Taking as its starting point that young children learn and develop in a network of relationships, this book emphasises that each relationship has its own specific features, functions and learning/teaching affordances (Thompson, 2005).

This book compares primary education in urban and rural China and India. It focuses on how the sociocultural context including educational policy, educators and parents’ beliefs, and the conditions under which teaching and learning occur shape classroom pedagogy and determine children’s attainment.This in-depth, authentic, comparative analysis of the two largest educational systems in the world is a must-read for scholars interested in the teaching and learning in these two rapidly...

This book features lots of easy-to-introduce activities and techniques that will propel satisfactory and good lessons into the outstanding category - not just when being observed, but all the time. And the best news? This book tells you how to do it without spending lots more time planning, researching and preparing 'out of this world' lessons. There are dozens of starters and plenaries and useful websites, and the author's own website offers resources to save you even more time. A must fo...

Best-selling author Shirley Clarke provides a wealth of high quality ideas, practical strategies, classroom examples and whole-school case studies for teachers in primary and secondary schools.The most comprehensive of Shirley Clarke's titles includes extensive examples and realia, in full colour. The book is clearly structured around the ways in which teachers actually teach, with QR coded web video clips to illustrate key points in action.- Helps teachers c...

The number of schools that call themselves international is growing exponentially. In addition many other schools are exploring the concept of international-mindedness and what that might mean in the contemporary world of globalisation. This book sets out to provide a critical perspective on current issues facing ‘international schooling’, particularly the conflict between ‘internationalising’ and ‘globalising’ tendencies and to explore these as they affect teaching and learning, curriculu...

Through innovative analysis of theory and practice, this book offers refreshing critical perspectives on service-learning in higher education. It constructs a theoretical paradigm for service-learning which extends to critical pedagogy, and investigates critical reflection and academic reflective writing, supported throughout by empirical evidence.

This core text for primary trainee teachers is a clear introduction to the different kinds of assessment and their purposes. Throughout the book, tasks encourage the reader to practise assessment skills and to reflect on planning, listening, questioning, observing, diagnosing and target-setting. This second edition is referenced throughout to the 2007 QTS Standards and has been fully updated to reflect the Primary National Strategy and key initiatives such as Every Child Matters. There is ...

Through analysis of case studies of young children (ages 3 to 8 years), situated in different geographic, cultural, linguistic, political, and socioeconomic sites on six continents, this book examines the interplay of childhoods, schooling, and, literacies. Written language is situated within particular childhoods as they unfold in school. A key focus is on children’s agency in the construction of their own childhoods.The book generates diverse perspectives on what written language...

Virtually every Canadian has been influenced, for better or worse, by schoolteachers. Adults recall with clarity experiences with individual teachers; children are in contact with schoolteachers on a daily basis; parents know the importance of teachers in their children’s lives. Teachers are the key component in the hotly debated, heavily funded education systems across the country. Theirs is a profession at the centre of often contradictory interests: pedagogic, political, professional, a...

This volume gathers contributions in the closely linked fields of English language assessment and language education. The contributors from China and Hong Kong represent a mixture of established and new scholars. Areas covered in the language education section range across major developments in the redefining of Hong Kong’s secondary and tertiary curricula, as well as the huge field of China’s vocational education curriculum. Regarding assessment, the contributions reflect major changes in...

This book explores the philosophical, ideological and practical dimensions of curriculum using an intercultural lens. It is cross-cultural, comparative and inclusive, with each chapter featuring case studies from a minimum of three countries across different continents. By using the same methods of data collection and analysis for each country level in each chapter, the text explores relationships of curriculum theory, policy and practice both within and between countries. A diverse range ...

“Although standards-based reform emerged in the United States and the United Kingdom, the idea has spread across the world, as an approach to systemic reform. It might appear that there is a world-wide “tsunami” of standards-based reform that will standardize and homogenize the educational system across the globe. This volume makes it very clear, however, that there is no one approach to standards-based reform and countries change – there is a danger in paying attention to its evolution an...