Professional Development: Education for All as praxis

This edited collection presents several research projects which examine issues concerning professional development, professional learning, and the ‘Education for All’ (EfA) ethos. The overall aim of the book is threefold: firstly, to explore the consequences for the education profession of EfA, and how professional development and professional learning may be made manifest as part of an EfA practice. Secondly, to examine how EfA practices intersect with theoretical notions of EfA. Finally, to explore how this intersection of theory and practice is rooted in different (Anglo-American, Continental and Northern European) traditions and contexts, and their implications for professional development and learning in education.

Underpinning these three foci is a key principle of education as a human right in terms of participation, information and capacity building, regardless of people’s ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds and/or physical and intellectual capacities. This book illustrates the complex conditions created in the nexus of social justice, EfA and professional development. The contributions highlight the educative nature of multi-relationships. In so doing, tensions, opportunities for learning, and the power relationships associated with professional development emerge, providing a resource for learning about good educational practice, authentic social justice practice, and genuine professional learning. This book was originally published as a special issue of Professional Development in Education.

Jane Wilkinson is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She has published widely in the fields of practice theory, praxis and leadership; gender and leadership; and refugee education. She is the national convenor of the Australian Association of Educational Research’s Educational Leadership Special Interest Group. Her recent books include: Changing practices, changing education (with Kemmis, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer, and Bristol, 2014), and Travelling towards a mirage? Gender, leadership and higher education (with Fitzgerald, 2010).

Laurette Bristol is the President of the Catholic College of Mandeville, Jamaica. Her research focuses broadly on in-service teacher education for educational transformation. She is a member of the Pedagogy Education and Praxis international research network, and a co-founder of the international peer-mentoring network for women academics, CURVE-Y-FRIENDs. Her recent books include: Changing practices, changing education (with Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy and Grootenboer, 2014), and Plantation Pedagogy: A Postcolonial and Global Perspective (2012).

Petra Ponte is a retired Professor in the Educational Research Centre at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. She was also Honorary Professor of Education at the University of Sydney, Australia, and Adjunct Professor at Charles Sturt University, Bathust, Australia. She has a background in Continental Pedagogiek and Educational Studies, publishing in the fields of special and inclusive education, cross-cultural collaboration, teacher professionalism, moral issues in education, and action research.