Many governments and universities have pursued excellence by emulating world-class models and relying on international ranking schemes for validation and ideas for improvement. Others have relied on traditional notions of quality and research productivity. These approaches rely on the accumulation of wealth and talent – strategies that are “rivalrous” limiting the opportunities of others to be as effective. Focusing on portraits of eight different institutions reveals other approaches to excellence, all of which rely on defining and pursuing a purpose.

One reason for assembling another collection of essays on examples of how education reforms were implemented is to see if different resource levels and different political and national histories produce and demand different reform strategies. Another is to highlight the tension between rational approaches to education reform and the participatory or democratic approaches which emphasise context and the views of practitioners and stakeholders. A third reason is to highlight some of the assumptions about individual behaviours embedded in the rational and participatory approaches to reform. The ten cases presented here have been chosen and shaped by these three rationales. They also highlight some of the themes drawn from the first set of cases about continuity, consistency and coherence, adding to the stock of knowledge about models and approaches to the design and enactment of reforms including logic models and gradualism.

The opening section of this chapter charts the history of the dyslexia construct. The distinction between scientific understandings of dyslexia (a difficulty in accurate and fluent word reading) and reading comprehension is emphasized. Different conceptions of dyslexia exist, however, and these are grouped within four categories, each of which is examined and critiqued in turn. Dyslexia 1 concerns an understanding whereby dyslexia refers to those with the most severe and persistent forms of reading. Dyslexia 2 describes the widely held view that only some struggling readers are dyslexic, and such individuals need to be identified by expert assessors using various cognitive tests. In these cases, the individual’s reading problem is often considered to be unexpected. The role of intelligence, and intelligence/reading discrepancy, as a marker of dyslexia is examined in significant detail. A Dyslexia 3 conception places emphasis on the struggling reader’s difficulty to make significant progress even when provided with high-quality intervention. Dyslexia 4 concerns the understanding that reading difficulties should be considered as only one part of a much broader dyslexic condition that may provide a number of compensatory gifts. The need to eschew unitary explanations in favor of multifactorial understandings of reading disability involving a combination of biology and environment is emphasized.

When Roger Bannister finally broke the seemingly insurmountable four-minute mile running barrier in 1954, other runners finally believed they could do it too. The next year, thirty-seven runners eclipsed four minutes for the mile. Belief matters. Successful runners and successful scholars share growth mindsets dictating that they are personably responsible for successes and failures and that both success and failure can show you the way. The growth minded recognize that talent is not born, it’s made. Made of passion and hard-earned skills. Growth mindsets fit with the findings of psychologist Benjamin Bloom who studied top American performers in various domains and concluded: What these talented people have accomplished, almost anyone can accomplish if conditions are right. The right conditions are not always obvious though. Although some productive scholars were reared in rich academic environments that fast-passed them into professorial roles, others hailed from poor working-class families, piloted by drug store clerks or crop farmers, or from environments biased against women and minorities. Still they succeeded because they believed they could. Even when success seemed far away or impossible, they followed their bliss and took the leap toward becoming productive and impactful scholars.

As the largest publicly funded, nonformal education system in the United States, Cooperative Extension (a.k.a. “Extension”) has played a critical role in how technologies and innovations generated through state agricultural experiment stations (AES) and land-grant universities (LGUs) in the United States have been translated and shared directly to its constituents for over a century. Extension has served as a unique and robust system to collaborate, generate, and disseminate research, as well as to engage in mission-oriented work to support communities in optimizing their current and future circumstances and through collaborative partnerships shaping the ways in which we cultivate and preserve food, how we educate and care for our children, manage our finances, work with communities, and support populations disproportionality affected by structural inequities. The current volume brings together leading scholars to discuss Extension’s contributions to the well-being of children, youth, families, and communities; and to critically reflect on Extension’s future directions in light of significant shifts in the context in which it now operates.

At times like this, when the way forward isn’t clear, framing the choice – a quick check into what the decision is all about – can be helpful. And important. Taking control over how we picture the decisions we face is part of transforming decision problems into decision opportunities. The decision frame determines how we bring who we are and what we care about into the decision-making picture.

What do we owe current and future generations of young people? Although there are many ways to respond to this question, most agree that we owe them an education that prepares them for the future. This chapter describes how approach this goal requires us to think differently about the future. Specifically, recognizing that there is not one future but multiple futures. Moreover, it highlights how we need new scenarios for possible futures which go beyond focusing on likely futures and toward preparing young people to navigate unkown futures.

This chapter frames the book as a whole by establishing the political and professional manifesto for the volume. It establishes the context for the book as one of contemporary policy and practice demands that place heavy expectations on leaders in early childhood education to work in ways that improve the quality of early childhood education programs. These demands are problematized through the think tank approach to the book, explained in this chapter, which seeks to remain open to multiple and multidisciplinary approaches to the scientific study of learning to lead. We argue this openness depends on avoidance of binaries, seeking multiple forms of professionalism, avoiding easy reference to crises, contestation of change, and an acknowledgment of the specialized forms of knowledge necessary for early childhood education practice. The chapter outlines the structure of the book around the pairs of theory–case study exemplars in the chapters that follow.

This chapter provides a rationale for the book and the research that it presents. It documents the near complete absence of prior research into teacher or teaching quality in the global South and justifies specifically why teacher expertise research may be the most useful vehicle through which it can be studied. It argues that the contextually appropriate, feasible and sustainable pedagogic practices of expert teachers in any context can, if implemented more widely across the educational system, bring about significant increases in the quality of teaching and learning. The chapter offers a definition of ‘global South’ specific to the aims and contexts of the book and compares this with alternative ways of conceptualising the South. My background, as author of this book, is then presented, followed by an overview of the book that includes brief summary descriptions of the chapters that follow. The chapter finishes with a discussion of paradigmatic concerns that sets out the author’s own position as a multiple- methods, critical realist researcher who rejects the paradigm dichotomy between positivist and interpretivist approaches, instead preferring to view generalising and particularising tendencies in research through a continuum along which researchers are able to move flexibly, appropriate to the questions or problems of interest under investigation.

Democratic education is central to the functioning and flourishing of modern multicultural democracies, and yet it is subject to increasing public controversy and political pressure. Waning public trust in government institutions, sustained attacks on democratic values and customs from populist politicians and organizations, political sectarianism, and increasing trends toward privatization and chartering in the educational landscape have placed immense strain on the existing structures of public education and generally worked to undermine public confidence in democratic education. In light of these developments, it seems to us to be of central importance to return to the essential concepts, theories and values of democratic education, both as a social ideal and a political institution. This Handbook aims to offer an expansive view of the formation of individuals for democratic life and includes a diversity of theoretical traditions, topics, and thinkers that are relevant to the theory and practice of democratic education.

This chapter introduces donor financing of education reform in developing countries and the global compacts in the sector. There is an assumption that learning was not part of these compacts and if only it were part of the discourse and learning was consistently measured, this crisis would not be upon us. However, the first global event in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 included a significant and urgent obligation of the donor community to address learning. This concerted focus disappeared in following global events. Nonetheless, donors influenced by the shared passion for learning at Jomtein were consistently involved with measuring learning, helping to keep an eye on the unfolding learning deficit. Three examples are offered to illustrate this commitment – in a project (the Indian District Primary Education), across regions and during the primary early grades. These examples shine a spotlight on the tried and tested assessments of learning. In spite of donor focus on this important aspect of education, there is a learning crisis across developing countries.

This is the general introduction to the Cambridge Handbook of Undergraduate Research. It deals with the history of the university as an institution (which has been a research institution only since the nineteenth century); with the concept of undergraduate research and its dimesions (e.g., student- or staff-initiated research); with possible alternative concepts (e.g., critical thinking or lifelong learning); with research on undergraduate research (e.g., increased retention rate but necessary mentoring); and with implementation challenges (for universities and faculty). We see a new role for students: that in ever more differentiated modern societies, collaborative, cross-segmental knowledge production becomes a new necessity, the educational means to which might be undergraduate research.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a change in mind-sets in many university leadership teams and faculty members worldwide, previously somewhat vulnerable to the sector's digitalization. Academia proved capable of flexibility, going beyond their reputation of being change-averse, moving entire curricula online within days. Yet, to benefit from higher education's digitalization, propelled by the pandemic, future pedagogical innovation is vital so as not to make other sectors' errors of merely transferring the offline into the online world. Moreover, higher education will need to find responses to several (further) academic, budgetary, legal, and operational issues induced by the sector's digital transformation, potentially leading to its disruption. However, higher education also must evade false ideas such as believing that physical buildings will become redundant due to academia's digitalization: On the contrary, facilities will be more critical than ever.

Opening with a disturbing example of how outmoded university structures can jeopardize a vulnerable student’s future, Chapter 1 introduces the structural lag between an increasingly diverse student generation that grew up with the smartphone and its easy access to information and the fragmented practices of the university. This gap is deepened by societal crucibles in contemporary American life, including the pandemic, economic change, extremism, climate change, and structural racism. By forcing universities online, the pandemic highlighted how important campus life is to students, the learning process, and how much of the university experience takes place outside the classroom. As universities prepare for post-pandemic education, they must take long-discussed and long-delayed steps to critically examine their history, address the bifurcation between faculty and service staff, reform their semi-independent institutional structures, and coordinate the array of student services toward the goal of a student-centered and holistic university experience.

The learning sciences (LS) is an interdisciplinary field that studies teaching and learning. This chapter explains how the thirty-three chapters are organized. The chapter is grouped into four key themes: (1) a shift from thinking of knowledge as facts and procedures to a conception of knowledge as situated in visible practice; (2) an expansion of a view of learning from purely cognitive to a sociocultural view that also incorporates collaboration and conversation; (3) the role of technology in learning; (4) research methodologies used in LS. The chapter closes with a short history of the field of LS from the 1980s through the present.

There is constant pressure on governments and policymakers globally to raise the standard of education and to develop the appropriate curriculum and pedagogies to enable students to fit the world they will enter post-school; there are also international comparisons. There is a body of scholarship in the leadership field on change and reform, largely focused on the processes and ways of working. The policy and academic world have also focused on these matters, largely in the form of theoretical discussions or critical debates about issues of transnational work, school effectiveness or school improvement. There has been less focus on the implementation of reform or change. This chapter synthesises the literature on implementation in the fields of public policy and education and reviews existing thinking and scholarship on reform and implementation. The authors identify the common understandings, different approaches and gaps in the field, thus providing a rationale for the book and for the choice of case studies.

All the decisions we make in school – what gets taught (curriculum design), how we teach (pedagogy) and what learning we recognise and reward (assessment and certification) – should be based in beliefs about the purpose of learning. But there is currently no agreed coherent answer to the question 'What is learning at school for?' The implicit answer is built on economics: that the purpose of education is to provide 'growth' as measured by GDP. But growth, and particularly the narrower concept of GDP, are insufficient and increasingly attacked by economists themselves. We cannot continue to simply 'supply' skills and expect the economy to use them to create productive, equal societies. The challenges of inequality, resource exploitation and ill-health are not being solved in this way. A broader narrative must encompass more of what we know about what makes for healthy lives, societies and ecosystems.

The introduction explains the need for the book, describes its design, and introduces the methodological strands currently exhibited in the programs and curricula of language educators whose teaching reflects transformative education: principles and theory based on the works of (1) Mezirow and his followers Cranton and Taylor, (2) Freire, (3) Vygotsky, (4) Rogers and (5) Boyd and Habermas, (6) Dirkx, and (7) O’Sullivan, among others. The introduction follows the storyline told by the authors of the various chapters, depicting the appearance and growth of transformative language learning and teaching (TLLT), its current manifestations in the classroom, study abroad programs, the community, testing practices, and teacher preparation, and ending with a discussion of the morphing of TLLT’s Mezirowan cognitive base into a more affective and even spiritual approach. How these strands are treated within different educational contexts or treatments are pointed out. The classrooms and programs designed by the book’s authors weave a rich tapestry of variants of transformative education in the classroom, in study abroad programs, in extramural activities, and in the community; how these all exemplify current transformative education practices will be discussed. This chapter also points out the range of languages represented in the volume, including L2, EFL/ESL and bilingual education and how these three generally distinct fields form an organic whole. The intent of the introduction is to provide an overarching framework in which to understand the theory, praxis and programs of transformative education presented in the book.

To extend our introduction of the concept of social learning space, we discuss in depth each of the three dimensions of participation that, when combined, generate a social learning space: caring to make a difference, engaging uncertainty, and paying attention.

School psychology fills a unique and important niche in education. Falling at the intersection of learning, academic achievement, and behavioral, emotional, and social well-being, school psychology plays a role in helping students, families, educators, and school systems meet the goals of a free and appropriate education for all youth, with or without a special education classification. In this chapter, we briefly review the purpose of education and discuss the groups that are not well served by education. We then provide an overview of the chapters that make up this text, including those on the important recent contributions to education and schooling from social psychology.