Becoming Somebody

Offers a social psychological account of social life in three high schools, combining theoretical analysis with reflective methodology. The emphasis of the book is on how social relations have varying effects on the feeling of ""self"" in young people from different socioeconomic environments.

Becoming Somebody in Teacher Education explores the realities of contemporary teacher education in Kenya. Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork, it views the teacher training institution as a space to grow, become and be shaped as teachers in complex moral worlds. Drawing on a rich conceptual and theoretical vocabulary, the book shows how students in these teacher education institutions constantly negotiate and confront the complex constructions of ethnicity, gender and class, as well as moral, religious and academic issues and a lack of resources encountered in the different institutional cultures. It outlines a complex array of concerns affecting student teachers that shape what professional becoming means in a stratified and diverse culture. This story of the process of growing up and becoming a professional teacher in an African setting will appeal to researchers, academics and students in the fields of teacher education, organizational studies, international education and development, social anthropology and ethnography.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Ignat Kaneff arrived in Canada in 1951 with a mere five dollars to his name, no English, and very little education. Within five years, he had started a construction company and broken ground on his first subdivision, kicking off a career as one of the country’s top businessmen. His is one of Canada’s great immigrant success stories.

Suppose you're offered an opportunity to experience something that is unlike anything you have ever encountered, but that's all you know—aside from the fact that the experience is physically safe and morally acceptable. How do you decide whether to take up the offer? Several philosophers have recently argued that we are in similar situations for more of our decisions than we usually recognize. Are they right? What resources can we draw on to create such situations? Are they enough to satisfy our aims of making the best decisions we can, especially in high stakes situations? This volume brings together philosophers and psychologists to investigate the phenomenon of transformative change and a host of fascinating questions it prompts. Taking their departure from seminal work on transformative choice and experience by L. A. Paul and Edna Ullmann-Margalit, the authors pursue fundamental questions concerning the nature of rationality, the limits of the imagination, and the metaphysics of the self. They also strike out into new areas, including value theory, aesthetics, moral and political philosophy. Several chapters present the results of experimental investigation into the psychology of transformation, self-concept, and moral learning.

Do you remember the Bully in first grade? Many children face this issue on a daily basis, as Ima Nobody does in the excerpt from the book, Ima Nobody Becomes Somebody! "Ima, I never knew a Nobody that was somebody! All you Nobodys will never amount to anything, just like your name." This made Ima feel sad. It was then and there that Ima decided that she was going to prove to that Billy Do-good that she would in fact amount to something and be somebody. You know these issues. Dealing with differences, and dealing with the reactions of those angered by it, are tough issues for young children to face. I encourage you and invite you to take the journey with Ima and her first grade classmates as they discover their own self worth, strengths, and weaknesses. You will find that this story does not tell children how to react to Ima's predicament. It does however show a positive way in which Ima deals with the situation. This is Book One in the Ima Nobody Series - be sure to follow along with Ima and her friends as they discover themselves and learn important life lessons along the way.