Alan S. Canestrari earned his EdD. at Boston University. He is a Professor of Education at Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode Island. Together with Bruce Marlowe, he is the co‐editor of Educational Foundations: An Anthology of Critical Readings (SAGE 2004, 2010, 2013) and Educational Psychology in Context: Readings for Future Teachers (SAGE 2006). Educational Foundations was awarded the 2005 American Educational Studies Association Critics Choice Award. Professor Canestrari has had a long career in public schools and universities as a history teacher, department chair, adjunct professor at Rhode Island College, and the Brown University Masters of Teaching Program. He was the RI Social Studies Teacher of the Year in 1992.

Bruce A. Marlowe, PhD is Chair of the Department of Education, and Professor of Educational Psychology and Special Education, at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. Over the course of a 35‐year career in education, Dr. Marlowe has worked as a high school English teacher, a ‐12 special educator, and a special education consultant. He has served as an interim university Dean, a Coordinator of Graduate Education, and as a Professor of Special Education and Educational Psychology. Dr. Marlowe earned his PhD in Educational Psychology and Evaluation in 1991 at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He is the co‐author of Creating and Sustaining the Constructivist Classroom (2005), and the co‐editor of Educational Psychology in Context: Readings for Future Teachers (2006) and Educational Foundations: An Anthology of Critical Readings, 3rd Edition (2013). Dr. Marlowe has presented at 41 academic conferences throughout the United States and in Canada, Finland, France, Italy, Malta and Turkey. He is the author of seven book chapters and forewords, and 18 periodicals or proceedings in academic publications.

Samim Akgönül, PhD Historian and Political Scientist, is a Professor at Strasbourg University and a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His main research field is religious minorities, especially non‐Muslim minorities in Turkey, Muslim minorities in the Balkans, and New Minorities in Western Europe.

Iman A. Basheti, BPharm, MPharm, PhD is Associate Professor in Clinical Pharmacy Education and Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Applied Sciences University in Amman, Jordan.

Nicola S. Barbieri is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education and Human Services at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Alexander Bean was born and raised in southern Maryland. He is a student in the Elementary Education Certification track at the University of South Carolina Beaufort in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Mary Compton is Past President of the UK National Union of Teachers, the largest teacher union in Europe.

Karin M. Fisher, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Exceptional Education at Georgia Southern University and a former secondary special education teacher and FIRST robotics coach. Her research interests include increasing students with disabilities’ participation in extracurricular STEM activities.

Margaret M. Foster is an undergraduate Educational Studies and Psychology major at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI. She is passionate about equity, social justice, and multicultural education.

Ben Gallegos, PhD is a postdoctoral scholar of Exceptional Education at the University of Central Florida. His research is on providing students, especially those from low socio‐economic communities, academic support using virtual learning environments.

Jordene Hale, PhD is Chief of Party at Reading for Ethiopia's Achievement Developed (READ) Monitoring and Evaluation Project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Ali Hamza, MA works as a Research Manager at Georgetown University. His primary focus is on education and financial inclusion in South Asia and East Africa.

Mariale M. Hardiman, EdD is Interim Dean of the School of Education the Johns Hopkins University where she has served as Vice Dean of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Clinical Education. She is the co‐founder and Director of the School of Education’s Neuro‐Education Initiative (NEI).

Manuel Hassassian, PhD is the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom. He has held various roles at Bethlehem University including Professor, Dean of Students, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Chair of the Humanities Department and Executive Vice President.

Alemayehu Tekelemariam Haye, PhD is Associate Professor, and former Chair, Department of Special Needs Education at Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has worked as a curriculum expert and a researcher at the Institute of Curriculum Development and Research (ICDR) and as a Head of Educational Programs and Teacher Education in the Ministry of Education.

Gloria Graves Holmes, PhD was Chairwoman of Quinnipiac University’s Master of Arts teaching program and Associate Professor of Middle Grades and Secondary Education.

Maya Israel, PhD is Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Illinois. Her primary areas of specialization include supporting students’ meaningful access to STEM learning with an emphasis on computational thinking and computer programming.

Liam Kane is a linguist who has lived, worked and travelled extensively in Latin America. He was a development education worker for Oxfam in the 1980s when he first encountered the Latin American approach to popular education. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education in the University of Glasgow where he teaches about and researches popular education.

Edward (“Edy”) Kaufman, PhD is Senior Research Scholar, Department of Government and Politics at the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM), University of Maryland, College Park, MD. He has directed the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has held various leadership positions on the International Committee of Amnesty International.

Matthew T. Marino, PhD is Associate Professor of Exceptional Education at the University of Central Florida and a former secondary special education, science, and technology teacher. His research has been supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, the Office of Special Education Programs, and the National Science Foundation.

Ryan Monahan graduated from Roger Williams University with a double major in English and Secondary Education. With his eye on improving the future of the American public school system, he is currently teaching English in Ehime, Japan with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.

Marilyn Monks Page, EdD began her career as a high school social studies and Spanish teacher and taught in every grade 7 through 12, at every academic level, in rural, suburban, and urban school systems in different parts of the United States. She is a retired Associate Professor at Johnson State College, Johnson, VT and retired graduate faculty in Curriculum and Instruction at the Pennsylvania State University.

Samantha Painter, is currently an undergraduate student at Roger Williams University. She is majoring in Secondary Education and English Literature with a minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies and intends to pursue a career in teaching. She is research assistant, editing assistant, and co‐author with Page and Lloyd.

Jyoti Raina, PhD is Associate Professor, Department of Elementary Education, Gargi College (University of Delhi). Her research interests include cognitive education, initial teacher certification, and science pedagogy.

Timothy Reagan, PhD is the Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine in Orono. Previously, he held a variety of senior faculty and administrative positions at institutions in the United States, South Africa, and Kazakhstan, including at Gallaudet University, the University of Connecticut, Roger Williams University, Central Connecticut State University, the University of Witwatersrand, and Nazarbayev University.

Rachel Rush‐Marlowe, MA is an Education Program Analyst at Quality Information Partners, Inc. (QIP) in Washington, DC and a Teaching Associate at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Bandana Saini, BPharm, MPharm, MBA, PhD is Professor and Senior Lecturer, Pharmacy Practice at the University of Sydney. Dr, Saini trained as a pharmacist at the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chandigarh, India (1990)

Abdulhay Sayed, LLM, DES, PhD is an independent Syrian lawyer, and has been a Lecturer in Law in the Damascus Faculty of Law from 2005 to 2011. He is author of Corruption in International Trade and Commercial Arbitration, Kluwer Law International, 2004.

George L. Şerban‐Oprescu, PhD is an Associate Professor with the Department of Theoretical and Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, where he teaches courses on Economic Doctrines and Epistemology. An advocate of interdisciplinary research, Professor Şerban‐Oprescu’s interests range from history of economic thought and economic methodology to quality of life studies and higher education issues.

Teodora A. Şerban‐Oprescu, PhD is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication, School of International Business and Economics, Bucharest University of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania. She teaches courses in Business Communication, Intercultural Communication, and Research Methodology.

Teay Shawyun is an Associate Professor in Strategic Management with a previous Assistant Professorship in Management of Technology. Since 2009, he has been emploed as Consultant by King Saud University, Saudi Arabia to develop the university’s IQA (Internal Quality Assurance) system. He is in his third term as President of SEAAIR (South East Asia Association for Institutional Research).

Eleazar Vasquez III, PhD is Associate Professor in the Department of Child, Family, and Community Sciences Exceptional Education Program, iSTEM Fellow, and Affiliate Faculty of Lockheed Martin UCF Academy at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. His current research focuses on the evaluation of academic and behavioral outcomes for students with autism utilizing technology to enhance instruction.

Divyanshi Wadhwa, MA is a Research Assistant at the Center for Global Development, and is a former consultant at the World Bank. She performs evidence‐based research on several international development issues, ranging from education and health to financial inclusion and technology.

Elsa Wiehe, EdD is a Teaching and Learning Specialist at Navitas, a company which promotes the internationalization of university campuses. Previously, she has worked as a professor of education and as an international educational consultant in the monitoring and evaluation of a large‐scale program on gender and education in West and Southern Africa.

Lois Weiner, EdD is a College of Education Professor and Coordinator of the MA Program in Teaching/Learning in Urban Schools at New Jersey City University. She brings to her wide‐ranging scholarship first‐hand experience as a classroom teacher and union officer.

Ann G. Winfield, PhD is Associate Professor of Educational Foundations at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Dr. Winfield’s research focuses on curriculum history and the history of education with a specific focus on eugenic ideology and its influence on our modern system of public education.

Gaoming Zhang, PhD is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Indianapolis. Her research interests include technology integration, teacher preparation, and comparative education. She was born in China and received her K‐16 education in China.

During our daily “googling” we stumbled upon an internet article posted by a foundation interested in the promotion of education in Pakistan. Here is a brief excerpt:

Pakistan’s youth, making up the majority of the population, must be educated and provided with the necessary skills to become a viable workforce and produce the next generation of innovators. In its current state, the education system fails to provide real‐life skills and opportunities to talented students who have the potential to become the next Bill Gates (p. 1).

Bill Gates? To us, this sounded very much like an American approach to educational reform. Is education simply about providing children with the requisite skills to enter the workforce? While most would agree that education is a fundamental human right, there is much less agreement about what it should look like and in whose interests it should be designed. And, there is considerable disagreement as well, about whether the ultimate measure of a nation’s educational system should be the number of corporate titans it produces.

Yet, nations increasingly dance to the tune of worldwide competition, eager to celebrate (or, conversely, commiserate) over their standings in international testing regimens, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

For children, the performance rankings are irrelevant. As nations call for reform to improve their position in the world educational order, millions remain unable to access even a basic education. For the poor, their lack of educational access is centuries old. As suggested above, while compulsory education, in all its cultural variations, has become the global standard, quite a large number of children on the planet – a disproportionate number of whom are poor, female or both – still have little or no access to schooling. Few, if any, educational opportunities exist in places torn by civil wars, sectarian violence, and abject poverty. Worse, in many places, precisely because of their gender, religious beliefs, and/or longstanding ethnic prejudices, children are deliberately denied access to an education. In many places, these circumstances are centuries old and appear intractable. In contrast, citizens of advanced, highly technical nations, enjoy the abundant prospects of a twenty‐first‐century future, where geographic barriers seem to collapse, where the flow of information encircles the Earth as if in orbit, where communication is instantaneous. And yet, large numbers of the Earth’s children remain confined by an imposed “otherness,” even in the world’s most prosperous nations.

But there are changes afoot, many of them quite promising. What does the global educational landscape look like if we gazed down from our satellite as it circled Earth?

Enter Southeast Asia. Along outstretched plains and colossal mountains, immerse yourself into Chinese culture, where students devote more time to schoolwork than in any other country. At 8:00 a.m., a sixth‐grader sits down at his desk with 45 of his peers, ready for a day of math, technology, Chinese, English, music, physical education, crafts, and ethics. Classes end at around 4:00 p.m., but most students stay at school to participate in activities like the Chinese Folk Music Orchestra, Calligraphy and Painting Club, or Ping Pong Club. And, schoolwork is not over when students get home. At an average of 14 hours a week, teenage students in China receive the most homework worldwide (Darell, 2016). A lot of schools also offer weekend classes such as Olympic Math, Chinese Chess, and Badminton. Once students reach high school level, evening classes – which often last until 11:00 p.m. – are tacked onto their day (Butrymowicz, 2011). It is constant competition, with the best universities as the almighty prize.

Two thousand eight hundred sixty‐four miles west, an Iranian girl arrives at school around 7:30 a.m. and plays with other girls in the schoolyard. Her female teacher will call the girls into the classroom for their day to begin. She will spend her entire education with girls, as boys and girls are educated separately until they reach university level (Darell, 2016). Many Iranian policy‐makers, determined to keep Iran as a traditional Islamic state, have banned co‐education, assigned male and female teachers to classes of their corresponding gender, changed textbooks to show people participating in roles that fit their gender binary, and shifted women away from stereotypically masculine disciplines at universities (Mehran, 2003, p. 19). In more recent years, the Ministry of Education has pushed for policies that give women equal opportunities in education, such as revising textbook images to portray more female participation in traditionally masculine tasks (Mehran, 2003, p. 15). The efforts to close the Iranian gender gap have made a significant difference in the number of women attending universities; but, even with proportional enrollment numbers, unemployment for women after graduation was as high as 52.3% in 2008. Unemployment for men with tertiary education leveled at around 14.9% (International Labour Organization, 2008). In this example, the push for equality in education has not yet extended into the workforce.

Just southeast of the Iranian border, Pakistani children have a very different relationship with education. These children have no legal right to a free education. Compulsory education only occurs between ages five and nine (Darell, 2016); Pakistan’s school life expectancy is eight years, but many children do not attend school at all (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017). In fact, one quarter of 7–16 year olds have never been to school (UNESCO, 2012). This is largely attributed to the lack of government spending on education. More recently with the War on Terror, children who do attend school face danger from terror attacks. With bag checks, constant safety drills, and sometimes school closure, education is frequently put on the back burner for Pakistani youth (Ansari, 2014).

Northwest 3,683 miles, a student in France sits feet shaking, palms sweating, as he takes a test that determines not only what he knows, but where he will go to next. In France, secondary school is divided into two sections, lower schools (collèges) and upper schools (lycées). At the end of lower secondary school, students take a national test in one of three tracks: Academic, technological, or vocational. If students pass, they receive a Diplôme National du Brevet (DNB), and if they fail, they receive a Certificat de Formation Générale (CFG). All students with a DNB are permitted to enroll in upper secondary school, but only a select few with a CFG are able to continue. A student decides the track (academic, technological, or vocational) they will take at the end of their first year, and spends the rest of his time at upper school preparing for his particular baccalauréat exam. The scores received on the academic bac exam determine students’ entry into higher education (Magaziner, 2015). Central European countries follow a similar education system as France. Germany and Belgium also allow parents and students to decide the specific educational track they would like to follow at a young age; students are assessed rigorously throughout their time in school (Angloinfo, 2017).

Across the Atlantic Ocean, 4,248 miles west, children are learning history, English, and French simultaneously. In Canada, there are two official languages: French and English. Because of this, students in Canada take some of their lessons in both French and English. Bilingual education does not exist in areas of Canada where English is more prominent than French, but most Canadian students take steps to become bilingual in their national languages (Darell, 2016). Many countries require students to learn a second language at a young age, but others, like the United States, typically exclude bilingual education from school curricula. In American cities like Los Angeles, many students are considered English Language Learners (ELL), but bilingual education has been defunded and foreign language studies are not a priority. In contrast, for Canadian students, bilingualism remains a highly valued skill.

Another 3,878 miles back across the Atlantic Ocean, a seven‐year old Finnish child walks into her very first day of school. Starting school at an older age is just one element that makes Finland’s education system quite unconventional. Children are not just sitting at home during their first seven years, however; every Finnish child has the legal right to free childcare and preschool. Preschool educators all hold bachelor’s degrees and prepare children with the skills they need when entering primary school (Sanchez, 2014). There is a strong emphasis on exploration and play in Finland, and delaying a child’s scholastic start time allows for both more time for play and more time outdoors. By the time they are adolescents, students in Finland choose a specific secondary school that will prepare them for their future, whether it be higher education or the workforce. Unlike France, and every other Western nation, Finnish students are rarely tested during their time in primary and secondary school. Finnish education also values in‐depth learning. Students spend a longer time learning fewer subjects, and they do so typically in inquiry‐based environments that stress critical thinking, and result in considerably less stress than is seen in adolescents in other parts of the world (Day, 2015). Students in Finland also benefit from small class sizes and they have substantially shorter school days and virtually no homework in the elementary grades. Even at the secondary level, Finnish students have the lightest homework loads in the world.

Three thousand miles south, the literacy rate for children under the age of 18 is under 50% for parts of the African continent, in stark contrast to rates in Europe and South America, where youth literacy rates are among the highest at 90–100 (Do Something, 2017). Nevertheless, despite the visual that relief organizations typically paint in somberly serenaded commercials, Africa is not an entirely barren continent where tribes live peacefully among giraffes and chimpanzees; educational issues in African countries are multifaceted and remarkably dissimilar depending where one finds oneself on the continent. One particular issue that Sub‐Saharan Africa faces which echoes across the globe is religion. While many countries must grapple with the challenges of meeting the needs of a diverse student body that might embrace different religious beliefs and traditions – particularly in history, science, and health classes – Sub‐Saharan African education is notable for some dramatic differences in the experiences of children, depending on whether they attend Christian or Muslim schools. The distribution of Christian missionary schools in predominantly Muslim areas explains some of these differences and Muslim education tends to be more attainable in areas where Muslims are a local minority, compared to areas where they are the majority. But, Africa is a vast continent with many varieties of educational experiences in this context. For example, Muslims in Rwanda receive more education, on average, than do Christians, although the reverse is true in Nigeria (Murphy, 2016).

How do we make sense of it all? What questions can inform discussion, debate, and good policy? Despite the remarkable diversity of educational experience across the globe, most discussions about schooling and schoolchildren – both within and between nations – lack depth and validity. A heavy weight lies on the shoulder of the educator; yet in virtually every country, those most intimately involved in the education of young people have little input into the educational laws, policies, and standards that will be instrumental in shaping the outcomes of the next generation. Education is perhaps more political than ever before, and we believe it is for this reason that educators must be more politicized than ever before.

As suggested above, we live in a rapidly changing, increasingly connected world; a place where disagreements abound, especially with respect to how children and young people should be prepared for adulthood, by whom and for what purpose. Particularly in comparison to previous generations of educators, new teachers – and scholars of education both – need frameworks from which they can critically evaluate schools and schooling in this larger, global context. Wherever they find themselves on the planet, few of today’s teachers are capable of standing up to state‐mandated, top‐down, rigid curricular and instructional mandates. They are often out of play, constrained by state or school bureaucracies demanding compliance and uniformity. We need critically literate teachers capable of mediating the technocratic demands of mandated curricula. Preparing such teachers must begin at the pre‐service level or new teachers will find themselves looking very much like the old ones, mindlessly going through the motions without question and reflection. And, equally important, a new generation of scholars in the field of education will require a foundation from which they may help beginning educators frame the difficult decisions they must navigate.

There are precious few handbooks on the foundations of education that speak to the needs of today’s scholars because of the parochialism of the textbook market. Indeed, the educational foundations bazaar is awash with books that either focus narrowly on the American experience or seek to explain the varieties of international educational arrangements from a decidedly ethnocentric, American, or Western point of view. Virtually all of the best‐selling foundation texts that either include an international section, or take international education as their primary focus, are written by Americans. In contrast, the book you hold in your hands features chapters from international scholars uniquely qualified to examine issues specific to their regions of the world, but which are grounded in a broad historical and global context.

The intention of this text is to provide readers with an alternative to the traditional texts on the foundations of education. The Wiley International Handbook of Educational Foundations takes an innovative approach to the fundamentals of education – one that uses an international lens to examine current controversies, with the aim of provoking the kind of discussion that is crucial for developing and maintaining a critical stance. The contributors ask, how and why has education come to function the way it does in different regions of the world? And, more critically: How should education work?

Most textbooks explore these questions in more neutral ways, spreading a singular polemic, which depoliticizes education for future educators. In contrast, this textbook aims at skepticism in order to promote a model of critique; only then can aspiring teachers reflect upon their own critical viewpoints and encourage the children and young people in their future classrooms to do the same.

References

1. Angloinfo, “The School System,” in Belgium (Angloinfo, 2017). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from www.angloinfo.com/how‐to/belgium/family/schooling‐education/school‐system.
2. Ansari, Massoud, “Life in a Pakistani School – where ‘stranger danger’ can mean bombers and gunmen” (The Telegraph, 2014). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/11300297/Life‐in‐a‐Pakistani‐school‐where‐stranger‐danger‐can‐mean‐bombers‐and‐gunmen.html.
3. Butrymowicz, Sarah, “A Day in the life of Chinese Students,” in The Hechinger Report (The Hechinger Report, 2011). Retrieved February 24 2018 from http://hechingered.org/content/a‐day‐in‐the‐life‐of‐chinese‐students_3826/.
4. Central Intelligence Agency, “Pakistan: People and Society” in The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from www.cia.gov/library/publications/the‐world‐factbook/geos/ir.html.
5. Darell, Richard, 20 Fascinating Fact about Education Around the World (Bit Rebels, 2016). Retrieved 24 February 2014 from http://www.bitrebels.com/lifestyle/20‐facts‐education‐around‐world/.
6. Day, Kelly, “11 Ways Finland’s Education System Shows Us that ‘Less is More’, in Filling My Map. (Day, 2015). Retrieved 24 February 2014 from https://fillingmymap.com/2015/04/15/11‐ways‐finlands‐education‐system‐shows‐us‐that‐less‐is‐more/.
7. Do Something, 11 Facts About Education Around the World (Do Something, 2017). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11‐facts‐about‐education‐around‐world.
8. International Labour Organization, Unemployment with Tertiary Education, Female (% of Female Unemployment) (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008a). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TERT.FE.ZS?locations=IR.
9. International Labour Organization, Unemployment with Tertiary Education, Male (% of male Unemployment) (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008b). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TERT.MA.ZS?locations=IR.
10. Magaziner, Jessica, “Education in France” in Education Profiles (New York City, NY: World Education News & Review, 2015). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from http://wenr.wes.org/2015/09/education‐france.
11. Mehran, Golnar, “Gender and Education in Iran,” Commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2003/4, The Leap to Equality (UNESCO, 2003).
12. Murphy, Caryle, “Q&A: The Muslim‐ Christian Education Gap in Sub‐Saharan Africa.” (Pew Research Center, 2016). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from www.pewresearch.org/fact‐tank/2016/12/14/qa‐the‐muslim‐christian‐education‐gap‐in‐sub‐saharan‐africa/.
13. Reeg, Caitlan, “The German School System Explained” (Young Germany, 2015). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from www.young‐germany.de/topic/study/the‐german‐school‐system‐explained.
14. Sanchez, Claudio, “What The U.S. Can Learn From Finland, Where School Starts At Age 7,” in Education (NPR, 2014). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2014/03/08/287255411/what‐the‐u‐s‐can‐learn‐from‐finland‐where‐school‐starts‐at‐age‐7.
15. UNESCO, “Fact Sheet – Education in Pakistan” in Education for All Global Monitoring Report (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2012).
16. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Adult Literacy Rate, Population 15+ Years, Both Sexes. (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2015). Retrieved 24 February 2018 from http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?Code=SE.ADT.LITR.ZS&id=af3ce82b&report_name=Popular_indicators&populartype=series&ispopular=y

This book began with a request from Wiley‐Blackwell Publications to edit a foundations of education handbook. As we spoke about the project with Jayne Fargnoli – who eventually became our acquisitions editor, guide and most enthusiastic supporter – we settled upon an alternative to the typical, overly tedious, ethnocentric, and uncritical texts to which we have become accustomed. Instead, we offer here an unconventional foundations of education book, based upon the notion that we must challenge what for so long has been considered foundational and we must do so in the voices from scholars from around the globe. So, to begin, we offer a well‐deserved thank you to each of our contributors for their scholarly manuscripts and patience over the past several years as the work unfolded.