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Exploring how global changes affect education today, in the classroom and in local, national, and international contexts, this book explores the future of education's capacity for effectiveness in multicultural and multilingual contexts. The chapters deal with lifelong learning (a critique), immigration, antiracist education, parental involvement in schools, national curricula, Paulo Freire's legacy, insights from the work of Lorenzo Milani and the School of Barbiana, and Gramsci's writings on the school. There are both theoretical and empirically grounded chapters in this volume.

This document contains the Table of Contents, the Keynote Welcome Address by HE Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta, and photo insets. ; As the third millenium approaches the end of its second decade, the ideal of equality continues to be threatened by a global value system that is soft on the accumulation and concentration of wealth and power to the detriment of the collective good and to the sustainability of communities in general. Europe is not immune to the encroachment of a global, predatory economic model that has eaten into the ideal of solidarity and the common good. ; N/A

The book under review advocates for participation in decision-making as a fundamental human right which cannot be denied to disabled children. Informed by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by conventions, such as the the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and by a vast repertoire of research literature, including relevant court cases, such as those heard before the European Court of Human Rights, the book makes a forceful case for disabled children's rights in general and for their participation rights in health, education, home life and relationships, highlighting ways in which these rights are validated, valorised and celebrated, as well as analysing barriers that block access to and enjoyment of such rights. ; peer-reviewed

There is a growing trend towards parental involvement programmes in early childhood education. In most of the programmes, the major objective is to enhance the parents' ability to facilitate their children's development, particularly where the conditions for 'normal' development are found wanting, This reformist trend is reviewed in the first part of this article. In the second part, the review will serve as a backdrop to a critique of liberal discourse in parental involvement, leading to a reconceptualization of the issue. The argument carried through this article is that the notion of parental involvement is central to the process of democratic control, and therefore needs to be grounded in a political project that engenders personal and social empowerment of parents. Such a project demands a pedagogy that recognizes the different voices, know ledges and identities that constitute the parental body; a pedagogy that is fully cognizant of the fact that parents differ in terms of location, cultural capital, habitus, and personal experience within the education system. In other words, there are parents who have benefited from the social relations that characterize mainstream schooling and others, perhaps the majority, that have experienced a sense of powerlessness. It is the latter category of parents that the project for parental involvement in question will mostly address. By adopting a language of critique, traditionally disenfranchised parents will dig into the past to reclaim their personal, class and gender history in order to subjectively under- stand why conservative and liberal discourse in education has failed them, with a view that they will eventually embark on a project of possibility that will not only promote equal partnership but also substantial transformation in the educational process itself. ; peer-reviewed

This book foregrounds the ideas of an important European pedagogue whose writings provide insights for a critical social justice oriented approach to education. Lorenzo Milani has all the credentials to be regarded as potentially a key source of inspiration for critical pedagogy. Milani's approach to education for social justice gives importance to a number of issues, notably social class issues, race issues especially with his critique of North-South relations and cultural/technological transfer, the collective dimension of learning and action (emphasis is placed on reading and writing the word and the world collectively), student-teachers and teacher-students (a remarkable form of peer tutoring), reading and responding critically to the media (newspapers), the existential basis of one's learning (from the occasional to the profound motive) and the fusion of academic and technical knowledge. There is also an anti-war pedagogy that emerges from his defence of the right to 'conscientious objection' with its process of reading/teaching history against the grain

In an age where official and sponsored violence are becoming normalised and conceived of as legitimate tools of peace keeping, a number of leading academics and activists represented in Pedagogy, Politics and Philosophy of Peace interrogate and resist the intensification of the militarisation of civil life and of international relations. Coming from different areas of study, the contributors to this volume discuss peace and critical peace education from a range of perspectives. The nature of peace, myths related to peace, the logistics of peace and peacemaking as well as the relation of peace and pedagogy in the broadest meaning of the term constitute the main themes of the book. The common thread that binds the chapters together is the distinction between genuine and false peace and the importance of critical reflection on actions that contribute to genuine peace.

In the context of Malta's Valletta 2018 commitment to maximise, popularise and 'Europeanise' its cultural spaces, this paper examines the role of national museum spaces in the contemporary era of cultural hybridity, liquidity (Bauman, 2000) and mobility. Departing from a critical pedagogical framework, the paper examines how 'national' cultural sites which have historically served to reproduce hegemonic 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1991), can be genuinely transformed into 'ecologies of cognition' (de Sousa Santos 2006). These are dynamic public spaces where cognitive justice and democracy are affirmed. The role of curators as mediators of knowledges and as adult educators within mainly state-sponsored institutions will be interrogated. Also problematised is the notion of 'national' and 'permanent collection' in a Maltese context which is dynamic and cosmopolitan. In the final analysis, this paper will contribute to the ongoing search for greater participation of the Maltese publics in the formulation of national imaginations through active engagement in museum experiences. ; peer-reviewed

In an age where the official, adult-education component of lifelong learning is dominated by the discourse of employability and performativity, reclaiming the radical agenda of critical, adult, active citizenship is not only urgent but indispensable for morally sound and democratically viable societies. The crisis in capitalism is showing us, adult educators, that unless adult education is employed to interrogate, challenge and resist the accesses of a system that privileges profit at all cost, rampant individualism and privatisation of social goods, it will reproduce asymmetrical and predatory, social economic relations. This paper problematises dominant notions of active citizenship in later life and provides a framework for an alternative view of active citizenship. It also illustrates how adult educators can facilitate learning processes where late-life learners, reflect on the impact of the neoliberal value system and on the consequences of its hegemonic practices on personal and community life, before engaging in transformative action. ; peer-reviewed

The sites of adult education practice are multiple and museums feature regularly among these sites (Chadwick and Stannett, 1995, 2000). In this paper,i we will regard the museum as a site of cultural politics and public pedagogy. As a site of "public pedagogy" (Giroux, 2001) the museum plays its role in the politics of knowledge and representation. It represents a selection from the cultures of society. This situation is similar to that concerning the curriculum. Both the contents and form of the museum, and the curriculum, are repositories of what counts as "official knowledge" (Apple, 1993) and what does not. They select, legitimize, marginalize and are open to contestation and resistance. Critical educators who are ethically committed to excavating sites of educational practice and to interrogating official knowledges and practices are likely to ask the following questions regarding the politics of the curriculum and the museum: Whose culture shall be the official one and whose shall be subordinated? What culture shall be regarded as worthy of display and which shall be hidden? Whose history shall be remembered and whose forgotten? What images of social life shall be projected and which shall be marginalized? What voices shall be heard and which will be silenced? Who is representing whom and on what basis? (Jordan and Weedon, 1995, p.4). ; peer-reviewed

In this article, the authors define some of the most evident features of globalisation from below, which they distinguish from hegemonic globalisation, and draw out its implications for adult education. They draw out the implications for European adult education that emerge from the different features of these two types of globalisations. They then refer to the history of and contemporary provision in adult education in southern Europe and argue that there are elements there that can serve the purpose of a revitalised counter-hegemonic adult education approach. They then explore whether this thinking makes its presence felt in two major European documents, the EU Memorandum on Lifelong Learning and a recent report on adult education, carried out for the European Commission, provided by the European Association for the Education of Adults. They do this given that the international literature on adult education is dominated by ideas and experiences emerging from the central European states and Nordic countries. They highlight the recurrence in the Memorandum of the tendency to vocationalise adult education at different stages of a person's life. They consider the EAEA report to be more expansive and representative than the Memorandum but they also argue that there is a tendency to uncritically accept the vocationalisation of older adulthood. The issue of migration from south-of-the-equator populations to Europe, and especially southern Europe, is also considered, given that it is a prominent feature of the intensification of globalisation. Its implications for adult education practice are also considered, also and mainly in light of the situation obtaining in the frontier countries of southern Europe. ; peer-reviewed

This paper provides a critical analysis of the EU's Memorandum on lifelong learning in light of the evolution of the concepts of lifelong education and lifelong learning from the late sixties onward. It also analyses this document in light of the forces of globalisation that impinge on educational policy‐making in Europe as well as the all‐pervasive neo‐liberal ideology. The paper moves from theory to practice to provide critical considerations concerning certain 'on the ground' projects being presented as 'best practice' in EU documents. It brings out the neo‐liberal tenets that underlie much of the thinking and rationale for these projects, and indicates, in the process, how much of the old UNESCO discourse of lifelong education has been distorted to accommodate capitalism's contemporary needs. An alternative conception of lifelong learning is called for. ; peer-reviewed

This paper provides a critical exposition of the six key messages of the EU Memorandum on Lifelong Learning introduced in 2001. It concludes that the memorandum is to be seen against against an economic backdrop characterised by a market-oriented definition of social viability. As educational change is becoming increasingly linked to the discourse of efficiency, competitiveness, cost effectiveness and accountability, socio-economic inequalities and corresponding asymmetrical relations of power continue to intensify. In general, the Memorandum is found wanting in its analysis of the effects of neo-liberal, socio-economic policies on educational change. ; peer-reviewed