Using information gathered from a combined first and second grade classroom over two years, this book explores the students' routine actions in school, including their views about different literacy activities, their favorite part of school life, peer culture in both the boys' and the girls' worlds, issues of gender power, the integration of the teacher's official discourses and the children's unofficial culture, and the kind of school life children wish to have. Focusing on children's voices and perceptions, this book provides insight that will help educators preserve an accurate view of school culture and create effective policies in education. The book's interdisciplinary approach extensively applies theories and perspectives from educational philosophy, educational anthropology, sociology, post-structuralist theories, narratives, semiotics, literacy education, cultural studies, and critical ethnography. Through these disciplines, the book provides many critical perspectives on early childhood literacy education, classroom culture, and identity construction for educators to incorporate into curriculum design and to reflect on the potential consequences resulting from instructional decisions.

This Second Edition offers more substantive information on what it means to access the general curriculum, providing primary and secondary teachers with a resource to help every learner acheive their full potential. Accessing the General Curriculum presents updated frameworks and strategies, with examples, illustrations and flowcharts. As schools continue to move towards a system based on challenging standards, this book will be an effective tool in staying on track for both teachers and parents.

Rob Carpenter took a school from Special Measures to Outstanding in less than two years and firmly believes that the quality of teaching and leadership holds the key to raising standards in our schools today. A Manifesto for Excellence in Schools will help all teachers and leaders to transform learning journeys, both individual and whole-school, so that your school is inclusive and supportive, creating the best education for all. This book suggests new ways to ensure that all children succeed, and advocates that learning journeys are connected to a moral purpose, positive learning habits and that they help young people make sense of the world around them. Framed around the context of ever increasing expectations for pupils and the growing focus on learning mastery, A Manifesto for Excellence in Schools contains a balance of both practical advice and multiple examples, resources and ideas for teachers and leaders to plan and deliver high quality learning experiences. At its heart, this book is all about helping teachers and leaders to become architects for learning by helping them to design classrooms, curricula and whole-school practices that are inclusive, engaging and above all - excellent.

The Second World War stands as the most devastating and destructive global conflict in human history. More than 60 nations representing 1.7 billion people or three quarters of the world's population were consumed by its horror. Not surprisingly, therefore, World War II stands as a landmark episode in history education throughout the world and its prominent place in school history textbooks is almost guaranteed. As this book demonstrates, however, the stories that nations choose to tell their young about World War II do not represent a universally accepted ""truth"" about events during the war. Rather, wartime narratives contained in school textbooks typically are selected to instil in the young a sense of national pride, common identify, and shared collective memory. To understand this process War, Nation, Memory describes and evaluates school history textbooks from many nations deeply affected by World War II including China, France, Germany, Japan, USA, and the United Kingdom. It critically examines the very different and complex perspectives offered in many nations and analyses the ways in which textbooks commonly serve as instruments of socialisation and, in some cases, propaganda. Above all, War, Nation, Memory demonstrates that far from containing ""neutral"" knowledge, history textbooks prove fascinating cultural artefacts consciously shaped and legitimated by powerful ideological, cultural, and sociopolitical forces dominant in the present.

Sociology and Education is a sound introduction to sociology of education. The book examines the respective logics behind the contemporary sociological approaches to education, their assumptions and their limits. It clarifies the links between psychology of cognitive development, micro-sociology and macro-sociology, as well as the role ascribed to human reason in social action. Special attention is given to major scientific discussions and empirical findings regarding inequality of educational opportunity. Rooted in both American and European sociology, the book helps the reader grasp the viewpoint of the different theoretical approaches to formal education and thus to envisage new perspectives.

Curriculum Studies in India examines Indian scholars in dialogue regarding their intellectual life histories and subjective investments in their field. With chapter introductions by William Pinar, scholars explore their intellectual history and present circumstances of curriculum studies in India, emphasized by their own engagement and research. These works demonstrate the rapidity and scale of economic growth today, and how it creates conflict, dislocation, inequality, and "echoes" of a colonial past now present in globalization. Pinar and his contributors conclude that historical (dis)continuities, cultural conflict, economic globalization, and political tension characterize the present circumstances of curriculum studies in India.

Summarizing data derived from a four-year combined longitudinal/ cross-sectional comparative study of the implementation of one standards-based middle school curriculum program, Mathematics in Context, this book demonstrates the challenges of conducting comparative longitudinal research in the reality of school life. The study was designed to answer three questions: What is the impact on student performance of the Mathematics in Context instructional approach, which differs from most conventional mathematics texts in both content and expected pedagogy? How is this impact different from that of traditional instruction on student performance? What variables associated with classroom instruction account for variation in student performance? The researchers examined a range of variables that affected data collection. These variations highlight the need to study the effects of the culture in which student learning is situated when analyzing the impact of standards-based curricula on student achievement. This book is directed to educational researchers interested in curriculum implementation, mathematics educators interested in the effects of using reform curriculum materials in classrooms, evaluators and research methodologists interested in structural modeling and scaling of instructional variables, and educational policy makers concerned about reform efforts.

The Globe's Emigrating Children describes one teacher's experiences teaching twenty-four immigrant students during their first year in the United States. From diverse places including Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Mexico, El Salvador, and Haiti, these children brought their many languages and cultures to a first grade sheltered English classroom in a large urban school district. Kathleen A. Stark's thoughts and conversations with her students and her struggles to address each of the children's emotional and learning needs -- while guiding them to recognize and question the assumptions of the world around them -- provide a much-needed, intimate look into the lives and education of immigrant children. Stark's beautifully written reflections about the teacher's role and the role of education in general are supremely original, honest, and thought-provoking. This book should be read by any teacher involved in such areas as immigration, early childhood theory, literacy, foreign language education, and critical pedagogy. It is also suited to pre-service college courses devoted to these topics.

In Teaching Matters Most, Thomas McCann, Alan C. Jones, and Gail Aronoff make the case that the single most important factor in continuous school improvement is the quality of instruction in schools. Unlike other books that stop at evaluating teachers and instruction, these authors argue that school leaders must work to grow the instructional capacities within their schools. To meet this goal, they offer school leaders a three-step process that involves:(1) envisioning what good teaching looks like (2) measuring the quality of current instruction against this standard, and (3) working relentlessly to move the quality of instruction closer and closer to the ideal.

In this volume, university researchers and urban elementary teacher-researchers coauthor chapters on the teachers' year-long inquiries, on a range of literacy topics that they conducted as part of a collaborative school-university action research project. Central to this project was the teacher-researchers' attempts to transform their teaching practices to meet the needs of students from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and their finding that their inquiry efforts resulted in developing more collaborative styles of teaching. Because the everyday interactions between teachers and students are realized by the social talk in the classroom, the university- and teacher-researchers analyzed classroom discourse to study and document the teachers' efforts to make changes in the locus of power in literacy teaching and learning. The chapters include many classroom discourse examples to illustrate the critical points or incidents of these teachers' inquiries. They show the successes and the struggles involved in shedding teacher-controlled patterns of talk. This book explores the process of urban teachers' journeys to create dialogically organized literacy instruction in particular literacy routines--called, in this book, curriculum genres. The book is organized in terms of these curriculum genres, such as writing curriculum genres, reading-aloud curriculum genres, drama curriculum genres, and so forth. Teacher inquiries were conducted in various elementary grade levels, from kindergarten through grade eight. Three occurred in bilingual classrooms and one in a special education classroom. The first and last chapters, written by the editors, provide the background, theoretical, and methodological underpinnings of the project.

The purpose of Thinking through Writing is to prove thinking skills are taught best through writing. All parts of the brain and all types of learning styles are used in writing activities, simultaneously instructing thinking skills. This book provides an example of a writing course, illustrating how thinking and writing converge, and is addressed to college instructors, although it would be useful for instructors on any educational level. The premise of the book is based on aesthetics, promoting curiosity and influencing thinking in the learner. Four proactive elements of thinking skills instruction: Preparation, Exploratory Writing, Formal Writing and Independent Writing, guide the process. The elements, examples, and guidelines for planning learner centered instruction and positive assessment practice increased student engagement through writing activities, applicable in all content areas.

"Polished, clear, insightful, and meaningful.... This volume amounts to nothing less than a complete rethinking of what progressive education can be at its best and how education can be reconceptualized as one of the central practices of a genuinely democratic and sustainable society.... It is the kind of book that has the potential to be transformative." Stephen Preskill, University of New Mexico "The editors and contributors are pioneers in the field of educational theory, policy, and philosophy.... They are opening new areas of inquiry and educational reform in ways that promise to make this book in very short time into a classic.... The practical applications and experiments included reveal the richness of grassroots initiatives already underway to bring educational theory and policy down to earth. While spanning the richest and deepest intellectual ideas and concepts, the stories told are the types that practitioners and teachers will be able to relate to in their daily undertakings." Madhu Suri Prakash, The Pennsylvania State University This volume - a landmark contribution to the burgeoning theory and practice of place-based education - enriches the field in three ways: First, it frames place-based pedagogy not just as an alternative teaching methodology or novel approach to environmental education but as part of a broader social movement known as the "Anew localism", which aims toward reclaiming the significance of the local in the global age. Second, it links the development of ecological awareness and stewardship to concerns about equity and cultural diversity. Third, it presents examples of place-based education in action. The relationship between the new localism and place-based education is clarified and the process of making connections between learners and their wider communities is demonstrated. The book is organized around three themes: Reclaiming Broader Meanings of Education; Models for Place-Based Learning; and Global Visions of the Local in Higher Education This is a powerfully relevant volume for researchers, teacher educators, and students across the fields of curriculum theory, educational foundations, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and environmental education.

Preparing Effective Teachers of Reading will show educators and administrators (K-12 and higher education) how a higher education initiative used collaboration and partnerships to respond to one of the greatest needs facing the nation - improving the reading achievement of poor and minority children. The book will also provide readers with a forum for understanding scientifically-based reading research (SBRR) and instruction, and the five essential components of reading. In addition, the book will showcase, through evaluation findings and a case study, how diverse geographic, ethnic, and racial institutions are creating national models for bridging the achievement gap in reading, teaching reading, preparing new teachers, and engaging key stake-holders by transforming curricula and syllabi, establishing reading centers, and providing directed teaching and tutoring experiences for candidates.

Despite the fact that publishers and policy-makers have had increasing influence over classrooms, it is the teacher who must make decisions on a minute-by-minute basis about what will help specific students learn. Similarly, local administrators must make key decisions at the school and district level that will best serve particular communities of teachers, students, and parents. Action research offers educators and other stakeholders a systematic way to research and reflect on specific students, classrooms, schools, and communities in order to solve local problems and improve local conditions. This book offers an overview of various definitions and perspectives on action research without prescribing any single approach. Instead, key questions are explored: Who conducts action research? Why? How? Possible answers sketch the many types of possible projects, ranging from an individual teacher trying to improve the experience of a particular student to a group of educators and community members striving to improve local socioeconomic conditions. The Action Research Primer presents an accessible but comprehensive introduction to the field, providing a basic compass and map for the interested practitioner. Chapters include a brief historical overview, an introduction to competing research paradigms, discussion of key issues that inform project design, a serviceable guide to process, and an extensive list of resources pointing to more detail on the many categories, communities, and publication outlets of action research.

Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms, which is the 11th volume in the 12-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, presents scholarly research on major discourses concerning globalisation and the politics of education reforms. It reviews some of the ideological imperatives fueling education reforms. It examines critically education reforms within their social, political and global dimensions. It provides an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly source of information about recent developments in globalisation, ideology and trends in education reforms. Above all, the book offers the latest fi- ings to the critical issues concerning major discourses surrounding the nexus between ideology and education reforms in the global culture. It is a sourcebook of ideas for researchers, practitioners and policy makers in education, and schooling around the world. It offers a timely overview of current policy issues affecting education reforms globally. It provides directions in education, and policy research, relevant to progressive pedagogy, social change and transformational educational reforms in the twenty-first century. The book critically examines the overall interplay between the state, ideology and current discourses of education reforms in the global culture. It draws upon recent studies in the areas of globalisation, academic achievement, standards, equity and the role of the State (Apple 2004; Carnoy 1999; Zajda et al. 2008). It explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable in the research covering the State, globalisation and quality-driven education reforms.

This book is a critical appreciation of the work of sixteen leading curriculum theorists, taking account of the writings of a balance of established thinkers and curriculum analysts from the fields of education, philosophy, sociology and psychology. Together these commentators offer a broad perspective with views from the UK, the US and Europe, and from a range of political stances ranging from radical conservatism through liberalism to socialism and libertarianism.
The theorists include major names such as Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, Maxine Greene, Basil Bernstein, Micheal Foucault, Elliott Eisner, John White, Michael Apple and more. Ideal for students on all teacher training courses looking for an introduction to some of the key educational thinkers of our time, this key text can also be used as a companion volume to the Routledge four-volume set on curriculum theory.

Concerns with the nature of and relationship between responsibility and responsibilisation pervade contemporary social, political and moral life. This book turns the analytical lens on the ways in which responsibility and responsibilisation operate in diverse educational settings and relationships, and social, policy and geographical contexts in the USA, Europe, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Scholars have sought to explain the genealogy and the melange of rationalities, technologies, bio-politics and modes of governmentality that bring responsibility and responsibilisation into being, how they act on and are taken up by individuals, groups and organisations, and the risks and possibilities they create and delimit for individuals, social collectives and their freedoms. Contributors to this collection have diverse views and perspectives on responsibility and responsibilisation. This disagreement is a strength. It underlines the importance of unravelling both the differences and similarities across scholars and contexts. It also issues a salutatory warning about assumptions that reduce the complex concepts of responsibility and responsibilisation to simplistic, fixed categories or to generalising and universalising single cases or experiences to all areas of education. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Improving Student Retention in Higher Education provides a practical, curriculum-based response to the current situation in higher education, where participating students emanate from a range of backgrounds; international and lower socioeconomic backgrounds, mature aged students, students with disabilities as well as those for whom higher education is the first family experience.

Underpinned by research indicating that students are more likely to continue with higher education if they are engaged in their studies and have developed networks and relationships with their fellow students, this book presents best practice examples of innovative and inclusive curriculum, from a range of countries.

Imagine a Founding Father visiting a classroom today, or a sailor from the War of 1812, an Amish man, a 19th century pioneer, or even a Civil War veteran. Ronald Morris has spent more than 25 years bringing these characters into classrooms and inspiring other educators to do the same. In this book he synthesizes his vast knowledge and experience into a resource for all types of educators who help elementary and middle school children develop a love of history. Pre-service teachers can use this book as a model for developing their own styles of teaching social studies. Museum educators can use Bringing History to Life to enliven their presentations with students. Teachers in the classroom can use this resource to help their students develop first person presentations by reading about many examples across the grades. This resource is especially important as school districts reduce their budgets for field trips to popular museums that interpret history using this popular method. With this book as inspiration, educators can continue Bringing History to Life for their students.

This volume broadens the horizon of educational research in North America by introducing a comprehensive dialogue between Eastern and Western philosophies and perspectives on the subject of curriculum theory and practice. It is a very timely work in light of the progressively globalized nature of education and educational studies and the increasingly widespread attunement to Eastern educational theories in the West.
By introducing Eastern perspectives, this book questions taken-for-granted thinking in Western educational thought about the foundations of teaching and learning, curriculum theory, educational policy, and educational issues such as teaching for social justice, service-learning initiatives, human rights and environmental education, and the teaching of content area subjects. It provides an important opportunity for scholars from different countries and different disciplines to establish a solid yet accessible foundation of East-West inquiry that furthers the scope and depth of curriculum studies and to disseminate the insights from this book in the venues in which they work.
Researchers, faculty, and graduate students in the fields of curriculum theory, curriculum and instruction, educational foundations, philosophy of education, international/comparative education, and multicultural educational studies will welcome this book. It is appropriate as a text for upper-level courses in these areas.

Daredevil Research: Re-creating Analytic Practice gathers together ten research projects that seek to transform thinking about analytic practice and the construction of research knowledge. By experimenting with alternative models of representation unconstrained by the weight of traditional research protocols, the authors create multiple spaces for imagining how to differently identify issues for inquiry, select modes of analysis, and inscribe « data into transmittable form. At once a production of research knowledge and a conceptual field for meaning-making, Daredevil Research suggests the possibilities of analytic practice in imaginative, independent space.

This book explores how curriculum reform is interconnected with policy, practice and society. Curriculum reform is increasingly associated with efforts to better the lives of citizens and provide a competitive edge to national prosperity. Educational policy and practice have been the subject of unprecedented convergence worldwide in the quest for so-called 21st century skills. This book offers a case study of curriculum reform within the Republic of Ireland, focusing on antecedents, processes and outcomes of government efforts to evoke fundamental curriculum realignment at lower secondary level. Set against a backdrop of fluctuating economic fortunes and concerns about academic standards and educational equity, this volume has wider relevance beyond Ireland for any system undertaking education reform at scale.

Critical Studies of Education in Asia features analyses that take seriously the complex postcolonial, historical, and cultural consciousnesses felt across societies in Asia, and that bring these to bear on the changing terrain of knowledge, subjectivities, and power relations constructed both within schools and across the public sphere. In documenting the multiple sites of conflict and contestation both between and within states in Asia and a host of pedagogic agents - ministries of education, state boards and agencies, schools, teachers and teacher unions, university departments of education, local interest groups, the media, international standards agencies, and global educational reform discourses - the chapters in this volume illuminate the struggles over knowledge, education, and the work of schools. Faced with emergent global and local forces that are determined to challenge 'official' knowledge and to offer alternative understandings of education and society in Asia, this volume offers critical insights for academic researchers, policy- makers, and graduate students seeking to understand the tensions and possibilities of educational change in the region. This book was originally published as a special issue of Curriculum Inquiry.

This revised edition of Literacy as Snake Oil further investigates and critiques the commodification of literacy and education. Since the publication of the first edition, schools in the U.S. have been targeted even more as a market for private companies seeking to profit from the surveillance of NCLB (No Child Left Behind.) Three chapters have been added: one that deals with the reproduction of racialized spaces during a textbook adoption, an analysis of America's Choice by a classroom teacher, and an analysis of the U.K.'s literacy strategy. This book will inspire teachers to remember their political commitments to resist oppression and unethical practice and find ways to subvert teacher-(and student-) proof packages.

Curriculum and Imagination describes an alternative 'process' model for designing developing, implementing and evaluating curriculum, suggesting that curriculum may be designed by specifying an educational process which contains key principles of procedure.

This comprehensive and authoritative book:

• offers a practical and theoretical plan for curriculum-making without objectives
• shows that a curriculum can be best planned and developed at school level by teachers adopting an action research role
• complements the spirit and reality of much of the teaching profession today, embracing the fact that there is a degree of intuition and critical judgement in the work of educators
• presents empirical evidence on teachers' human values.

Curriculum and Imagination provides a rational and logical alternative for all educators who plan curriculum but do not wish to be held captive by a mechanistic 'ends-means' notion of educational planning. Anyone studying or teaching curriculum studies, or involved in education or educational planning, will find this important new book fascinating reading.