From Librarian of Congress, James Billington, to founding director of the Center for the Book, John Cole, the leading-edge information specialists of the day share their insights on the role libraries play in advancing democracy.

The book provides multiple perspectives and insights on the area of Inclusion, Equity and Access for people with disabilities and brings together various inclusive effective practices from 21 countries across the world most comprehensively in one book. The book documents perspectives from educational researchers and teacher educators through first-hand experience using cutting-edge research and conceptual understandings, thought processes, and reflections. The book brings together various methodologies to expose scientific truths in the area of disability and inclusion. Chapter authors utilize a self-reflective stance, representing state of the art theory and practice for exploring notions of disability. Authors examine cultural relational practices, common values and beliefs, and shared experiences for the purpose of helping cultural members and cultural strangers better understand interdependent factors. Each chapter is an attempt to unravel a thought provoking, comprehensive, and thorough understanding of the challenges and abilities of individuals with disabilities shaped by their own culture, society and country, re-engaging the promise of scientific research as a generative form of inquiry. The book is designed to be of use to a wide range of professionals; researchers, practitioners, advocates, special educators and parents providing information and or discussions on educational needs, health care provisions, and social services irrespective of country and culture.

While challenging the teacher as hero trope, We Got This shows how authentically listening to kids is the closest thing to a superpower that we have. Cornelius identifies tools, attributes, and strategies that can augment our listening.

Analyzing the lack of diversity among opera executives, this book examines the careers of executive opera managers of color in the U.S. By interrogating the impact of race on arts managers’ careers, the author contemplates how opera might attract and retain more racially diverse arts managers to ensure its future. With a focus on the U.S., research is contextualized via qualitative data to explore, enhance, and institutionalize access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in the opera industry. In a revealing series of expert-conducted interviews, the author poses illuminating questions, such as: what if an inability to recruit and retain diverse executives is the primary source of opera’s challenges? if more racially diverse opera executives existed, would the art form persist in struggling to find its place in contemporary society? from where will the next generation of diverse opera managers emerge? As the magnitude of the global diversity problem grows within the creative and cultural industries, this book serves as a guide for Arts Management practitioners and students who may view their class, different ability, ethnicity, gender, race, or sexual orientation as a liability in their pursuit of executive careers.

Although STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has been diversely defined by various researchers (e.g. Buck Institute, 2003; Capraro & Slough, 2009; Scott, 2009; Wolf, 2008), during the last decade, STEM education has gained an increasing presence on the national agenda through initiatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES). The rate of technological innovation and change has been tremendous over the past ten years, and this rapid increase will only continue. STEM literacy is the power to “identify, apply, and integrate concepts from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to understand complex problems and to innovate to solve them” (Washington State STEM, 2011, Internet). In order for U.S. students to be on the forefront of this revolution, ALL of our schools need to be part of the STEM vision and guide students in acquiring STEM literacy. Understanding and addressing the challenge of achieving STEM literacy for ALL students begins with an understanding of its element and the connections between them. In order to remain competitive, the Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy has recommended that the US optimize “its knowledge-based resources, particularly in science and technology” (National Academies, 2007, p. 4). Optimizing knowledge-based resources needs to be the goal but is also a challenge for ALL educators (Scheurich & Huggins, 2009). Regardless, there is little disagreement that contemporary society is increasingly dependent on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and thus comprehensive understandings are essential for those pursuing STEM careers. It is also generally agreed that PK-12 students do not do well in STEM areas, both in terms of national standards and in terms of international comparisons (Kuenzi, Matthews, & Mangan, 2006; Capraro, Capraro, Yetkiner, Corlu, Ozel, Ye, & Kim, 2011). The question then becomes what might PK-12 schools do to improve teachers’ and students’ STEM knowledge and skills? This book will look at equity and access issues in STEM education from PK-12, university, and administrative and policy lenses.

Participatory Creativity: Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom presents a systems-based approach to examining creativity in education that aims to make participating in invention and innovation accessible to all students. Moving beyond the gifted-versus-ungifted debate present in many of today’s classrooms, the book’s inclusive framework situates creativity as a participatory and socially distributed process. The core principle of the book is that individuals are not creative, ideas are creative, and that there are multiple ways for a variety of individuals to participate in the development of creative ideas. This dynamic reframing of invention and innovation provides strategies for teachers, curriculum designers, policymakers, researchers, and others who seek to develop a more equitable approach towards establishing creative learning experiences in various educational settings.