In much of the world, religious traditions are seriously valued but, in the context of religious plurality, this sets educationalists an enormous challenge. This book provides a way forward in exploring religious life whilst showing how bridges might be built between diverse religious traditions. "Teaching Virtue" puts engagement with religious life - and virtue ethics - at the heart of religious education, encouraging 'learning from' religion rather than 'learning about' religion. The authors focus on eight key virtues, examining these for what they can offer of religious value to pupils and teachers. Individual chapters put the discussion into context by offering a vision of what religious education in the future could look like; the need for responsible religious education; a historical review of moral education and an introduction to virtue ethics. Lesson plans and examples demonstrate how the virtues may be approached in the classroom, making it an invaluable guide for all involved in teaching religious education.

This book draws on posthumanist critique and post qualitative approaches to research to examine the pedagogies offered by imaginaries of the future. Starting with the question of how education can be a process for imagining and desiring better futures that can shorten the Anthropocene, it speaks to concerns that are relevant to the fields of education, youth and futures studies. This book explores lessons from the imaginaries of apocalypse, revolution and utopia, drawing on research from youth(ful) perspectives in a context when the narrative of 'youth despair' about the future is becoming persistent. It investigates how the imaginary of 'Apocalypse' acts as a frame of intelligibility, a way of making sense of the monstrosities of the present and also instigates desires to act in different ways. Studying the School Climate Strikes of 2019 as 'Revolution' moves us away from the teleologies of capitalist consumption and endless growth to newer aesthetics. The strikes function as a public pedagogy that creates new publics that include life beyond the human. Finally, the book explores how the Utopias of Afrofuturist fiction provides us with a kind of 'investable' utopia because the starting point is in racial, economic and ecological injustice. If the Apocalypse teaches us to recognize what needs to go, and Revolution accepts that living with 'less than' is necessary, then this kind of Utopia shows us how becoming 'more than' human may be the future.

American higher education has served to prepare students to be active participants in a democratic society. During a time of great civil upheaval following the tumultuous elections of 2016 and 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and mass demonstrations following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, higher education may be the only institution left to be both responsible for and responsive to society at large. Public trust in the federal government is at near-record lows, but confidence in higher education has decreased more than any other U.S. institution since 2015. In a time where public opinion is quickly changing for the better or the worse, higher education must respond to this decline in trust in it as an institution, but also the decline in the belief that a college degree is worth the time and cost. Higher education was founded on the idea that colleges would prepare citizens for a life of public service, but they have quickly changed to a business model that largely puts profits over people. Practitioners of higher education must respond to this lack of trust and the pressures of preparing a 21st century workforce while battling the threats of a pandemic, declining enrollment, budget destabilization, and increased regulation. The Proper Role of Higher Education in a Democratic Society reexamines the purpose of higher education during rapidly changing times, offers practical advice and best practices to reclaim higher education's most fundamental mission, and argues that if higher education is called to prepare students to serve a government by the people, the people must be prepared to govern effectively. This book provides resources and suggestions for restoring the public faith in higher education by connecting the educational experience with civic engagement outcomes. Diverse perspectives presented in this book challenge traditional notions that civic engagement is handled by one office on a college campus and is only discussed during a presidential election. Covering everything from civic engagement to diversity perspectives, this book is ideal for higher education practitioners and those interested in promoting civic engagement and democratic participation, improving assessment or accreditation standards using a civic engagement perspective, and infusing civic engagement to diversity conversations on campus.

This book examines Norwegian education throughout the course of the 19th century, and discusses its development in light of broader transnational impulses. The nineteenth century is regarded as a period of increasing national consciousness in Norway, pointing forward to the political independency that the country was granted in 1905. Education played an important role in this process of nationalisation: the author posits that transnational - for the most part Scandinavian - impulses were more decisive for the development of Norwegian education than has been acknowledged in previous research. Drawing on the work of educator and school bureaucrat Hartvig Nissen, who is recognised as the most important educational strategist in 19th century Norway, this book will be of interest to scholars of the history of education and Norwegian education more generally.

Philosophical Children in Literary Situations: Toward a Phenomenology of Education argues that both phenomenology and children's literature can assist one another in understanding the lived experience of children. Through careful readings of central figures in the phenomenological tradition, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, Costello introduces both the novice and the scholar to the phenomenological method of describing community, emotion, religion, gender, and loss-experiences that are central to all humans, but especially to the developing child. When turning to literary analysis, Costello uses the phenomenological theory discussed to open up the literary texts of familiar and award-winning children's chapter books toward new layers of interpretation, reading such novels as To Kill a Mockingbird, A Wrinkle in Time, and Charlotte's Web to participate in ongoing conversations about childhood perception within children's literature studies and philosophy for children. Scholars of philosophy, education, literary studies, and psychology will find this book particularly useful.

As our world becomes increasingly diverse and technologically-driven, the role and identities of teachers continues to change. Cases on Teacher Identity, Diversity, and Cognition in Higher Education seeks to address this change and provide an accurate depiction of the teaching profession today. This thought-provoking collection of cases covers a range of educational contexts from preschool teaching in Europe to higher education in Australia and North America, and draws on expert knowledge of these diverse contexts, centered on a common theme of teacher identity. This book can be used by teacher educators and trainee teachers, as well as those who have an interest in social research into teaching.

It is easy to see that the world finds itself too often in tumultuous situations with catastrophic results. An adequate education can instill holistic knowledge, empathy, and the skills necessary for promoting an international coalition of peaceful nations. Promoting Global Peace and Civic Engagement through Education outlines the pedagogical practices necessary to inspire the next generation of peace-bringers by addressing strategies to include topics from human rights and environmental sustainability, to social justice and disarmament in a comprehensive method. Providing perspectives on how to live in a multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-religious society, this book is a critical reference source for educators, students of education, government officials, and administration who hope to make a positive change.

This book is an attempt to relate moral formation to democratic life and to the emotional emotion of shame. The argument is that shame is essential to moral formation, that it tells us when we are violating our own moral norms. Contrary to common belief, I argue that shame is neither imposed on us by others (though it is certainly a product of our communal memberships) nor necessarily harmful. In fact I argue that shame not only can be beneficial for us, but that moral formation and growth are both inextricably linked to a proper sense of shame, a properly formed conscience. The process of moral formation is an important one for any society, but perhaps most of all for a democratic society. The foundational premise of democratic life is that we have the capacity to be self-governing, the desire to do the right thing, and the wisdom to discern what the right thing is. This is unlikely to happen unless there is a conscious effort to form the conscience of the young so that they can become democratic citizens. Which brings up, then, the question of moral education. Whatever it is that a particular society or community considers to be "moral," the question of moral education is how do members of the community come to be moral? Given that moral formation of the young is necessary, this discussion ends with a look at the practice of two exemplary democratic moral practitioners, Vivian Paley and Deborah Meier, whose pedagogy shows how formation of young consciences can be done by thoughtful adults with integrity.

This book uses the concept of exploration as a way of understanding transitions in children between the ages of 5 to 18 years old. Written by an international group of scholars from Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, India, Norway and the UK, the chapters offer a diverse set of case studies. The topics and themes covered include transitions in outdoor playtime, the transition to daycare, compassion in kindergarten, learning with fathers, transitions of Chinese traditional culture and disability. The chapters are organised into two parts, the first part covering macro transitions and the second covering micro-genetic transitions. The contributors show how both macro and micro-genetic transitions influence children's everyday lives, and how these different transitions open up new possibilities for play, learning and development. The contributors draw on Vygotsky's cultural historical theory and the understanding that children's cultural formation takes form in a dialectic relation between children's interests and motives and the institutional settings they participate in.

This book combines perspectives from psychology, spiritual education and digital teaching pedagogies in a transnational framework to discuss the Education in Human Values Program (EHV) for child development, with a focus on silent sitting, mindfulness, meditation and story-telling as tools in the classroom. Through positive guidance in the early stages of child development using EHV tools, teachers will be better equipped to handle disciplinary issues in primary and secondary schools. These practices are also useful for the higher education community, as teachers and educators from tertiary institutions may adopt these practices in their teaching and become reflective practitioners. Topics such as teacher morale and school climate and its impact on children are discussed in relation to building resilience, reflective capacities, and inner strength (shared values) using an intrinsic and transformational approach. The discussions also include perspectives from the neurosciences. With contributions from teachers and educators from the US, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong and Mauritius, this edited volume addresses the challenges, strengths and weaknesses associated with daily teaching practices in primary and secondary schools and higher education institutions. The content is relevant to policymakers and researchers in child development studies, with a particular focus on the impact of silent sitting, mindful practices, and meditation on children's self-regulation and resilience. The authors collectively espouse that silent sitting techniques can help a child to grow and discover their hidden potential, thus enhancing their social, emotional, spiritual and physical capacities.

This much-needed volume is an edited collection of primary sources that document the history of bilingual education in U.S. public schools during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part I of the volume examines the development of dual-language programs for immigrants, colonized Mexicans, and Native Americans during the nineteenth century. Part II considers the attacks on bilingual education during the Progressive-era drive for an English-only curriculum and during the First World War. Part III explores the resurgence of bilingual activities, particularly among Spanish speakers and Native Americans, during the interwar period and details the rise of the federal government's involvement in bilingual instruction during the post-WWII decades. Part IV of the volume examines the recent campaigns against bilingual education and explores dual-language practices in today's classrooms. A compilation of school reports, letters, government documents, and other primary sources, this volume provides rich insights into the history of this very contentious educational policy and practice and will be of great interest to historians and language scholars, as well as to educational practitioners and policymakers.

Philosophical Reflections on Neuroscience and Education explores conceptual and normative questions about the recent programme which aims to underpin education with neuroscientific principles. By invoking philosophical ideas such as Bennett and Hacker's mereological fallacy, Wittgenstein's the first-person/third-person asymmetry principle and the notion of irreducible/constitutive uncertainty, William H. Kitchen offers a critique of the whole-sale adoption of neuroscience to education. He explores and reviews the role that neuroscience has started to play in educational policy and practice, and whether or not such a role is founded in coherent conceptual reasoning. Kitchen critically analyses the role which neuroscience can possibly play within educational discussions, and offers paradigmatic examples of how neuroscientific approaches have already found their way into educational practice and policy documents. By invoking the philosophical work primarily of Wittgenstein, he argues against the surge of neuroscientism within educational discourse and offers to clarify and elucidate core concepts in this area which are often misunderstood.

How and why we should educate children has always been a central concern for governments around the world, and there have long been those who have opposed orthodoxy, challenged perception and called for a radicalization of youth. Progressive Education draws together Continental Romantics, Utopian dreamers, radical feminists, pioneering psychologists and social agitators to explore the history of the progressive education movement. Beginning with Jean Jacques Rousseau's seminal treatise "Emile" and closing with the Critical Pedagogy movement, this book draws on the latest scholarship to cover the key thinkers, movements and areas where schooling has been more than just a didactic pupil-teacher relationship. Blending narrative flair with thematic detail, this important work seeks to chart ideas which, whether accepted or not, continue to challenge and shape our understanding of education today.