Teacher Learning and Power in the Knowledge Society (The Knowledge Economy and Education) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9460919715 ISBN 13: 9789460919718

Publisher: Brill - Sense, 2012

Synopsis

The rise of knowledge workers has been widely heralded but there has been little research on their actual learning practices. This book provides the first systematic comparative study of the formal and informal learning of different professional groups, with a particular focus on teachers. Drawing on unique large-scale national surveys of working conditions and learning practices in Canada, teachers are compared with doctors and lawyers, nurses, engineers and computer programmers, as well as other professionals. The class positions of professionals (self-employed, employers, managers or employees) and their different collective bargaining and organizational decision-making powers are found to have significant effects on their formal learning and professional development (PD). Teachers' learning varies according to their professionally-based negotiating and school-based decision-making powers. Two further national surveys of thousands of Canadian classroom teachers as well as more in-depth case studies offer more insight into the array of teachers' formal and informal learning activities. Analyses of regular full-time teachers, occasional teachers and new teachers probe their different learning patterns. The international literature on teacher professional development and related government policies is reviewed and major barriers to job-embedded, ongoing professional learning are identified. Promising alternative forms of integrating teachers' work and their professional learning are illustrated. Teacher empowerment appears to be an effective means to ensure more integrated professional learning as well as to aid fuller realization of knowledge societies and knowledge economies.

About this title

Review

"This book provides a deep understanding of Canadian teachers' learning experiences and the Canadian schooling system. Throughout there are continuous comparisons with other countries' educational systems. As such, the book provides an international perspective on teachers' learning and effectively encourages readers to consider the authors' findings in relation to the experiences of teachers world-wide."--International Journal of Lifelong Education (Issue 32(6))

About the Author

Rosemary Clark is a writer and lecturer on the esoteric tradition of ancient Egypt and its religious, philosophical, and metaphysical legacy in modern times. Her continuing study in this field derives from a thirty-year background in historical research, travel throughout the Middle East, and the development of a repertoire of unique skills in recreating Egyptian ceremony and rituals. She has been a featured speaker on several tours of Egypt, and has acted as coordinator for on-site devotional temple activities. Ms. Clark served as exhibit leader for the Tutankhamun tour when it came to Chicago in 1977, and illustrated The Traveler's Key to Ancient Egypt (New York: Knopf, 1985). She has appeared on NBC television in a feature broadcast on her work as founder of Temple Harakhte, a group of men and women devoted to the experiential religious practices of Egypt's Old Kingdom. Above and beyond offering a thorough knowledge of Egyptian history and mythology, Clark is well versed in the hieroglyphic script, its transliteration and the translation of ancient texts, and in the nuances of Hermetic philosophy and Sacred Science.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brill - Sense
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9460919715
• ISBN 13: 9789460919718
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Clark Rosemary, Livingstone D.W., Smaller Harry