United by the belief that the most significant factor in shaping the minds of young people is the cultural setting in which learning takes place, the twenty eminent contributors to this volume present new thinking on education across the boundaries of school, home, work and community.

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

Education is about developing minds that are ready to thrive in the complex uncertainties of the postmodern world: minds that are curious, confident, critical and collaborative. But how is that to be achieved? What are the implications for schools and teachers of rethinking education in this way? 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.

"Throughout, the editors achieve their stated goals, moving from the conceptual to the practical, and from treating younger to older age groups. Chapter contributors, from universities and research centers in seven countries including the US, appear to be experts in their areas. They present both their own research findings and reviews of others' research. [...] The book is generally organized well, with a synoptic afterword by Luis Moll [...] Interested readers should find the book useful. Summing up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." P. M. Socoski, City College, Choice, March 2003 "Learning for Life in the 21st Century is an impressive and ambitious book." Carey Jewitt, University of London, Educational Review, Vol.55, November 2003