It is widely acknowledged in Britain and the US that teacher education has a profound role to play in the move towards a more just and humane society. The authors set out a social reconstructionist agenda for American teacher education which may be of interest to educators world-wide. "Teacher Education and the Social Conditions of Schooling" begins with an analysis of four traditions of reform; academic, social efficiency, developmentalist, and social reconstructivist. The authors formulate their aims within the latter tradition and present a series of proposals to help prospective teachers examine their educational beliefs, practices and the social context of schooling. The arguments are backed by examples from various teacher education programmes in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. This book should be of interest to researchers in teacher education and sociology of education.

The Gift of Generations is a comparative study of aging and the social contract in Japan and the United States. By using original, systematically comparable data collected in these countries, the book explores the different cultural definitions of vulnerability and giving, and the ways they shape and constrain the social strategies of routinizing helping arrangements. The book succeeds in interweaving the theory and practice of the social contract by developing the concept of symbolic equity.

Product Description: The size of the world's elderly population continues to increase and alternative ways of providing support are continually being sought. This support depends in large measure on families and other informal care-givers complementing the health and social services...read more