Available From UC Press

An international gathering of leading scholars, policymakers, and educators takes on some of the most difficult and controversial issues of our time in this groundbreaking exploration of how globalization is affecting education around the world. The contributors, drawing from innovative research in both the social sciences and the neurosciences, examine the challenges and opportunities now facing schools as a result of massive migration flows, new economic realities, new technologies, and the growing cultural diversity of the world's major cities. Writing for a wide audience, they address such questions as: How do we educate all youth to develop the skills and sensibilities necessary to thrive in globally linked, technologically interconnected economies? What can schools do to meet the urgent need to educate growing numbers of migrant youth at risk of failure in societies already divided by inequality? What are the limits of cultural tolerance as tensions over gender, religion, and race threaten social cohesion in schools and neighborhoods alike? Bringing together scholars with deep experience in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, this work, grounded in rich examples from everyday life, is highly relevant not only to scholars and policymakers but also to all stakeholders responsible for the day-to-day workings of schools in cities across the globe.

Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco is The Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education and Co-director of Immigration Studies at New York University. He is also Co-Director of the Institute for Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings. He is coeditor, with Mariela M. Páez, of Latinos: Remaking America, coeditor, with Desirée Baolian Qin-Hilliard, of Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium (both from UC Press), and is the author of many other books.

"In Learning in the Global Era, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco has integrated a rich harvest of practical wisdom with cutting-edge research in cognitive theory to produce an indispensable handbook for all who are grappling with the challenges of education in our rapidly changing world. With their interdisciplinary approach and their attention to cultural diversity, the essays are a treasure trove of insights and constructive approaches to which educators and policy-makers will return again and again."—Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University; President, Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

"Neither developed nor developing nations have begun to prepare young people for the demands of the global economy; nor does schooling anywhere adequately respond to the massive migration of families whose home languages, cultures, and social structures differ from those in the new host nation. Besides providing vivid and rigorous accounts of the shifting population patterns, employment markets, and cultural and political change, this fascinating book presents promising educational innovations that put student engagement and the global context for learning at the center. No other book so effectively joins emerging research on cognition and learning with the political and economic challenges of globalization."—Martha Minow, Harvard Law School, and co-editor of Engaging Cultural Differences

"Learning in the Global Era is a masterful book. Each of the essays, exquisitely arranged and coordinated by the editor, is a memorable example of rigorous interdisciplinary analysis and insight into emerging global issues. The range of concerns—from nurturing a global consciousness and appreciating the simultaneous cultural patterns that children develop in global cities, often through their own migration, to the effects of gender-specific dilemmas in global classrooms-makes this book a compendium for more than understanding a world which challenges many traditional assumptions. But reading it does more; it makes us mindful of the difficulty and also of the necessary creativity involved in learning and teaching today. I am grateful for its lessons and the readers will be, too."—Doris Sommer, Harvard University

"Globalization is transforming entire economies and cultures, but schools and schooling have not kept pace. Marcelo Suárez-Orozco has assembled a set of thoughtful and incisive essays by international experts that show how globalization makes it imperative to rethink and reform the education of children in every part of the planet. Educating citizens in the advanced countries to understand global society and cultural differences, increasing access to education in the developing world while teaching new skills, finding ways to help immigrants adapt and succeed in their new surroundings—all these essential tasks are addressed in this important book."—John H. Coatsworth, Columbia University

"How should this generation of youth, the largest ever in human history, be educated? How do we make sure all youth have access to quality education? What cognitive skills, interpersonal sensibilities, and ethical norms should be nourished in youth to live and thrive in our global world? Learning in the Global Era addresses these and other questions with both scholarly rigor and humane concern. It brings together leading international scholars— including anthropologists, cognitive scientists, economists, education scholars, linguists, neuroscientists, and psychologists with extensive research experience in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, to examine the education of youth for the 21st Century. It is a work that breaks new ground by locating learning and youth engagement in the ever more complex economic, social, and cultural realities that define the world's global cities."—Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, and High Commissioner for Human Rights