Teachers, both in and beyond teacher education programmes, are continual learners. As society itself evolves, new settings and the challenges they provide require new learning. Teachers must continually adapt to new developments that affect their work, including alterations to qualification systems, new relationships with welfare professionals, and new technologies which are reconfiguring relationships with pupils. Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development is an international volume which clarifies the purpose of initial (pre-service) teacher education and continuing professional development, and the role of universities and higher education personnel in these processes. An edited collection of chapters by leading researchers from the UK, the US and Europe, it gains coherence from its theoretical orientation and substantive focus on teacher learning. This book: demonstrates the contribution of sociocultural and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) towards our understandings of teacher learning offers a strong exemplification of a research focus on teachers as learners in specific sociocultural settings shows what teachers learn, how they learn and where they learn, using specific research examples, in the context of broader interests in the development of professional practice and professional education. As the only volume now available that applies CHAT principles to teacher education and learning, Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development will be highly useful for teachers and teacher educators undertaking postgraduate and doctoral studies, particularly in the area of professional learning and development. It will also be of relevance to the continuing development of teachers and other school-based professionals.

As the world becomes more globalized, student populations in university settings will continue to grow in diversity. To ensure students develop the cultural competence to adapt to new environments, universities and colleges must develop policies and programs to aid in the progression of cultural acceptance and understanding. Cultural Awareness and Competency Development in Higher Education is an essential reference book on the latest literature regarding multiculturalism in colleges and universities, focusing on administration and faculty implementation of culturally-aware curriculum to support the development of students' global competence. Featuring extensive coverage on a range of topics including social constructivism, co-curricular learning, and inclusive pedagogy, this publication is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the inclusion of culturally diverse curriculums in higher education.

This peer-reviewed academic yearbook stems from the inaugural meeting of the newly formed UNESCO UNITWIN network on Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development, held at the National Institute of Education, Singapore in April 2017. It presents international scholarly perspectives on issues related to arts education and cultural diversity in terms of: i) national and international policies; ii) terms, concepts and vocabularies; iii) current and ongoing research; and iv) best practices. The UNESCO UNITWIN is an arts education research think tank that gathers and leverages original research and critical commentaries on the arts and sustainable development from UNITWIN member states and beyond (Australia, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Korea, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, the Netherlands and the United States of America).

Early childhood education programs are expected to provide exemplary care for all children—poor and affluent, children of color and White children—while also adapting care to include children’s families and cultures. These two sets of expectations are often difficult for teachers and programs to meet. In this book, Carollee Howes shows how high-quality programs successfully adapt child development guidelines within cultural contexts, and why quality needs to be and can be measured in culturally specific ways. This important book: Closely examines ECE programs considered exemplary for low-income children of color. Shows how directors and teachers successfully use practices derived from their cultural communities to implement universal standards of child care. Identifies the commonalities in good early childhood programs that are shared across class, race, and ethnic communities. Offers best practices based on extensive assessments, interviews, and observations. “Will have immediate relevance for policy debates, for understanding the mechanisms of program effects, and for educators who wish to deepen their knowledge of practice.” —Robert C. Pianta, University of Virginia “I urge all higher education faculty, in-service teacher trainers, accreditation observers, researchers, text-book writers and policymakers of standards to read this book.” —From the Foreword by Louise Derman-Sparks

This collection of papers examines key ideas in cultural-historical approaches to children’s learning and development and the cultural and institutional conditions in which they occur. The collection is given coherence by a focus on the intellectual contributions made by Professor Mariane Hedegaard to understandings of children’s learning through the prism of the interplay of society, institution and person. She has significantly shaped the field through her scholarly consideration of foundational concepts and her creative attention to the fields of activity she studies. The book brings together examples of how these concepts have been employed and developed in a study of learning and development. The collection allows the contributing scholars to reveal their reactions to Hedegaard’s contributions in discussions of their own work in the field of children’s learning and the conditions in which it occurs.

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults.

First published in 1986, this book proposes and illustrates a new approach to the comparative analysis of educational policy, based on anthropological and historical inquiry. It reviews the transitions of Western countries, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China and in doing so investigates cultural ideas of human potential and how they inform social and economic goals of education. An analysis of the problems and emerging patterns in developing countries reveals how and why the meanings of life for the majority of their populations were still influenced by agrarian cultural models, even after the introduction of new educational and occupational careers. In place of universalistic economic models and homogenous modernization strategies, the authors propose that culture-specific meanings of education are determined by each country’s particular transition from its agrarian past to its socio-economic conditions at the time. They argue that change in educational development has been as varied in ends, means and significance outcomes as the cultures in which it has occurred and point to the need for a deeper understanding of cultural contexts in which policy choices and development plans are made.