Culture Curriculum And Identity In Education

This book analyzes equity and diversity in schools and teacher education. Within this broad and necessary context, the book raises some critical issues not previously explored in many multicultural and urban education texts.

This book analyzes equity and diversity in schools and teacher education. Within this broad and necessary context, the book raises some critical issues not previously explored in many multicultural and urban education texts.

This book foregrounds pedagogy in a way that challenges readers to reflect on themselves as teachers and learners, and to be reflexive about their own practices and contexts. Learning involves a transformation of identity which occurs through negotiation and repositioning, through new ways of relating, and through different ways of participating in practices. This book examines the meaning and implications for pedagogy in educational and workplace settings, and the role of the teacher in this sociocultural view of learning. By illustrating the mediated nature of agency and identity, the chapters (re)conceptualise the teacher and the learner and show different ways of supporting learning and being a teacher. The settings represented range from nursery to university and from out-of-school to insitutionally-based and work place situations. Curricular aspects represented include popular culture, critical literacy, multimodality, the arts, and new technologies. Teachers and student teachers, as learners, are also represented in the accounts assembled. The book takes a sociocultural view of learning and considers the pedagogical implications of this view. It explores different meanings of pedagogy and considers notions of cultural bridging and the processess of transforming identities. The contributions challenge ways of thinking about practice, both teaching and assessment, and argue for practices that bridge between learners′ worlds, their communities and educational institutions. Drawing on the international literature, this book will be essential reading for students of curriculum learning and assessment in all sectors from pre-primary to further and higher education. It is suitable as a core text for masters and taught doctorate programmes. It will also be of interest to a wide range of professionals involved with curriculum, learning and the practice of teaching and assessment. This book is relevant to those in work-based and professional education and training, and in informal educational settings, as well as traditional educational institutions at all levels. A unique collection in a field that is underrepresented, it will also be of interest to an academic audience.

Indigenous Education is a compilation of conceptual chapters and national case studies that includes empirical research based on a series of data collection methods. The book provides up-to-date scholarly research on global trends on three issues of paramount importance with indigenous education—language, culture, and identity. It also offers a strategic comparative and international education policy statement on recent shifts in indigenous education, and new approaches to explore, develop, and improve comparative education and policy research globally. Contributing authors examine several social justice issues related to indigenous education. In addition to case perspectives from 12 countries and global regions, the volume includes five conceptual chapters on topics that influence indigenous education, including policy debates, the media, the united nations, formal and informal education systems, and higher education.

Using information gathered from a combined first and second grade classroom over two years, this book explores the students' routine actions in school, including their views about different literacy activities, their favorite part of school life, peer culture in both the boys' and the girls' worlds, issues of gender power, the integration of the teacher's official discourses and the children's unofficial culture, and the kind of school life children wish to have. Focusing on children's voices and perceptions, this book provides insight that will help educators preserve an accurate view of school culture and create effective policies in education. The book's interdisciplinary approach extensively applies theories and perspectives from educational philosophy, educational anthropology, sociology, post-structuralist theories, narratives, semiotics, literacy education, cultural studies, and critical ethnography. Through these disciplines, the book provides many critical perspectives on early childhood literacy education, classroom culture, and identity construction for educators to incorporate into curriculum design and to reflect on the potential consequences resulting from instructional decisions.

Published in 1985. Cultural identity is a key factor in shaping educational policy. In many countries there are significant minority groups who require educating in a certain way in order to meet their specific cultural needs. Also, in countries which are trying to change direction politically, reshaping education is an important factor in bringing about this change. In many countries tension arises and reforms are required because educational policy fails to cater correctly for cultural needs. This book examines many facets of the problem in many important countries of the world. It looks at policies designed for ethnic minorities and at policies aimed at bringing about far-reaching societal and cultural change. It discusses the tensions caused by policies and the pressures for reform.

Tony Eaude argues that the foundations of a robust but flexible identity are formed in early childhood and that children live within many intersecting and sometimes conflicting cultures. He considers three meanings of culture, associated with (often implicit) values and beliefs; the arts; and spaces for growth. In exploring how young children's identities, as constructed and constantly changing narratives, are shaped, he discusses controversial, intersecting factors related to power in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, religion, class, physical ability and age. Eaude explores how young children learn, often tacitly, highlighting reciprocity, example, habituation and children's agency and voice. He emphasises the importance of a sense of belonging, created through trusting relationships, and inclusive environments, with adults drawing on and extending children's cultural capital and 'funds of knowledge.' Eaude shows how a holistic education requires a breadth of opportunities across and beyond the school curriculum, and highlights how play, the humanities and the arts enable children to explore how it is to be human, and to become more humane, broadening horizons and helping challenge preconceptions and stereotypes. This radical, inclusive and culturally sensitive vision, for an international audience, challenges many current assumptions about identity, culture, childhood and education.

In a world where the global engagement and international dialogue intensifies, some areas of cultivated knowledge suffer from this dialogue and this has consequences for people and communities. We propose education to be such a case. The global dialogue in education tends to be restricted to and mediated by standardized measurements. Such standards are meant to measure qualities of education and of student behavior and create the sought for condition for normative comparability and competition. The obvious drawback is that cultural variability – in local living as well as in education – is rendered irrelevant. Are there alternatives? The book insists on maintaining the discussion about education on a global level, but rather than moving towards homogenization and standardization of education, the attention is drawn towards the potential for learning from creative fits - and misfits - between concrete local cultures, institutional practices and global aims and standards of education. This work brings together a group of educational and developmental researchers and scholars grappling to find culturally informed and sensitive modes of educating people and communities. Case studies and examples from four geographical contexts are being discussed: China, Brazil, Australia and Europe. While being embedded in these local cultures, the authors share a conceptual grounding in cultural developmental theorizing and a vision for a culturally informed globalized perspective on education. As the theme of the book is learning from each other, the volume also includes commentaries from leading scholars in the field of cultural psychology and education.