This timely book illustrates how, contrary to popular belief, child-centered teaching can be structured, supportive and guiding. Grounded in research and richly illustrated with voices of experience from teachers practicing child-centered teaching, the author shows how child-centered teachers successfully combine the best elements from both traditional and progressive methods of teaching. This detailed and readable study will be of interest to teachers, researchers and policy makers alike.

Ciaran Sugrue is Lecturer in Education at St Patrick's College, Dublin, where he teaches courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students in teaching and the curriculum, schools as organizations, educational leadership and qualitative research methods. He is a former primary teacher and has worked in the primary schools inspectorate

Acknowledgments, Introduction, 1. Complexities of Teaching: Child-centred Perspectives, 2. Substance, Setting and Method, 3. Practitioners' Teaching Intentions, 4. Practitioners' Teaching Constructions, 5. A Major Case Study: Participant, Context and Substance, 6. Theme One: Language, The Leitmotiv of Helen's Practice, 7. Theme Two: Helen's Conversational Style, 8. Theme Three: Scaffolding and Shepherding, 9. Reconstructing Teaching Traditions: Child-centred Perspectives, Appendix, Bibliography, Index