This book elaborates on issues regarding alterity, values, and human development in different educational contexts, serving from young children to adolescents to adults, and it claims for the need of educational contexts to consider their responsibilities regarding the development of the sociomoral dimension of human beings. The authors, experienced theorists and researchers sharing a cultural psychological perspective, provide a fresh understanding of educational institutions, and elaborate on how initiatives aiming at promoting dialogical practices and ethical orientation within educational contexts can be productive. They provide teachers, researchers, psychologists and parents, as well as the general public, with useful knowledge in order to contribute to theoretical and practical advances concerning education and human development.

This book takes an epistemological and theoretical stance in investigating the phenomenon of creativity and its processes. Creativity is analyzed through the lens of cultural psychology, in which psychological processes emerge over the course of life, and can only be understood in relation to the subject’s history and life experiences. Dialogism is presented as central for the constitutive dynamics of the developing subject and the emergence of creative actions through the expression of human agency. The authors highlight Bakhtinian dialogism and its developments in the scientific field of psychology and related areas to shed new light on creativity and its processes. The authors argue this will enable a better understanding of creativity in its development and emergence, and its impact on individuals and society.

This book intends to translate into theoretical, methodological and practical language the principles of dialogical psychology. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, theoretical models in psychology have approached human mind and behavior from a monological point of view, a generalizing perspective which ignored the core role of social transactions in the construction of the person and sought to explain psychological functioning only looking inside individuals’ minds and brains, or in mechanist sets of reinforcement contingencies. However, for the last 40 years, critical perspectives within the fields of psychological and sociological theoretical thinking have produced an important epistemological shift towards a new dialogical paradigm within the behavioral and social sciences. The contributions in this volume intend to present both the theoretical framework and possible applications of dialogical psychology in different fields of research and practice, such as: Developmental psychology School and educational psychology Social and personality psychology Education Social work Anthropology Art Psychology as a Dialogical Science - Self and Culture Mutual Development will be an invaluable resource to both researchers and practitioners working in the different areas involved in the study and promotion of healthy human development by providing an alternative scientific framework to help overcome the traditional, reductionist, monological explanations of psychological phenomena.

This book presents voices of educators describing their pedagogical practices inspired by the ethical ontological dialogism of Mikhail M. Bakhtin. It is a book of educational practitioners, by educational practitioners, and primarily for educational practitioners. The authors provide a dialogic analysis of teaching events in Bakhtin-inspired classrooms and emerging issues, including: prevailing educational relationships of power, desires to create a so-called educational vortex in which all students can experience ontological engagement, and struggles of innovative pedagogy in conventional educational institutions. Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, and Gradovski define a dialogic research art, in which the original pedagogical dialogues are approached through continuing dialogues about the original issues, and where the researchers enter into them with their mind and heart.

This book takes a sociocultural, developmental and dialogical perspective to explore the constructive and interconnected nature of remembering and imagining. Conceived as cognitive-affective processes, both emerge at the border of the person and his or her socio-cultural world. Memory is approached as a functional adaption to the environment using the resources of the past in preparation for action in the present. Imagination is tightly related to memory in that both aim to escape the confines of the concrete here-and-now situation; however, while memory is primarily oriented to the past, imagination looks to the future. Both are embedded in the exchanges with the social and cultural milieu, and thus theorizing them has relied on key ideas from Lev Vygotsky, Frederic Bartlett and Mikhail Bakhtin. Thus, this book aims to integrate theories of remembering and imagining, through rich empirical studies in diverse cultural settings and concerning the development of self and identity. These two groups of studies compose the subparts that organize the book.

By traveling to different parts of the world, this book provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the current state of adolescent education and demonstrates how education systems are formed by and closely tied to culture. After establishing a theoretical background, the book delves into the particulars of adolescent education and its associated challenges in six countries (India, Kenya, Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Denmark). In tandem with the discussion of institutions, the stories of those who are all too often underserved or left behind are told. Despite the diversity of each education system, the investigation reveals several unifying themes that transcend the specific contexts. The lessons from each example are woven together to demonstrate how the individualized needs of students can best be met, in a vision for the future of educating adolescents."

This volume attempts to delineate the construction of the self in institutional settings of the contemporary world, with the topics ranging from young children to adults and from the micro level to the macro level of human development. The chapters focus on the activities or practices that characterize institutional settings, stressing their dialogical nature that enables understanding human development and the self as what emerge from the dialectic tension of these events—that is, conflicts or contradictions. Discussions included in this volume are different from the principal ways of evaluating institutions in the modern world—i.e., quantitative reports of achievements or merits—but strongly promote further dialogue among researchers and practitioners. This volume offers a new perspective to anyone who are interested in how we psychologically and socially develop in contemporary society, including teachers or practitioners who actually work with children and youths.

This book represents the first extensive introduction to the emerging construct of Educational Self. The new concept describes a specific dimension of the Self, which is elaborated in the course of a person’s school life and is reactivated anytime the person is involved in an educational activity, whether as a student, teacher or parent. The Educational Self (ES) approach was created by the volume editors and is currently being developed at various universities in Europe and Latin America as a way of understanding and operating in educational contexts. The book presents the theoretical framework and the empirical developments of the construct, paving the way for further applications in education. The main locations of the empirical studies are Denmark, Italy, Brazil, Portugal and Colombia, but the research network is steadily expanding to other countries, so that the concept here can be generalized to different cultural contexts. The book addresses a range of contexts and moments in school life. The editors’ introduction presents the construct of ES, the opportunities for further theoretical and empirical developments of the concept, and its potential applications in educational practices. In the remainder of the volume, ES is explored for different age groups (from children to adolescents to higher education), different actors (peers, teachers, parents and their interactions), different contexts (formal education, special institutions, school-family relationships) and different phenomena (disruptive behavior, special needs, value orientation, school failure, etc.). All the studies share a qualitative idiographic approach, which is characteristic of the perspective of cultural psychology in which the ES construct was elaborated.

"Between 10% and 20% of marriages in Taiwan involve the union of a Taiwanese national with a Chinese immigrant, with as many as 13,000 cross-Strait couples registering new unions each year. Exceptional States examines new configurations of marriage, immigration, and governance emerging in an increasingly mobile Asia where Cold War legacies continue to shape contemporary political struggles over sovereignty and citizenship. This book poignantly and respectfully documents the struggle of these immigrant Chinese women as they seek belonging, acceptance, and recognition in their new land. The women's experiences parallel Taiwan's own desire to receive recognition from the international community as a sovereign nation-state. By tracing these political parallels, the book shows how Chinese marital immigrants are affected by Taiwan's own uncertain political status in relation to China in ways that marital immigrants from other Asian countries are not. Exceptional States illustrates the social, political and subjective consequences of immigrants who are living with this exceptional status. The book concludes with a discussion of how Chinese spouses' efforts to create a sense of belonging for themselves across the fluid waters of the Taiwan Strait offer possible insights into solving Taiwan's current sovereignty challenges"--Provided by publisher.

Dictionary of Social Sciences’ is a comprehensive reference work with over 1700 entries ranging from fifty to five hundred words covering topics such as anthropology; sociology; economics; political science; cultural studies; human and cultural geography. The Dictionary is aimed at students and scholars who need ready access to defined terms in a social science outside of their immediate area of expertise; for example; an economist needing information regarding a political science term. A must have book for readers having keen interest in social sciences. Dictionary of Social Sciences by Dr. Anil Kumar Mishra/ Dr. Sudhir Kumar Mishra: This reference book likely provides an extensive compilation of terms, concepts, and terminology related to the field of social sciences. Dr. Anil Kumar Mishra and Dr. Sudhir Kumar Mishra aim to create a comprehensive resource for students, researchers, and enthusiasts in the social sciences, making it easier to understand and navigate this diverse and multidisciplinary field. Key Aspects of the Book "Dictionary of Social Sciences": Social Sciences Terminology: Provides definitions and explanations of key terms and concepts in social sciences. Reference Resource: Serves as a valuable reference tool for students, academics, and researchers in the field. Dr. Anil Kumar Mishra and Dr. Sudhir Kumar Mishra likely collaborate to create an informative and comprehensive resource in "Dictionary of Social Sciences." This book enhances the understanding of social sciences terminology.