Education and educational research, according to the current fashion, are supposed to be concerned with ‘what works’, to the exclusion of all other considerations. All over the world, and particularly in the English-speaking countries, governments look for means of improving ‘student achievement’ as measured by standardized test scores. Although such improvements are often to be welcomed, they do not answer all significant questions about what constitutes good education. Also the research on which they are based is not the only legitimate way to do educational research. Social research, and therefore educational research, cannot ignore the distinctive nature of what it studies: a social activity where questions of meaning and value cannot be eliminated, and where interpretation and judgment play a crucial role.

In this book distinguished philosophers and historians of education from 6 countries focus on the problematical nature of the search for ‘what works’ in educational contexts, in practice as well as in theory. Beginning with specific problems, they move on to more general and theoretical considerations, seeking to go beyond over-simple ideas about cause and effect and the rhetoric of performativity that currently has educational thinking in its grip.

What does it mean to live in the Communication Age? What has happened to culture in the Communication Age? What is the nature of culture today?
Culture in the Communication Age brings together some of the world's leading thinkers from a range of academic disciplines to discuss what 'culture' means in the modern era. They describe key features of cultural life in the 'communication age', and consider the cultural implications of the rise of global communication, mass media, information technology, and popular culture. Individual chapters consider:
* Cultures of the mind * Rethinking culture in a global context * Re-thinking Culture, from 'ways of life' to 'lifestyle' * Gender and Culture * Popular Culture and Media Spectacles * Visual Culture * Star Culture * Computers, the Internet and Virtual Cultures * Superculture in the Communication Age

This collection of essays attempts to address the disparate historical and critical ways religion informs the literature and culture of nineteenth-century England, showing how a representative group of major Victorians negotiated its impact. This collection presents Victorian religious discourse not as monologic but as dialogic, if not protean. It makes available new understandings of nineteenth-century British literature and elucidates the extent to which religious discourse is vested in Victorian cultural thought and practice.

This welcome addition to the Blackwell Guides to Criticism series provides students with an invaluable survey of the critical reception of the Romantic poets
* Guides readers through the wealth of critical material available on the Romantic poets and directs them to the most influential readings
* Presents key critical texts on each of the major Romantic poets – Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats – as well as on poets of more marginal canonical standing
* Cross-referencing between the different sections highlights continuities and counterpoints

This book constitutes a timely contribution to the existing literature by presenting a relatively comprehensive, neurobiological account of certain aspects of second language acquisition. It represents the collaborative efforts of members of the Neurobiology of Language Research Group in the Applied Linguistics and TESL Department at UCLA. Members of the group are trained in neurobiology and then use this knowledge to develop biological accounts of various aspects of applied linguistics.

The volume avoids the corticocentric bias that characterizes many brain-language publications--both cortical and subcortical structures receive their appropriate attention. In addition, it demonstrates that enough is presently known about the brain to inform our conceptualizations of how humans acquire second languages, thus, it provides a refreshingly novel, highly integrative contribution to the (second) language acquisition literature.