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.

This special issue of the International Review of Education includes contri butions on indigenous knowledge, the cultural context of learning and on the interplay between the so-called "traditional" and "modern" ways of educa tion. It starts from the assumption that cultures are not static, that they are shifting and mutating, and that the Western need to encapsulate "other cultures", which found its most extreme form in their being frozen in time and boxed behind glass in museums of ethnology, has distorted our under standing of the way in which different cultures create, recreate and repro duce knowledge. The basic premise of this position is that there is no such thing as a pure culture, and that all cultures borrow, lend, adapt, and distort distinct elements from other cultures. All cultures, moreover, provide their members with ways of learning about that culture, which include elements such as language, forms of social organisation, and ritual spaces for the trans mission of specialised knowledge. Meaning may be shifted over time, but that in itself is a product of the passage of knowledge through history. Indeed, much meaning is cyclical and reinterpretive so that cultures may look back to a mythological past which they assumed gave them their essential identity but which may be part fact, part fantasy, and part fiction. This is then rein terpreted in the light of changed and changing historical circumstances.

A comprehensive, systematic account of human development which is sensitive to the needs, interests and ecologies of nonwestern cultures and individuals is provided in this unique volume. The importance and value of the sociocultural milieu in shaping the growth and development of children is emphasized, and the author asserts throughout that children do not grow and develop according to the same patterns regardless of culture. The author describes developmental psychology from the perspective of West Africa, demonstrating how the local ecology and the resulting cultural ideology lead to differing ways in which children are conceptualized and socialized, and in turn how they develop. While much of his case material is from

In this classic edition of her groundbreaking text Knowledge in Context, Sandra Jovchelovitch revisits her influential work on the societal and cultural processes that shape the development of representational processes in humans. Through a novel analysis of processes of representation, and drawing on dialogues between psychology, sociology and anthropology, Jovchelovitch argues that representation, a social psychological construct relating Self, Other and Object-world, is at the basis of all knowledge. Exploring the dominant assumptions of western conceptions of knowledge and the quest for a unitary reason free from the ‘impurities’ of person, community and culture, Jovchelovitch recasts questions related to historical comparisons between the knowledge of adults and children, ‘civilised’ and ‘primitive’ peoples, scientists and lay communities and examines the ambivalence of classical theorists such as Piaget, Vygotsky, Freud, Durkheim and Lévy-Bruhl in addressing these issues. Featuring a new introductory chapter, the author evaluates the last decade of research since Knowledge in Context first appeared and reassesses the social psychology of the contemporary public sphere, exploring how challenges to the dialogicality of representations reconfigure both community and selfhood in this early 21st century. This book will make essential reading for all those wanting to follow debates on knowledge and representation at the cutting edge of social, cultural and developmental psychology, sociology, anthropology, development and cultural studies.

This open access book explores cultural competence in the higher education sector from multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives. It addresses cultural competence in terms of leadership and the role of the higher education sector in cultural competence policy and practice. Drawing on lessons learned, current research and emerging evidence, the book examines various innovative approaches and strategies that incorporate Indigenous knowledge and practices into the development and implementation of cultural competence, and considers the most effective approaches for supporting cultural competence in the higher education sector. This book will appeal to researchers, scholars, policy-makers, practitioners and general readers interested in cultural competence policy and practice.

In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.