As budgets tighten for school districts, a sound understanding of just how teaching and administration translate into student learning becomes increasingly important. Rebecca Barr, a researcher of classroom instruction and reading skill development, and Robert Dreeben, a sociologist of education who analyzes the structure of organizations, combine their expertise to explore the social organization of schools and classrooms, the division of labor, and the allocation of key resources.
Viewing schools as part of a social organization with a hierarchy of levels--district, school, classroom, instructional group, and students--avoids the common pitfalls of lumping together any and all possible influences on student learning without regard to the actual processes of the classroom. Barr and Dreeben systematically explain how instructional groups originate, form, and change over time. Focusing on first grade reading instruction, their study shows that individual reading aptitude actually has little direct relation to group reading achievement and virtually none to the coverage of reading materials once the mean aptitude of groups is taken into consideration. Individual aptitude, they argue, is rather the basis on which teachers form reading groups that are given different instructional treatment. It is these differences in group treatment, they contend, that explain substantial differences in learning curricular material.

Challenging the popular perception that the free market can objectively ameliorate inequality and markedly improve student academic achievement, this book examines the overly positivistic rhetoric surrounding charter schools. Taking a multifocal approach, this book examines how charter schools reproduce inequality in public education. By linking charter schools to broader social issues and political economic factors, such as neoliberalism, race, and class, The Charter School Solution presents a more complete and nuanced assessment of charter schools in the context of the American public education system.

Mobile Learning in Schools explores the potential for using mobile devices in diverse school and college settings around the globe. It evaluates the exciting opportunities mobile initiatives bring and shares experience of where things can go wrong, in order to ensure that those embarking on new projects are fully informed. Drawing on a wide range of international perspectives, it unpicks knotty sociocultural issues, including lack of sustainability, behavioural and ethical concerns, and explores successful student learning. Key issues considered include: mobile learning in primary schools teaching and learning with mobile devices in secondary schools opportunities inside and outside school pedagogical principles and sustainability mobile learning for initial teacher training and CPD ethical considerations behaviour matters - disruption, plagiarism, cheating, cyberbullying assessing mobile learning. With annotated further reading and questions to trigger reflection and further discussion amongst readers, this thought-provoking text provides a detailed survey of this often controversial topic. It is essential reading for all those engaged in understanding the potential for using mobile devices to support students' learning.

Capstone: Inquiry & Action at School addresses the what, why, and how of capstone education. Capstone programs are modern rituals that give meaning back to "schooling" and create transformative relationships between students and teachers. Capstone programs energize schools and can point the way for institutional change. Written by teachers for teachers, Capstone contains ready-to-implement materials derived from decades of experience in the classroom. The authors share authentic narratives of failure and success to encourage teachers who are engaged in the risks and rewards of deep learning. Capstone is implementable. Capstone offers concrete tips and templates for teachers. Capstone collects in one place all the resources a teacher needs to build a program from the ground up. Capstone is compelling. Written by teachers, Capstone communicates through a shared experience of the classroom. Capstone offers support for teachers who are committed to authentic student learning. Capstone is connected. Capstone shares emerging practices being developed by current capstone educators and informed by the collected wisdom of the National Capstone Consortium.

This book calls for a reconceptualisation and decolonisation of the Key Stage 2 national history curriculum. The author applies a range of theories in his research with White-British primary school teachers to show how decolonising the history curriculum can generate new knowledge for all, in the face of imposed Eurocentric starting points for teaching and learning in history, and dominant white-cultural attitudes in primary school education. Through both narrative and biographical methodologies, the author presents how teaching and learning Black-British history in schools can be achieved, and centres his Black-British identity and minority-ethnic group experience alongside the immigrant Black-Jamaican perspective of his mother to support a framework of critical thinking of curriculum decolonisation. This book illustrates the potential of transformative thinking and action that can be employed as social justice for minority-ethnic group children who are marginalized in their educational development and learning by the dominant discourses of British history, national building and national identity.

This book draws together for the first time some of the most important international policy practice and research relating to education in out-of-home care. It addresses the knowledge gap around how good learning experiences can enrich and add enjoyment to the lives of children and young people as they grow and develop. Through its ecological-development lens it focuses sharply on the experience of learning from early childhood to tertiary education. It offers empirical insights and best practices examples of learning and caregiving contexts with children and young people in formal learning settings, at home and in the community. This book is highly relevant for education and training programs in pedagogy, psychology, social work, youth work, residential care, foster care and kinship care along with early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary education courses.

Peer learning allows a positive use of differences between pupils, turning them into learning opportunities. Yet education professionals often remain unfamiliar with the principles necessary to guarantee its effectiveness. The aim of this book is to help practitioners establish well-structured and effective peer learning projects using a variety of methods. It introduces and defines cooperative learning (mutual peer interaction) and peer tutoring (directional peer interaction) - outlining general organisational principles that will help practitioners implement peer learning in either of these forms. The authors consider how to prepare and train learners to undertake their roles effectively, and how to organise and monitor the process of interaction as it is happening. They then look at how these systems actually operate in the classroom, exploring how the organisational principles work in practice and giving many practical examples. Subsequently three successive chapters consider how to structure peer interactions in cooperative learning, same-age peer tutoring and cross-age peer tutoring. Finally, the advantages and problems, and the potential and challenges, of peer learning are examined. The book should be read in stages, with each part being able to be read on its own - thus providing time for reflection. Within each part, readers can choose to focus on cooperative learning or peer tutoring. The successive focuses on definitions, general principles of implementation and practical issues of implementation should help practitioners build their skills and confidence. Many choices between methods are described, and when teachers are confident in one method they may then consider trying a new method. It is the authors' hope that the book will become a model for peer learning by sharing with readers the skills of other practitioners, and thereby helping all children to develop to their full potential.

This book explores the development of educational leadership within difficult contexts via the lens of a previously failing English secondary school in an area of urban poverty. Based on extensive interview data from 2012-2016, the authors demonstrate that the fundamental ethos underpinning the school's improvement is a desire to meet the needs of young people in disadvantaged communities in order to equip them with the skills to allow them to transcend their situation. The authors posit that this school embodies the 'comprehensive ideal' of secondary education in England: that education should not be disadvantaged by background, and that the state should provide free and high quality education for all. This book will appeal to students and scholars of comprehensive education and schools in difficult contexts.

This volume is a guide to using the Relational Literacy Curriculum with children in grades 2-5. Based on developmental and social constructivist principles, this curriculum presents a conceptual framework and a method for enhancing children's understanding of interpersonal relationships in the classroom. The Relational Literacy Curriculum:
*offers a powerful method for children to reflect on challenging interpersonal episodes and to discern constructive patterns of relating through discussion and role play;
*provides a process that can serve as both a prevention tool and a vehicle for managing immediate conflict;
*gives teachers a strong theoretical framework from which they can make principled decisions, and a flexible format for implementing it that they can adapt to meet the particular social needs of their classroom context; and
*promotes teacher reflection and learning through the use of various observational tools.
This book addresses the question of why it is important to study relationships in the elementary classroom; reviews the research and literature that inform the relational literacy curriculum; lays out the process of the curriculum; explains how the curriculum can be used to address real conflicts within the classroom community; and provides guiding principles for practice. It is a useful resource for classroom teachers, school psychologists, school counselors and social workers, and a valuable text for a range of courses, including classroom management, psycho-social interventions, child development, and early childhood education.

This book explores how Australian secondary schools prepare their students for global citizenship. Globalisation has irrevocably changed modern countries and societies, and the benefits and pressures this brings are being felt as never before. Drawing on empirical data from six Australian secondary schools, the author examines how school leaders and teachers understand global citizenship, how they translate this into their practice, and how students experience and make sense of global citizenship education. In doing so, the book portrays how school leaders, teachers and students grapple with key issues central to global citizenship education, including how they work to mediate some of the tensions involved. While the book concentrates on the Australian context, its findings and analysis have resonance for other countries in which global citizenship education operates as a core goal of education and schooling.

This book explores the complex ways in which belonging, identity and time are entangled in shaping young people engagement with the middle years of school. The authors argue that these 'entanglements' need to be understood in ways that move beyond a focus on why individual young people engage with the middle years. Instead, there should be a focus on the socio-ecologies of particular places, and the ways in which these ecologies shape the possibilities of young people engaging productively in the middle years. Drawing on extensive qualitative data from an outer-urban metropolitan context, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and policy studies.

This book explores the significance of silence within and beyond pedagogical contexts. Silence is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon for everyday life: since schools mirror society, it is also significant in education. While silence can be experienced in a multitude of different ways, the author reflects on whether silence itself can bear a message: is there an aspect of dialogue in silence, or is it a language all of its own? This book examines a variety of silences essential for education, examining such topics as silence and aspects of power, silent students, and the relationship between listening and silence. Drawing on a range of empirical data, the author elucidates the significance of silence in pedagogical contexts.

The seemingly endless battle to reform American schools rages onward as we approach the 21st century. Taxpayers seem confused and are not supporting the public schools as they have in the past. Parents are up in arms about perceived lack of student safety and discipline. Everyone bemoans what appears to be a failure of students to grasp even basic academic subjects. In short, the schools are receiving the brunt of the blame for the dumbing down of America. This book launches a frontal attack on the nature of the educational process and lays out clear guidelines for the future.

The implementation of virtual environments in education has been rapidly increasing in frequency after the COVID-19 pandemic. As these technologies rise in popularity, it is essential to understand the roles digital technologies play in fostering connections and learning, the affordances of digital texts and spaces for virtual classroom experiences, the difficulties educators have faced and how these practices have been crafted to meet these challenges, and more. Innovations in Digital Instruction Through Virtual Environments advances knowledge about the pedagogical decisions and lived experiences of researchers and educators both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It features research from those who have worked to sustain and develop digital/media pedagogical practices. Covering topics such as active learning environments, emotional labor, and textual engagements, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for educators and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

The date, the gown, the tux, the theme, the corsage. For many teenagers the prom is the highlight of their high school career, seen as the rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood.
In Prom Night, Amy Best interview countless teens about their prom experiences, and looks at popular media to understand today's teens. She finds that with the rising purchasing power of youth culture, the prom is now an industry unto itself with its own magazines, films, clothing, accessories and services.

Graham Ramsden's insightful new book helps understand why people, particularly children, bully others. It utilises research from a wide variety of psychological and sociological sources to explore the context of bullying from both a historical viewpoint as well as from a social perspective. It delves into the psychology of those people who choose to bully and helps the reader to understand why some people bully others and why some do not. The closing chapters use this understanding to explore a variety of ways schools and other education settings can use their existing systems and structures to address this endemic issue.

Alternative education caters and cares for students whose regular schools have failed and excluded them. Fifty years of international research reports that alternative settings are characterised by close and powerful staff-student relationships, a curriculum which is relevant, engaging and meaningful, and the strong sense of agency afforded young people by the opportunity to make decisions. Together, these three practices produce increased life chances for alternative education participants. However, despite these apparent successes, alternative education seems to have had little impact on mainstream schools. This collection of papers addresses the important question - what might regular schools and teachers learn about socially just pedagogies from alternative education practices? In providing answers to this question, authors interrogate the taken-for-granted wisdom about alternative education while also taking account of ongoing policy shifts, differing locations and populations, and persistent and intersecting patterns of raced, classed and gendered inequalities. They draw on a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to interrogate the ways in which alternative schools and alternative education both challenge and legitimate the kinds of schooling most of us expect for our own and other people's children. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Education.

As economies across the world continue to struggle, there is growing evidence that the vulnerable in society, especially children, are paying the greatest cost in terms of reduced opportunities for access to equitable life chances, the most vital of these being education. Juxtaposing the ongoing failure of education systems to address disadvantage with the widespread belief in the vital importance of the training of teachers raises another issue, namely that remarkably little is known about the effective preparation of pre-service teachers to ameliorate educational disadvantage and, additionally, that little attention appears to be given to this in most teacher preparation programmes. This book attempts to redress this balance and is structured by three themes that focus on national policy, pre-service teacher preparation programmes and individual pre-service teachers. The book reveals a disheartening picture of complex patterns of inequality across and within individual countries, together with an incomplete understanding of the intersectional mechanisms - political, ideological, social and cultural - that link poverty and educational disadvantage. Contributions from five different countries, however, provide evidence of positive signs that interesting, innovative and intellectually sound developments are happening at a local level and offer a valuable contribution to the debate about how teacher education can create levers for change. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Education for Teaching.

This book analyses selected critical concepts of policy and practice in educational leadership in five European countries. The editors and contributors cover Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Denmark and Norway, spanning a wide geographical region as well as diverse historical and political contexts. The analyses primarily consider the issues of convergence and divergence in local educational leadership policies and practice that are developing and emerging from traditional structures and discourses under global, trans-national and regional influences. Focusing on both the macro and micro levels, this book examines a range of topics including international benchmarking, inclusive education practices and digital transformation. It will be of interest and value to scholars of educational leadership in Europe, particularly within smaller countries. "Today's local educational leadership policies and practice are connected with the historical roots of five small European countries. In the analysis, perspectives from within each country and comparisons are used interestingly. Both levels of analysis bring out new understandings of the relationship between policy and practice and how they have been related to leadership in a historical discourse. In my opinion the different country chapters and the comparisons represent important new knowledge and I recommended the book as reading for school leaders and policy makers in the field of educational leadership." -Professor Olof Johansson, Umea University, Sweden "The book fills a gap in the research of cross-national research, comparing school leadership issues in two Balkan countries, Croatia and Slovenia, one Baltic country, Lithuania, and two Scandinavian countries, Norway and Denmark. To my knowledge it is the first time there has been this sort of cross-investigation of commonalities and differences in school leadership conditions between these countries in the age of globalization. I am sure that many scholars and practitioners can benefit from this book and hereby recommend it. " -Associate Professor Emeritus Klaus Kasper Kofod, Aarhus University, Denmark

Research informed teaching is big news! There has been a bottom up revolution encouraging teachers' use of research. But at the same time there is a gap between what teachers do and what research suggests might provide effective ways to support student learning. It's not that a wealth of educational research doesn't exist, but what teachers, school and school system leaders need is an understanding of how to embed this research within everyday practice. Drawing on the wisdom of those at the top of their game, this book intends to provide just that: a practical handbook for teachers and leaders that can help make the research use revolution a reality. With contributions from leading 'do-ers' in the field of knowledge mobilisation including: Daniel Muijs (Ofsted); Cat Scutt (Chartered College of Teaching); Jonathan Sharples (EEF); Julie Nelson (NfER); Adam Boxer (teacher and blogger); Gary Jones (blogger); David Weston (Teacher Development Trust) and Caroline Creaby (Sandingham Research School), the book provides a wealth of insight. This knowledge is then further distilled into useable guidance and best practice principles that can be readily implemented at classroom, school and teaching school alliance level.

This comprehensive look at Chinese-heritage students' academic, sociocultural, and emotional development in the public schools examines pertinent educational theories; complex (even inconvenient) realities; learning practices in and outside of schools; and social, cultural, and linguistic complications in their academic lives across diverse settings, homes, and communities. Chinese-heritage students are by far the largest ethnic group among Asian American and Asian Canadian communities, but it is difficult to sort out their academic performance because NAEP and most state/province databases lump all Asian students' results together. To better understand why Chinese-heritage learners range from academic role models to problematic students in need of help, it is important to understand their hearts and minds beyond test scores. This book is distinctive in building this understanding by addressing the range of issues related to Chinese-heritage K-12 students' languages, cultures, identities, academic achievements, and challenges across North American schools.

This edited collection considers Greek American formal and informal educational efforts, institutions, and programs, broadly conceived, as they evolved over time throughout the United States. The book's focus on Greek Americans aims to highlight the vast array of educational responses to local needs and contexts as this distinct, yet, heterogeneous immigrant community sought to maintain its linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage for over one hundred years. The chapters in this volume amend the scholarly literature that thus far has not only overlooked Greek American educational initiatives, but has also neglected to recognize and analyze the community's persistence in sustaining them. This book is an important contribution to an understanding of Greek Americans' long overdue history as a significant diaspora community within an American context.

This is a book for district and school leaders that describes how to reshape the school culture to become a high performing school and professional learning community that is able to sustain success for every student. Anchored in the moral purpose of sustaining success for all students, the book demonstrates how to reshape school cultures to support continuous student success by building trust as a foundation for the learning community and then implementing the 6 principles of the FNO Framework:1) Establishing a common mission, vision, set of values and goals2) Ensuring achievement for all students by setting up systems for prevention and intervention and building on student strengths3) Engaging in collaborative teaming that is focused on teaching for learning4) Using data based decision-making for continuous improvement5) Actively engaging families and the community6) Building sustainable leadership capacity With contributions from Pedro A. Noguera, Andy Hargreaves, and Dean Fink, this book not only outlines the Who, What, and How of becoming a high-performing school and learning community, but also shows how to avoid ten common routes to failure, and provides numerous resources, many case stories and examples from Alan s work in schools and districts around the U.S.Proposed Changes: Thorough update of educational context, including emphasis on Common Core state standards and assessments; 21st century learning and teaching; college and career readiness+ Trim the book to its essentials, not to exceed 200 printed pages+ Update the cases and stories from HOPE s work around the U.S.+ Expand coverage of RTI+ Add demographic data to the data chapter+ Provide resources in the book rather than in a separate for-sale facilitator guide or a website+ Provide coverage of how new technology tools can support learning

By undertaking to educate every single American child all the way through high school, the United States has set for itself a goal unrivaled by any other country in the world. But this goal has run full tilt into a heated debate about what we teach diverse children about our history, language, and literature.

Arguments for and against multicultural education, according to Judith Renyi, Director of Collaboratives for Humanities and Arts Teaching (CHART), have too often been debated in a historical vacuum. "Going Public" is an unprecedented attempt to provide the historical context of the struggle for diverse curricula in American public schools. It also interprets the teachings of our schools in surprising ways.

Dr. Renyi offers an eloquent and wide-ranging look at how our educational goals have changed over the past century, as well as a prescription for how they must continue to change through the millennium if we are to accomplish the ambitious task of fully educating the poorest quarter of our nation. She also provides perhaps the most informed overview to date of the multicultural education debate--of the formation and reformation of the canon, the call for a return to basics, and the politics of inclusion. She ends with a powerful argument for a generous, diverse curriculum that reflects our radical national experiment in educating all our citizens through high school--for changing the "what" and "how" of education to engage the new "whom."

With erudition and sensitivity--combined with firsthand knowledge from visits to hundreds of elementary and secondary school classrooms across the country--Renyi offers historical perspective as well as humane solutions.

It's not what students know, but what they do with what they know that is important Schools are changing in response to this reality, and in Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards, Bob Lenz, Justin Wells, and Sally Kingston draw on the example of the Envision Education schools, as well as other leading schools around the country, to show how the concept of deeper learning can meet the need for students who are both college and career ready and engaged in their own education. In this book, the authors explain how project-based learning can blend with Common Core-aligned performance assessment for deeper learning. You'll discover how many schools have successfully made the transition from traditional, teacher-centered learning to project-based, deeper learning and find many practical ideas for implementation. * Companion DVD and website include videos showing how to implement deeper learning strategies in the classroom * Evidence-based descriptions show why deeper learning is right for students * Performance assessment experts explain how to align assessments with Common Core by shifting the emphasis from knowing to doing * Extensive game plan section provides step-by-step guidance for change Schools are complex organizations, and transformation involves all of the stakeholders, from students to superintendents. But as this book shows, there are amazing benefits to be realized when everyone commits to diving deeper into learning.