This unique, comprehensive foundational text considers the values and politics that pervade the U.S. education system, explains the roots of conventional thinking about schooling and teaching, asks critical questions about how issues of power and privilege have shaped and continue to shape educational opportunity, and presents powerful examples of real teachers working for equity and justice. Taking the position that a hopeful, democratic future depends on ensuring that all students learn, the text pays particular attention to inequalities associated with race, social class, language, gender, and other social categories and explores teachers’ role in addressing them. The text provides a research-based and practical treatment of essential topics, and it situates those topics in relation to democratic values; issues of diversity; and cognitive, sociocultural, and constructivist perspectives on learning. The text shows how knowledge of education foundations and history can help teachers understand the organization of today’s schools, the content of contemporary curriculum, and the methods of modern teaching. It likewise shows how teachers can use such knowledge when thinking about and responding to “headline” issues like charter schools, vouchers, standards, testing, and bilingual education, to name just a few.
Central to this text is a belief that schools can and must be places of extraordinary educational quality and institutions in the service of social justice. Thus, the authors address head-on tensions between principles of democratic schooling and competition for always-scarce high-quality opportunities. Woven through the text are the voices of a diverse group of teachers, who share their analyses and personal anecdotes concerning what “teaching to change the world” means and involves.
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Pedagogical Features:
- “Digging Deeper” sections―referenced at the end of each chapter and featured online―include supplementary readings and resources from scholars and practitioners who are addressing issues raised in the text.
- Instructor’s Manual offers insights about how to teach course content in ways that are consistent with cognitive and sociocultural learning theories, culturally diverse pedagogy, and authentic assessment.
New to this Edition: