Rethinking Education

Rethinking education has never been more important. While there are many examples of good, innovative practice in teaching and learning at all levels, the conventional education mindset has proved largely resistant to pedagogic or systemic change, remaining preoccupied with the delivery of standardised packages in a standardised fashion, relatively unresponsive to the diversity of learners’ experiences and inclinations as well as to the personal perspectives of individual teachers. The challenge of our times in relation to education is to help transform that mindset. This series takes up this challenge. It re-examines perennial major issues in education and opens up new ones. It includes, but is not confined to, pedagogies for transforming the learning experience, any-time-any-place learning, new collaborative technologies, fresh understandings of the roles of teachers, schools and other educational institutions, providing for different learning styles and for students with special needs, and adapting to changing needs in a changing environment.

12 publications

Critical Literacies and Language

One of the most fundamental aspects of a just society is the right to create equitable and inclusive spaces of belonging for all people while also confronting injustice and oppression. However, we are now in a time where seeking justice and equity is met with neoliberalism, which pervades the academy at all levels of education. Yet, for many, this is not a time for retreat, but rather a moment of solidarity, a time to create new knowledge and understanding through struggle. As Freire wrote, "Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other." Thus, the purpose of this series is to provide literacy and language researchers, practitioners, as well as community activists, with a space to actualize and embody a restless, impatient never-finished objective of critical literacies and language education. It is the aim of this series to create a space to share research that promotes pedagogies of equity. We also recognize that different audiences have different needs. To that end, we seek to provide, when applicable, a "notebook" as a companion to research volumes to facilitate actionable steps for the PK-12 classroom or community spaces. This series is different as it approaches the dissemination of critical work from a place of intentionality to address the gap in disseminating research (typically read by scholars) and the need to have it "on the ground" for classroom teachers, community activists, and workers. By creating companion volumes (where applicable), there is a greater chance for sustained criticality in literacy education.

6 publications

Studies in Theology, Society and Culture

ISSN: 1662-9930

Religious and theological reflection has often been confined to the realm of the private, the personal or the Church. In Europe this restriction of religion and theology can be traced back to the Enlightenment and has had long-lasting and pernicious consequences for the understanding of religious faith and society. On the one hand, there has been a rise in religious fundamentalisms around the globe, while, on the other hand, so-called advanced societies are constructed mainly along economic, pragmatic and rationalistic lines. Added to this is the reality that religious faith is increasingly lived out in pluralistic and multi-faith contexts with all the challenges and opportunities this offers to denominational religion. This series explores what it means to be religious in such contexts. It invites scholarly contributions to themes including patterns of secularisation, postmodern challenges to religion, and the relation of faith and culture. From a theological perspective it seeks constructive re-interpretations of traditional Christian topics – including God, creation, salvation, Christology, ecclesiology, etc. in a way that makes them more credible for today. It also welcomes studies on religion and science, and on theology and the arts. The series publishes monographs, comparative studies, interdisciplinary projects, conference proceedings and edited books. It attracts well-researched, especially interdisciplinary, studies which open new approaches to religion or focus on interesting case studies. The language of the series is English.

24 publications