This research-based book dissects and explores the meaning and nature of Inquiry in teaching and learning in schools, challenging existing concepts and practices. In particular, it explores and contests prevailing attitudes about the practice of inquiry-based learning across the Science, Geography and History disciplines, as well as focusing on the importance of the role of teacher in what is frequently criticised as being a student-controlled activity. Three frameworks, which are argued to be necessarily intertwined for discipline-specific literacy, guide this inquiry work: the classroom goals; the instructional approach; and the degree of teacher direction. The foundation of the analysis is the notion of educational inquiry as it is structured in the Australian Curriculum, along with the locating of the study in international trends in inquiry learning over time. It will be of great interest to researchers, higher degree students and practicing professionals working in Education and Sociology.

Based on new research data, with a 135-teacher study over 8 countries, this book challenges the assumption that all teachers automatically have the expertise to teach cultural understanding and argues, instead, that there is the need for teachers to acquire transcultural expertise to teach cultural understanding effectively in the present age, rather than depending on current multicultural and intercultural approaches. By outlining a new model to teach cultural understanding that is appropriate and relevant, this volume focuses on the expertise of teachers to address this gap in current teaching practice. Using the framework of education in Britain and its former empire, this book traces the role that teachers have played in teaching cultural understanding throughout history, and then uses the results of a recent international research project to outline recommendations for teacher education and professional learning that both develop and enhance the ability of teachers to address cultural understanding effectively in their work. Transculturalism and Teacher Capacity: Professional Readiness in the Globalised Age is the perfect resource for any researcher, school leader and educational administrator, or those interested in education that prepares teachers to meet the demands of the profession in the current age.

Transnationalism, Education and Empowerment challenges the prevailing notion that transnationalism is concerned fundamentally with the process of enhanced global population movement that has been allied with modern globalisation. Instead, it argues that transnationalism is a state of mind, disassociated from the notion of 'place,' that can be observed equally in societies of the past. Drawing on the context of colonial Sri Lanka and the British Empire, the book discusses how education in the British Empire was the means by which some marginalised groups in colonised societies were able to activate their transnational dispositions. Far from being a universal oppressor of colonised people, as argued by postcolonial scholarship, colonial education was capable of creating pathways to life improvement that did not exist before the European colonial period, providing agency to those who did not possess it prior to colonial rule. The book begins by exploring the meaning of transnationalism, arguing that it needs to be redefined to meet the realities of past and current global societies. It then moves on to examine the ways education was used within the period of 18th and 19th century European colonialism, with a particular emphasis on Sri Lanka and other parts of the former British Empire. Drawing from examples of his own family's ancestry, Casinader then discusses how some marginalised groups in parts of the British Empire were able to use education as the key to unlocking their pre-existing transnational dispositions in order to create pathways for more prosperous futures. Rather than being subjugated by colonial education, they harnessed the educational aspects of British colonial education for their own goals. This book is one of the first to contest and critically evaluate the contemporary conceptualisation of transnationalism, particularly in the educational context. It will be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, the history of education, imperial and colonial history, cultural studies and geography.

The notion of thinking skills as a key component of a 21st century school education is now firmly entrenched in educational policy and curriculum frameworks in many parts of the world. However, there has been relatively little questioning of the manner in which educational globalisation has facilitated this diffusion of thinking skills, curriculum and pedagogy in a cultural context. This book will help to redress such an imbalance in its critical assessment of the cross-cultural validity of transplanting thinking skills programs from one educational system to another on an international scale. Culture, Transnational Education and Thinking provides an international comparative study of the intersection of three educational concepts: culture, education and thinking. Drawing on case studies from Malaysia, South Africa and Australia/USA for the purposes of comparative analysis, the book employs the context of an international school program in the teaching of thinking skills, Future Problem Solving Program International. The book explores the associations between Future Problem Solving educators, their cultural background, and their approaches to thinking, evaluating the relevance of transferring thinking skills programs derived in one cultural framework into another. The book also discusses the wider implications of these cross-cultural comparisons to curriculum and pedagogy within schools and higher education, with a particular emphasis on the teaching of multicultural school-based classes and cross-cultural understandings in teacher education and professional development. This book will be of relevance to academics and higher education students who have an interest in the fields of cross-cultural and intercultural understanding, comparative studies in education, and theories and practices of cognition, as well as the development of tertiary and secondary curricula and associated pedagogies that specifically acknowledge the cultural diversities of both teacher and learner.

The notion of thinking skills as a key component of a 21st century school education is now firmly entrenched in educational policy and curriculum frameworks in many parts of the world. However, there has been relatively little questioning of the manner in which educational globalisation has facilitated this diffusion of thinking skills, curriculum and pedagogy in a cultural context. This book will help to redress such an imbalance in its critical assessment of the cross-cultural validity of transplanting thinking skills programs from one educational system to another on an international scale. Culture, Transnational Education and Thinking provides an international comparative study of the intersection of three educational concepts: culture, education and thinking. Drawing on case studies from Malaysia, South Africa and Australia/USA for the purposes of comparative analysis, the book employs the context of an international school program in the teaching of thinking skills, Future Problem Solving Program International. The book explores the associations between Future Problem Solving educators, their cultural background, and their approaches to thinking, evaluating the relevance of transferring thinking skills programs derived in one cultural framework into another. The book also discusses the wider implications of these cross-cultural comparisons to curriculum and pedagogy within schools and higher education, with a particular emphasis on the teaching of multicultural school-based classes and cross-cultural understandings in teacher education and professional development. This book will be of relevance to academics and higher education students who have an interest in the fields of cross-cultural and intercultural understanding, comparative studies in education, and theories and practices of cognition, as well as the development of tertiary and secondary curricula and associated pedagogies that specifically acknowledge the cultural diversities of both teacher and learner.

Transnationalism, Education and Empowerment challenges the prevailing notion that transnationalism is concerned fundamentally with the process of enhanced global population movement that has been allied with modern globalisation. Instead, it argues that transnationalism is a state of mind, disassociated from the notion of 'place,' that can be observed equally in societies of the past. Drawing on the context of colonial Sri Lanka and the British Empire, the book discusses how education in the British Empire was the means by which some marginalised groups in colonised societies were able to activate their transnational dispositions. Far from being a universal oppressor of colonised people, as argued by postcolonial scholarship, colonial education was capable of creating pathways to life improvement that did not exist before the European colonial period, providing agency to those who did not possess it prior to colonial rule. The book begins by exploring the meaning of transnationalism, arguing that it needs to be redefined to meet the realities of past and current global societies. It then moves on to examine the ways education was used within the period of 18th and 19th century European colonialism, with a particular emphasis on Sri Lanka and other parts of the former British Empire. Drawing from examples of his own family's ancestry, Casinader then discusses how some marginalised groups in parts of the British Empire were able to use education as the key to unlocking their pre-existing transnational dispositions in order to create pathways for more prosperous futures. Rather than being subjugated by colonial education, they harnessed the educational aspects of British colonial education for their own goals. This book is one of the first to contest and critically evaluate the contemporary conceptualisation of transnationalism, particularly in the educational context. It will be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, the history of education, imperial and colonial history, cultural studies and geography.

Based on new research data, with a 135-teacher study over 8 countries, this book challenges the assumption that all teachers automatically have the expertise to teach cultural understanding and argues, instead, that there is the need for teachers to acquire transcultural expertise to teach cultural understanding effectively in the present age, rather than depending on current multicultural and intercultural approaches. By outlining a new model to teach cultural understanding that is appropriate and relevant, this volume focuses on the expertise of teachers to address this gap in current teaching practice. Using the framework of education in Britain and its former empire, this book traces the role that teachers have played in teaching cultural understanding throughout history, and then uses the results of a recent international research project to outline recommendations for teacher education and professional learning that both develop and enhance the ability of teachers to address cultural understanding effectively in their work. Transculturalism and Teacher Capacity: Professional Readiness in the Globalised Age is the perfect resource for any researcher, school leader and educational administrator, or those interested in education that prepares teachers to meet the demands of the profession in the current age.