education-theory

MacSwan's work is often technical, but ground-breaking. Not only does he advance discussions of the phenomenon known as "code-switching," but he ties it into educational theory in ways that illustrate the non-trivial nature of technical discussions. In fact, educational practices that affect the lives of students, are not independent of the theoretical assumptions made by educators. MacSwan, who is now a leading figure in both theoretical linguistics and bi-lingual education, makes this clear. I recommend it to all who are interested in bilingual education and the politics of education. Some background in formal linguistics will hep the reader through the more technical portions of the volume.

This book is pure genius!!! No book since the bible has had such significance to our society. This is a purely unbiased review.

When I enrolled in my first music theory class I was very nervous. Singing and rythem is one thing, but knowing all the theory is another. This book started at a level that was very easy and advanced to more challenging work. This book was REQUIRED for the Music 10 theory class at Sierra College in Rocklin. I advise to get the book early in advance because it sells out of book stores very fast! It is an easy to understand way of teaching Music, language and it's fundamentals.

The Narrative Universe by Gianluca Bocchi and Mauro Ceruti is fascinating to read. It is indeed a remarkable feature of modern science, from high energy physics to chemistry and biology, that we have moved to a different view of nature that emphasises the narrative element levels of observation. Gianluca Bocchi and Mauro Ceruti present a global and impressive view of this narrative aspect starting with mythology and the early history of humanity and going from there to biology, physics, and chemistry. The Narrative Universe is a unique book. It will be of great interest for everyone who cares about the memory of the past as well as humanity's position in the universe.

Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate
Free University, Brussels, co-author, Order out of Chaos

A remarkable work of transdisciplinary scholarship. The Narrative
Universe is a rich and fascinating work that offers a new perspective
on evolution that emphasizes the importance of human choices and
actions, and the possibility for creating a partnership world.

Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice & The Blade, Sacred Pleasure, and Tomorrow's Children

Drawing from biology, complexity science, cultural history, cosmology, linguistics, mythology, anthropology, as well as the history of religions, literature, and twentieth century film, Bocchi and Ceruti have crafted our time's most comprehensive and compact survey of contemporary science. Their choice of scientists is unfailingly accurate, and their presentation is simultaneously thorough and clear. Their book will be most appreciated by individuals who are outside the world of science, but have on occasion wondered what the excitement is all about. Here, in a single volume, is a record of most of our century's greatest scientific triumphs.

Brian Swimme, California Institute of
Integral Studies, co-author, The Universe Story

The Narrative Universe is a wondrous book, whose very title is the message. The authors takes us down the highways and byways of the world of knowledge, to tell us that we live not only in a contingent universe but are engaged in the creation of contingent knowledges (the plural here is
Important). We are forced to think about assumptions we never realized needed to be questioned. It is a resolutely hopeful, creative work about a creative universe. It is at the same time a very rigorous exercise - science at its best.

Immanuel Wallerstein, SUNY Binghampton, author, The end of the world as we know it. Social science for the 21st century

Reading The Narrative Universe was a real pleasure. Ceruti and Bocchi have written a challenging, brilliant book that is required reading for anybody who wishes to participate in the intellectual revolution through which we are now living.

Jerome Bruner, New York University, author, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds

A marvelous book in several senses: I marvel at Bocchi and Ceruti's erudition, and at the grace with which they apply it. Here we have a masterful narrative well told about the history of consciousness, from the earliest dawnings of human awareness to the latest reflections on evolutionary theory about our evolution.

James Ogilvy, Global Business Network, co-author, Seven Tomorrows, author, Living Without Goals

Adult cognitive development is a quickly expanding field. This little volume provides an excellent introduction to one small part of this field - the traditional college student. Five theorists (William Perry, Mary Field Belenky, Baxter Magolda, Patricia King and Karen Kitchener, and Robert Kegan) are reviewed with short chapters describing the major tenants of their theories, contemporary shortcomings of their work, and continuing usefulness of the theory for college educators.

Perry set the stage for this discussion by framing collegiate cognitive development in epistemological terms. As collegiates matured he identified shifts in identity and meaning formation. Belenky extended Perry's research to women, identifying five epistemological patterns during women's life-span. Magolda's Epistemological Reflection Model was developed from longitudinal study, and identified gender tendencies and the cross-domain non-generalizability of epistemological level. King and Kitchener's Reflective Judgment Model extends Jean Piaget's stages into adulthood by emphasizing critical thinking and ill-structured problem resolution. Kegan's life-span theory of orders of consciousness sees consciousness as the personal construction of experience, emphasizing the organization, rather than content, of feelings, thinking and relating. Development in Kegan's theory involves redefinition of the subject-object distinction.

Please note that only Perry and Magolda limit their theories to the collegiate. Belenky, King and Kitchener, and Kegan are identifying collegiates within a broader life-span theory.

In addition to the five theories, there is one chapter devoted to discussing the interpersonal, cultural and emotional influences on cognitive development, and a concluding chapter that attempts to synthesize the theories into a congruent framework and to provide advice on improving informal assessment of collegiate cognitive developmental level.

While it would be difficult to improve on this concise introduction to collegiate epistemology, this is in no way a comprehensive introduction to the complex field of adult cognitive development. Much work continues under the umbrella term "postformal operations" and major theorists of note include Jan Sinnott, Michael Commons, Francis Richards, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Broughton, Michael Basseches, Herb Koplowitz, Gisela Labouvie-Vief, Patricia Arlin, Allan Chinen, and Cheryl Armon. Furthermore, intelligence, wisdom and aging requires mention of Robert Sternberg, Howard Gardner, Timothy Salthouse, and Paul Baltes.

I recommend this volume as a primer to the field of cognitive development, especially as it relates to changing epistemological patterns. Anyone working with older adolescents and young adults is likely to benefit from exposure to this material.

This book contains most recent important perspectives about conceptual change, such as cognitive, situational,domain-specific and instructional aspects. It can serve as a useful handbook for a naive reader or an experienced researcher to get a whole picture of this category and the development of the conceptual change researches these years.

Ido Oren takes a bold, new look at the future of political science, as well as its current state of affairs. In particular, Oren challenges political scientists' claims of objectivity and demonstrates, through well-gathered empirical evidence, that subjectivity is far more present in the discipline than most scholars might believe. Oren challenges the idea of a democratic peace by analyzing the process wherein a state is or is not labeled a "democracy" by scholars, policy makers and the general populace. Is the process of labeling a democracy as simple as adhering to certain standards, or can democracies simply not become democracies because of political circumstances? Oren asks this question and uses the examples of WWI-era Germany, as well as the Soviet Union, to answer this difficult question.

Our Enemies and US is a must-read for any student of political science and anyone with an interest in the nature of democracy, especially in these times where the lines between friend and foe on the international field have become obscured.

Clearly written under the sign of Foucault, this book attempts to analyze power and how the classics came to acquire it. Yun Lee Too attempts to answer the question you've no doubt asked yourself: "How did the classics become "classic"? On the whole, the book is a rather superficial attempt to analyze how a certain set of texts from antiquity ultimately achieved their position of cultural authority and primacy. If you want to know why the classics came to occupy the position of cultural power, then read this book. The editors go backward chronologically from the late 19th and 20th centuries back to Rome and Greece, by way of the 18th century and the Renaissance. There's a certain arch trendiness to the analysis: unpeeling the evidence like an unwieldy onion, Too strips down the historical layers of interpretation and educational practice, delving into what has made the classics what they are today. When all is said and done and the onion has unravelled, the question is, "Where's the beef?"

This small work is packed with wonderfully articulate insights, philosophical, political and practical, about education and how we should go about teaching young students. Paulo Friere is an enemy of oppression, coercion and neo-liberalism, a proponent of the human spirit and the possibility of a better world. If you are really interested in the ideas of existentialism, socialism, democracy and social justice, you will find yourself entralled with Friere's practical ideas in this book.

David Smith has been an enormous influence on my own work, and I find this collection of his to be precisely the voice our profession of education requires. Brilliant convergences, sudden, breath-taking insight, and the terrible feeling that we've been witnessed.