April 2016

AERA has published two books with groundbreaking scholarship in critical emerging areas of education research that are now available for online ordering.

Handbook of Research on Teaching, Fifth Edition
Order Now

The fifth edition of the Handbook of Research on Teaching, AERA’s essential resource for scholars and students dedicated to the study of teaching and learning, was released at the 2016 Annual Meeting.

Edited by Drew H. Gitomer and Courtney A. Bell, the Handbook covers a vast range of subjects in the realm of teaching and learning, including history, technology, literacy, testing, globalization, teacher preparation, and special education, among others. Each authoritative chapter provides a macrolevel view of the state of one large, integrated area of the field, based on scholarly analysis of more microlevel interactions of teaching and learning in classrooms.

Recurring themes noted by the editors include the purpose of education and teaching, sociocognitive and sociocultural perspectives, teaching and learning as systems phenomena, inequality of opportunity, teaching as adaptive expertise, and the interactive nature of teaching. Taking a “20,000-foot view,” the handbook will help to move the field forward by drawing on methodological and conceptual advances in other fields that can contribute to readers’ own areas of specialization in teaching research.

Thinking and Acting Systemically: Improving School Districts Under Pressure
Order Now

Also released at the 2016 Annual Meeting, Thinking and Acting Systemically: Improving School Districts Under Pressure is a timely and significant new book that examines systemic approaches targeting the school district as the unit of reform. Solving the puzzle of school district turnaround to bring about system-wide—rather than school-by-school—improvement has the potential to dramatically raise education outcomes.

Edited by Alan J. Daly and Kara S. Finnigan, Thinking and Acting Systemically is the result of an intensive workshop funded by the AERA Education Research Conferences Program, focusing on the links between organizational learning, district-wide learning communities, and underlying social networks.

Facing higher demands for performance and accountability, administrators and policy makers across the globe have struggled to reverse declining school outcomes, often selecting strategies with limited empirical basis. Despite ongoing calls for performance-based accountability, little remains known about the interplay among accountability, organizational improvement, and district underperformance. This book explores and spotlights the empirical, theoretical, and methodological innovations that have focused on persistently struggling districts, and provides much-needed practical information, based on high-quality research, for all who care about improving education outcomes.