Thoughtful teachers constantly experiment, question and reflect on the value of what they do each day with students in classrooms and centres. Meaningful teaching calls for a complex mix of knowledge, practical skills and wisdom. Good theories and research about teaching are therefore essential parts of today’s teaching repertoire.

This second edition of Facing the Big Questions in Teaching: Purpose, Power and Learning provides an up to date, accessible, and critical introduction to educational theory and research for working teachers. Other books offer scholarly analyses but fail to scaffold abstract knowledge into the concrete lives of teachers. This book helps teachers to interweave theory, research and the puzzling challenges of practice they encounter in their everyday work.

Part One addresses the purposes of education; Part Two considers the ways in which power and ideology influence learning and teaching; and Part Three examines the relationships between teaching and learning.

Facing the Big Questions in Teaching: Purpose, Power and Learning will be of interest to readers in all education sectors: teachers, those engaged in initial teacher education, teacher educators, and postgraduate students. The editors all work at the Institute of Education, Massey University, and the contributing authors, who have a wealth of teaching and research experience, are based in universities across Aotearoa New Zealand.