Search

Based on new research data, with a 135-teacher study over 8 countries, this book challenges the assumption that all teachers automatically have the expertise to teach cultural understanding and argues, instead, that there is the need for teachers to acquire transcultural expertise to teach cultural understanding effectively in the present age, rather than depending on current multicultural and intercultural approaches. By outlining a new model to teach cultural understanding that is appropriate and relevant, this volume focuses on the expertise of teachers to address this gap in current teaching practice. Using the framework of education in Britain and its former empire, this book traces the role that teachers have played in teaching cultural understanding throughout history, and then uses the results of a recent international research project to outline recommendations for teacher education and professional learning that both develop and enhance the ability of teachers to address cultural understanding effectively in their work. "Transculturalism and Teacher Capacity: Professional Readiness in the Globalised Age" is the perfect resource for any researcher, school leader and educational administrator, or those interested in education that prepares teachers to meet the demands of the profession in the current age.

The notion of thinking skills as a key component of a 21st century school education is now firmly entrenched in educational policy and curriculum frameworks in many parts of the world. However, there has been relatively little questioning of the manner in which educational globalisation has facilitated this diffusion of thinking skills, curriculum and pedagogy in a cultural context. This book will help to redress such an imbalance in its critical assessment of the cross-cultural validity of transplanting thinking skills programs from one educational system to another on an international scale. "Culture, Transnational Education and Thinking" provides an international comparative study of the intersection of three educational concepts: culture, education and thinking. Drawing on case studies from Malaysia, South Africa and Australia/USA for the purposes of comparative analysis, the book employs the context of an international school program in the teaching of thinking skills, Future Problem Solving Program International. The book explores the associations between Future Problem Solving educators, their cultural background, and their approaches to thinking, evaluating the relevance of transferring thinking skills programs derived in one cultural framework into another. The book also discusses the wider implications of these cross-cultural comparisons to curriculum and pedagogy within schools and higher education, with a particular emphasis on the teaching of multicultural school-based classes and cross-cultural understandings in teacher education and professional development. This book will be of relevance to academics and higher education students who have an interest in the fields of cross-cultural and intercultural understanding, comparative studies in education, and theories and practices of cognition, as well as the development of tertiary and secondary curricula and associated pedagogies that specifically acknowledge the cultural diversities of both teacher and learner.