List of Contributors vii

1 Introduction: Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education 1
Gordon Wells and Guy Claxton

Part I Issues and Developments in Sociocultural Theory 19

2 Education for the Learning Age: A Sociocultural Approach to Learning to Learn 21

Guy Claxton

3 Becoming the Village: Education Across Lives 34
Jay L. Lemke

4 The Gift of Confidence: A Vygotskian View of Emotions 46
Holbrook Mahn and Vera John-Steiner

5 From Activity to Directivity: The Question of Involvement in Education 59
Pablo del Río and Amelia Álvarez

6 Sociocultural Perspectives on Assessment 73
Caroline Gipps

7 Teaching, Learning, and Development: A Post-Vygotskian Perspective 84
Anna Stetsenko and Igor Arievitch

Part II Pre-School and School-Age Learning and Development 97

8 Emerging Learning Narratives: A Perspective from Early Childhood Education 99
Margaret Carr

9 Semiotic Mediation and Mental Development in Pluralistic Societies: Some Implications for Tomorrow’s Schooling 112
Ruqaiya Hasan

10 Learning to Argue and Reason Through Discourse in Educational Settings 127
Clotilde Pontecorvo and Laura Sterponi

11 Developing Dialogues 141
Neil Mercer

12 Supporting Students’ Learning of Significant Mathematical Ideas 154
Paul Cobb and Kay McClain

13A Developmental Teaching Approach to Schooling 167
Seth Chaiklin

14 Standards for Pedagogy: Research, Theory and Practice 181
Stephanie Stoll Dalton and Roland G. Tharp

Part III Post-Compulsory, Adult and Professional Learning 195

15 Inquiry as an Orientation for Learning, Teaching and Teacher Education 197
Gordon Wells

16 Can a School Community Learn to Master Its Own Future? An Activity-Theoretical Study of Expansive Learning Among Middle School Teachers 211
Yrjö Engeström, Ritva Engeström and Arja Suntio

17 Cultural Historical Activity Theory and the Expansion of Opportunities for Learning After School 225
Katherine Brown and Michael Cole

18 Building a Community of Educators versus Effecting Conceptual Change in Individual Students: Multicultural Education for Pre-service Teachers 239
Eugene Matusov and Renée Hayes

19 Organizing Excursions Into Specialist Discourse Communities: A Sociocultural Account of University Teaching 252
Andy Northedge

20 Afterword 265
Luis C. Moll

Bibliography 271

Index 297

In Learning for Life in the 21st Century, a collection of distinguished international educators and researchers bend their minds to this problem - and come up with solutions and suggestions that are practical, challenging, and sometimes surprising.

The book starts from the premise that the most significant factors in shaping minds are the cultural setting in which learning takes place, the activities in which participants engage, and the discourse among them. Underlining the wide acceptance of this perspective, the contributors are drawn from a range of countries: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the UK and the US . Each chapter explores the ideas and challenges that a sociocultural perspective raises for different aspects of schooling and lifelong education.

What emerges is a coherent and comprehensive picture of what education needs to become in the context of escalating relativism and diversity in the world. The contributions are written in a thoughtful, engaging style, free from unnecessary technological jargon, and the volume is structured clearly to correspond to the chronological organization of education.