Education & Pedagogy

This study aimed to analyze the comprehensiveness of learning objectives formulated in the newly developed primary school teacher education courses in Ethiopia. Data were collected using documents of 124 course syllabi and questionnaire from 23 teacher educators, and interview with a curriculum consultant. Findings revealed that the three learning outcomes were not given equal attention by course developers. The cognitive domain was overemphasized, whereas psychomotor and affective were found to be de-emphasized in the 10 fields of study, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Content Knowledge, general education, bridging, practicum and common courses and six departments. Moreover, the learning outcomes formulated in Civic and Ethical education, Art, Music and Health and Physical Education courses did not meet expectations. Results also revealed that only 22% of the courses were found to be comprehensive in their learning objectives. Implications suggest that course and program developers were not critically concerned about the issue of learning outcome comprehensiveness for different reasons such as lack of knowledge, experience, professional concern, commitment and shortage of time on the part of course designers and absence of close professional supervision and less attention given for issue on the part of the Ministry of Education.

Higher education offers the potential to support glonacal (global, national, and local) development. This study presents new empirical and conceptual insights into the ways in which higher education can help to achieve and exceed the outcomes enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Open-ended online surveys were used to learn how academics in Georgia and Kazakhstan view the contributions of universities to addressing self-identified development challenges; and how universities work with the government and the private sector for realising their glonacal development potential. While the study provides ample evidence on the national manifestations of the developmental role of universities, it also shows that limited academic freedom and institutional autonomy impede the full realisation of the potential of higher education. The assumptions underpinning the academics' views on how higher education can support development are discussed in the light of an innovative framework of essentialist and anti-essentialist approaches. Juxtaposing the national with the global development missions of universities, the paper raises questions on the possibility of delinking higher education from the immediate human capital and modernisation needs of the nation-state and becoming concerned with the global, on promoting freedom to cultivate intellectual curiosity through education and research, and stimulating a more holistic imaginary of the developmental purposes of higher education.

In this study, it was aimed to reveal the perceptions of teachers, students, and parents about the concept of "distance education" through metaphor. Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. 34 teachers, 131 students, and 44 parents who participated in the study were asked to make a metaphor sentence for distance education by the online data collection tool. The data obtained were analyzed by content analysis and categories were constituted by classifying the metaphors according to their common characteristics. Metaphors of the participants towards distance education were gathered in the categories of "uselessness", "education type", "offering opportunity", "virtuality", "individuality", "irreplaceable", "obligation", "usage", and "school independence". Participants mostly used metaphors of "face-to-face education", "school", "video", "open education", and "sun" for distance education. When the sentences of metaphors made were examined, it was determined that the participants had a negative perception towards distance education in general. To change this perception, it is recommended to provide teachers, students, and parents with a quality distance education experience.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and trace the lineage of theoretical debates around social movement learning in the field of adult education. We compiled articles, books and conference proceedings on adult education and social movements from Google Scholar using the software "Publish or Perish" and manually filtered the data to only include those that explicitly address the topic. Based on the data, we identified key literature that scholars cross-referenced, which extended the review to include the literature from the 1970s until today. We argue that the theoretical debates about social movements and education can be characterised by four phases: 1) popular education within and for social movements, 2) the Old/New Social Movement debate and its radical influence on adult education, 3) conflict and pushback between scholars, and 4) social movement learning as a confluence of literature. We argue that it is only when scholars writing about popular education interacted with scholars promoting the idea of 'new' social movements that the current proliferation of 'social movement learning' emerged. Thus, the knowledge production of social movement learning itself has been a result of a dynamic and historical movement in the field of adult education.

In this article, I reflect on my attempts to decolonise religious education at a historically white university in a post-apartheid South Africa. This pre-service education project conducted in 2017 happened against the backdrop of two events, namely, a renewed curriculum policy, Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) and the #RhodesMustFall (RMF) and #FeesMustFall (FMF) protests. These events encouraged me to reflect on my academic role as a teacher-educator preparing pre-service teachers to teach religion in schools. This led to me asking many questions such as, what is the effect of my teaching religious education?, How do teacher-educators prepare religious education pre-service teachers for a multicultural and multireligious society?, How does my teaching align itself with the decolonisation of education? and How do I redress the colonial past in my religious education classroom? The data which included reflective reports, student experiences and self-reflexivity acknowledged the findings that religion education served as a unifying factor in building social cohesion. The significance of this paper lies in the argument that decolonisation becomes an imperative if one is striving for social justice and intends to commit oneself to a more equitable society where crossing borders must be a seamless act.

Political parties are essential for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, yet parties have not received much attention in contemporary research on popular education. The aim of this article is to analyse the contemporary role of party-political education as a form of popular education in two labour movement parties in Sweden. The study is based on semi-structured interviews focusing on the reasoning behind the organisation of education in political parties. The interviews were conducted with ten interviewees who represented ABF (the Swedish workers' educational association), the Left Party, and the Social Democratic Party. The thematic analysis resulted in four categories of roles ascribed to education in political parties: "ideological training," "training skilled members and leaders," "training for a social infrastructure," and "training for internal positioning and distinction." The first two categories correspond to knowledge-oriented roles, while the two last represent relationship-oriented roles. Findings show that party-political popular education still plays a significant role in contemporary Sweden. The shrinking member base of political parties creates challenges when new members and prospective representatives cannot be expected to have as extensive popular movement experience as previous representatives. In this situation, study activities are, to some extent, attributed more significance than previously.

Trinidad and Tobago responded decisively to the COVID 19 pandemic and was successful in containing community spread of the virus. By mid-march 2020, there was closure of key business and educational institutions. To minimise the loss of learning time, emergency remote learning became the modus-operandi, a response which challenged the most socially vulnerable students. At the University of the West Indies (UWI) the 500 participants enrolled in the Early Childhood, and Primary education programmes, and the in-service post-graduate diploma in Secondary education were struggling to adjust to online teaching, the existential anxiety of coping with a dangerous disease, and programme completion. The UWI instituted a COVID-19 policy that facilitated a structured response to programme completion and assessment across all faculties. The paper analysed the decisions taken by the UWI School of Education that supported its teachers through the practicum and pedagogy courses. Using a qualitative case study methodology, data were collected through observations, documents, and informal discussions with faculty. Thematic analyses allowed the emergence of three key constructs that facilitated effective learning during the crisis period: Community as an empathetic connection to stakeholders, Creativity as the ability for agile and imaginative responses, and Connectivity through technological readiness.

This article examines the learning trajectory of the emerging professionalism of Finnish early childhood education and care student teachers, focusing in particular on their professionalism in early childhood education and care world-view education in the context of cultural and world-view superdiversity. Of specific interest here is what students postulate as meaningful in their professional learning processes and why, and what kinds of directions this value-learning process has taken. The data was generated over a year-long learning process in a group with seven early childhood education and care students and six in-service early childhood education and care teachers through survey responses, reflective learning diaries and retrospective in-depth interviews with the students. Using the Kuusisto and Gearon (2017a) value-learning-trajectory model as an analytical tool, the findings are presented through an in-depth case study depicting one student's learning throughout the process and across the data sets. To conclude, the conceptual working model is developed further to depict the development of emergent early childhood education and care teacher professionalism with a particular focus on world-view education and early childhood education and care superdiversity.

How the Swedish after-school leisure program pedagogy relates to special education is rarely the subject of research. The problematization of the special education concept in the after-school leisure centers will be the starting point of this analysis model. This has been constructed with the aim of investigating how actors in the Swedish after-school leisure activities define how special education is being actualized in after school programs. The premises for the study regard the after-school leisure program mission; namely, to complement, compensate, and teach. In order to validate the analysis model, an exploratory pilot study was conducted through interviews with two teacher educators and two teachers in the after-school leisure program. The results show that the models developed for this investigation can be used in further studies. The analysis model provided important key words for further investigation and discussion of the program. These results can in no way be generalized, but they clearly show that the constructed and tested analysis model may form the basis for valuable discussions and pedagogical approaches in teacher education and in the program that the education prepares students for. Therefore, the pilot study comprises the foundation for a more comprehensive future study.

The present study aims to examine the leadership research in higher education in order to shed light on its development during the last two decades by revealing the evolving trends in research on leadership in higher education, the most prominent scholars working on related research, the most popular topics in related research, and the countries in which the related studies are based. Bibliometric method was employed in the analysis of the original research and review papers published in five prominent higher education journals between 1995 and 2014: "Higher Education," "Research in Higher Education," "Studies in Higher Education," "The Journal of Higher Education" and "The Review of Higher Education." The results of this bibliometric analysis show that the majority of the related articles come from three countries: the U.S.A., the UK and Australia. It is also found that the leadership research in higher education is still very scarce and has not shown any meaningful increase during the last two decades. In addition, content analysis is used to provide more in-depth information about the topical focus, purpose and methodology of the selected articles. The results of content analyses are discussed in detail, and suggestions for the future research are provided.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to describe the state of current citizenship education in Germany with the focus on education in schools. The term 'education' in this paper refers to the concept of Bildung. It not only describes how to teach, but also the ability of self-determination of the individual. Methodology: The main focus of this article is to discuss the current state of citizenship education in Germany while taking into account various methodologies. Amongst these are findings of qualitative studies, which for example relate to the legal anchoring of citizenship education or to political action as a learning opportunity. In addition, a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-the-art research on the basic principles of citizenship education is provided. Finally, current challenges are discussed, taking into consideration existing socio-political discourses, such as the question of neutrality. Findings: The article shows that the relevance of citizenship education is increasing, also in regard to current socio-political phenomena, such as the growth of right-wing populism and digitalization. At the same time, the results indicate that in various federal states the subject is marginalized and threatened by current debates about the alleged neutrality of citizenship education.

Objective: A multidisciplinary team from a US midwestern urban medical centre developed written patient education materials for a group education programme designed to prepare adolescents and emerging adults with sickle cell disease for transition to adult care. We evaluated the literacy levels of these materials and demonstrate how to revise the patient education materials to meet literacy standards. Method: Six tools were used to evaluate literacy levels of the patient education materials. Based on the literacy level scores of the materials, including readability, grade level, understandability and actionability, recommendations and revisions were made to improve literacy levels. The revised materials were again assessed using the same six tools. Results: Initial literacy levels of the patient education materials were higher than recommended standards. Adjustments were made to meet literacy standards. Not all standards were met. Conclusion: Patient education materials should conform as much as possible to recommended literacy standards for optimum understandability. However, not all patient education materials can fully meet all evidence-based literacy standards. Recommendations for evaluating literacy standards when creating or providing previously developed patient education materials are discussed. Extra efforts to achieve acceptable literacy standards are recommended when medically complex educational materials are necessary.

Context: Two major challenges in professional and vocational education (VET) are low levels of relevance and coherence between the content of the educational program and developing competence in working life. This article is based on an action research project, conducted as a series of experiments at vocational upper secondary schools and during the basic course for postgraduate certificate teaching in professional education for professional educators in Norway. It was carried out with a focus on job-related professional education to meet these challenges. The project is based on a pragmatic theoretical perspective in professional didactical teaching. Methods: The action research included experiments, observations, evaluations, qualitative questionnaires and interviews. Findings: The results show empirical examples of didactical principles in job-related professional education; the core of these being the analysis of work tasks and work practice as a basis for curricula analysis and planning of teaching and assessing. This includes job-related planning of content, teaching and assessment according to comprehensive professional competence. The results also show challenges linked to job-related professional education. Conclusions: The overall results show a need for the development of professional didactical teaching competencies that focus on job-related professional education, to meet the future needs for competence in work life.

Context: Student interest in and national recognition for the value of global education is expanding. Opportunities for interprofessional education (IPE) are a required component of athletic training education and education of other health care professions. Objective: To describe the development of a short-term study abroad IPE course in the international setting of Australia. Background: While some literature is available for discipline-specific study abroad experiences, limited information is available for implementing IPE in the international setting. Description: Two faculty leaders from athletic training and speech language pathology, with IPE experience, designed and conducted a 17-day immersive study abroad experience for 12 students from 7 health care professional programs (athletic training, nursing, physical therapy, physician assistant studies, premedical, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology). Clinical Advantage: Students desire unique, global learning experiences but may have trouble studying abroad for full semesters due to the lockstep nature of curriculum within their professional education programs. Having students learn from, with, and about each other in an international setting may enhance their preparation for collaborative practice. Conclusions: Short-term study abroad opportunities offer an alternative to satisfy student interest in global education while meeting programmatic requirements for IPE. Inclusion of faculty leaders from different disciplines fosters interprofessional learning.

This qualitative research is intended to reveal the stories of South Korean mothers' own experiences of education fever in relation to their children's education. Research questions include the following: (1) What do South Korean mothers experience in relation to their children's education? (2) What constitutes the practices embodying the South Korean mothers' education fever? The research participants consisted of six South Korean mothers with elementary school children aged from 6 to 11. We conducted semi-structured interviews with each participant. The data collected from the interviews were analyzed through a thematic analysis. The findings of the study are as follows. First, the South Korean mothers relied predominantly on private education for their children's academic success. They strategically prepared their children for successful academic achievement; moving to a good neighbourhood and offering private education were actions that were undertaken. Second, a micro-level analysis showed that the mothers' experiential (their past experiences with their own family of origin) and psychological (their view of an ideal child and a good mother) aspects were interwoven with the mothers' education fever. A macro-level analysis revealed that the mothers' education fever was constructed by competition-inducing social structures that widen social disparities.