This state-of-the-art, comprehensive Handbook fully explores the field of alternative education on an international scale. Alternatives to mainstream schooling and education are becoming increasingly recognised as pertinent and urgent for better understanding what really works in successfully educating children and adults today, especially in light of the increased performance driven and managerially organised economic modelling of education that dominates. For too long we have wondered what “exactly” education done otherwise might look like and here we meet individual examples as well as seeing what alternative education is when a collection becomes greater than the sum of parts. The Handbook profiles numerous empirical examples from around the world of education being done in innovative and excitingly democratic and autonomous ways from Forest Schools and Home Education through to new technologies, neuroscience and the importance of solitude. The book also sets out important theoretical perspectives to inform us why seeing education through an alternative lens is useful as well as urgently needed. Global in its perspective and definitive in content, this one-stop volume will be an indispensable reference resource for a wide range of academics, students and researchers in the fields of Education, Education Policy, Sociology and Philosophy as well as educational practitioners.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research offers a vivid portrait of both theoretical perspectives and practical action research activity and related benefits around the globe, while attending to the cultural, political, social, historical and ecological contexts that localize, shape and characterize action research. Consisting of teachers, youth workers, counselors, nurses, community developers, artists, ecologists, farmers, settlement-dwellers, students, professors and intellectual-activists on every continent and at every edge of the globe, the movement sustained and inspired by this community was born of the efforts of intellectual-activists in the mid-twentieth century specifically: Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, Kurt Lewin. Cross-national issues of networking, as well as the challenges, tensions, and issues associated with the transformative power of action research are explored from multiple perspectives providing unique contributions to our understanding of what it means to do action research and to be an action researcher. This handbook sets a global action research agenda and map for readers to consider as they embark on new projects.

This is a unique collection of leading examples of education grounded in alternative philosophies and cultures – from initiatives to create more democratic schools, through Quaker, Buddhist, Islamic, Montessori and Steiner/Waldorf schools, to Maori and First Nations education in Canada and Palestinian Jewish schools in Israel.

This book examines the European discussion about alternative schooling in the 20th century. It refers to a stream of concepts that are often described as New Education, Progressive Education, Education Nouvelle or Reformpädagogik, and discusses a range of different models of alternative schooling. Exploring the works of a range of continental educational philosophers, including Lietz, Blonsky, Kerschensteiner, Freinet, Decroly and Petersen, the book offers a unique insight into texts not yet translated into English. These educational models are presented with regards to the biographical background of the authors; the crucial elements of their construction; the historical interconnections between schooling, society and culture; and finally their connection to today’s discussions in educational sciences. The book will be highly relevant for researchers and advanced students working on the theory, history and practice of schooling, particularly those with a focus on alternative schooling and the philosophy of education.

This book shares the nomadology of Alys-we searching for the Ideal School around the world, sharing stories from places educating differently to traditional education, hoping to inspire readers to be part of a paradigm shift.

Truly international in scope, this Handbook focuses on approaches to discipline, surveillance and social control from around the world, critically examining the strategies and practices schools employ to monitor students and control their behavior. Bringing together leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the chapters scrutinize, analyze and compare schools' practices across the globe, providing a critical review of existing evidence, debates and understandings, while looking forward to address emerging important questions and key policy issues. The chapters are divided into four sections. Part 1 offers accounts of international trends in school discipline, surveillance and punishment; Part 2 examines the merging of school strategies with criminal justice practices; Part 3 focuses on developments in school technological surveillance; and Part 4 concludes by discussing restorative and balanced approaches to school discipline and behavior management. As the first Handbook to draw together these multiple themes into one text, and the first international comparative collection on school discipline, surveillance and social control, it will appeal to scholars across a range of fields including sociology, education, criminology, critical security studies and psychology, providing a unique, timely, and indispensable resource for undergraduate educators and researchers.

This second handbook offers all new content in which readers will find a thoughtful and measured interrogation of significant contemporary thinking and practice in urban education. Each chapter reflects contemporary cutting-edge issues in urban education as defined by their local context. One important theme that runs throughout this handbook is how urban is defined, and under what conditions the marginalized are served by the schools they attend. Schooling continues to hold a special place both as a means to achieve social mobility and as a mechanism for supporting the economy of nations. This second handbook focuses on factors such as social stratification, segmentation, segregation, racialization, urbanization, class formation and maintenance, and patriarchy. The central concern is to explore how equity plays out for those traditionally marginalized in urban schools in different locations around the globe. Researchers will find an analysis framework that will make the current practice and outcomes of urban education, and their alternatives, more transparent, and in turn this will lead to solutions that can help improve the life-options for students historically underserved by urban schools.