This book reformulates Christian education as an interdisciplinary and interdenominational vocation for professionals and practitioners. It speaks directly to a range of contemporary contexts with the aim of encouraging conceptual, empirical and practice-informed innovation to build the field of Christian education research. The book invites readers to probe questions concerning epistemologies, ethics, pedagogies and curricula, using multidisciplinary research approaches. By helping thinkers to believe and believers to think, the book seeks to stimulate constructive dialogue about what it means to innovate Christian education research today.Chapters are organised into three main sections. Following an introduction to the volume's guiding framework and intended contribution (Chapter 1), Part 1 features conceptual perspectives and comprises research that develops theological, philosophical and theoretical discussion of Christian education (Chapters 2-13). Part 2 encompasses empirical research that examines data to test theory, answer big questions and develop our understanding of Christian education (Chapters 14-18). Finally, Part 3 reflects on contemporary practice contexts and showcases examples of emerging research agendas in Christian education (Chapters 19-24).

This book is an exploration of science in the making. It offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on the process of development of Vygotsky's research program from the perspective of dialectics, focusing on the dramatic process of building and rebuilding cultural historical theory. Vygotsky's creative and dramatic journey is no less important than the concrete results of his research. An epistemological and historical investigation of the formulation of cultural historical theory sheds light on the process of knowledge production and reveals hidden dimensions of creativity in science.

This book presents a collection of vivid, theoretically informed descriptions of flashpoints--educational moments when the implicit sociocultural knowledge carried in the body becomes a salient feature of experience. The flashpoints will ignite critical reflection and dialogue about the formation of the self, identity, and social inequality on the level of the preconscious body.

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.

This book explores the philosophical, ideological and practical dimensions of curriculum using an intercultural lens. It is cross-cultural, comparative and inclusive, with each chapter featuring case studies from a minimum of three countries across different continents. By using the same methods of data collection and analysis for each country level in each chapter, the text explores relationships of curriculum theory, policy and practice both within and between countries. A diverse range of themes is explored, including; social justice and teacher preparation curriculum, language education curriculum, early childhood education and music, curriculum as praxis, curriculum and globalisation, science curriculum, teacher leadership in curriculum implementation, as well as curriculum and history. The exploration of these themes lays the foundation for open dialogue and innovative approaches in exploring curriculum issues within, between and across cultures and contexts.

This book is premised upon the assumption that the core purpose of universities is to create, preserve, transmit, validate, and find new applications for knowledge. It is written in the perspective of critical university studies, in which university governance processes should take ideas and discourse about ideas seriously, far more seriously than they are often taken within many of today's universities, since doing so is the key to achieving this purpose. Specifically, we assert that the best way for universities to take ideas seriously, and so to best achieve their purpose, is to consciously recognize and conserve the entire range of available ideas. Though the current emphasis upon factors such as student headcounts, increased efficiency and job creation are undoubtedly important, far more is at stake in universities than only these factors. From this premise, we deduce insights and arguments about academic freedom, as well as factors such as control and monitoring of the market place of ideas, the structure of information flows within universities, the role of language in university governance, and relationships between administrators, faculty members and students. We identify impediments to achieving the core purpose of universities, including the idea vetting systems of authoritarianism, corporatism, illiberalism, supernaturalism and political correctness. We elucidate how these impediments inhibit successful achievement of the core purpose of the university. In response to these impediments we prescribe relatively autonomous universities characterized by openness, transparency, dissent, and the maintenance of balance between conflicting perspectives, values, and interests.

Education, Poverty, Malnutrition and Famine provides an overview of education response - what it is and how it can be improved in relation to one of the more persistent issues globally. Poverty, famine and/or malnutrition exist in variant degrees among developing and developed nations and the issue figures prominently in international development. This book provides a global overview of education and such issues through case study samples of countries within various regions and offers insights and proposes solutions on how educational response can help alleviate this challenge. Each chapter contains contemporary questions to encourage active engagement with the material and an annotated list of suggested reading to support further exploration.

Multiracial students have unique needs that are not being met in schools, because teachers and school personnel assume that those needs are the same as those of monoracial minority children. Children of multiple races are, in fact, "invisible" in the schools. On school and federal forms, they are racially categorized based on "one race only," and such categorizations are not limited to documents. Schools and teachers may unknowingly transmit monoracial identity messages to multiracial students, which is problematic for some students who may want to identify with more than one race. Our racial categorization process reflects the deficiencies of the concept of race in American culture and needs to be renegotiated. The multiracial child is a microcosm of the American cultural identity. Current racial categorization of multiracial children reflects a society that is still renegotiating its own racial and ethnic identities, and these children bear the burdens of the difficulties. As America continues to become increasingly populated by diverse peoples, what it means to be American is in transition. Americans are moving away from a fixed notion of the American cultural identity toward an expanded, more inclusive resolution.

LGBTQ+ advocacy and support continues to be a priority in the U.S. higher education, and recent research shows this as a critical population who continues to be marginalized and mistreated on college and university campuses. Over the last few decades there has been significant research describing how LGBTQ students experience higher education and highlighting that these students are not graduating or succeeding at the same rates as the general population. However, few if any research studies or articles address LGBTQ advocacy on community college campuses. There are more than 1,000 community colleges in the U.S. Even with the extraordinary number of students that the community college system educates, approximately 15 institutions nationally have paid staff to provide LGBTQ services to students. That being said, community colleges are now putting a larger emphasis on understanding and supporting this community. For example, The California Community College (CCC) system's 116 colleges now require all campuses to create a plan on how to improve success rates of LGBTQ+ students. The CCC is the largest higher education system in the country serving over 2 million students. This comprehensive practitioner focused book will combine relevant research and guidance on practices to aid colleges in establishing services and programs to build effective LGBTQ+ services on their college campuses.

Examing multiple competencies and self-regulated learning in multicultural education, this volume covers topics including intelligence tests, knowledge assessment, mathematics in problem solving, and motivation and self-regulation.

Found in Translation: Connecting Reconceptualist Thinking with Early Childhood Education Practices highlights the relationships between reconceptualist theory and classroom practice. Each chapter in this edited collection considers a contemporary issue and explores its potential to disrupt the status quo and be meaningful in the lives of young children. The book pairs reconceptualist academics and practitioners to discuss how theories can be relevant in everyday educational contexts, working with children who are from a wide range of cultural, ethnic, gender, language, and social orientations to enable previously unimagined ways of being, thinking, and doing in contemporary times.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in issues of space and spatiality in the social sciences and humanities generally, if less so in the study of education. This relative lack of interest is surprising given the importance of space and time in the organization of teaching, learning and research. For instance, the timetable and project timeline are central to the organization of learning and knowledge production whether in schools, colleges or universities. Classrooms, workshops and laboratories have different spatial layouts, which support certain forms of interaction and communication. When we add to this, the increasing distances across which knowledge, understanding and competence are being distributed through the use of information and communications technologies, the fact that issues of space have not been taken up seems more than an oversight. This relative lack of interest in space becomes even more surprising when one considers the extensive use of spatial metaphors in the discussion of education and pedagogy. For instance, the notions of open, distance and distributed learning and student-centredness, border crossing, and communities of practice all have a spatial dimension to them. Notions of a spiral curriculum act as a spatial imaginary. Indeed some metaphors, such as flexibility seem to be suggestive of the possibility that all constraints of space and time can be conquered in the provision of learning opportunities throughout life. This collection of chapters from researchers around the world attempts to address these issues, to examine the significance of space for curriculum, learning and identity.

In the past twenty years, the importance of reflection has been recognised by all professions, especially the education profession. In the field of education, terms and practices such as reflective practice, action research, journaling, collaborative observation, professional development, peer observation, and professional portfolios have become organising units of discussion and practice. This book extends knowledge in the field, not just by providing prompts and examples of ""things to do,"" but also by presenting an organised and cohesive system consisting of definitions, principles, and guidelines that can be used for all reflective practice activities. This system blends ideas and concepts from phenomenology, the Constructivist philosophy, experiential learning, critical reflection, theories on turning knowledge into action, and transformative learning. Moreover, the book creates a logical system for reflective practice that provides a foundation for a framework that organises teacher transformation through reflection. This system is anchored by the practical examples provided, thus making this book practical for all those interested in improving student learning. The strength of this book is that it is not a recipe-type publication; rather it is a cohesive system which creates a rationale for the system, presents the system, and provides many examples. The intended audience includes practitioners, teacher educators, teacher candidates, and administrators.

Given the current social climate this book interrogates capitalism's relationships to and influence on education. More importantly, this book is part of a greater effort to re?humanize society by generating dialogue, encouraging solidarity and providing analyses of power and avenues for agency in supporting a life beyond the logic of the state and its implied structure, global neoliberal capitalism. The authors speak to the conceptual and material manifestations of neoliberalism that order education. Imagining education is an informed public working against what is understood as self?interest, a reconsideration of a world beyond ideology; popular education aiding social transformation for community, a move away from divisiveness and social struggle. We do not offer easy answers to the problems of global neoliberal capitalism in education, instead the authors in this book offer frameworks for contextualizing neoliberalism, its history, and what education might be on the day after the end of capitalism. This is the rupture of the rationality of global neoliberal capitalism where we examine the potentialities of a world beyond the capitalist organization of consciousness.

This book, Volume I, contains true short stories from the real world as experienced and seen through the eyes of the author. Its purpose is to share many of this life's lessons which accentuate thinking and thought production of the reader. Within these contents, there are true stories with which readers can relate, i.e., there is something for nearly everyone. By the time most of us have reached the latter part of our lives, we have experienced and seen things which can be helpful to those whom have not reached our ages. This book is a learning tool. Between these covers, you will find stories which deal with politics, power, pettiness, ethics, morality, spirituality, legal and illegal behaviors and practices with which we are all faced on a frequent basis. It is the intention of this author for this work to be helpful to those who follow. Even before my teens, something drew me to older people. Somehow I knew that they were aware of things which could be helpful to me. Most of the time, when I paid attention to their advice and instruction, I was able to learn how to avoid making the mistakes they had experienced before me.

Canada has become one of the most popular destinations for international students at the higher education level. A number of complex factors and trends, both in Canada and globally, have contributed to the emergence of Canada as a destination for international higher education. However, more research is still needed to better understand the experiences of international students in Canada considering the rapid growth in numbers as well as the social, political, and linguistic singularity of Canada as a destination. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on International Student Experience in Canadian Higher Education is an essential scholarly publication that explores international students' experiences in Canadian colleges and universities. It seeks to explore the various factors, aspects, challenges, and successes that characterize the international student experience in Canadian higher education from the perspective of international students and the academic communities to which they belong. Featuring a wide range of topics such as information literacy, professional development, and experiential learning, this book is ideal for academicians, instructors, researchers, policymakers, curriculum designers, and students.

This multidisciplinary book brings together scholars from Norway and the UK to discuss the notion of trust within the structures and forms of higher education located in two distinctive localities. The meaning of trust is multi-variant and nuanced, but is omnipresent in the literature on higher education ranging from student engagement to policy exhortations. A key feature of this book is the effort to integrate the term 'trust' conceptually, functionally and phenomenological more generally as well as within the context of higher education. Practice from within Norway and the UK is used to illustrate and expose relevant similarities and varieties in trust and the (possible) lack of it within the sector. The book thus faces the complexity of trust and its distinctive manifestation through a number of analytical lenses and realities.