Education & Pedagogy

Chinese higher vocational education has already formed a relatively complete system covering the four degree levels: associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral. The associate's level mainly cultivates people with high-tech capabilities for enterprises. The bachelor's level is mainly divided into application and teaching bachelor's, whereby an application bachelor's education focuses on strengthening the practical teaching segment, and the teaching bachelor's focuses on strengthening students' "dual-teaching" abilities. The master's level includes professional master's degrees, master's degrees for secondary vocational school teachers who are studying while working, and professional master's degrees in full-time vocational and technical education--all of which should make clear their own training objectives, apply flexible educational teaching models, and enlarge practical teaching segments. The doctoral level includes professional doctoral degrees and professional doctoral education in vocational and technical education. It is aimed at major practical issues in the field, strives to increase the practical contributions of degree applicants to the field, and inspires innovative results. [This article was translated by Jeff Keller.]

The public/private distinction is central to higher education but there is no consensus on "public." In neo-classical economic theory, Samuelson distinguishes non-market goods (public) that cannot be produced for profit, from market-based activity (private). This provides a basis for identifying the minimum necessary public expenditure, but does not effectively encompass collective goods, or normative elements. In political theory "public" is often understood as state ownership and/or control. Dewey regards social transactions as "public" when they have relational consequences for persons other than those directly engaged, and so become matters of state concern. This is more inclusive than Samuelson but without limit on costs. Neither definition is wholly satisfactory, each offers something, and each can be used to critically interrogate the other. The article synthesises the two approaches, applying the resulting analytical framework with four quadrants (civil society, social democracy, state quasi-market and commercial market) to higher education and research.

Despite physical education teacher education/physical education sport pedagogy's (PETE/PESP's) significant strides in the past century, there are concerns about its future. Grounded in participatory research, and through an interview-Delphi method, this study purposefully sampled five male PETE/PESP scholars' expert critiques of current threats, projections of probable and preferable futures, and recommendations for transformation. Data were analyzed through an interpretive approach. Findings included: (a) limitations in physical education policy, teacher preparation, and status as key threats; (b) more of the same conflicts in the probable future and increased cooperation regarding conflicts in the preferable future; and (c) proactively revising the subdisciplinary framework and doctoral studies as transformative recommendations. We interpret issues critiqued as threatening PETE/PESP's future, and projections of the probable future, as reflective of neoliberal rationality that has renormalized academic work in de-democratizing ways. We interpret that projections of preferable futures and transformative recommendations call for a re-emphasis on ethical academic attitudes to resist neoliberalization and reclaim democracy.

From 2004-06, the Osage Nation of Oklahoma reformed its government from a tribal council system to a tripartite constitution. Following this reorganization, through a community outreach effort a 25-year strategic plan was developed to guide the Nation moving forward. Now, a decade into the plan, recent Osage land (re)acquisition across the reservation has generated new potential and need for agricultural education and leader development. Our contribution to the "Journal of Research in Rural Education's" special issue on diversity in rural education is a framework for how the Osage Nation might develop agricultural education that focuses on fostering Osage-specific place-based identities in the next generation of agricultural leaders. While framing this conversation through Dennison's lens of Osage ribbon work and settler-colonial entanglement, paired with Gruenewald's critical pedagogy of place, this essay informs educators about the unique position of Native nations in education and simultaneously a theoretical and practitioner-driven analysis of how agricultural education intersects with the Osage Nation's 25-year strategic plan.

Many studies have noted the important role family socioeconomic status (SES) plays in students' out-of-school learning. However, very little is known about the relationship between students' SES and citizenship education in out-of-school contexts. To address this research gap, this study conducted an out-of-school citizenship education survey (involving 2,950 teachers, 7,388 students, 2,564 parents, and 112 out-of-school education organizations in Shanghai, China), in 2015, to explore the relationship between SES and students' out-of-school citizenship education. This article found SES affected primary and junior middle school (but not high school) students' participation in out-of-school citizenship education. This article adopted a power-knowledge relationship perspective to explain this pattern, and found that the relationship between education and power is not so mechanical that only powerful groups in society can determine knowledge and learning; instead, educational forces and students may mediate the influence of SES.

Dance education in American schools from P-12 through higher education are affected by the pervasive reach of Whiteness. Well-intentioned and passionate dance educators feel the effects of and are instrumental in the institutions Whiteness has reified in the American educational system. In order to dismantle inequity and marginalization of Black people in every facet of the field of dance education from student to administrator, it is essential to make the operation of Whiteness visible as the systemic phenomenon that it is. This article describes multiple, amorphous aspects of Whiteness, how it manifests in the field, and offers examples of ways in which to interrupt the Whiteness in curricular examples from both P-12 and higher education settings. The examples provided describe classroom strategies and structures that serve to disrupt the patterns of Whiteness and explain the ways in which these strategies and structures move dance classrooms and studios closer to equity and inclusivity.

With art education at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) celebrating 50 years of program delivery, this article offers a self-study history of the university's community art education program for undergraduate artist-teachers. Drawing on case study, archival, and oral history methods, this research situates key program events within their university and Montreal contexts and addresses three questions: How did community art education emerge as a teaching direction at Concordia University? What key moments, projects, and themes emerge from a historical review of the past 50 years of curriculum development and teaching activities? What does a review of the history of the teaching of community art education at Concordia University suggest for its future and for the work of other historical researchers? The article identifies practice and collaboration as two enduring themes, and ends with guiding questions to encourage future research.

Researchers have shown renewed interest during the past decade in the relationships among politics, policy, finance, and governance of higher education at the state level. Little attention, however, has been paid to state higher education executive officers (SHEEOs), the individuals responsible for leading the agencies that oversee higher education in the 50 states. Of noteworthy interest is the fact that the states vary in regard to the nature of the institutional relationship between the SHEEO and the governor, who has been shown in the literature to exert a strong influence over state higher education policy and finance. To explore the relationship, we developed measures that capture relevant dimensions of the relationship between the 2 actors and tested the impact of these measures on state spending for higher education using a unique panel of state-level data spanning more than 2 decades. We found that the institutional relationship between the SHEEO and the governor has a significant impact on state support for higher education.

In recent times when there has been a shift in public benefit of education from the higher education to basic education, beneficiaries of higher education take responsibilities of most of their financial commitments as students. The focus of the study was to find out the extent to which financial responsibilities affect the persistence of female students accessing higher education through the distance education programs. A correlational research design was used to describe and predict the effect of financial responsibilities on persistence of 441 female students drawn from selected public universities in Ghana. Data was collected using questionnaires and analyzed with descriptives and simple linear regression. It was found that financial roles had positive effect on persistence of the female students. The study recommended that female students were exposed to the sources of funding to enable them mitigate the effect financial roles might have on their persistence and academic progression.

Outdoor education (OE) has an increased presence in physical education as it addresses the discipline's national standards and promotes involvement lifetime physical activity. However, physical educators' learning to teach OE is not well documented. The purpose of this study was to understand preservice physical educators' experiences in and perspectives on an OE field experience. Participants included 13 third-year preservice physical educators (10 male, 3 female). Qualitative data were collected using focus group interviews, observations and guided reflections. Results indicated that preservice teachers (PSTs) perceived a controlling course environment that limited educational outcomes. They did, however, increase in confidence teaching OE, and applied skills learned in the teacher education program. With the exception of learning to be more adaptable, however, the PSTs did not perceive the experience as relevant to future teaching. Results are discussed within the framework of occupational socialization theory, and implications for practice are noted.

This theoretical paper examines the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and explores how it might contribute to conversations around quality teaching and learning in outdoor education. This paper begins by summarizing the historical and contemporary literature, including issues of definitions, curriculum, content, and pedagogy in outdoor education. We then review the concept of PCK, its history, and contributions to other subject areas, including mathematics. We present a framework for PCK from the field of mathematics education and propose a 'modified' PCK framework for outdoor education. We postulate that this framework might help articulate knowledge areas needed by a teacher of outdoor education, and how these differ from and are similar to those required in other subject areas. We conclude by exploring how the idea of PCK and the modified framework might add to existing understandings of what it means to provide high quality outdoor education teaching and learning experiences.

Teacher education students not involved in the arts often claim to have negative assumptions about their arts abilities and a lack of experience when teaching in the arts. These negative perspectives contribute to their apprehension about engaging in arts practices with future students. This article presents mixed methods case study findings exploring changes in student perceptions throughout an arts in education course for education majors. This study considers the influences of space, pedagogy, modes of engagement, and content on changes in perceptions. Data collection involved Likert questionnaires, along with course portfolios. Utilizing the emergent qualitative analytical lens of crystallization to illuminate a complex picture of experiences within this specific arts in education context, students' perceptions of the role of the arts in education and their own artistic abilities were seen to increase, also noting positive perceptions of the physical classroom space in which the course takes place.

Equality work is often conducted as education and teaching, and both are an intrinsic part of equality work. In this article, we focus on equality work and challenging heteronormativity by contextualising our focus both on the educational system as a whole but especially on teacher education. The promotion of equality in teacher education began in Finland in the 1980s with nationwide experimental projects, and Finnish universities undertook active efforts to promote equality in the 1990s as a result of the strengthening of women's studies and discussions on gender equality. We show what kind of persistent problems promoting equality and challenging heteronormativity in education in Finland faces, but we also indicate how it is possible to promote equality and challenge heteronormativity by focusing on teacher education. This article is based on student teachers' essays (N = 51) written as a part of their study in a course on social justice. The essays were analysed based on a discursive reading of the data.

This modest work of disambiguation begins with the simple recognition that there are 'hermeneutics' and 'hermeneutics', and argues that not all senses of the term have been given sufficient attention in the discussion of what religious education is and could be. I hope to do some important definitional work around the different senses that hermeneutics might have in religious education, and thereby to think through what it might mean to say that a concern in religious education is a 'hermeneutical' one. Finally, I hope to address the 'so what' question and make a case for the vital importance of hermeneutics for understanding religious education, as well as for understanding religion. This case lies not primarily in the association of religious education with the interpretation of scripture or more generally with questions of text or interpretation, but in the close association of education in its broadest sense with hermeneutical concerns. I sketch out the implications of a hermeneutical approach for teachers and curriculum planners faced with the tasks (which cannot be interpreted away) of selecting curriculum content and making decisions about pedagogical approach.

This study aimed to uncover perceptions of 'inclusive education' using semi-structured interviews with 15 mainstream teachers from the Western Province in Sri Lanka. Thematic coding of the interview data was undertaken using the key principles of Framework Analysis. The main themes that emerged were incongruous conceptual understandings of 'inclusive education' and 'integration', discrepancies in the use of terminology, fear of incompetence, concerns regarding limited training facilities, the lack of incentives offered to work within special education settings, the pressure of working towards school examination success and the lack of policy awareness. These findings will be discussed with regard to its implications for policy and practice. The results underpin the need to consider local teacher perceptions and to address these concerns within pre-service and in-service training in order to support the establishment of education reforms of equal access for all, which are relevant and sensitive to cultural needs and considerate of local realities.