The first seven articles of the book provide an overview of how Estonian educational scientists, collaborating with colleagues from Finland and Sweden on one of the articles, have empirically studied the quality of learning environment, teachers' professionalism and their perceptions of their own teaching as well as their professional role and students' coping at school. When dealing with the educational reality, a wholeness-centred educational thinking is represented. Therefore, one of the articles is devoted to the question of how to define youth and interpret the development of the concept of youth. One article deals with creativity in relation to the social field. The last article compares the semantics of the concepts Paideia and lifestyle as expressions of the wholeness-centred educational thinking.

"Tradition and Innovation in Education" presents a number of articles that deal with topics as varied as outdoor education in Estonian kindergartens, student teacher lesson analysis skills, activities that bridge the theory-practice gap and the identity of academics in a changing university environment. In the light of PISA they also discuss how student awareness and the choice of different learning strategies explains the variation in reading proficiency. A user experience evaluation system is offered for pupils with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, while living, learning and discovery learning is presented as an approach to violin studies for beginners. The volume takes a new look at creativity as being discussed too much and losing its meaning.