ABSTRACT
Based on different paradigms, the aims, conceptualization, and practice of education and related initiatives are completely different, resulting in different outcomes. This chapter aims to provide a worldwide perspective to illustrate how the paradigms shape the major characteristics of education and its agendas of policy and research in fundamental but different ways. To face the challenges in this era of globalization, the chapter discusses why the practice, reform, and research of education should shift from the first- and second-wave paradigms to the third-wave paradigm to create unlimited learning opportunities for students to develop their lifelong capacity for multiple thinking and creativity for sustainable development in the 21st century.
