The book's ten chapters offer cross-cultural and comparative insights on some of the most pressing challenges and promising opportunities for improving education worldwide. These perspectives shape new understandings of context as influence on conceptual insights into education policy and practice at the international, national, and local levels.

Lori Diane Hill is Associate Executive Director for Programs and Policy and a Research Scientist at the American Educational Research Association.

Felice J. Levine is President of WERA and Executive Director of the American Educational Research Association.

Introduction Part I: Global Perspectives on Education Policy 1. Literacy and Language Diversity: Challenges for Education Research and Practice in the 21st Century 2. Framing Global Education in the United States: Policy Perspectives 3. The Education of Refugee Children: Human Rights Enactment and Educational Policy Discourses in Italy and the UK 4. Differentiation in Middle-Class Identities, Values and Responses when Integrating to Predominantly Working-Class and Multi-Ethnic School of Choice Part II: Teaching and Learning 5. Education as a Community Project: Understanding Place-based Learning 6. "The Children Come and Go" How Educating Military-Connected Students Impacts the Work of School Teachers, Counselors and Administrators Part III: School Context Links to Student Outcomes 7. Social Inequality in Attitudes and Behavior: The Implications of the Flemish Tracking System for Equity 8. A Transnational Analysis of Students' Interests in Science and Science Related Research Careers Part IV: Assessment and Measurement 9. Exploring Possible Effects of Differential Item Functioning on Reading Achievement Across Language Subgroups: A South African Perspective 10. The Conceptualization and Measurement of Student Engagement in Science: A Cross- Cultural Examination from Finland and the United States List of Contributors Index