The post-school education and training system in South Africa has been the focus of much attention since the establishment of the Department of Higher Education and Training in 2009. In the context of deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment, the need for a humanising, liberating and critical approach to learning and pedagogy in post-school education is becoming urgent. The rural and urban voices that speak in this book tell us that the current system is out of touch with the ways in which they are making a life.

Learning for Living challenges policy makers, researchers, educators and civil society organisations to think critically about the relationship between post-school education and the world of work, and about how to transform the post-school system to better serve the needs and interests of rural and urban communities. It issues a call to action, and proposes key principles to inform an alternative vision of post-school learning.

In today's modern world, it is crucial to ensure diversity and inclusion are present in all forms of education. This can be particularly difficult to achieve in virtual learning environments as educators and students adjust to this new way of teaching and learning. Further study on how schools and institutions across the globe are promoting diversity in online environments is necessary to discover the best practices and ensure education as a whole remains inclusive. Comparative Research on Diversity in Virtual Learning: Eastern vs. Western Perspectives collects lived experiences of stakeholders from different countries regarding their experiences with teaching in diverse virtual learning environments. The book identifies characteristics of diversity in virtual online learning and explores the best practices of teaching and learning in said environments. Importantly, the reference covers experiences from both Eastern and Western countries and compares the challenges and opportunities afforded to both. Covering topics such as student engagement, computational thinking, and diverse environments, this reference work is ideal for teachers, administrators, policymakers, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

This book focuses on teaching and learning in distance learning virtual universities. The emergence of distance learning virtual universities has provided increased opportunities for adult learners to obtain higher education degrees in a remote teaching-learning environment. During the pandemic, for-profit online learning institutions experienced increases in enrollment while face-to-face institutions experienced decreasing enrollments. Increasing learner enrollments, increasing numbers of courses delivered, and an increasingly competitive environment forces influence how higher education institutions will respond to the anticipated growth in distance learning. Higher education accreditation bodies have legitimized distance learning virtual universities as sites for adult learners, especially part-time adult learners, and made distance education an accepted way to receive a higher education degree. Virtual universities are challenging the supremacy of the land-based university as the only legitimate form of educational delivery. However, little has been published concerning how virtual universities have addressed access, availability, quality, retention, and better life opportunities. As the educational marketplace becomes predominately adult-dominated and higher education institutions compete for adult enrollment, understanding how virtual distance learning institutions are changing the higher education landscape will be an increasingly important issue. This book explores, describes, and questions the role of these institutions in the higher education landscape. Can for-profit education (education as a commodity) also be high quality and serve a societal function of providing adult learners access and opportunity? When critiquing the value and place of the for-profit university, one must ask, is the concern for the profit motive justified, or is it a move by traditional universities to reduce the influence of the virtual university? For-profit distance learning institutions were initially developed to provide access to higher education for adult learners who may experience barriers to attending a traditional university and, as such, tend to address better the needs of working adult learners. These institutions provided increased accessibility and availability for learners who may not otherwise pursue higher education. It is also important to note that distance education is not exclusive to for-profit universities. However, little is known about how learners learn and how teachers teach in these institutions. While sometimes neglected in publications and research, these institutions have been and continue to be disruptive while driving innovations in distance education.

In today's educational world, it is crucial for language teachers to continuously evolve in order to best serve language learners. Further study on the best practices and challenges in the language classroom is crucial to ensure instructors continue to grow as educators. Global Perspectives on Language Teacher Identity addresses new developments in the field of language education affected by evolving learning environments and the shift from traditional teaching and assessment practices to the digital-age teaching, learning, and assessment. Ideal for industry professionals, administrators, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students, this book aims to raise awareness regarding reflective practice and continuous professional development of educators, collaborative teaching and learning, innovative ways to foster critical (digital) literacy, student-centered instruction and assessment, development of authentic teaching materials and engaging classroom activities, teaching and assessment tools and strategies, cultivation of digital citizenship, and inclusive learning environments.

Beyond Citizenship focuses on the role of literacy in building a modern nation-state by examining the government provision of adult literacy training in early twentieth-century China. Based on untapped archives and diaries, Di Luo uncovers people's strategic use of literacy and illiteracy in social interactions and explores the impact of daily experiences on the expansion of state power. Highlighting interpersonal and intergroup relations, Beyond Citizenship suggests a new methodology of studying literacy which foregrounds the agentive role of historical actors and so moves away from a more traditional approach that treats literacy itself as the key factor enabling social change.

This book explores how narratives are deeply embodied, engaging heart, soul, as well as mind, through varying adult learner perspectives. Biographical research is not an isolated, individual, solipsistic endeavor but shaped by larger ecological interactions - in families, schools, universities, communities, societies, and networks - that can create or destroy hope. Telling or listening to life stories celebrates complexity, messiness, and the rich potential of learning lives. The narratives in this book highlight the rapid disruption of sustainable ecologies, not only 'natural', physical, and biological, but also psychological, economic, relational, political, educational, cultural, and ethical. Yet, despite living in a precarious, and often frightening, liquid world, biographical research can both chronicle and illuminate how resources of hope are created in deeper, aesthetically satisfying ways. Biographical research offers insights, and even signposts, to understand and transcend the darker side of the human condition, alongside its inspirations. Discourses, Dialogue and Diversity in Biographical Research aims to generate insight into people's fears and anxieties but also their capacity to 'keep on keeping on' and to challenge forces that would diminish their and all our humanity. It provides a sustainable approach to creating sufficient hope in individuals and communities by showing how building meaningful dialogue, grounded in social justice, can create good enough experiences of togetherness across difference. The book illuminates what amounts to an ecology of life, learning and human flourishing in a sometimes tortured, fractious, fragmented, and fragile world, yet one still offering rich resources of hope.

Based on recognition, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities, entrepreneurship is a process that stimulates economic growth, provides us with new products and services, and serves as a solution to low unemployment rates. Hence, many governments encourage their citizens to embrace entrepreneurship as a strategy to mitigate unemployment, particularly youth and graduate unemployment. While studies show that entrepreneurship education has yielded positive results in Western countries, in other parts of the world it seems that most students still prefer to seek paid employment in their career of choice. Promoting Entrepreneurship to Reduce Graduate Unemployment seeks to expand understanding of the barriers that face graduates in becoming entrepreneurs in various countries, examining the role of educational institutions in promoting graduate entrepreneurship and evaluating governments as well as other schemes that promote graduate entrepreneurship. Although it will not be a panacea for all the obstacles that impede graduate entrepreneurship, it is hoped that this book will illuminate the entrepreneurship career path, serve as a platform for further diagnosis for reducing graduate unemployment, and highlight areas in need of further research. Covering topics such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy, career choice, and educated unemployment, it serves as a dynamic resource for educators, educational administration and faculty, government institutions, graduate students, student organizations, professionals, researchers, and academicians.

Due to the increasingly diverse populations found in Pre-K-12 education, it is imperative that teacher educators prepare preservice teachers to meet the shifting needs of changing student populations. Through the integration of social justice education, teacher educators can challenge the mainstream curriculum with a lens of equity and collaborative equality. Integrating Social Justice Education in Teacher Preparation Programs is a critical research book that explores the preparation and teaching methods of educators for including social justice curriculum. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as ethics, language-based learning, and feminism, this book is ideal for academicians, curriculum designers, social scientists, teacher educators, researchers, and students.

In-service teacher professional development is central to most empirical conceptions of educational quality. As the techniques and strategies for educational reform have spread rapidly throughout the world, teacher professional development practices have been borrowed across borders. It is important to study the global sharing of information on teacher professional development. Global Perspectives on Teacher Performance Improvement examines the implementation of proven, high quality teacher professional development practices in unique environments around the world. It further explains the power of a globally connected community of teacher quality improvement. Covering topics such as mentoring programs, education technology, and education workforce, this book is an essential resource for educational administration and faculty, pre-service teachers, the public education sector, government officials, educators of both K-12 and higher education, researchers, and academicians.

In this digital age, faculty, teachers, and teacher educators are increasingly expected to adopt and adapt pedagogical perspectives to support student learning in instructional environments featuring online or blended learning. One highly adopted element of online and blended learning involves the use of online learning discussions. Discussion-based learning offers a rich pedagogical context for creating learning opportunities as well as a great deal of flexibility for a wide variety of learning and learner contexts. As post-secondary and, increasingly, K-12 institutions cope with the rapid growth of online learning, and an increase in the cultural diversity of learners, it is critical to understand, at a detailed level, the relationship between online interaction and learning and how educationally-effective interactions might be nurtured, in an inclusive way, by instructors. The Handbook of Research on Online Discussion-Based Teaching Methods is a cutting-edge research publication that seeks to identify promising designs, pedagogical and assessment strategies, conceptual models, and theoretical frameworks that support discussion-based learning in online and blended learning environments. This book provides a better understanding of the effects and both commonalities and differences of new tools that support interaction, such as video, audio, and real-time interaction in discussion-based learning. Featuring a wide range of topics such as gamification, intercultural learning, and digital agency, this book is ideal for teachers, educational software developers, instructional designers, IT consultants, academicians, curriculum designers, researchers, and students.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.