Culture X Goes To School

Floors that generate power, the electronic wall, mix-‘n-match modular school buildings, along with the Education Congress of the States and the 622 Curriculum are among the suggestions offered by Ebert and Maxwell in this provocative view toward revolutionizing one of the oldest institutions in the United States: Public Education. But first is the in-depth treatment of the myth of education reform, our national identity crisis, the fading American culture, and the emergence of Culture X. The failure of school reform efforts to elevate public education in the United States to a preeminent position is due to the myth of educational reform; the mistaken belief that substantive changes actually occur. Culture X Goes to School offers a treatise, a workbook, and an invitation for you to become a player in determining who we are as a culture and where we are going. Some additional key features of this book include: •Thought-provoking activities in every chapter •Detailed guide for assessing school reforms at the local or state level •Specific, innovative suggestions from school facilities to curriculum to administration

This volume offers novel insights into linguistic diversity in the domains of spatial and temporal reference, searching for uniformity amongst diversity. A number of authors discuss expression of dynamic spatial relations cross-linguistically in a vast range of typologically different languages such as Bezhta, French, Hinuq, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Serbian, and Spanish, among others. The contributions on linguistic expression of time all shed new light on pertinent questions regarding this cognitive domain, such as the hotly debated relationship between cross-linguistic differences in talking about time and universal principles of utterance interpretation, modelling temporal inference through aspectual interactions, as well as the complexity of the acquisition of tense-aspect relations in a second language. The topic of space and time in language and culture is also represented, from a different point of view, in the sister volume Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Language, culture, and cognition (HCP 37) which discusses spatial and temporal constructs in human language, cognition, and culture in order to come closer to a better understanding of the interaction between shared and individual characteristics of language and culture that shape the way people interact with each other and exchange information about the spatio-temporal constructs that underlie their cognitive, social, and linguistic foundations.

This book presents a comparative ethnographic understanding of government and low-fee private schools in India within the context of ever-increasing privatization and commercialization of education and the growing presence of non-state actors. Drawing on rich empirical data, the book provides an ethnographic account of a government and a low-fee private school in Hyderabad, India, and explores life in these two distinct spaces through the lens of culture. While private schools catering to the poorer sections have been proliferating, little is known about how these low-fee private schools operate, how choices and negotiations unfold, the classroom discourses, subjective meanings of different stakeholders, and the kind of education provided in these schools vis-à-vis the government schools. The book focuses on the educational experiences, schooling choices, processes, and voices of the children and teachers at these schools to reflect on how school culture influences the quality of education. Based on intensive fieldwork and qualitative data, the book provides contextual insights into what exactly happens inside the schools and classrooms of two contrasting schooling provisions in India and helps understand the world views of different stakeholders as they negotiate their daily lives. The book will be of interest to students, researchers, and teachers of education, sociology of education, childhood studies, urban education, and teacher education. It will also be useful for education policymakers, educationists, education professionals, and those working on private schooling in India.

The most trusted guide to school culture, updated with current challenges and new solutions Shaping School Culture is the classic guide to exceptional school leadership, featuring concrete guidance on influencing the subtle symbolic features of schools that provide meaning, belief, and faith. Written by renowned experts in the area of school culture, this book tackles the increasing challenges facing public schools and provides clear, candid suggestions for more effective symbolic leadership. This new third edition has been revised to reflect the reality of schools today, including the increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, federal reforms such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state sponsored improvement programs, and other major issues that impact organizational culture and the role of school leaders. Each chapter features new examples and cases that illustrate persistent problems, spelling out key cultural implications and offering concrete examples of overcoming the challenges while maintaining a meaningful learning environment. The chapter on toxic schools continues to provide the field's most trusted advice on navigating this rocky terrain, and the discussion's focus on how to manage negativity remains especially integral to besieged school administrators across the U.S. Recent years have jolted the nation's school system with a number of new developments that spell problems for the cultural tapestry of schools. This book provides expert perspective and sage, doable advice for administrators tending to external pressures while sustainingor evolvinga more positive school culture. Navigate new challenges including Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and waning confidence and faith Turn around a toxic school culture with confidence and success Foster a culture of passion, purpose, and meaning Adopt a more active form of symbolic leadership to support students, faculty, staff, parents, and community Test scores as the primary metric, relentless reforms, waning public support, and timid initiatives wrapped in bureaucratic packaging: while among the most prominent issues administrators face are only the tip of the iceberg. Shaping School Culture charts a route through competing pressures to help educational leaders hew a positive learning environment for schools.

- Do faith schools have a place in a plural society? - Which types of school contribute most effectively to a plural society? This fascinating monograph seeks to answer these questions and more by exploring the fit between personal, spiritual and academic goals in contemporary educational experience and individual school cultures. Jo Cairns, a well-respected authority on faith schools, argues that educational ideology in plural societies has to find a way of recognizing and responding to the 'predicament' of pluralism as it is experienced by individuals and communities. This provocative and challenging book will undoubtedly stimulate debate among educationists across the world.

From specialists in several disciplines—psychiatry, general medicine, anthropology, sociology, and social work—the editors of this volume have assembled reports on a search for ways of identifying mentally ill people in other cultures and of determining what kinds of sociocultural factors influence the origin, course, and outcome of psychiatric disorders. The contributors have approached the subject through reviews of the literature, seminar discussions, and exploratory field studies carried out in Nova Scotia and among Eskimos, Navahos, and Mexicans. The book provides a methodological approach to important issues and problems in an area in which there is as yet only limited and uncertain knowledge. It will be useful to psychiatrists and epidemiologists working outside their own cultures, to psychologists and anthropologists, and as a handbook for specialists in mental health.