Education & Pedagogy

In higher education, multicultural education courses are often required in teacher education programs. Instructors feel a great deal of responsibility to effectively expose students to relevant issues regarding the increasingly diverse society in which we live. In this study, the instructors incorporate book discussion groups within their multicultural education course. Based on the needs evidenced by students' verbal and written commentary, the instructors identified meaningful texts that provided pedagogical strategies, allowed opportunity for students to examine their past education and family history, as well as fully described the classroom settings in which educators teach. With the increased involvement of students in the selection of meaningful texts used to guide book discussion groups, the instructors found that a greater level of connection, clarity, and understanding regarding varying cultures and diverse learners was realized by all.

This Note provides an analysis of Mexico's "Telesecundaria" program within the context of Mexico's new education reform framework offering a succinct background of the project, as well as key policy lessons that can be useful for other jurisdictions interested in the development of distance education programs. This Note uses a literature and data analysis review approach, as well as qualitative analysis of interview data collected recently in Mexico by the authors. The Note positions pedagogical approaches to distance education within the context of developments in communication, internet access and renewable energy technologies, as well as within the challenges of the digital divide as means of powering digital access to information and education to remote, rural and marginalized communities.

In this article, I critique the foremost proponents of the adequacy and equity approaches to educational equality. I identify tensions within the adequacy approach related to positionality in education, fostering a democratic elite through higher education, and its defense of private schooling. In contrast, equity theorists are vulnerable to the leveling down critique and place too much emphasis on education as a private good. This article sketches out strategy for integrating these principles inspired by Rawls' lexically ordered two principles of justice. Concerns about the bases of equal status as citizens can ground an adequacy standard and prevent leveling down, while a "level playing field" conception for educational opportunities addresses positional competition and promotes the long-term stability of favorable background conditions. The privileging of the first principle of justice over the second also emphasizes education as a public good.

Although much debate exists on the conceptualization, nature, and goals of global citizenship education, there has been widespread support for incorporating ideals of global citizenship into the practices, texts, and curricula of U.S. schools and universities. This article offers an interpretive discourse-based critique of ideas of selfhood underlying global citizenship education. Based on analyses of two U.S. high school curricula and materials available on websites devoted to global citizenship, we develop a critique of universalizing constructs of selfhood that underlie global citizenship discourse. These assumptions obscure reflection on dynamics of social class privilege that shape global citizenship activism and situate global citizenship education as a potentially counter-productive neoliberal discourse. The article concludes with recommendations for practitioners interested in developing a more self-reflective and critical global citizenship education.

In this article we argue for sustained and contextualized exposure to a variety of musics as a valuable means of developing intercultural approaches in music education as well as in teacher education, approaches which integrate more norm-critical perspectives. Musical diversity in music education concerns issues of participation, citizenship and interaction, not just a presence and representation of differences. It is also about how institutions need to change to reflect the diversity of the society in which we now live, leading to both broadened knowledge, and broadened interest in music. Music education needs to consciously be developed in such a way that it reflects--and is a dynamic part of-- the society we live in today. [This paper was presented at the 9th International Symposium on the Sociology of Music Education (2015).]

Social work has professional and academic standards consistent with transgender affirmative education and practice. Nevertheless, a growing body of research suggests that transgender issues are largely absent from social work education, resulting in practitioners who are uninformed or biased against transgender issues. The present study expands the literature through a mixed methods study exploring perceptions of transgender issues in social work education from the perspectives of transgender social work students (n = 97). Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal barriers to transgender affirmative social work education including (1) transphobic microaggressions within classroom and field settings, (2) the absence of transgender specific education and expertise, and (3) the general lack of visibility of transgender issues. Recommendations for transgender affirmative social work education are provided.

Based on a sociocultural approach to adult learning and poststructural feminist theories, this study draws on interviews with 11 married Vietnamese women to explore the higher education learning experiences of Vietnamese immigrant women in Taiwan. On the basis of their husbands' permission and support, Vietnamese immigrant women embraced the instrumental value of education and pursued higher education to play their expected motherhood roles. During the higher education learning process, the women persevered in learning with resilience, negotiated their voices and cultural identity, and fulfilled multiple roles. Participating in and even completing higher education in Taiwan empowered these women through learning based on their bicultural competence.

Despite a recent focus on the mental health of students, primary and middle school mental health education in China has been hampered by a lack of resources and inadequate professional training. This study assessed the mental health education competency of primary and middle school head teachers using the Mental Health Education Competency Questionnaire, a measure based on data from documentary analysis, behavioral event interviews (BEIs), and expert judgment. Factor, reliability, and validity analysis of this questionnaire were conducted. Through these analyses, seven structural dimensions of mental health education competency were found: mental health education skill, career growth, personality charm, occupational tendency, achievement feature, student perspective, and professional knowledge. This questionnaire will improve hiring and evaluation processes and, therefore, improve mental health education.

We analyze the diminishing correlations between education expenditure and learning outcomes to address two fundamental questions: Do education systems with different levels of education spending have different student achievement levels? If so, at what amount of education spending does the relationship between increased expenditure and student achievement differ? Using data from a large group of countries around the world, we find that the association between education spending and student performance in mathematics is statistically significant among systems that spend below a threshold of US$8,000 per student annually (in purchasing power parity). Controlling for average income (GDP) per capita and income inequality, our estimates suggest that education spending is associated with increased student performance only among systems that spend below this threshold, with mean student achievement approximately 14 points higher on the PISA scale for every additional US$1,000 spent.

Amidst the debates surrounding teacher quality and preparation programs, the edTPA (education Teaching Performance Assessment) has emerged to assess future teachers through a portfolio-based certification process. This study offers the perspective of three faculty members who participated in an experimental configuration of edTPA implementation for student teachers in Childhood Bilingual Education, Bilingual Special Education, and TESOL in a large teacher education program. This article highlights implications of the edTPA for bilingual education and TESOL students and faculty. The findings reveal how the edTPA does not directly address teaching bilingually and the resulting ramifications of teacher candidates' clinical experience and preparation to work with emergent bilinguals.

The aim of this study is to determine if approaches to learning and academic motivation together predict grade point averages (GPAs) of students who study at Primary School Education and Preschool Education in Turkey and of students who study at Early Childhood Education in the US. The first group of participants included 166 third- and fourth-year students at Georgia Southern University's Early Childhood Education Department during the 2014 spring semester. The second group of participants included 455 third- and fourth-year students who study at Canakkale 18 Mart University's Primary School Education and Preschool Education Departments during the 2013 spring semester. It was found that approaches to learning and academic motivation together did not predict GPA of students who studied in Turkey or the US.

This paper reviews, analyzes, and reflects upon two important reports released in 2013, both discussing research evidence for the value of dance education or arts education more generally, among school-aged students. One report was created by a large dance education advocacy and support group in the USA, the National Dance Education Organization; the other came from the European-based Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, affiliated with the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Studying the two reports next to each other brings into focus important issues facing the field, especially distinctions between advocacy and research, and between values and facts, along with the impact of such distinctions on research questions and methodologies selected to pursue them. The author examines and challenges not only ideas in the reports, but also her own professional choices during a long career as dance educator and researcher.

In this article we explore the way in which policy texts are positioned in a selection of higher education journal articles. Previous research has suggested that policy implementation studies have taken an uncritical approach to researching policies. Based on an analysis of articles published in higher education and policy journals in 2011, we argue that whilst these criticisms do appear to be valid, there is a bigger problem with the ways that policy texts are analysed and used in higher education research. This is that rather than subjecting particular policy texts to a sustained analysis, the majority of articles appear to focus on having an impact on policies that are very broadly conceived. We explore the implications of this and conclude by calling for more sustained, in-depth, analytical and critical research into the development and impact of higher education policies on higher education practices.

Members of the technology and engineering education community have provided a clear message that (Standards for Technological Literacy) STL provides multiple opportunities to teach engineering concepts within K-12 education. This article will review recent research within technology education and the technological literacy standards ("Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology/ STL, ITEA/ITEEA, 2000/2002/2007") to illustrate how technology education is positioned to address 21st century skills while simultaneously teaching engineering design to promote technological literacy. As the field of technology education reaches the intersection between embracing engineering design as a content focus and seizing opportunities to integrate subjects of science, engineering, and mathematics with technology education (STEM) it is important to identify the greater purpose of technology education.

This narrative inquiry concerns preschool education in the USA. It describes and analyses the barriers and possibilities for inclusion/exclusion that educators and parents of young children in a West Virginian community believe that it poses. The researchers present a case study designed to examine the context of inclusive education as revealed in 15 educators' and parents' narratives and observations of universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) practice. Due to semi-market-based orientations, new UPK structures, and perceptions of acceptable roles for parents and educators, possibilities for advocacy, and inclusive education often went unrealised. Based on these data, the researchers offer suggestions for how teacher education might be further developed to reconceptualise advocacy as inclusive education created in part through a praxis orientation and deliberative relationships between homes and schools.