Well-educated populations are important aspects of any contemporary society, as education increases national and global development and the positive expansion of communities to participate actively in civil matters also increases. Educational equality is based on the principles of administrative competence and fairness of access and distribution of resources, opportunities, and treatment, which ensures success for every person. Ensuring equal access to quality education requires addressing a wide range of persistent inequalities in society and includes a stronger focus on how different forms of inequalities intersect to produce unequal opportunities or outcomes that affect marginalized and vulnerable groups. Policy and Practice Challenges for Equality in Education takes a multifaceted look at issues of equality and inequality in education as related to policy, practice, resource access, and distribution. As such, this book explores the potential practices in education that serve to mitigate and transform unproductive practices which have left societies scarred by social and educational inequalities. The chapters provide a critical analysis of the manifestations of inequalities in various educational contexts and discerns how broader social inequalities are informed by education-related matters. This book is ideal for sociologists, administrators, instructors, policymakers, data scientists, community leaders, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in educational equality and the unique challenges being faced worldwide.

Active learning occurs when a learning task can be related in a non-arbitrary manner to what the learner already knows and when there is a personal recognition of the links between concepts. The most important element of active learning is not so much in how information is presented, but how new information is integrated into an existing knowledge base. In order to successfully implement active learning into higher education, its effect on student engagement must be studied and considered. The Handbook of Research on Active Learning and Student Engagement in Higher Education focuses on assessing the effectiveness of active learning and constructivist teaching to promote student engagement and provides a wide range of strategies and frameworks to help educators and other practitioners examine the benefits, challenges, and opportunities for using active learning approaches to maximize student learning. Covering topics such as online learning environments and engagement approaches, this major reference work is ideal for academicians, practitioners, researchers, librarians, industry professionals, educators, and students.

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic plunged large numbers of students and faculty across the world into online learning with little to no warning or experience. This leaves a ripe situation to assess how far online learning has come, what pitfalls people have experienced, what new insights have emerged, and new thoughts for future development. Shaping Online Spaces Through Online Humanities Curricula reexamines online learning best practices in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The text highlights successes and failures and suggests future ideas to produce excellent online education in humanities disciplines. Covering topics such as adult education, multicultural literature, and virtual learning environments, this premier reference source is a dynamic resource for administrators and educators of both K-12 and higher education, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, government officials, instructional designers, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

What Do Principals Do? provides a comprehensive and expansive look into a high school principal's job. Rather than a survey asking principals how much time they spend on various tasks, this work provides empirical evidence of exactly what a principal does every day of the year and how much time he spends doing it. Based on the results of a three-year longitudinal study conducted by a California High School Principal of the Year (Association of California School Administrators, 2012), this book reveals precisely what a principal does, when he does it, and how much time he spends doing it. The study identifies 72 discrete tasks performed by principals and examines how much time (disaggregated by day, week, month, and year) they spend on each of those 72 tasks. The results of the data collection are the foundation of the book. The findings are supplemented with explanations and analyses that reveal the workings of K-12 education and give readers a glimpse of life in a comprehensive high school. This is a must read for everyone considering a life in public school administration. The author, Dr. Jonathan Hurst, the longest running principal in Elsinore High School's 130-year history, provides insightful commentary and relevant anecdotes from a rich and rewarding career served in a large comprehensive high school in Southern California. This book provides detailed, quantitative evidence and an explanation for just what a principal does and how much time he spends doing it. In the process, it demonstrates the requisite skills for effective school governance, administrative multi-tasking, and productive principal behavior. Data collected covers three years and encompasses over 20,500 tasks and 7,500 hours of work. This is a useful augmentation to existing administrative credential course readings as it provides evidence for what the research and authors are saying and demonstrates those skills, procedures, and operations that are an everyday part of a school administrator's job. But the appeal for What Do Principal's Do? goes beyond those seeking knowledge about educational administration. Besides the facts and figures about how a principal spends his time, Dr. Hurst offers explanations for why and how the time is spent, and he provides insight into the educational scene. This book has appeal for students in teacher education programs, because it explains school communities and life in a school system, and that also makes it appealing to the lay person or parent who wants to understand how schools work.

Teacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina. Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000 people, dressed in red, convened at the state capital in downtown Columbia, SC (Bowers, 2019b). This statewide teacher walkout was assembled to call for the improvement of teachers' working conditions and the learning conditions of their students. The gathering was the largest display of teacher activism in the history of South Carolina and reflected a trend in a larger wave of teacher walkouts that have rippled across the nation over the last five years. The crowd comprised teachers from across South Carolina, who walked out of their classrooms for the gathering, as well as numerous students, parents, university faculty, and other community members that rallied with teachers in solidarity. Undergirding this walkout and others that took hold across the country is a perennial and pervasive pattern of unfavorable teacher working conditions that have contributed to what some are calling a teacher shortage "crisis" (Chuck, 2019). We have focused our work specifically on the illustrative case of South Carolina, given the extreme teacher staffing challenges the state is facing. Across numerous metrics, the South Carolina teacher shortage has reached critical levels, influenced by teacher recruitment and retention challenges. For instance, the number of teacher education program completers has declined annually, dropping from 2,060 in 2014-15 to 1,642 in the 2018-19 school year. Meanwhile, the number of teachers leaving the teaching field has increased from 4,108.1 to 5,341.3 across that same period (CERRA, 2019). These trends are likely to continue as COVID-19 has put additional pressure on the already fragile teacher labor market. Some of the hardest-to-staff districts are often located in communities with the highest diversity and poverty. To prosper and progress, reformers and public stakeholders must have a vested interest in maintaining full classrooms and strengthening the teaching workforce. An important element of progress towards tackling these longstanding challenges is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. While teacher shortages are occurring nationwide (Garcia & Weiss, 2019), how they manifest regionally is directly influenced by its localized historical context and the evolution of the teaching profession's reputation within a state. Thus, the impetus of this book is to use South Carolina as an illustrative example to discuss the context and evolution that has shaped the status of the teaching profession that has led to a boiling point of mass teacher shortages and the rise of historic teacher walkouts.

Throughout the past several years, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have been a part of a growing phenomenon to address the diverse needs of organizations. However, the act of diversity training and implementation in programs has traditionally been reactive as a result of a scandal rather than proactive. As more industries see the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion training, we will continue to see the benefits of a sustainable, healthy working environment for all. Challenges to Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs in Organizations is an essential reference source that shares the challenges and opportunities faced by diversity, equity, and inclusion officers who are leading their organizations to becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive working environments. Featuring research on topics such as institutional equity, organizational culture, and diverse workplace, this book is ideally designed for administrators, human resource specialists, researchers, business professionals, academicians, and students, as well as organizations looking to make the intentional shifts necessary to develop and foster a more inclusive working and learning environment.