Education

"The first edition, published in 1971, served for the past three decades as the most comprehensive reference source on education. The revised version proves a worthy successor. Its eight volumes contain over 850 articles written or reworked by more than 1,000 contributors. Nearly every article has been completely rewritten, with many new topics added. The six appendixes include information on achievement tests, state departments of education, legislation and court cases important to the field of education, and a 138-page index."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

The first of its kind since the 1980s, this book provides authoritative definitions for more than 2,600 terms that apply to educational research, practice, and theory. The overall focus is on the most critical terms in education as used by current practitioners, yet references to significant historical events in education are also included. Each of the definitions is 25-250 words and has been written by a knowledgeable practitioner or researcher in the field. Included are acronyms and initialisms commonly used in the field, names and descriptions of relevant organizations, and important legal decisions relating to education. An extensive bibliography provides useful sources for further research. This reference work will be valuable for professionals in the K-12 setting, students of education, and educators and researchers in colleges of education. Librarians at academic, public, and school libraries will find the dictionary immensely useful in interpreting education terminology.

The sociology of education is a rapidly expanding area within sociology and in educational studies generally, and cuts across many other disciplines. The area is also often defined as the social contexts of education or the social foundations of education. The sociology of education has been the arena for significant developments in theory and methods and in many instances has led the other sociological, social sciences and educational fields. This Encyclopedia provides a state-of-the-art resource in the sociology of education and related interest areas such as education and society, sociological theory, the study of the family, educational structures, educational processes and the social foundations of education. This is a specialist collection of considerable depth which documents the theoretical, methodological and substantive developments in the sociological study of education into the next century. The International Encyclopedia of Sociology of Education is recommended reading for students, teachers and academics, researchers and policy makers within the field of sociology of education as well as scholars from outside the field. The Encyclopedia not only provides and informative introduction to the aspects of sociology that seriously influence education, but the content of the entries and the extensive bibliographies also make the Encyclopedia essential reading for scholars already well versed in these fields. Articles include updated and revised material from the International Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd Edition (described by Choice as being "a premier resource when judged on virtually every criterion applied to reference work") together with newly commissioned material.