Sharpes' approach synthesizes historical, philosophical, and cultural standpoints. The text contains practical teaching applications alongside theory and an integrated emphasis of diversity and other multicultural themes. It also covers the history of schooling from ancient times to the present, including biographies of major non-Western figures as well as the canon of educational innovators.

Structured around major movements in world history, the lives of leading educators, and the philosophies and ideologies that resulted from their ideas, Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education: A Biographical Introduction, Fifth Edition provides a clear interdisciplinary exploration of the development of educational ideas. The author takes a global perspective on the history and philosophy of education, capturing the essence of educational evolution through the biographies of 23 theorists, philosophers, and educators. This biographical focus, combined with an introductory presentation of the inherent connections between education's major movements and its primary movers, helps students better understand the social and historical conditions that have informed today's educational arena.

In this fine introduction to Waldorf education, written out of a series of lectures given in 1924, Steiner provides one of the most comprehensive introductions to his pedagogical philosophy, psychology, and practice. Steiner begins by describing the union of science, art, religion and morality, which was the aim of all his work and underlies his concept of education. Against this background, many of the lectures describe a new developmental psychology. On this basis, having established how children's consciousness develops, Steiner discusses how different subjects should be presented so that individuals can grow and flourish inwardly. Only if the child absorbs the right subject in the right way at the right time can the inner freedom so necessary for life in the modern world become second nature.