Education & Pedagogy

All children deserve access to education, including those in low income countries. Educators and teachers share a desire to promote inclusive education, and can came together, such as the current group of authors did, to educate themselves about current developments. This paper examines published research relevant to inclusive education in Cameroon to contribute to understandings of inclusive education in Africa. An extensive review of published and grey scholarly literature since 2002 yielded 22 documents. Analysis, framed around a human rights perspective, focused on three areas: the legal context for inclusive education; the situation of children with disabilities in inclusive education settings; and the organizations providing inclusive education. Findings indicate that there is emerging attention to inclusive education for children with disabilities in Cameroon yet many children are still not able to realize their educational and social rights. It appears that most children with disabilities are not included in schools, and points to a need to address teacher attitudes and pedagogy. This paper initiates a discourse into the strategies to increase awareness and promote change among teachers, principals, school administrators, parents, and other stakeholders in Cameroon, and concludes with cautious optimism that inclusion in schools in Cameroon is beginning to take place.

Enabling education has a respected and established place in Australian higher education as an alternative pathway into university study. While the value of enabling education in providing access to higher education is undeniable, its provision across Australia is necessarily diverse, as individual programs respond to the needs of their local communities. This resulting diversity makes it difficult to gain insight into the field of enabling education. Given the purpose of enabling education is to prepare students for tertiary study, the role of academic literacies and language (ALL) is central for both Native English Speaker and Language Background Other Than English students, and it is to this focus that this paper attends. To shed light on the field, this paper presents the findings from a national audit of enabling education, providing a much-needed overview of the enabling programs offered across Australia, focusing on the ways that language and literacies are taught, positioned and, in some cases, disconnected from practice. Drawing on this analysis, we discuss how language and literacies are positioned as either central or periphery to the core work of enabling programs and begin a discussion which seeks to place ALL at the centre of enabling education.

Promising pedagogical practices is described in relation to incorporating ICT (Information, Communication and Technologies) with the study of Human Rights issues in Visual Arts Education for teacher candidates. As part of a course, "Senior Years Art," students at the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba during 2013-2014 experienced a class project entitled, "digiART and Human Rights: A New Media, Arts Integrated Project." For this course the authors drew upon a pilot course held earlier in 2011 as a Faculty of Education Summer Graduate Institute in which significant curricula using new media was connected to the theories outlined in the Human Rights Education Paradigm by Tibbitts (2002) specifically related to the (1) values/awareness model (2) accountability model and (3) transformational model. The authors found that models 1 and 3 relate to pedagogical approaches regarding ICT in visual arts education. In this article the writers will describe one outstanding student's process learning about ICT in relation to examining the Canadian immigrant experience. The pedagogical approach used has the promise for wider relevance across subject areas.

There are very few studies concerning the importance of teaching methods in biology education and environmental education including outdoor education for promoting sustainability at the levels of primary and secondary schools and pre-service teacher education. The material was selected using special keywords from biology and sustainable education in several scientific databases. The article provides an overview of 24 selected articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2006-2016. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Altogether, 16 journals were selected and 24 articles were analyzed in detail. The foci of the analyses were teaching methods, learning environments, knowledge and thinking skills, psychomotor skills, emotions and attitudes, and evaluation methods. Additionally, features of good methods were investigated and their implications for teaching were emphasized. In total, 22 different teaching methods were found to improve sustainability education in different ways. The most emphasized teaching methods were those in which students worked in groups and participated actively in learning processes. Research points toward the value of teaching methods that provide a good introduction and supportive guidelines and include active participation and interactivity.

A substantial number of studies have been conducted on sexuality education in Nigeria. These provide evidence of the positive impact of sexuality education on the psychosocial well-being of children and youth and the value of sexuality education for the sexual health of young people. Yet another research has investigated the views of parents on the school-based sexuality education of children and the different models and approaches employed. All of these studies implicitly reflect an issue that has not yet been sufficiently discussed. Nigeria is a uniquely pluralised country, with a multitude of cultures and sexual cultures. The implications of this diversity for policy and practice in sexuality education and for how sexuality education has (or has not) responded to this heterogeneity are rarely considered. This article addresses this gap by seeking to conceptualise how sexuality education might proactively address the cultural diversity of Nigeria. It begins by sketching out key features of this diversity in Nigeria and highlights the need for a culturally sensitive approach. Thereafter, there is a critical engagement with three possible approaches that sexuality education might take. Highlighting the weaknesses of monocultural, multicultural and transcultural approaches, this article argues for an open-cultural stance as the best means of fostering culturally sensitive sexuality education.

Substantial evidence supports the benefits of quality preschool education for children of all levels and backgrounds. However, early childhood gifted education services rarely exist in preschool centers. This study included 263 preschool centers representing geographic diversity in a southern state in the United States. Narrative data were collected centering on two issues: the barriers to implementation of gifted education services and the potential benefits related to the implementation of gifted education services in preschool centers. Qualitative analyses included constant comparative analyses for data reduction to support thematic inferences. Participants described barriers related to human and capital resources, challenges of implementing gifted education services, and the lack of information about gifted education in preschool settings. Participants articulated benefits in two general categories: educational/developmental and business/marketing. There was some evidence that a small portion of participants were opposed to the implementation of gifted education, but most participants indicated a desire for more responsive education services. This study may help gifted education advocates understand the needs of preschool centers seeking to broaden their services to support cognitive development of young children who are gifted from diverse backgrounds.

This paper explores discourses of affirmative consent in sex education curriculum and policy. It traces the ways in which discourses of consent have emerged in sex education debates, focusing first on the activism of two young women in Ontario, Canada who lobbied the provincial government to include discussions of consent in a new Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum. Their activism is instructive for the ways in which their lobbying was eventually subsumed into the logics of curriculum, with learning outcomes and lesson plans taming the passion of their protest. As others see in sex education the answer to sexual violence, we cannot forget that sex education is, in part, a defence against passion, and that consent--once swallowed up by HPE--might also work to tame the unruliness of sexuality. Turning to age of consent laws--another arena where discourses of consent discipline the sexuality of young people--I ask how our pedagogical and legal address to sexuality paradoxically refuses its force. This is the central argument of this article--namely, that the concept of consent brings with it, into education, a procedural logic that misrecognises sexuality as a transparent, communicative, and rational experience and mistakes compliance for learning.

Computing education has been an important and sometimes contentious issue ever since the advent of modern computing. Debates about computing education have closely followed job markets, technological development, academic interests, societal concerns, and changes in the perception of computing. The themes in computing education debates can be characterized by emergence and formation, standardization and organization, accommodation to change, and divergence. The focus of computing education has expanded outward from the computer to programming, algorithms, and information, as well as to the organizational, social, and cultural environment of computer systems. This survey gives computing education researchers an overview of some of the central issues and disputes in computing education over the brief history of modern computing. The survey highlights the emergence of educational initiatives, concepts, joint efforts, and institutions of computing education, and outlines the relatively short history of computing education research. The survey is structured around four overlapping themes: computing education as technological training, as training for software development, as a central element for the field's academic recognition, and as training for computational problem-solving in any domain of knowledge. Each theme has played a role throughout the history of modern computing, but their relative emphases have changed over the years.

US curricular policies frequently bolster neoliberal power structures within both pre-K to 12 schools and universities by privileging settler-colonial narratives and excluding Indigenous knowledge. However, curricular policies can also serve to enhance social reconstructionist and social justice education. In this article, we describe two case studies focused on a state-level policy--Montana's Indian Education for All--aimed at advancing understandings about Indigenous experiences and worldviews. The first study's findings demonstrate Indian Education for All's potential to support practicing teachers, including teachers with limited experience working with Indigenous communities, in their efforts to confront settler-colonialism and neoliberalism within curricula. The results from our second study suggest the potential for Indian Education for All to create space for Indigenous student leadership. However, our research also provides cautionary notes about the potential for "tools," such as Indian Education for All, to unintentionally reinforce settler-colonialism, neoliberalism, and racism, as they can create opportunities for racial microaggressions and inequitable expectations. We conclude with recommendations for teacher education programs, institutional leaders, and policymakers.

Within the scope of restructuring the secondary education efforts of the Ministry of National Education, it has been decided to abrogate the secondary school level teachers' schools. The purpose of this study is to evaluate Turkey's teacher education practices and the quest for qualified teacher education through the perceptions of the graduates of these high schools. The study is a phenomenological research based on interpretation. Data were obtained through interviews. The data obtained were analyzed in the vetting of candidate teachers, the curriculum to be used in the education process and its accreditation, and whom to be certified as teachers. The main results of this study, conducted with participants from the secondary school level teachers schools' graduates, show that, in terms of teacher education, teachers' high schools present various opportunities by enrolling successful candidates, educating them as leaders, preparing them for multi-cultural environments. In order to educate qualified teachers, the participants suggest teacher education programs should include individual and group activities, involve training, arts, basic science, and values education courses. In the selection and approval of tenure teacher, besides academic achievement and diploma, advanced communication skills, patience, confidence, and patriotism should be sought in the candidates.

Education is a fundamental human right, yet one fifth of the world's population lives with poor literacy. India is home to the largest number of illiterate people, with infrastructural, cultural, and socio-economic factors hindering equitable access to quality education. Due to the rapidly growing technology and Internet usage in the country, open educational resources (OER) are increasingly being used as a vital tool to help transcend barriers to child literacy, also aiding in educational attainment. While an array of scholarly works provides evidence of the potential in OER to influence higher education outcomes in developing nations, academic analysis of their impact on primary level education attainment has been minimal. This paper retrieve lessons from three children's content providing organizations to understand the opportunities and challenges of OER in primary-level education in developing nations with similar cultural, infrastructural, and socio-economic issues. While the findings of this study suggest that the use of OER allows for greater distribution and scale across different cultural and linguistic settings, particularly in rural and remote regions, they also warn against the adaptation and pedagogical barriers of OER into societies where traditional modes of education are established and trusted.

The state of public education debate, which to a great extent only reflects policies and practices ab road, is examined. The process of learning from others should replace the process of borrowing (of usually inappropriate policies/practices) from others. Two examples of the issues involved in the debate on public education, namely, Outcomes-Based Education and Medium of Instruction, were analysed through reference to media reports and discussions and through applying the time-honoured, seasoned and responsible principle of "learning" rather than "borrowing" from others, as prescribed by the science of Comparative Education. It was found that journalists and guest authors summarily employed policies and practices from abroad to motivate their own points of view and even used these as points of departure for political discourses. There was no sign of a scientific factoring-in of contextual similarities and differences between South African education systems and those abroad. This is a highly questionable and dangerous practice. In this regard Comparative Educationists have an important role to play in supplying a superstructure of relevant knowledge to inform education policy formulation.

This paper addresses the rise and consequences of an emerging global education industry (GEI), which represents new forms of private, for profit involvement in education across the globe. The paper explores the emergence within the GEI of new and varied, largely transnational, markets in education by focusing on three examples of the GEI at work. The first example addresses the issue of Charter Schools, what they have come to represent, how they have been implemented, and, especially, the impact they have had on public schooling more broadly. While they have taken different forms in different places, they have succeeded in installing the idea of quasi-markets in education, which has been directly instrumental in opening up opportunities for private investment in education. The second example concerns the ways that the increasingly global standardisation of education policies, provision and practices, presents lucrative opportunities for investment and profit. The forms and consequences of such standardisation are described in the contrasting cases of Qatar, Mongolia and Indonesia. The third example concerns low-fee private schools in the Global South. Far from such schools being seen as local initiatives, the paper shows how they have become a major opportunity for profitable investment by international corporations.

The study investigated the constraints facing the teaching of entrepreneurship education in colleges of education in South South Nigeria. A research question was raised and three hypotheses were formulated for the study. A descriptive survey design was used for the study. The population which also served as sample comprised 206 Business Education lecturers. The researcher used a questionnaire which has 24 items. The content and face of the instrument was validated by experts in business education and measurement and evaluation. The questionnaire has a reliability value of 0.92 using Cronbach alpha. Mean score and standard deviation were used to answer the research question while t-test was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings are ineffective monitoring, ineffective evaluation, insufficient time, poor welfare package and inadequate teaching facilities are some of the constraints facing the teaching of entrepreneurship education in colleges of education. It was, therefore, recommended that adequate teaching facilities should be provided by the school authorities to enhance quality teaching of entrepreneurship education. Adequate teachers should also be employed by school authorities.

Robert McGrath's article has the great virtue of asking an important question: "What is character education?" He argues that currently "what it means to call something a character education program remains unclear." Without a clear definition, McGrath says, one cannot differentiate character education from other programs designed to increase prosocial behavior or promote psychological growth. As a solution to this problem he proposes a "character education prototype" that would enable researchers and practitioners to evaluate a character education program by the extent to which it possesses seven "central features" (it is school-based, structured, and aimed at fostering development in five areas--positive psychological characteristics, identity, moral growth, holistic growth, and the development of practical wisdom). This commentary considers the following in relation to McGrath's article: (1) Fostering good character; (2) Practices central to effective character education; (3) Is a formal curriculum necessary?; (4) The emergence of character education frameworks; (5) The essential goals of character development; (6) The case for identity as the core of character; (7) Wisdom: The missing virtue in character education; and (8) Why self-control should be an essential outcome. [For McGrath's "What Is Character Education? Development of a Prototype," see EJ1199511.]