Freedom at Work: Language, Professional, and Intellectual Development in Schools

This book explores the freedom to use the language resources we have at our disposal to learn to our fullest, to engage in inquiry about learning and teaching, and to go beyond the surface in topics of schooling and education. Within a particular school context, the author explores how these freedoms came into being, how they took shape, and what they meant for the individuals involved. She shows that the individual and social freedoms in which the teacher and the learner operate within schools are important measures and outcomes of intellectual development. In connecting language, culture, learning, and intellectual development as freedoms in her own life, the author explores a new way of seeing the role of multiple languages in education and the freedom to learn.

María E. Torres-Guzmán is Associate Professor of Bilingual/Bicultural Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her publications have explored alternative perspectives on the relationship between multiple languages, multiple cultures and learning. Her current interests focus on linguocultural spaces and personnel historical narratives.