Commitment, Character, and Citizenship
Commitment, Character, and Citizenship

Author: Hanan A. Alexander

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-31

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1136339000

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As liberal democracies include increasingly diverse and multifaceted populations, the longstanding debate about the role of the state in religious education and the place of religion in public life seems imperative now more than ever. The maintenance of religious schools and the planning of religious education curricula raise a profound challenge. Too much state supervision can be conceived as interference in religious freedom and as a confinement of the right to cultural liberty. Too little supervision can be seen as neglecting the development of the liberal values required to live and work in a democratic society and as abandoning those who within their communities wish to attain a more rigorous education for citizenship and democracy. This book draws together leading educationalists, philosophers, theologians, and social scientists to explore issues, problems, and tensions concerning religious education in a variety of international settings. The contributors explore the possibilities and limitations of religious education in preparing citizens in multicultural and multi-religious democratic societies.

Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy in Postindustrial Societies
Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy in Postindustrial Societies

Author: Paul C. Mocombe

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-01-17

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1135124418

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In postindustrial economies such as the United States and Great Britain, the black/white achievement gap is perpetuated by an emphasis on language and language skills, with which black American and black British-Caribbean youths often struggle. This work analyzes the nature of educational pedagogy in the contemporary capitalist world-system under American hegemony. Mocombe and Tomlin interpret the role of education as an institutional or ideological apparatus for capitalist domination, and examine the sociolinguistic means or pedagogies by which global and local social actors are educated within the capitalist world-system to serve the needs of capital; i.e., capital accumulation. Two specific case studies, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, are utilized to demonstrate how contemporary educational emphasis on language and literacy parallels the organization of work and contributes to the debate on academic underachievement of black students vis-a-vis their white and Asian counterparts.

Rethinking School Bullying
Rethinking School Bullying

Author: Ronald B. Jacobson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0415636264

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This title focuses on the role of domination and identity construction, understanding and self-knowledge, moral transformation and the social community, systems of training and hierarchy used by schooling, and the role they play in bullying.

Working-Class Minority Students' Routes to Higher Education
Working-Class Minority Students' Routes to Higher Education

Author: Roberta Espinoza

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-10-02

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1136255060

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While stories of working-class and minority students overcoming obstacles to attend and graduate from college tend to emphasize the individualistic and meritocratic aspect, this book - based in extensive empirical study of American high school classrooms, and in theories of social and cultural capital - examines the social relations that often underpin such successes, highlighting the significant formal and informal academic interventions by educators and other education professionals.

The Politics of Teacher Professional Development
The Politics of Teacher Professional Development

Author: Ian Hardy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-07-26

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1136274537

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The Politics of Teacher Professional Development: Policy, Research and Practice provides innovative insights into teachers’ continuing development and learning in contemporary western contexts. Rather than providing a list of "how-tos" and "must dos," this volume is premised on the understanding that by learning more about the current conditions under which teachers and other educators work and learn, it is possible to understand, and consequently improve, the learning opportunities teachers experience. Teacher professional development is not simply construed as an isolated series of events, such as day-long workshops marking the beginning of each school year or term, or individualistic "one-off" activities focused on new teaching approaches, curricula or assessment strategies. Rather, through application of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of social practices as contested, teacher professional development is revealed as a complex social practice which exists as policy, as a research product and process, and as an important part of teachers’ work. The book reveals how PD as policy, research and teachers’ work are inherently contested. An extended series of case studies of teacher professional development practices from Canada, England and Australia are employed to show how these tensions play out in complex ways in policy and practice.

Autobiographical Writing and Identity in EFL Education
Autobiographical Writing and Identity in EFL Education

Author: Shizhou Yang

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-11

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1135076103

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The book explores the pedagogical potential of autobiographical writing in English-as-a-foreign language, approaching the topic from an educational, longitudinal, dialogical, and social perspective. Through a number of case studies, the author delineates four phases that EFL writers may experience in their identity construction processes, illustrating the complexity of EFL writers’ social identities. This book will provide a valuable resource for language teachers and researchers interested in the pedagogical applications of autobiographical writing.

Family, Community, and Higher Education
Family, Community, and Higher Education

Author: Toby S. Jenkins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-01-17

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1135096961

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This book explores social topics and experiences that illustrate the various ways in which the family unit influences and impacts college students. In the text, the authors not only explore family memories, but also challenge the traditional lack of inclusion and appreciation for “family” as knowledge producers and educational allies. This book spotlights the family unit as a critical factor within the educational experience—one that prepares, supports, and sustains educational achievement through both everyday simple lessons and critical and difficult family challenges. Through these experiences, families teach the lessons of survival that often help students to persist in college.

Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War
Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War

Author: Paul R. Carr

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-31

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1136281991

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What is the meaning of peace, why should we study it, and how should we achieve it? Although there are an increasing number of manuscripts, curricula and initiatives that grapple with some strand of peace education, there is, nonetheless, a dearth of critical, cross-disciplinary, international projects/books that examine peace education in conjunction with war and conflict. Within this volume, the authors contend that war/military conflict/violence are not a nebulous, far-away, mysterious venture; rather, they argue that we are all, collectively, involved in perpetrating and perpetuating militarization/conflict/violence inside and outside of our own social circles. Therefore, education about and against war can be as liberating as it is necessary. If war equates killing, can our schools avoid engaging in the examination of what war is all about? If education is not about peace, then is it about war? Can a society have education that willfully avoids considering peace as its central objective? Can a democracy exist if pivotal notions of war and peace are not understood, practiced, advocated and ensconced in public debate? These questions, according to Carr and Porfilio and the contributors they have assembled, merit a critical and extensive reflection. This book seeks to provide a range of epistemological, policy, pedagogical, curriculum and institutional analyses aimed at facilitating meaningful engagement toward a more robust and critical examination of the role that schools play (and can play) in framing war, militarization and armed conflict and, significantly, the connection to peace.

Education for Civic and Political Participation
Education for Civic and Political Participation

Author: Reinhold Hedtke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0415524199

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Participation as an element of active citizenship in democracies is a key project of international and national educational policy. Institutionalized approaches for compulsory schools provide participatory access to all young European citizens. But does this picture depict the possibilities and practices of participation appropriately? Can this standard approach to participation be translated into action in view of diverse polities, policies, political cultures, institutions and practices of participation? This book explores what prerequisites must be given for a successful implementation of such a comprehensive international project.

The Resegregation of Schools
The Resegregation of Schools

Author: Jamel K. Donnor

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-07

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1134070918

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Access to a quality education remains the primary mechanism for improving one’s life chances in the United States, and for children of color, a “good education” is particularly linked to their individual and collective well-being. Despite the popular perception that America is in a “post-racial” epoch, opportunities to access quality learning environments and human development resources remain determined according to race, class, gender, and ability. Taking a more nuanced approach to race and the resegregation of the American school system, this volume examines how and why the education quality for the majority of students of color in America remains fundamentally unequal.