Research Evidence: Narrowing the Achievement Gaps.- Centralization, Devolution and Diversity: Changing Educational Policy and Practice in English Schools.- Education of Ethnic Minorities and Migrants in Austria.- Educating Ethnic Minority Children: The Case of Canada.- Meeting Challenges in US Education: Striving for Success in a Diverse Society.- Education Policy Reform in Postapartheid South Africa: Constraints and Possibilities.- Education at the Crossroads: The Ghanaian Dilemma and Puzzle.- How China Best Educates Its Ethnic Minority Children: Strategies, Experience and Challenges.- Managing Diversity: The Singapore Experience.- Ethnicities and Education in Malaysia: Difference, Inclusions and Exclusions.- Australian Multicultural Education: Revisiting and Resuscitating.- Searching for Equity and Social Justice: Diverse Learners in Aotearoa New Zealand.- Making a Bigger Difference for Diverse Learners: The Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis Programme in New Zealand.

This book takes up the challenge of examining the thorniest educational issue from a global perspective. It contributes to the evidence-based conversation among policy makers, educators, and researchers around the world about what works to improve the education outcomes and what can make a bigger difference for the education of diverse students. The eleven countries included - the United Kingdom, Austria, Canada, the United States, South Africa, Ghana, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand are unique, and yet overlap in the sense that they all face similar challenges of teaching diverse students. The authors, being education and cultural insiders, discuss country-specific policies, efforts, and best practices in the education of diverse students; share stories of success and failure; and explore current best practices from global, social, political, and economic perspectives. Built on previous theories and research, it describes diverse students' experiences in the global and information age, and searches for effective policies and practices that help these students to perform better in school and in life.

Readers are forced to step outside of their own experiences and commonly held beliefs about education. Conscious recognition that there are other ways of doing things may result in new approaches that we have not explored before. We hope the insights, lessons, and conclusions drawn from examining this pressing education issue from a global perspective will help nations to better understand and deal with it in their own educational system.