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.

The second edition of Knowledge and Power in the Global Economy examines how neoliberal and neoconservative policies are working in tandem to privatize and commercialize public schools. It looks at how these policies and the agendas behind them have impacted the internal dynamics of school management, teaching, and learning, as well as how they have transformed the external dynamics of education from a public good or service offered to serve public interests to a private enterprise primarily serving private interests. In addition to information, critique, and analysis, multiple perspectives are provided that readers can draw upon to formulate an alternative vision of education as a crucial element of social change along democratic and egalitarian lines. The first edition of this volume provided a critical encyclopedic approach to the rhetoric of educational reform as it developed from the 1980s through the 1990s-critiquing its vocabulary, elaborating the multiplicity of ways that the logic of neoliberalism and the emerging patterns of high stakes testing and accountability were impacting the curriculum, and introducing ideas associated with alternative and liberatory educational projects. Since its publication in 2000, policy developments, such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in the U.S. and others in the U.K. and other parts of the world, have nationalized and intensified these patterns, deepening the logic and extent of neoliberalism's hold over educational reforms. At the same time, it is impossible to understand the current crises in education solely in terms of neoliberalism; the impact of neoconservatism must also be considered. Hence this second edition has a new subtitle: The Effects of School Reform in a Neoliberal/ Neoconservative Age. This edition is structured around five themes: Political and Social Foundations Anti-Educational Foundations: The Set-Up Anti-Educational Foundations: The Trap Classroom Consequence Democracy's Path. This volume will particularly interest scholars and professionals across the fields of educational foundations, curriculum theory, and educational policy, and is well suited as a text for courses in these areas.

Walk into a classroom in Tokyo, New York, London or Rotterdam, and the similarities in structure, activity, purpose and style will outweigh differences in language, dress and ethnic characteristics. Learning is regulated and rationed, teaching is a process or one-way transmission of knowledge, students need to be docile and conformist, assessment needs to sift and sort the bright from the not-so-bright, and rewards will be given to those who successfully negotiate this regime. But are these the kinds of places that can meet the needs of the 'net generation'?

The Changing Role of Schools in Asian Societies is concerned with the debate about the nature of modern schooling in Asia. Traditionally schools are historical constructions reflecting the social, economic and political needs of the societies that invest in them. As Asia faces the challenges posed by the 'knowledge economy', its schools have taken on a new and quite different importance. This informative book outlines the broad policy contexts in which these transformations are taking place and the practical strategies that are needed to meet this objective.

The authors argue that the future of Asian societies depends on a transformation that requires a fundamental restructuring of schools as we know them while maintaining their long-held cultural values. This valuable insight:

• provides an overview of educational issues in Asian societies
• establishes a broad theoretical framework in which these issues can be understood
• contextualizes issues by providing country case studies
• acknowledges the important role of culture influencing educationalpriorities.

It should be of interest to all those working in education policy and comparative education.

In recent times, there has been intense global interest on and scrutiny of Islamic education. In reforming Islamic schools, what are the key actions initiated and are they contested or negotiated by and among Muslims? This edited collection brings together leading scholars to explore current reforms in Islamic schools. Drawing together international case studies, Reforms in Islamic Education critically discusses the reforms, considering the motivations for them, nature of them and perceptions and experiences of people affected by them. The contributors also explore the tensions, resistance, contestations and negotiations between Muslims and non-Muslims, and among Muslims, in relation to the reforms. Highlighting the need to understand and critique reforms in Islamic schools within broad historical, political and socio-cultural contexts, this book is a valuable resource for academics, policymakers and educators.

Persistently cheeky, disruptive, even aggressive boys can be found in classrooms everywhere, as can the victims of bullying. These boys' behaviours often pose a problem to themselves as well as to others. As the hotly contested debates about boys' education swirl around them, what can teachers actually do to improve boys' performance in the classroom?Teaching Boys provides a practical framework for teachers to improve boys' education in ways that are appropriate for their school context and also sustainable. Drawing on intensive research in classrooms where innovative teachers are achieving good outcomes with boys, Keddie and Mills show how other teachers can learn from their success. They acknowledge that there are no simple solutions, but show that what teachers do in the classroom really does matter. They emphasise the importance of understanding the impact of dominant and subversive masculinities at all levels of schooling, on both boys and girls.' What is original about this book is that it marries theory and practice in a way that speaks to the everyday realities and concerns of teachers who work with boys in schools'Associate Professor Wayne Martino, The University of Western Ontario 'What is impressive about Teaching Boys is the way in which Keddie and Mills pull together the best research on boys and schooling with the best research on pedagogies.'Professor Bob Lingard, The University of Edinburgh

Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice, a research consortium headed by Vanderbilt University, this volume examines the growth and outcomes of the charter school movement. Starting in 1992-93 when the nations first charter school was opened in Minneapolis, the movement has now spread to 40 states and the District of Columbia and by 2005-06 enrolled 1,040,536 students in 3,613 charter schools. The purpose of this volume is to help monitor this fast-growing movement by compiling, organizing and making available some of the most rigorous and policy-relevant research on K-12 charter schools. Key features of this important new book include:

Expertise The National Center on School Choice includes internationally known scholars from the following institutions: Harvard University, Brown University, Stanford University, Brookings Institution, National Bureau of Economic Research and Northwest Evaluation Association.

Cross-Disciplinary Thevolume brings together material from related disciplines and methodologies that are associated with the individual and systemic effects of charter schools.

Coherent Structure Each section begins with a lengthy introduction that summarizes the themes and major findings of that section. A summarizing chapter by Mark Schneider, the Commissioner of the National Center on Educational Statistics, concludes the book.

This volume is appropriate researchers, instructors and graduate students in educationpolicy programs and in political science and economics, as well as in-service administrators, policy makers, and providers.

Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice, a research consortium headed by Vanderbilt University, this volume examines the growth and outcomes of the charter school movement. Starting in 1992-93 when the nations first charter school was opened in Minneapolis, the movement has now spread to 40 states and the District of Columbia and by 2005-06 enrolled 1,040,536 students in 3,613 charter schools. The purpose of this volume is to help monitor this fast-growing movement by compiling, organizing and making available some of the most rigorous and policy-relevant research on K-12 charter schools. Key features of this important new book include:

Expertise The National Center on School Choice includes internationally known scholars from the following institutions: Harvard University, Brown University, Stanford University, Brookings Institution, National Bureau of Economic Research and Northwest Evaluation Association.

Cross-Disciplinary Thevolume brings together material from related disciplines and methodologies that are associated with the individual and systemic effects of charter schools.

Coherent Structure Each section begins with a lengthy introduction that summarizes the themes and major findings of that section. A summarizing chapter by Mark Schneider, the Commissioner of the National Center on Educational Statistics, concludes the book.

This volume is appropriate researchers, instructors and graduate students in educationpolicy programs and in political science and economics, as well as in-service administrators, policy makers, and providers.

If you are a new school building administrator, a teacher who is thinking about going into school building administration, or just someone who is interested in what happens behind the scenes in public schools, then you want to read this book. In this book you are the new building administrator and you are charged with turning around a school building and culture that is currently a mess. You find yourself responsible for handling all of the shocking, heartbreaking, frustrating, perplexing, eye-opening, amusing, challenging, rewarding, discouraging, and humbling situations that come your way in your first year on the job. This book shows you what you can look forward to as a school building administrator, takes you through the wild and unpredictable situations as they play out, and offers suggestions for how to handle these issues going forward. So, if you are a school building administrator, a teacher, or just curious about what may take place at your child's school, then turn this book over and start reading. You likely won't stop once you get started.

Teaching the Global Dimension specifically responds to concerns such as inequality, justice, environment and conflict in chapters written by leading educationalists in the field. It explores both the theory and practice of 'global education' today and provides:

• 
  
• a framework for understanding global issues
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• a model identifying the key elements of good practice
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• insight into young people's concerns for the world and the future
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• tried and tested strategies for handling controversial global issues more confidently in the classroom
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• key concepts for planning appropriate learning experiences
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• a range of case studies which demonstrate the different ways in which a global dimension can be developed.

Inspiring, thought-provoking and highly practical, this book shows how teachers at any stage in their career can effectively and successfully bring a global dimension to the taught curriculum.

Pedagogy and hierarchy are intimately connected. This book traces historical versions of the relationship between hierarchy and education through four key figures: Plato, Augustine, Abelard and Dante. Each provided canonical contributions to how hierarchies both work and fail in education: Plato through the ladder of beauty and the cave metaphor; Augustine through his Confessions; Abelard through his relationship with Heloise; and Dante through the Divine Comedy. All four worked within the tradition of a Great Chain of Being. Its basic premise was that there were qualitatively different orders of experience that needed to be described with the intent of pedagogically revealing to the reader how to travel through the varying stages. As such this tradition exists as one of the great repositories of hierarchical pedagogic practice in the West. This book is an introduction to the history of hierarchical teaching practice by describing various journeys of learning and discussing the techniques and paths used in the process.

With a key UN Sustainable Development Goal for 2030 being to make basic education available to all the world's children, Learning Spaces in Africa explores the architectural, socio-political and economic policy factors that have contributed to school design, the main spaces for education and learning in Africa. It traces the development of school building design, focusing on Western and Southern Africa, from its emergence in the 19th century to the present day. Uduku's analysis draws attention to the past historic links of schools to development processes, from their early 19th century missionary origins to their re-emergence as development hubs in the 21st century. Learning Spaces in Africa uses this research as a basis to suggest fundamental changes to basic education, which respond to new technological advances, and constituencies in learning. Illustrated case studies describe the use of tablets in refugee community schools, "hole-in-the wall" learning and shared school-community learning spaces. This book will be beneficial for students, academics and those interested in the history of educational architecture and its effect on social development, particularly in Africa and with relevance to countries elsewhere in the emerging world.

Presenting the work of a highly innovative partnership between the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education and eight secondary schools, this book explores this networked learning community which has helped to define the use and production of educational knowledge and research within and between various partners.

This book examines the central questions and gives examples of the outcomes of the development that will assist any researchers, especially teachers undertaking research, to develop school-university partnerships. Stories and examples from practitioners and others who worked directly in and with schools are presented throughout the book. It will appeal to a wide audience of practitioners and academics, and to all who are interested in how research and enquiry can be used to support the development of practice in schools.

Many new approaches to school improvement are being proposed in the current climate of assessment and school accountability. This book explores one of these approaches, a new model of leadership training known as Learner-Centered Leadership (LCL). It is built around the fundamental idea that learning and learning communities are natural processes that, when properly harnessed, can lead to the highest levels of professional engagement and problem solving. Key features of this exciting new approach to school leadership include the following: Broad-based and Generative-The book's narratives vividly illustrate the extraordinary ability of LCL to generate new approaches to leadership development. For example, encouraging and assisting school leaders to reflect on their own leadership attributes relative to the implementation of the school mission to ensure high teacher efficacy and student learning. In this respect the volume contributes significantly to the field of school leadership and professional development by extending above and beyond a narrow focus on instructional leadership. Practice Oriented-By creating communities that encourage conversation and analysis the new data-driven models of school improvement are more likely to be successfully implemented. Without analytical discourse, the process of interpreting school data and transforming it into practice would be largely lost. Conceptually Appropriate-The realization that everyone within a school (students, teachers, administrators) belongs to the same learning community minimizes status differences and encourages teamwork. The LCL administrator is much less likely to be authoritarian and power-oriented and much more likely to be transformative and student outcome focused. This book is appropriate for master's level courses and certification seminars, and for inservice workshops dealing with school leadership.

How interwoven are the lives of children, families, teachers and school leaders?
In this important new book seven authors bring together stories and questions about the lives of children, families, teachers and administrators. Lives are seen up close, in all their particularity, and explored in terms of the contexts that shape the experiences of students and staff. These stories provide an alternative view of what counts in schools, with a shift away from viewing the school as a business model towards an idea of schools as places to engage citizenship.
Building upon Jean Clandinin's 20 years of narrative inquiry where she worked and learned alongside school practitioners for extended periods of time, this book uses a narratively-constructed theoretical background of personal practical knowledge, professional knowledge landscapes, and stories to live by to provide both a language and a storied framework for understanding lives in school. In two urban multicultural schools in western Canada, the co-authors of this book engaged in narrative inquiries alongside children, teachers, families and principals. As these narrative inquiries were negotiated at each site the co-authors lived in the school, for the most part in particular classrooms alongside a teacher where, as relationships developed, children as well as some family members were invited to participate in the inquiry. Articulating the complex ethical dilemmas and issues that face people in schools every day, this fascinating study of school life and lives in school raises new questions about who and what education is for and provokes the re-imagining of schools as places to attend to the wholeness of people's lives.
Thecomplexities and possibilities of the meeting of diverse teachers', children's, families' and school leaders' lives in schools shape new insights about the interwoven lives of children and teachers, and raise important, lingering questions about the impact of these relationships on the unfolding lives ofchildren.

Schools and school systems are increasingly impacted by global disruptions and rapid changes that create unprecedented challenges and opportunities for their leaders and educators. School leaders need to prepare students for faster changes than ever before, to learn for jobs that have not yet been created and use pedagogically-informed technologies to transform the ways in which teachers, students. and parents relate and collaborate. Current and future technological transformations provide opportunities for transformative change through the potential for connectivity and networking for educators locally, nationally and internationally. This book provides an analysis of the impact of disruptive environments on education. It closely examines and synthesizes international literature on how educational systems in a number of countries are successfully transforming educational delivery processes to better prepare students for an increasingly disrupted world. This invaluable text will prove indispensable for educational professionals and researchers engaged in informing and transforming policy making, leadership training and development, and quality learning and pedagogy in schools.

While the fierce debate over religion in public schools receives ample media attention, we rarely consider the implications of religious schools on moral education and liberal democracy. In this groundbreaking work, Walter Feinberg opens up a critical new dialogue to offer a complete discussion of the important role religious schools play in the formation of a democratic citizenry. Feinberg, a leading philosopher of education, approaches the subject of religious education with a rare evenhandedness, drawing on examples from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim schools and exploring topics as disparate as sex education and creationism. For Goodness Sake provides a much-needed take on a controversial topic, demonstrating that the relationship between religion and schooling is not simply the exclusive concern of members of a given religious community, but a relevant and vital issue for everyone who cares about education.

This comprehensive handbook is the ultimate reference work, providing authoritative and international overviews of all aspects of schools and schooling in Asia. Split into 19 sections it covers curriculum, learning and assessment, private supplementary tutoring, special education, gender issues, ethnic minority education and LGBTQI students in Asian schools. The volume displays the current state of the scholarship for schools and schooling in Asia including emerging, controversial and cutting-edge contributions using a thematic approach. The content offers a broad sweep of the region with a focus on theoretical, cultural and political issues as well as identifying educational issues and priorities, such as curriculum, assessment, teacher education, school leadership, etc., all of which impact students and learning in multiple ways. The Routledge International Handbook of Schools and Schooling in Asia brings together experts in each area to contribute their knowledge, providing a multidimensional and rich view of the issues confronting the region's school and education systems. Chapter 34 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138908499_oachapter34.pdf Chapter 35 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315694382-35 Chapter 36 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315694382-36 Chapter 37 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315694382-37 Chapter 38 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315694382-38

Anyone who wants to know what is really happening in schools - behind all the hype and political rhetoric about the privatizing reforms in education - should read this book. It clarifies how private interests are influencing the public education process, and investigates Labour's successes and failures. These are critical moves for parents, teachers, school principals, head teachers and governors, student teachers, teaching assistants, researchers, administrators, government officials, politicians, taxpayers and in fact anyone interested in the future of education. In plain English, it shows how schools are set up, run and held to account through testing and inspection and how they make judgements about the relative merits of different schools' performances. It also indicates ways in which ordinary people can participate in shaping the future of education in order to achieve progress and better standards of achievement from schools and the education service generally. This is essential reading for all those concerned about the new future of our education system and of our children.

Overcoming barriers to learning and raising standards of achievement are central efforts in education. In the UK the government has made education its leading domestic priority and it has made education the center of its drive to improve public services by using the private sector to bring about improvements in performance and to break the status quo. Likewise, throughout the world private interests are now impinging heavily upon how state education is perceived; the 'educational apartheid' between state and private is diminishing across schools and local authorities. This book provides an incisive commentary on this rapidly changing phenomenon through clarification, analysis and evaluation of a variety of policy initiatives and implementation issues in the UK and by assessing parallel developments elsewhere in the world.
The ways in which change is being forced along in a range of guises from public partnerships to private company deals are illustrated with many real and contentious examples. Partnership arrangements, sponsorships, new categories of state independent schools and private sector take-overs of schools and education authorities form the patchwork of how state education is becoming privatized. Will these changes bring more choice and improved standards? How valuable to parents is the information presented in league tables and inspection reports? How will this impact on the future of education? This provocative and critical book moves forward this highly topical debate by providing a direct, in-depth and jargon free commentary on what is happening under the banner of privatization.

Many school buildings across America are falling apart due to age or lack of maintenance. Others are outmoded and do not meet the needs of modern educational programs and curricula. Unfortunately, school administrators and boards of education have found it increasingly difficult to obtain the funding necessary to correct facility problems in their districts. However help is at hand in the fourth edition of a popular title originally published in 1999. Holt updates the status of school facilities in the U.S. and provides new information on the gap between federal, state, and local funding. New to this edition is a discussion of the importance of senior voter contributions for the success of election campaigns. The nuts and bolts of securing the funding for facility construction, a component of the building process usually overlooked in training administrators, are clearly outlined in chapters that begin with a look at the problem of aging schools and follow through the planning and project development phases to the bond campaign and election-day. Filled with tips, checklists, and insights on the details from experienced school leaders, this is the perfect guide to consult every step on the way to victory.

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.

School choice is a hot topic in the United States. Private school vouchers, public charter schools, open enrollment, and homeschooling all regularly appear on the policy agenda as ways to improve the educational experience and outcomes for students, parents, and the broader society. Pundits often make claims about the various ways in which parents select schools and thus customize their child's education. What claims about school choice are grounded in actual evidence? This book presents systematic reviews of the social science research regarding critical aspects of parental school choice. How do parents choose schools and what do they seek? What effects do their choices have on the racial integration of schools and the performance of the schools that serve non-choosing students? What features of public charter schools are related to higher student test scores? What effects does school choice have on important non-cognitive outcomes including parent satisfaction, student character traits, and how far students go in school? What do we know about homeschooling as a school choice? This book, originally published as a special issue of the Journal of School Choice, provides evidence-based answers to those vital questions.

Fuelled by social equity concerns, there have been vigorous debates on the appropriateness of certain non-state actors, particularly those with commercial and entrepreneurial motives, to meet universal education goals. There are further questions on the relative effectiveness of government and private schooling in delivering good learning outcomes for all. Within this debate, several empirical questions abound. Do students from poorer backgrounds achieve as well in private schools as their advantaged peers? What are the relative out-of-pocket costs of accessing private schooling compared to government schooling? Is fee-paying non-state provision 'affordable' to the poorest households? What is the nature of the education market at different levels? What are the relationships between different non-state actors and the state, and how should they conduct themselves? The chapters in this volume present new empirical evidence and conduct critical analysis on some of these questions. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Oxford Review of Education.

This book presents a story of school improvement activity in East Africa from 1985 to 2000, which focused on sustained teacher development. The core of the book consists of six evaluations of school-and district-wide school improvement projects (SIPs) supported by the Aga Khan Foundation in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. The case studies present an evolving body of knowledge about the successes and challenges of a comprehensive approach to school improvement grounded in a common set of strategic principles. The strategic principles embody the belief that the chances for quality improvement in teaching and learning are greater when change efforts *are school-based, *involve whole schools as the unit of change, *emphasize the ongoing professional development of teachers, *attend to school management and organizational conditions affecting the capacity of teachers to implement change, * prepare for the institutionalization of organizational structures and processes that enable continuous school development, and *evolve through partnerships among relevant education stakeholders. The book concludes with commentaries by international experts in school improvement and teacher development on the SIP project designs, implementation and outcomes, and on lessons that can be drawn from the projects and their evaluations for school improvement policy, practice and theory in developing and developed countries around the world.

This book analyses the ways in which schools in urban areas are shaped and influenced by social, economic and political forces within the social environment. Utilizing research from schools in Chicago, the book shows how schools attempt to respond to external factors that are typically seen as being beyond the control of schools. These external factors include demographic change (i.e. immigration), poverty, drug trafficking, violence and social inequality: issues that confront urban schools throughout the United States. The central argument of the book is that unless strategies are devised to address these external forces, it is unlikely that schools will succeed in serving the academic needs of students.
Increasingly, the term urban is a social and cultural construct, used to describe economically depressed inner-city neighborhoods and the people who live there, rather than a geographic concept. Schools in such communities are typically regarded as some of the worst in the nation, and many have been written off as hopeless academic wastelands. Yet, for poor children and their families, such schools constitute the last remnant of the social safety net; the only public institution that is required by law to serve their needs. The basic contention of this book is that though the obstacles faced by urban schools are formidable, action for improvement is possible when strategies are devised that deliberately seek to address external constraints.
The book consists of six chapters. The first two situate the study within the national debate over school reform and urban poverty. Chapters three through five provide case studies in which efforts undertaken by schools to address larger social and economic issues are explored. The final chapter analyzes the policy implications of the research and the cases that are presented.