Timothy Reagan – författare

Informative and mind-opening, this text uniquely provides a comprehensive overview of a range of non-western approaches to educational thought and practice. Its premise is that understanding the ways that other people educate their children—as well as what counts for them as "education"—may help readers to think more clearly about some of their own assumptions and values, and to become more open to alternative viewpoints about important educational matters. The approach is deliberately and profoundly pedagogical, based in the author’s own teaching practice. Designed to be used in pre-service and in-service teacher education courses where substantial critical discussion and debate are encouraged, the text is enhanced by Questions for Discussion and Reflection in each chapter.

Updates and Features of the Fourth Edition

• NEW! Chapter 2 exploring key features of the ‘western educational tradition’, and information about the contemporary educational systems in different countries

• NEW! Chapter 10 on traditional educational thought and practice in Oceania, with special focus on the Maori in New Zealand, the Hawai’ians, and the Australian Aboriginal peoples

• Updated chapter on Africa includes fuller explanation of the diversity within the indigenous African experience, as well as several contemporary cases of state education in Africa

• Updated Chapter 4 is designed to help non-Muslims to understand the Muslim educational heritage and the growing issue of Islamophobia

• Exploration of Chinese education now includes a special emphasis on the thought of Confucius, the role of the imperial examination system, and the impact of political and economic changes in the 20th century

• Updated analysis of contemporary educational practices in Hindu and Buddhist educational thought and practice and brief discussions of Jainism and Sikhism

Informative and mind-opening, this text uniquely provides a comprehensive overview of a range of non-western approaches to educational thought and practice. Its premise is that understanding the ways that other people educate their children—as well as what counts for them as "education"—may help readers to think more clearly about some of their own assumptions and values, and to become more open to alternative viewpoints about important educational matters. The approach is deliberately and profoundly pedagogical, based in the author’s own teaching practice. Designed to be used in pre-service and in-service teacher education courses where substantial critical discussion and debate are encouraged, the text is enhanced by Questions for Discussion and Reflection in each chapter.

Updates and Features of the Fourth Edition

• NEW! Chapter 2 exploring key features of the ‘western educational tradition’, and information about the contemporary educational systems in different countries

• NEW! Chapter 10 on traditional educational thought and practice in Oceania, with special focus on the Maori in New Zealand, the Hawai’ians, and the Australian Aboriginal peoples

• Updated chapter on Africa includes fuller explanation of the diversity within the indigenous African experience, as well as several contemporary cases of state education in Africa

• Updated Chapter 4 is designed to help non-Muslims to understand the Muslim educational heritage and the growing issue of Islamophobia

• Exploration of Chinese education now includes a special emphasis on the thought of Confucius, the role of the imperial examination system, and the impact of political and economic changes in the 20th century

• Updated analysis of contemporary educational practices in Hindu and Buddhist educational thought and practice and brief discussions of Jainism and Sikhism

This book has a pedagogical goal in mind; it is not a scholarly work so much as an applied text informed by scholarship and research. The book’s goal is to provide individuals who are teaching courses in comparative and international education, educational administration, educational policy, and politics of education with a supplementary text that can be used to help their students develop skills in policy analysis, evaluation and development. As is explained in the book, the problem that we face with respect to having students engage in “hands-on” study of particular cases is that by focusing on real cases, students are faced with either virtually unlimited data, or insufficient data (or, indeed, paradoxically with both problems). In addition, students come to such cases with all sorts of preconceptions that can cloud judgment in a host of ways. By making use of fictitious case studies, though, we can carefully limit the amount of data with which students need to deal, and we can also minimize the challenges presented by the “baggage” that students might bring with them about particular real nations.

COVID-19 has had massive social, political, and economic consequences, not least in education. Schools and universities globally closed their doors and sought to provide educational services to students in other, alternative ways. This book is a collection of essays about how different institutions and systems of education around the world have attempted to meet the challenges created by COVID-19. It reports the impact of the pandemic in both developed and developing nations and at all levels of education. The collective responses and lessons learned are analyzed to explain the relative success of different coping strategies.

This book challenges the reader to consider issues of language and linguistic discrimination as they impact world language education. Using the nexus of race, language, and education as a lens through which one can better understand the role of the world language education classroom as both a setting of oppression and as a potential setting for transformation, Democracy and World Language Education: Toward a Transformation offers insights into a number of important topics.

Among the issues that are addressed in this timely book are linguicism, the ideology of linguistic legitimacy, raciolinguistics, and critical epistemology. Specific cases and case studies that are explored in detail include the contact language Spanglish, African American English, and American Sign Language. The book also includes critical examinations of the less commonly taught languages, the teaching of classical languages (primarily Latin and Greek), and the paradoxical learning and speaking of “critical languages” that are supported primarily for purposes of national security (Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Russian, etc.).