There is increasing recognition of the important role culture plays in the framing and delivery of education and development in the South. Whether this is in the reciprocal and synergistic relationship between theory and practice or the links between research and policy, it is clear that at the heart of successful educational development is a recognition of the importance of culture. This book critically reviews the relationships of culture, education and development both from a theoretical and methodological perspective and also from the perspective of the teacher, researcher and policy maker on the ground. The importance of context is stressed throughout with a series of case studies of educational developments drawn from a range of national settings. Issues such as education and poverty elimination, local and global knowledge transfers, and the role and discourse of development assistance to education are examined from the perspective of culture and context. Of particular value to the education researcher and policy maker, whether working in the North or South, this book provides a timely reminder of the importance of culture in the development of education.

This book is based on educational research conducted by researchers from the Department of Learning and Philosophy and the Confucius Institute for Innovation and Learning at Aalborg University. Empirically, it reports on different approaches to teaching and learning of culture, including a student-centered task-based problem-based learning (PBL) approach, a digital technology-supported approach and more. It also reports on how, when teaching and learning culture, teachers’ professional identity and the informal teaching and learning environment impact the teaching and learning of culture in different educational settings from primary school to university. A central theme in the book is the power of context. The studies illustrate in multiple ways, and from different angles, that “culture is not taught in a vacuum or learned in isolation”, but may be influenced by many factors both inside and outside the classroom; at the same time, culture also influences the context of the learning. The context may be “invisible” and hide itself as tacit knowledge or embedded values, or it may be very visible and present itself as a fixed curriculum or an established tradition. No matter what forms and shapes the context takes, the studies in this book strongly indicate that it is essential to be aware of the power of context in teaching and learning culture in order to understand it and negotiate it. This book suggests that teachers should not try to limit or avoid contextual influences, but instead, should explore how the context may be integrated into and used constructively in the teaching and learning of culture. This allowance of context in the classroom will allow for teachers, students, subjects and contexts to enter into a dialogue and negotiation of meaning that will enrich each other and achieve the established goal – acquisition of cultural awareness and intercultural understanding.

Looks at Culture and Education in a multicultural society.

Brings a range of tools and concepts from cultural analysis and social theories and applies these to the field of education and education's place within society.

In a masterly commentary on the possibilities of education, Bruner reveals how education can usher children into their culture, though it often fails to do so. Bruner looks past the issue of achieving individual competence to the question of how education equips individuals to participate in the culture on which life and livelihood depend.

Combining anthropology, education, schooling, teaching and learning, this text presents an introduction of the cultural basis of education, exploring culture-education interfaces and their influence on teaching.

Challenging educators to better understand themselves and their students, this text presents a powerful process for developing a teaching perspective that embraces the centrality of culture in school learning. The six-part process covers examining culture, personalizing culture, inquiring about students' cultures and communities, applying knowledge about culture to teaching, formulating theory or a conceptual framework linking culture and school learning, and transforming professional practice to better meet the needs of students from different cultural and experiential backgrounds. All aspects of the process are interrelated and interdependent. Two basic procedures employed in this process are presented: constructing an operational definition of culture that reveals its deep meaning in cognition and learning, and applying the reflective-interpretive-inquiry (RIQ) approach to making linkages between students' cultural and experiential backgrounds and classroom instruction. Pedagogical features in each chapter include Focus Questions; Chapter Summaries; Suggested Learning Experiences, Critical Reading lists. A Companion Website, new for the Third Edition (www.routledge.com/cw/Hollins), provides additional student resources.

Today, a 'cultural' dimension is increasingly being taught at universities as a supplement to disciplines that have not traditionally paid much attention to culture. Universities are competing to produce graduates with a 'global mindset' who are well equipped to cope in multicultural, team-oriented workplaces. Yet the way in which culture is taught is bound to differ depending on the context in which the teaching takes place. Current research on teaching cultural skills tends to favor a social constructivist approach where actors are seen as constructing collective means of sense-making in the arenas and groups in which they participate. Teachers, who are often very keen to promote tolerance, empathy, and intercultural dialogue, often support such an approach, but it can be a challenge to transfer this to teaching, especially in interdisciplinary contexts. Teaching Cultural Skills explores these challenges based on experiences from Danish universities. Its broader themes make it highly relevant for teachers of culture elsewhere. These themes include the globalization of labor markets and trade; immigration, which has led to increased awareness of the need for cultural skills; and the internationalization of higher education, which has made classrooms more multicultural than ever before.~