Never has so much attention been devoted to education - and the problems with it. Yet we rarely ask why everyone from the government to parents continually obsess about it. Why are we so constantly worried about it? Why do so many of the solutions proposed actually make matters worse? This book attempts to answer these questions.

Offers information about supervising primary pupils during the lunchtime break.

Analyzes bilingual intercultural education in Bolivia.

Discusses the changes to children's services undertaken to improve the outcomes of all young children. This book shows how the overall aims are to tackle child poverty, improve child protection and the education and childcare for young children, to raise standards, and to provide greater support for parents in bringing up their children.

A collection that showcases the ideas of Dr James Comer - ideas that have shaped the fields of child development and psychology, race and education, family and parenting, and school reform.

Expansion and privatization have created new concerns over the quality of education throughout the Asia/Pacific region. This volume provides a framework to examine these challenges in the region and beyond.

What does it take to reach across cultural and socio-economic barriers to bridge student achievement gaps? This work presents an integrated schoolwide framework of collaborative leadership that helps school leaders advance learning for students.

Blending interviews with those most closely affected together with views from key commentators and experts, this title provides a picture of a system and societal failure - a failure both that is at once both embarrassing and avoidable.

Professional learning communities (PLCs) can be a powerful force for creating equitable, inclusive schools where all students succeed. This work discusses the impact of our history on cultural understanding and provides practical PLC-building strategies - including assessment and inquiry-driven planning, instructional design and leadership.

Contributors offer ideas, applications, and resources for helping leaders and educators tackle the challenges of building successful professional learning communities. This wide-ranging text will prove indispensable for any democratically accountable leader committed to organizational change through communities of practice.

The growing cultural, racial and linguistic diversity in schools has changed the face of language teaching in many countries. This book presents theory and research by a group of internationally recognised scholars who address the issues and challenges for teachers and their students in increasingly plurilingual and multicultural classrooms.

Examines and offers solutions to the challenges faced by schools in ensuring that all students are enjoying, participating and achieving in education. This book argues that self evaluation lies at the heart of truly inclusive school development.

Looks at the history of reading and texts for children from an educational perspective. This book explores the act of reading itself, whether oral, silent or performative, whether for pleasure or instruction. It also considers the changing representations of childhood over three centuries and the influence of the visual on the acts of reading.

Presents an overview of research and policy issues pertaining to children from birth to 10 who are first- and second-generation immigrants to the US, as well as native-born children of immigrants.

This timely book argues that the New Zealand educational reforms were the product of longstanding unresolved educational issues that came to a head during the profound economic and cultural crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Explores the capacity of centralized structures to absorb change initiatives that are oriented towards school empowerment. This book attempts to provide international audiences substantial indicators based on a comparative perspective regarding the infrastructure of centralized educational systems.

Outlines the potential uses of music, art, drama and dance movement therapies in educational settings, and the contribution they have to make to the emotional and social development of children and adolescents. This book is of interest to arts therapists, and others who want to know about the potential of arts therapies in the classroom.

This volume is the first to comprehensively examine Chinese's affirmative action policies in the critical area of minority education, the most important conduit to employment and economic success in the PRC after the economic reforms begun in the late 1970s.

Reviews the restricting consequences of older and different forms of paternalism, in education, taking a historical perspective and offering a cohesive sustained argument.

Preparing students to be successful in an unpredictable world requires school leaders who can nurture a culture of both improvement and innovation. This book assists leaders in understanding when and how to improve and when and how to innovate.