Educational Theories, Cultures and Learning : A Critical Perspective

Educational Theories, Cultures and Learning focuses on how education is understood in different cultures, the theories and related assumptions we make about learners and students and how we think about them, and how we can understand the principle actors in education - learners and teachers.

Within this volume, internationally renowned contributors address a number of fundamental questions designed to take the reader to the heart of current debates around pedagogy, globalisation, and learning and teaching, such as:

• What role does culture play in our understanding of pedagogy?
• What role do global influences, especially economic, cultural and social, have in shaping our understanding of education?
• How does language influence our thinking about education?
• What implications does our view of childhood have for education?
• How do learners negotiate the transition between the different phases of education?
• How best can children learn the 'school knowledge'?
• What is a teacher? And how do teachers learn?
• How do we understand learners, their minds, identity and development?

To encourage reflection, many of the chapters also include questions for debate and a guide to further reading.

Read alongside its companion volume, Knowledge, Values and Educational Policy, readers will be encouraged to consider and think about some of the key issues facing education and educationists today.

Harry Daniels is Professor of Education: Culture and Pedagogy, Head of the Learning as Cultural and Social Practice Research Programme, and Director of the Centre for Sociocultural and Activity Theory Research at the University of Bath, UK.

Hugh Lauder is Professor of Education and Political Economy, and Head of the Policy and Management Research Group, at the University of Bath, UK.

Jill Porter is Senior Lecturer in Research Methods and Special Education at the University of Bath, UK.