Growing Up In Walltown Italy

Growing up in Walltown, Italy presents an ethnographic account of the culture of early childhood education, as it is constructed in two municipal schools (a nursery and a childhood school) of an Italian town, explored through extensive participant observation and interviews of educators, teachers, school coordinators, mothers, and cooks and school staff. After providing background information on Italian early childhood education, the author describes and interprets the process of children's insertion into the world of the school as a "passage" whose ritual steps—initially accompanied by a parent—are carefully prepared by educators and teachers, so that the "passengers" will successfully settle in, and become competent members and participants of the respective educational communities. The author focuses on the educational and cultural learning that children between six months and five years of age attain by exercising their agency, capacity for communication, interaction and responsibility, and imagination in planned educational projects, daily activities as the "reading time" and convivial appointments as meals. The educators' and teachers' professional and personal engagement and care, together with the collaboration of the other school people, are thoroughly illustrated, and their meaningful attention to, and respect for children's pace of learning and participation are pointed out.

Presenting European Anthropology of Education through eleven studies of European schools, this volume explores the constructing and handling of difference and sameness in the central institutions of schools. Based on ethnographic studies of schools in Greece, England, Norway, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, it illustrates how anthropological studies of schools provide a window to larger society. It thus offers insights into cultural lessons taught to children through policies, institutional structures and everyday interactions, as well as into schools’ entanglement in state projects, cultural processes, societal histories and conflicts, and hence into contemporary Europe.

As a missionary's son, a U.S. Marine in the Pacific Theater during WWII, and a career dimplomat to China and East Asia, Cross shares his thoughts on how American presence has influenced the politics and economics of the region over more than sixty years.

Voted Best Book of 2010 by Englewood Review of Books "In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it." –Abba Anthony In an age where we might email a friend in Africa, skype a co-worker in Brazil, and teleconference with people in different time zones–all in one day–the sheer speed of life can be dizzying. Like children stumbling off a merry-go-round, says Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, we are grasping for something to anchor our lives in a sea of constant change. In The Wisdom of Stability, Wilson-Hartgrove illuminates the biblical and monastic understanding of why staying in one place is both a virtue and good for you. "For the Christian tradition," he writes, "the heart's true home is a life rooted in the love of God." When we cultivate an inner stability of heart – by rooting ourselves in the places where we live, engaging the people we are with, and by the simple rhythms of tending to body and soul – true growth can happen. The Wisdom of Stability is a must-read for pastors, leaders, and anyone seeking an authentic path of Christian transformation.