Education & Pedagogy

This study provides a comprehensive global snapshot of wealth-based inequalities in higher education attendance. We draw on data from 117 countries to describe cross-national patterns in higher education attendance rates, disaggregated by wealth quintile and country income group. We then calculate four different indicators to quantify the size of wealth-based inequality in higher education attendance and completion for each country. Our findings point to large wealth-based inequalities in higher education attendance cross-nationally, which are: substantially larger than inequalities in secondary completion, larger in low- and middle-income countries than high-income countries, and negatively associated with national wealth. The results serve as a foundation for future studies on how country-level factors and policies exacerbate or reduce wealth-based inequalities.

Much has been written about the potential of micro-credentials to revitalise and modernise Australian higher education offerings, and to create forms of educational credit linked more meaningfully with industry. Proponents of micro-credentials speak from a range of standpoints: public education institutions, private companies, industry associations, governments, educational technology businesses and more. This review examines the neoliberal reasoning inherent in micro-credential-promoting discourse, both in Australia and globally. It shows that micro-credentials are conceived as a form of product innovation which increase the provider pool to include private companies and technology intermediaries, while students are cast as independent consumers, perpetually responsible for self-managing their own employability education, but this analysis finds student voices and perspectives are absent from the discourse.

The dominant response within higher education to the emergence of free online text- and graphic-generating software has been a concern with identifying AI usage in students' work. We argue that this is both a waste of time and neglects our educational responsibilities. A police-catch-punish approach to AI, as with the use of this process in relation to plagiarism, ignores the broader purposes of higher education. If higher education is understood as being a space for nurturing transformative relationships with knowledge, AI can be harnessed to enhance learning experiences. Such an approach would also enable a critical understanding of the limitations and ethical deliberations around AI usage. Those critical academics who emphasise transformative learning over surveillance-driven approaches are likely to foster more meaningful higher education experiences.

This paper explores the complex relationship between academic researchers working in the area of 'International Development and Education' and foreign intervention in the Global South. I make the case for stronger definitional links between 'colonialism' and 'development'. In this, I pay attention to how 'soft' and 'hard' sides of colonial strategy operated symbiotically and evidence parallel occurrences in Post 9/11 Western-led military/development activities. Drawing on 'education' examples, I reflect on our fields entanglements in the messy politics, partnerships and funding regimes of our unequal global order and the ways that we, as both researchers and practitioners, become 'implicated'. I also explore sites of counter-hegemony that span similar timeframes, including my engagements with popular education in social movements in Colombia, and make the case for a radical educational internationalism.

While much has been written about student movements against the neoliberal privatisation of education in Chile, less attention has been given to teacher activism around similar educational matters. In this article, we contribute to the field of teacher activism as a social movement to resist the global education reforms of neoliberal education policies/practices. Data for the study were generated through yarning, photo-yarning and testimonios, methods often deployed in Indigenous and mestiza feminist research. Basil Bernstein's theoretical work on pedagogic rights and democratic formations, initially developed in Chile, was used to analyse the data. Teacher activists argued that their collective struggles over what constitutes the public of public education, has interrupted the neoliberal agenda. However, battles over public education, its purposes, who should it serve, remain ongoing. New ways of privatising education are being enacted in Chile that are harder to resist, challenge and change.

The focus of this theoretical article is to critically analyze and expound upon the impact of educational and learning capitals on the education of gifted students in Jordan. The article begins by offering a comprehensive examination of the educational system in Jordan, and providing an overview of the present state of gifted education within the country, including the refugee challenges it faces and the expenditures made by both public and private educational institutions. This is followed by a detailed discourse on the ten educational and learning capitals in the context of gifted education in Jordan, utilizing relevant evidence-based literature as a basis. The article concludes by offering insights into the cost of gifted education, the definition and recognition of gifted individuals, teacher training, and the efficient utilization of educational resources for gifted students.

Internationalisation has gained prominence in debates on higher education and can be analysed from different perspectives, including cross-border higher education. Cross-border higher education entails relevant challenges, namely regarding its quality. This paper intends to discuss, based on a literature review, the link between cross-border higher education and quality assurance, namely the role quality assurance may have in contributing to a quality cross-border educational offer. 79 documents (indexed in Scopus or Web of Science) published between 1998 and 2019 were content analysed. The results show that both internal and external quality assurance are relevant topics when discussing cross-border higher education and a means to stimulate the overall quality of this educational offer. Moreover, to be effective, quality assurance must rely on cooperation and mutual trust between importing and exporting countries, including their quality assurance agencies.

In light of socio-political dynamics at play in contemporary Thailand, higher education (HE) is becoming an important site for citizenship learning. This article interrogates priorities and practices of civic/citizenship education in Thai universities. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with leadership in five public universities across Thailand. Findings suggest that civic/citizenship education serves various goals. Despite the call for HE to respond to societal crisis, the discursive practices of formal civic/citizenship education in Thai universities function not only to maintain the state ideology by producing responsible citizens but also serve to supply adaptable and voluntary-minded employees for the market. Thai universities also appropriates civic/citizenship learning for their own institutional branding. In the context where democracy is undermined, civic/citizenship education is depoliticised.

This essay explores Jacques Maritain's philosophy of education as a means to better understand Pope Francis's recent promotion of a "Global Compact on Education," and in particular Francis's commitment "to make human persons in their value and dignity the center of every educational program." After situating Maritain's philosophy of education in relation to Catholic emphasis on the importance of "integration" -- from Maritain's time to the present -- it examines Maritain's understanding of the aims of education and some features of what the author calls Maritain's "personalist pedagogy." Concrete examples of how Maritain's vision might be pursued in the classroom and in college curricula today are provided in conclusion, as well as some consideration of how Maritain's work can help up to understand Francis's teaching on education.

This article reports on a case study that collected qualitative data from seven teacher educators in two universities, respectively, from China and Scotland. Drawing on the rationales for, and ideologies about internationalisation from postcolonial perspectives, our data analysis highlights the participants' divergent views about the rationale for internationalising teacher education: for quality assurance, for intercultural dialogues, or for developing 'great teachers anywhere'. Such divergent views reflect the teacher educators' different socio-cultural contexts, and the different agendas of teacher education and higher education in the two research sites. To internationalise teacher education for a global and multicultural context, we suggest teacher educators in both Scottish and Chinese contexts deconstruct their views and assumptions about Western education and promote intercultural dialogues. This also requires institutional support and thoughtful alliances among different stakeholders to ensure well-informed policies and strategies.

Online special education courses and programs are widely available and provide pathways for both initial certification and in-service professional learning. Despite the wider availability of online special educator courses and programs due to the COVID pandemic, very limited research about special education candidates and educator preferences for online courses is available. This study included 965 special education teachers and paraprofessionals who completed an online survey of their preferences about various special education course formats and lengths. Results indicated that special educator course format and length preferences varied and that fully online courses are not uniformly the top choice. Findings also suggested that shorter online courses (e.g., 7-weeks) are best suited to knowledge-based topics, while skills-based courses benefit from longer course duration (e.g., 15-weeks). Implications for special education program delivery are discussed.

This research aimed at improving sexual education in a society where it is held as a taboo. The study explored parents' and teachers' views and practices related to sex education. Thirty individual interviews were conducted among twenty parents and ten teachers using a convenient sampling approach. We developed the "Views & Practices in Sex Education" (VPSE) questionnaire to collect data that were thematically analyzed. Most parents and teachers had inadequate knowledge of sex education and viewed it as touch forms, taking a ritual bath, and hijab/veiling. The parents unlike teachers opposed sex education at schools. The participants were more concerned about the risks than the benefits of sexual education. We recommend a gradual societal change through mobilizing social and electronic media, religious scholars, counseling psychologists, educators, and government authorities.

This study examines the impact of educational attainment on employment and earnings in Nepal. Using the Nepal Labour Force Survey 2017-2018 cycle, we employ an extended earnings function derived from the foundational Mincer equation to estimate returns to education. The results underscore the overall positive impact of education (1.76, 3.73, 7.68 and 11.00% increase in earnings by primary, secondary, bachelor's and master's degrees, respectively), which is lower than the average observed in other low- and middle- income countries, except in higher education. The results also indicate persisting disparities for females and disadvantaged groups. The study emphasizes the need for strategic interventions, improved educational infrastructure and inclusive policies to foster equitable opportunities.

The recent emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has significantly influenced different fields, including education. One notable example is ChatGPT, an AI-driven large language model (LLM) developed by OpenAI. This tool holds potential for supporting both teachers and students in the teaching and learning process. While some fields of education have benefitted from using ChatGPT to enhance learning, there is a gap in the literature concerning how physical education teachers can benefit from using tools such as ChatGPT. This article explores the capabilities and practicality of the generative AI chatbot for supporting teaching and learning in physical education. It also shares tips on how to thoughtfully and ethically use ChatGPT and discusses its limitations.

National physical activity guidelines recommend that school-age youths participate in fitness-related activities, such as: (a) aerobic, (b) anaerobic, and (c) mobility activities at least three days per week. Physical education provides students with the opportunity to develop competencies in fitness knowledge and skills. Fitness is an established learning outcome within the National Physical Education Standards and supports physical literacy development. However, a myriad of barriers exists for teaching fitness within physical education including limited learning time in physical education, limited equipment, and a lack of teacher knowledge and/or teaching behaviors, as well as misconceptions about fitness activities and appropriate progressions. This article presents a novel approach for the planning and implementation of fitness content using fitness buckets (movement, power, strength, and conditioning) and provides real-world examples of how to apply the principles within secondary physical education.