A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement

By John Hattie

This unique and ground-breaking book is the result of 15 years research and synthesises over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school-aged students. It builds a story about the power of teachers, feedback, and a model of learning and understanding. The research involves many millions of students and represents the largest ever evidence based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning. Areas covered include the influence of the student, home, school, curricula, teacher, and teaching strategies. A model of teaching and learning is developed based on the notion of visible teaching and visible learning.

A major message is that what works best for students is similar to what works best for teachers – an attention to setting challenging learning intentions, being clear about what success means, and an attention to learning strategies for developing conceptual understanding about what teachers and students know and understand.

Although the current evidence based fad has turned into a debate about test scores, this book is about using evidence to build and defend a model of teaching and learning. A major contribution is a fascinating benchmark/dashboard for comparing many innovations in teaching and schools.

ISBN: 9780415476171

Published November 18 2008 by Routledge.

Theoretical Foundations and Practical Skills for Changing Times

Edited by MaryAnn Christison, Denise E. Murray

Leadership in English Language Education: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Skills for Changing Times presents both theoretical approaches to leadership and practical skills leaders in English language education need to be effective. Discussing practical skills in detail, and providing readers with the opportunity to acquire new skills and apply them in their own contexts, the text is organized around three themes:

• The roles and characteristics of leaders
• Skills for leading
• ELT leadership in practice

Leadership theories and approaches from business and industry are applied to and conclusions are drawn for English language teaching in a variety of organizational contexts, including intensive English programs in English-speaking countries, TESOL departments in universities, ESL programs in community colleges, EFL departments in non-English speaking countries, adult education programs, and commercial ELT centers and schools around the world. This is an essential resource for all administrators, teachers, academics, and teacher candidates in English language education.

ISBN: 9780805863109

Published November 17 2008 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Supporting Creative Writing for Ages 8–14

By Alison Wilcox

Descriptosaurus is the first book for creative writing that is a thematic expansion of a dictionary and a thesaurus. It provides children with a comprehensive resource with which to expand their descriptive vocabulary, experiment with language and sentence structure and build up narratives based around the following areas:

• Settings – landscapes, settlements and atmosphers
• Characters – appearance, emotions and personality
• Creatures – appearance, abilities and habitats.

This model was created as a result of feedback from children as to the resources they required to inspire and assist them with their writing. For reluctant writers or those faced with blank page syndrome, Descriptosaurus provides useful starting points to encourage putting pen to paper. Using Descriptosaurus will not only inspire children, it will build their confidence and dramatically improve the content of their writing.

Alison Wilcox has extensive teaching experience in schools in England and Scotland. Colleagues describe her methods as ‘innovative and inspirational to even the most reluctant of writers.

ISBN: 9780415468350

Published November 11 2008 by David Fulton Publis.

Edited by Marie Lall, Edward Vickers

This book offers a fresh and comparative approach in questioning what education is being used for and what the effects of the politicisation of education are on Asian societies in the era of globalisation. Education has been used as a political tool throughout the ages and across the whole world to define national identity and underlie the political rationale of regimes. In the contemporary, globalising world there are particularly interesting examples of this throughout Asia, ranging from the new definition of Indian national identity as a Hindu identity (to contrast with Pakistan's Islamic identity), to particular versions of nationalism in China, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. In Asia education systems have their origins in processes of state formation aimed either at bolstering 'self-strengthening' resistance to the encroachments of Western and/or Asian imperialism, or at furthering projects of post-colonial nation-building. State elites have sought to popularise powerful visions of nationhood, to equip these visions with a historical 'back-story', and to endow them with the maximum sentimental charge. This book explores all of these developments, emphasising that education is seen by nations across Asia, as elsewhere, as more than simply a tool for economic development, and that issues of national identity and the tolerance - or lack of it - of ethnic, cultural or religious diversity can be at least as important as issues of literacy and access. Interdisciplinary and unique in its analysis, this book will be of interest to scholars of political science, research in education and Asian Studies.

ISBN: 9780415452595

Published November 07 2008 by Routledge.

A Developmental Perspective

By Helen Mele Robinson

The United States is currently grappling with how to prepare our students to be computer literate citizens in the competitive technological world we live in. Understanding how children develop computer knowledge, and the ways that adults are able to guide their computer learning experiences, is a vital task facing parents and educators. This groundbreaking book is an attempt to fill a gap in current understanding of how we become computer literate and proposes a theory of how computer literacy skills emerge in computer users.

ISBN: 9780415961318

Published November 06 2008 by Routledge.

Why black women succeed and fail

By HEIDI SAFIA MIRZA

'This book is a great genealogy of black women's unrecognised contributions within both education and the wide social context. I think it constitutes an important piece of work that is totally missing from the existing literature'

- Diane Reay, Professor of Education, Cambridge University

Race, Gender and Educational Desire reveals the emotional and social consequences of gendered difference and racial division as experienced by black and ethnicised women teachers and students in schools and universities. It explores the intersectionality of race and gender in education, taking the topic in new, challenging directions and asking

• How does race and gender structure the experiences of black and ethnicised women in our places of learning and teaching?
• Why, in the context of endemic race and gender inequality, is there a persistent expression of educational desire among black and ethnicised women?
• Why is black and ethnicised female empowerment important in understanding the dynamics of wider social change?

Social commentators, academics, policy makers and political activists have debated the causes of endemic gender and race inequalities in education for several decades. This important and timely book demonstrates the alternative power of a black feminist framework in illuminating the interconnections between race and gender and processes of educational inequality. Heidi Safia Mirza, a leading scholar in the field, takes us on a personal and political journey through the debates on black British feminism, genetics and the new racism, citizenship and black female cultures of resistance. Mirza addresses some of the most controversial issues that shape the black and ethnic female experience in school and higher education, such as multiculturalism, Islamophobia, diversity, race equality and equal opportunities

Race, Gender and Educational Desire makes a plea for hope and optimism, arguing that black women's educational desire for themselves and their children embodies a feminised prospectus for a successful multicultural future. This book will be of particular interest to students, academics and researchers in the field of education, sociology of education, multicultural education and social policy.

Heidi Safia Mirza is Professor of Equalities Studies in Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and Director of the Centre for Rights, Equalities and Social Justice (CRESJ). She is also author of Young, Female and Black (Routledge).

ISBN: 9780415448758

Published November 06 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by M Cecil Smith, Assistant Editor, with Nancy DeFrates-Densch

The time is right for this comprehensive, state-of-the-art handbook that analyzes, integrates, and summarizes theoretical advances and research findings on adult development and learning - a rapidly growing field reflecting demographic shifts toward an aging population in Western societies. Featuring contributions from prominent scholars across diverse disciplinary fields (education, developmental psychology, public policy, gerontology, neurology, public health, sociology, family studies, and adult education), the volume is organized around six themes:

• Theoretical Perspectives on Adult Development and Learning
• Research Methods in Adult Development
• Research on Adult Development
• Research on Adult Learning
• Aging and Gerontological Research
• Policy Perspectives on Aging

The Handbook is an essential reference for researchers, faculty, graduate students and practitioners whose work pertains to adult and lifespan development and learning.

ISBN: 9780805858198

Published November 05 2008 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Findings from Longitudinal Research

Edited by Stephen Reder, John Bynner

Understanding the origins of poor literacy and numeracy skills in adulthood and how to improve them is of major importance when society places a high premium on proficiency in these basic skills. This edited collection brings together the results of recent longitudinal studies that greatly extend our knowledge of what works in raising skill levels, as well as the social and economic returns to improvement.

Many fundamental research questions in adult education involve change over time: how adults learn, how program participation influences their acquisition of skills and knowledge, and how their educational development interacts with their social and economic performance. Although a growing number of longitudinal studies in adult basic education have recently been completed, this book is the first systematic compilation of findings and methods.

Triangulating findings from different methodological perspectives and research designs, and across countries, this text produces convergence on key conclusions about the role of basic skills in the modern life course and the most effective ways of enhancing them.

ISBN: 9780415958585

Published November 04 2008 by Routledge.

By Carlos Alberto Torres

This volume by noted critical education scholar Carlos Alberto Torres takes up the question of how structural changes in schooling and the growing impacts of neoliberalism and globalization affect social change, national development, and democratic educational systems throughout the world. The first section of the book offers analytical avenues to understand and criticize the practices and policies of neoliberal states, both domestically and internationally. More than a mere lament of the state of educational policy, however, Torres also documents the critiques and alternatives developed by social movements against neoliberal governments and policies. Ultimately, his work urges readers to engage in the struggle to resist the oppressive forces of neoliberal globalization, and proactively and deliberately act in informed ways to create a better world.

ISBN: 9780415991186

Published November 04 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Rebekah Willett, Muriel Robinson, Jackie Marsh

Recent work on children's digital cultures has identified a range of literacies emerging through children's engagement with new media technologies. This edited collection focuses on children's digital cultures, specifically examining the role of play and creativity in learning with these new technologies.

The chapters in this book were contributed by an international range of respected researchers, who seek to extend our understandings of children's interactions with new media both within and outside of school. They address and provide evidence for continuing debates around the following questions: What notions of creativity are useful in our fields? How does an understanding of play inform analysis of children's engagement with digital cultures? How might school practice take account of out-of-school learning in relation to digital cultures? How can we understand children's engagements with digital technologies in commercialised spaces?

Offering current research, theoretical debate and empirical studies, this intriguing text will challenge the thinking of scholars and teachers alike as it explores the evolving nature of play within the media landscape of the 21st-century.

ISBN: 9780415963114

Published November 03 2008 by Routledge.