"Educational Theories, Cultures and Learning" focuses on how education is understood in different cultures, the theories and related assumptions we make about learners and students and how we think about them, and how we can understand the principle actors in education--learners and teachers. Within this volume, internationally renowned contributors address a number of fundamental questions designed to take the reader to the heart of current debates around pedagogy, globalisation, and learning and teaching, such as: (1) What role does culture play in our understanding of pedagogy?; (2) What role do global influences, especially economic, cultural and social, have in shaping our understanding of education?; (3) How does language influence our thinking about education?; (4) What implications does our view of childhood have for education?; (5) How do learners negotiate the transition between the different phases of education?; (6) How best can children learn the "school knowledge"?; (7) What is a teacher? And how do teachers learn?; and (8) How do we understand learners, their minds, identity and development? To encourage reflection, many of the chapters also include questions for debate and a guide to further reading. Read alongside its companion volume, "Knowledge, Values and Educational Policy", readers will be encouraged to consider and think about some of the key issues facing education and educationists today. This book is divided into three sections. Section I, How Education Is Understood in Different Cultures, contains the following: (1) Introduction to Section 1 (Hugh Lauder); (2) Pedagogy, Culture and the Power of Comparison (Robin Alexander); (3) Pedagogy and Cultural Convergence (Roger Dale); and (4) Metaphors in Education (Anna Sfard). Section II, The Person in Education, contains the following: (5) Introduction to Section 2 (Jill Porter); (6) Students' Development in Theory and Practice: The Doubtful Role Of Research (Kieran Egan); (7) Cyberworlds: Children in the information Age (Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine); (8) The Learner, the Learning Process and Pedagogy in Social Context (Julian Williams); (9) Brain Development During Adolescence (Sarah-Jayne Blakemore); (10) Interrogating Student Voice: Pre-Occupations, Purposes and Possibilities (Michael Fielding); and (11) The Transition to School: Reflections from a Contextualist Perspective (Jonathan R. H. Tudge, Lia B. L. Freitas and Fabienne Doucet). Section III, Teachers and Learners, contains the following: (12) Introduction to Section 3 (Harry Daniels); (13) Vygotsky, Tutoring and Learning (David Wood and Heather Wood); (14) Becoming A Teacher; A Sociocultural Analysis of initial Teacher Education (Anne Edwards); (15) Teaching as an Affective Practice (Chris James); (16) Cultivating Positive Learning Dispositions (Guy Claxton); (17) Continuity and Discontinuity in School Transfer (Yolande Muschamp); (18) Moral Development and Education (Wim Wardekker); (19) The Significance of "I" in Living Educational Theories (Jack Whitehead); and (20) Identity, Agency and Social Practice (William Lachicotte).