Critical Thinking and Learning: An Encyclopedia for Parents and Teachers

(Hardback)

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Description

The editors of this book employ social, cognitive, linguistic, and political theoretical innovations to develop a new conception of critical thinking. They examine how such a construct might be taught in a variety of social settings and disciplines. Using a host of previously neglected perspectivessociocognition, issues of political economy, complexity theory, and critical theoretical notions of epistemology and power theorythe editors and authors present a conceptually sophisticated yet accessible compendium on critical thinking. The introduction guides readers through the reconceptualization process. Specific entries focus on particular dimensions of the challenges to old-style critical thinking. In this context, readers can choose entries that discuss various means of engaging students in the critical complex perspective of critical thinking. The encyclopedia is aware of both theoretical concerns and the everyday realities of schooling in the 21st century. As such, it rounded in a respectful view of teachers that assumes they are capable of levels of expertise unacknowledged by many contemporary articulations of school reform. The educational, cognitive, and professional vision developed in the encyclopedia offers a profound alternative to the top-down impositional models now sweeping the nation's school districts.

Reviews

"If you need a book to implement critical thinking in the classroom, this is a resource you may want to consider for your professional library....[i]t contains a wealth of information."-Library Media Connection
If you need a book to implement critical thinking in the classroom, this is a resource you may want to consider for your professional library....[i]t contains a wealth of information.-Library Media Connection
This essential addition to the discussion of critical thinking is better suited to the stacks than the reference collection. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-Library Journal
This work is so unique that librarians may have difficulty classifying it. Part encyclopedia, part handbook, and part essay collection, it drops the staid, often self-deceptive objective stance of most reference works, self-consciously but rationally attacking educational policies and practices now in favor....Readers will engage this challenging volume in various ways; librarians need not decide whether to buy it, but what sort of circulation to allow. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and higher.-Choice
"This essential addition to the discussion of critical thinking is better suited to the stacks than the reference collection. Recommended for academic and large public libraries."-Library Journal
"This work is so unique that librarians may have difficulty classifying it. Part encyclopedia, part handbook, and part essay collection, it drops the staid, often self-deceptive objective stance of most reference works, self-consciously but rationally attacking educational policies and practices now in favor....Readers will engage this challenging volume in various ways; librarians need not decide whether to buy it, but what sort of circulation to allow. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and higher."-Choice

Author Bio

JOE L. KINCHELOE is Professor of Education, City University of New York Graduate Center and Brooklyn College. DANNY WEIL is an independent scholar and consults nationally to many school districts.