John Lalor – författare

This work on the theory of education was first published in 1839. The five writers had been chosen as the winners in a competition for an essay on the 'Expediency and Means of Elevating the Profession of the Educator in Society', organised by the Central Society of Education, founded in 1837 to promote state funding of education, at a time when the 'monitor' system, whereby older children taught younger ones, was seen as an effective (and money-saving) method. The journalist John Lalor (1814-56) won first prize with a wide-ranging consideration of all the aspects of education, comparing the status of teachers through history and across several countries, and championing their 'sacred mission'. The runners-up were the writer John A. Heraud, the Unitarian minister Edward Higginson, the lawyer and author James Simpson, and Mrs Sarah Porter, prolific writer on education and sister of the political economist David Ricardo.

The so-called nation states have created ethnical minorities. Also due to migration, cultural diversity is the reality. The multicultural society is strongly reproduced in the schools all over Europe. Cultural diversity in the classroom is increasingly recognized as a potential which should not be neglected. The educational system has, above all, to provide all children with equal opportunities. Experts from Finland, the UK, Hungary, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, and other European states, mostly responsible for teacher education, have contributed to this volume with critical, but constructive remarks on the classroom reality in their countries.