Foundations of Education introduces the major topics and debates in contemporary American education, including teaching as a profession, school governance, social class, gender, and disabilities, as well as historical background on each.

The 2nd edition includes two new chapters on race and ethnicity, and immigration and language, and each of the other chapters have been thoroughly updated to respond to the latest research and events. The book introduces ways that pre-and in-service teachers, as well as students interested in education, can address these topics using a foundations approach, that is, to look at the problems from historical, philosophical, and sociological perspectives and bringing together relevant findings from those disciplines to analyze and illuminate educational issues. The book includes exercises and discussion questions and is supported by a companion website for instructors with a variety of teaching tools such as editable lesson plans, slide decks, assessments, and supplementary resources. This is a text that responds to current developments, changes, and trends in teacher education and society more broadly, such as teacher professionalization, school choice, social class and school funding, gender and mental health, culturally and linguistically responsive teaching, and serving students with disabilities. Foundations of Education will prepare a new generation of educators for a globalized and technology-driven society that needs to be aware of its best educational traditions, its current problems and its future possibilities.