplied us with an agenda for more fully exploring the issues he raises but has also given us support for some of the best of current practice.' Teachers College Record '...the book should be compulsory reading for all those concerned with the education of young children...Egan's thinking and theory goes well beyond Piaget, Bruner, Hirst and others who have written about education and the curriculum; it gives an authentic sense of the world of childhood, without sentimentality or ideological bias.' John Wilson