This study explores Japanese language classrooms in Australia taught by native Japanese speakers. Comparative studies were completed in classrooms in both Japan and Australia to identify effective teaching strategies in each cultural context. The book asserts that an awareness of cultural compatibility should be a professional responsibility of educators.

This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on theory, research, and applications in human behavior change. Chapters from clinical, developmental, and community psychology and education are united by common principles and an emphasis on culture and context. The contributions of Roland Tharp to each of these fields are highlighted. The roles of parents, teachers, peers, families, schools, and neighborhoods are explored. Topics include behavior therapy, child development and culture, community programs, delinquency prevention, youth mentoring, instructional conversation, school reform, teacher professional development, and culturally relevant instruction. For each topic, new research challenges are identified. This volume is recommended for a variety of courses in psychology and education.

Grounded in a critical sociocultural approach, this volume examines issues associated with teaching and learning difficult histories in international contexts. Defined as representations of past violence and oppression, difficult histories are contested and can evoke emotional, often painful, responses in the present. Teaching and learning these histories is contentious yet necessary for increased dialogue within conflict-ridden societies, reconciliation in post-conflict societies, and greater social cohesion in long-standing democratic nations. Focusing on locations and populations across the globe, chapter authors investigate how key themes—including culture, identity, collective memory, emotion, and multi-perspectivity, historical consciousness, distance, and amnesia—inform the teaching and learning of difficult histories.

This book discusses mathematics learners in transition and their practices in different contexts; the institutional and socio-cultural framing of the transition processes involved; and the communication and negotiation of mathematical meanings during transition. Providing both empirical studies and significant theoretical reflections, it will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students in mathematics education, cultural psychology, multicultural education, immigrant and indigenous education.

This book examines aspects of Western psychological and educational theory in relation to educational practice around the world, and considers the extent to which current understandings are truly applicable to a range of diverse settings. In so doing, it also seeks to question, where appropriate, existing orthodoxies within Western educational systems.

Crossing Cultural Borders (1991) examines the day-to-day interaction of immigrant children with adults, siblings and peers in the home, school and community at large as these families demonstrate their skill in using their culture to survive in a new society. Children of Mexican and Central American immigrant families in Secoya crossed a national border, and continue to cross linguistic, social and cultural borders that separate the home, school and outside world.

Australian education policy for the past 40 years has been heading in the wrong direction and is entirely unsuitable for preparing young people for the 21st century. Exaggeration? Sadly not. For a teacher, there is nothing more exhilarating than encouraging young people to realise the power of learning. But in our schools today, teachers spend so much time preparing their students for high-stakes tests, gathering data and filling in forms, that many of them feel like the life has been squeezed out of their role. Schooling has been turned into a market, and school leaders are forced to spend precious time and resources competing with other schools. Their professional experience is disregarded as policy makers turn to the corporate world and self-appointed commentators to determine curriculum and school funding. The outcome? Our schooling system is becoming more segregated; children from poorer backgrounds are falling behind; public schools are starved of funds; and good teachers are leaving. One of the most highly regarded educational leaders in Australia, Alan Reid, argues it's time to reconsider the purposes of education, the capacities we need for the future, and the strategies that will get us there. He outlines a new narrative for Australian schooling that is futures-focused and prizes flexibility, adaptability, collaboration and agility, with students, teachers and school communities at centre-stage. 'A provocative and persuasive argument for the necessity of a new narrative for Australian schooling so as to meet better the demonstrable demands of the twenty-first century...' - Emeritus Professor Bob Lingard, The University of Queensland 'At the heart of the book is a penetrating critique of neoliberalism and the damaging effects it is having on education and society. It should be essential reading for policy makers, educators, parents, and anyone interested in the current state of Australian education.' - Professor Barry Down, Murdoch University

This book critiques the currently popular "at-risk" construct, drawing from historical, contextual, critical, and personal perspectives. It provides an alternative context for viewing children and their families as "at-promise." A basic premise of the book is that the generalized use of the "at-risk" label is highly problematic and often implicitly racist and classist—a 1990s version of the cultural deficit model that locates problems in individuals, families, and communities, rather than in institutional structures that create and maintain inequality. This book provides a needed interrogation and alternative context for viewing children and families caught in the extreme conditions facing many families in the United States.