In this book the authors develop a unified theory of education and offer a prescription for the reconstitution of schools as "educating societies". Their theory is firmly based on a culture-sensitive developmental psychology.

Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. Teaching, Schooling, and Literacy: A Unified Theory of Education: 1. The redefinition of teaching and schooling; 2. A theory of teaching as assisted performance; 3. The means of assisting performance; 4. The social organization of assisted performance; 5. Language, literacy, and thought; Part II. Practice: 6. A school organized for teaching: the Kamehameha Elementary Education Program; 7. The activity setting of the instructional conversation: developing word and discourse meaning; 8. The orchestration of activity settings: learning and social interaction in the whole group and independent centers; 9. The interpsychological plane of teacher training; 10. Assisting teacher performance through the ZPD: a case study; 11. The intrapsychological plane of teacher training: the internalization of higher-order teaching skills; 12. The schools in mind and society; References; Author index; Subject index.

'Rarely have I seen a book that blends so successfully the big educational picture with the micro-picture of the teacher-student encounter, and it does so with the purpose of changing the way teachers work with students. Rousing Minds to Life is an exceptional book.' Mike Rose, author of Lives on the Boundary