Literacy and Language in East Asia
Shifting Meanings, Values and Approaches
Authors: Kell, Marilyn, Kell, Peter
Free Preview- A critical analysis of the high performing East Asian nations and the “contests” and “league tables” derived from international literacy and numeracy achievement tests
- Argues for education systems to embrace reforms that promote capabilities which prepare students for life and work in modern and globalised communities
- A unique approach that departs from traditional country study approaches and seeks to identify how each nation has been influenced by cross national policy borrowing
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- About this book
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This book critically explores why some Asian nations are on top of the world in students’ achievement tests in reading and literacy, yet governments and industry in these nations are anxious about a crisis in education.
Why are governments anxious about the capabilities and skills of school and university graduates in a global economy when there is a Asian economic boom? The authors explore questions about how the Asian countries value test-based examination curriculum and its influence on the practices of teaching learning and the lives of young people in Asia. The authors describe the challenge of change for East Asian nations to develop more relevant approaches to literacy and language and more inclusive societies focussed on the needs of young people and not exam results.
- Reviews
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"It is a fresh and original piece of work and particularly insightful in terms of regarding the approaches of literacy including policy in education as being connected in some ways as well as disconnected to a series of interrelated dynamics and perspectives that are located beyond the classroom, beyond schools and are wider than the school systems. These approaches and policies are about the reform of the social conditions and economic arrangements that characterise the experience of people in parts of East Asia. It is this challenge to create the conditions for wider changes at a societal level that comprises the discussion in the final chapter in this book. The problematisation of the autonomous model of literacy underpinning the dominant privileging of international type testing and comparision has been well deconstructed in relation to the East Asian context."
- Yew Lie Koo, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
- Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-6
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What Is Literacy and Why Is It Important?
Pages 7-13
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High Stakes Testing, Literacy Wars, Globalisation and Asia
Pages 15-24
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League Tables and the Politics of Ranking
Pages 25-32
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Global Testing: PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS
Pages 33-49
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Literacy and Language in East Asia
- Book Subtitle
- Shifting Meanings, Values and Approaches
- Authors
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- Marilyn Kell
- Peter Kell
- Series Title
- Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects
- Series Volume
- 24
- Copyright
- 2014
- Publisher
- Springer Singapore
- Copyright Holder
- Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
- eBook ISBN
- 978-981-4451-30-7
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-981-4451-30-7
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-981-4451-29-1
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-981-4560-87-0
- Series ISSN
- 1573-5397
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XI, 165
- Topics