Rethinking Social Issues In Education For The 21st Century

This book revisits key social issues and controversies in education. There are many social issues currently on political and governmental agendas, both in the UK and other countries – from safeguarding, childhood obesity, bullying and mental health, through to widening participation. Some of these issues relate to children and young people and are of concern to those working and researching in education, while others relate to Higher Education. The boundaries between the academic disciplines of politics, sociology, economics, psychology and education are porous. The contributions here illustrate how common interests and collaboration can assist in our understanding of complex social issues, the evaluation of current governmental responses, and the promotion of ideas about the way forward into the 21st century.

In this volume teacher educators explicitly and implicitly share their visions for the purposes, experiences, and commitments necessary for social studies teacher preparation in the twenty-first century. It is divided into six sections where authors reconsider: 1) purposes, 2) course curricula, 3) collaboration with on-campus partners, 4) field experiences, 5) community connections, and 6) research and the political nature of social studies teacher education. The chapters within each section provide critical insights for social studies researchers, teacher educators, and teacher education programs. Whether readers begin to question what are we teaching social studies teachers for, who should we collaborate with to advance teacher learning, or how should we engage in the politics of teacher education, this volume leads us to consider what ideas, structures, and connections are most worthwhile for social studies teacher education in the twenty-first century to pursue.

This book focuses on current trends, potential challenges and further developments of teacher education and professional development from a theoretical, empirical and practical point of view. It intends to provide valuable and fresh insights from research studies and examples of best practices from Europe and all over the world. The authors deal with the strengths and limitations of different models, strategies, approaches and policies related to teacher education and professional development in and for changing times (digitization, multiculturalism, pressure to perform).

Provides resources for teaching elementary and secondary school students about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America.

This book emanated from presentations at the World Congress of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June 2013. The Congress theme of “New Times, New Voices” provided the broad frame of the post-Buenos Aires series of volumes including this one containing research contributions focusing on the situation of public education systems. The chapters in this volume are selected for quality of research and relevance to the theme, and for representation across global regions. They examine the new and renovated challenges faced by public education systems at present for which different paths are suggested. In particular, this book puts together studies from authors from Latin American countries, especially from the Southern Cone, as a way of giving voice to particular educational problems and perspectives in a globalized world. Getting into educational systems in Argentina, Brazil and Chile and analysing some of its current particularities through the lenses of regional and international comparison, contributes to a better understanding of the processes of circulation, reception, appropriation and translation that historically characterizes educational systems development. This is why the volume also includes studies regarding the impact on contemporary educational reforms in the public sector, their links to past reforms and their cumulative impact on educational systems.

This open access book contains observations, outlines, and analyses of educational robotics methodologies and activities, and developments in the field of educational robotics emerging from the findings presented at FabLearn Italy 2019, the international conference that brought together researchers, teachers, educators and practitioners to discuss the principles of Making and educational robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education. The editors’ analysis of these extended versions of papers presented at FabLearn Italy 2019 highlight the latest findings on learning models based on Making and educational robotics. The authors investigate how innovative educational tools and methodologies can support a novel, more effective and more inclusive learner-centered approach to education. The following key topics are the focus of discussion: Makerspaces and Fab Labs in schools, a maker approach to teaching and learning; laboratory teaching and the maker approach, models, methods and instruments; curricular and non-curricular robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education; social and assistive robotics in education; the effect of innovative spaces and learning environments on the innovation of teaching, good practices and pilot projects.

Rethinking Society in the 21st Century is a critical collection of readings that provides students with a foundational knowledge base in sociology. The fourth edition has been thoroughly updated to include significant Canadian content, with a greater focus on indigeneity, gender, and sexuality and a new section dedicated to social movements, social change, and emerging fields. This anthology introduces students to the fundamental elements of sociology with a balance of classical theory—Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mills—and more contemporary approaches found in the works of Michel Foucault and Dorothy Smith. Building on this theoretical grounding, the text outlines core concepts in sociology as well as major social institutions such as families, the economy and labour, education, health care, and media. Covering a wide breadth of topics, including chapters on animals, the environment, crime, trans issues, class, ethnicity, and race, this new edition explores critical debates in Canadian society with an emphasis on intersectional approaches to social inequalities. This volume is rich with pedagogical features that promote critical understanding, including detailed introductions that speak to the contextual history of the source material and discussion questions for each section. Uniquely designed for introductory courses, Rethinking Society in the 21st Century is the ideal reader for Canadian students of sociology.

The book is unique in that it mixes theory and practical applications in rethinking traditional social studies education. It focuses on essays integrating media, popular culture, and alternative texts for teaching and learning in social studies and history education through a social education lens. Social education integrates social studies, media / popular culture, and cultural studies all within a social justice framework. The text provides 20+ curriculum themes with strategies to connect in teaching and learning, along with resources to extend depth of understanding. In addition, the pedagogical philosophy inherent in the essays is student-centered learning focusing on issues, problem, and project-based instruction. Although the themes are generally social studies and history focused, the links to media and popular culture can be integrated in other disciplines.