Educational Dilemmas: A Cultural Psychological Perspective

Educational Dilemmas uses cultural psychology to explore the challenges, contradictions and tensions that occur during the process of education, with consideration of the effect these have at both the individual and the collective level. It argues that the focus on issues in learning overlooks a fundamental characteristic of education: that the process of educating is simultaneously both constructive and disruptive.

Drawing on research from Europe, America and Asia, chapters in this volume present and analyse different experiences of the tension between disruption and construction in the process of education. Situating educational discontent within the wider context, the book demonstrates how this issue can be exacerbated by the tension between the commodification and democratisation of educational systems. This book demonstrates that these issues permeate all levels of education and, as a result, emphasises how vital it is that educational discontent is considered from a new perspective.

Educational Dilemmas is essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of psychology and education. It should also be of great interest to school psychologists, teachers and therapists.

Luca Tateo is Associate Professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. He is a member of the Research Center for Cultural Psychology, Member of the Centre IBEF (Ideas for the Basic Education of the Future), ECNU in Shanghai, and visiting professor at the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil.