Education & Pedagogy

Teaching is at a crossroads where traditional methods and rationale for pedagogical practices are rightfully under attack. However, the fight is currently transpiring in the professional ranks of current classroom teachers. Now is the time to make progressive inroads by restructuring teacher education. Reformulating teacher education will require reimagining six separate yet related elements within the field: Awareness, Reflection, Pedagogy, Texts, Culturally and Linguistically Relevant Teaching and Learning, and Field Experiences. An overhaul of this collection of areas of concern in teacher preparation can pave the way for novice educators to thrive in classrooms evermore acknowledged to be characterized by diversity. Additionally, the more meaningful the evolution of teacher education programs brings about an understanding that diversity is not solely the realm of the black/white binary but instead focuses on all races, ethnicities, religions, languages, economic statuses, genders, neurodiversity, and sexual orientations to name a few.

This article explores the shift towards place-based education, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, advocating for innovative, flexible teaching methods. Integrating local environments and communities into education fosters active citizenship and social engagement, particularly benefiting Indigenous communities. Reflecting on personal experiences, the article emphasizes the intersectionality of sustainability and place-based education, promoting meaningful educational experiences that empower students as agents of change. It dives into the benefits, challenges, and implications of incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy, advocating for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable education practices. Through this holistic approach, schools can nurture environmentally conscious citizens deeply rooted in their cultural heritage, driving societal change towards justice, equity, and respect. [Note: The issue number (1) shown on some pages of the PDF is incorrect. The correct issue number is 2.]

This paper explores teacher educators' endeavours to enhance their students' cultural competence in the context of Danish teacher education. It analyses how these endeavours resonate with the theoretical principles of critical multiculturalism and multicultural education. The study employed dyadic interviews as its primary method for data collection. The findings revealed that the educators felt constrained by the lack of awareness among politicians and policymakers of the significance of multicultural education, which made it difficult for them to develop in-depth knowledge and critical views on culture among students. The educators emphasized a need for a holistic approach that encompasses systemic changes and a shift in mindset toward critical multiculturalism in teacher education. This study calls for more institutional accountability to invest in preparing future teachers to work in multicultural classrooms.

Under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, individualized education program (IEP) annual goals are required to enable students with disabilities to be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum and to address other educational needs. This study reports findings from a content analysis of the annual goals in 88 IEPs for K-12 students with extensive support needs. Results reflect a lack of comprehensive academic content goals to promote involvement and progress in the general education curriculum, and limited opportunities for students to develop skills associated with self-determination. Findings also show a focus within goals on student compliance rather than the development of meaningful skills and knowledge. Implications for research and practice are provided.

Comprehensive sex education is one of the most critical tools for providing young people with the knowledge they require to make wise decisions. Sex education has a reputation for being delicate due to the intimate and personal nature of the topic. A survey involved 45 administrators (including principals, vice principals and heads of expertise), 15 teachers of social science disciplines and 15 classroom teachers. The results indicated that the importance of sex education for ethnic minority students was not appreciated by teachers and that the implementation level of sex education content and its form were low and ineffective. The study highlights topics that educators must consider when establishing strategic plans for successful and acceptable sex education in a societal context or with ethnic minority students.

The targets of reaching the benefits expected from inclusive education and making necessary changes and arrangements can only be achieved by clearly determining the current situation regarding inclusive education. This study aimed to examine the competencies of classroom teachers in Turkey regarding inclusive education in the context of their perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes. A total of 128 classroom teachers of third-grade (20) and fourth-grade (108) participated in the study. We employed the 'Classroom Teachers' Awareness of Inclusive Education Scale' as a data collection tool in this study carried out in accordance with the phenomenological method. The data were subjected to descriptive analysis. Apart from the generally positive awareness of classroom teachers towards inclusive education, it appears to be necessary that students' social-emotional skills be supported so that inclusive education can be fully achieved.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (hereinafter referred to as the RTE Act, 2009) came into effect since 1st April 2010, pursuant to the 86th Amendment to the Constitution of India (2002), which promises elementary education as a fundamental right. It makes legally binding on the State to ensure free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6-14 years all over India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The 1st April 2020 marked the decadal anniversary of the RTE Act. The present study aims to examine the achievements and gaps in the implementation of the Act after a decade, with the objectives of gaining insights into the major hindrances towards its successful implementation, with a future roadmap based upon the recurring challenges.

This review focuses on a subset of literature on the arts and arts education that explores how learning is conceptualized and enacted in the context of out-of-school time (OST) arts education environments that primarily engage Black, Indigenous, and young People of Color in the United States. The review is grounded in principles of critical qualitative inquiry and sets forth four propositions, which represent key practices from OST arts education with a focus on equity and diversity in education: creating representations, exploring identity and narrative, practicing creativity, and collaborating as an outcome. The discussion offers an alternative from deficit perspectives on youth and toward asset-focused, culturally sustaining perspectives that value the artistic strengths young people bring to a learning environment.

This systematic literature review examines the panorama of interculturality in rural contexts of bilingual education in Latin America. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in Latin America and identify key themes, challenges, and gaps in the field. The review highlights the importance of recognizing and valuing linguistic and cultural diversity, particularly in marginalized rural communities. It also discusses the lack of adequate resources and educational policies as significant challenges to promoting intercultural bilingual education in these contexts. The findings underscore the need for further research and the development of effective strategies to enhance intercultural understanding and bilingual education in Latin American rural areas.

This article discusses the digital transformation of higher education in Egypt as distance education was abruptly implemented in early 2020. For eight months after that, 38,784 media items were crowdsourced reflecting spontaneous opinions, expectations, sentiments and experiences with the new digital learning. This random sample was drawn from digitised and online news articles, TV and radio programmes, and social media posts by students, parents, academics, education experts and media professionals who represented the media and public opinion. This article recommends the people-process-technology framework for the digital transformation of higher education based on previous research and digital archival research findings. It highlights its components and integrated approach, and discusses its implementation in Egypt and developing countries. Moreover, the framework will be the foundation for further research in higher education's digital transformation, operations, human resources and information technology.

As the student population continues to become more culturally diverse, it is imperative for teachers to cultivate greater self-efficacy in their instructional practices. To gain a clearer picture of the association between teacher education and multicultural self-efficacy, we conducted a multilevel modeling analysis on data from TALIS 2018. Our study revealed a strong correlation between teachers' self-efficacy in general and their multicultural self-efficacy while highlighting significant differences between the two constructs. We also found that teachers who received multicultural education during their initial teacher education and professional development demonstrated higher levels of multicultural self-efficacy. However, the impact of initial teacher education and professional development was relatively modest. The practical implications for teacher training and policymaking as well as for future research are discussed.

Transversal competences are essential for the sustainability of higher education degrees, particularly programmes which prepare students to serve as educators at critical developmental stages. This study aimed to determine the empathic profiles of 206 university teachers in Early Childhood and Primary Education degrees at a Spanish university. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index scale was used to measure empathy whilst data was also collected on sociodemographic and work-related information. The results revealed that the participants showed high empathy values across all dimensions except for empathic stress, indicating signs of healthy empathy. Additionally, differences were observed according to gender. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of the benefits of fostering empathy as a transversal competence in both teachers and students in teacher education programmes.

Starting with the question of why there is so much religiously motivated resistance against compulsory sex education, this article explores and discusses entanglements of norms about sexuality, gender, and religion in education. Based on predominantly Swedish data, the aim of the paper is to offer perspectives on connections between religiosity and discourses about sexuality. The first part centres around religious resistance against compulsory sex education. The second part draws on phenomenology of religions to explore roots for this religiously motivated resistance. In the third part, the perspective is reversed, discussing how and why secular education dismisses religious perspectives and values. The conclusion is that awareness of how arguments are based on differing presumptions about religion offers opportunities for dialogue, and that considering human existence as vulnerable, interdependent, and responsible might be a valuable religious contribution to sex education.

In recent years, vocational education reform has become an issue of common concern for the government, academia, and the education sector, as the difficulty in finding employment for Chinese university students and the labor shortage of senior technical personnel continue to intensify. This study conducted a systematic review of the literature on vocational education reform in the past decade, analyzing 61 pieces of literature from two major aspects, namely reform research objects and reform research directions, during the period of 2014-2023. The results of the analyses show that the current major directions of vocational education reform are the combination of teaching and practice, multi-skilling, teacher enhancement, and policy reform. The main research objects include overall vocational education, hierarchical vocational education, professional and curricular reforms, and reform studies for different provinces and regions.

This article underscores the importance of contextualization when analysing values education. The interplay between societal values and those imparted within an educational context significantly affect the interpretation and comprehension of values education. To address this concern, I strategically position sociologist Tiffany Mary Jones framework, 'The Four Orientations Framework,' within Swedish context. The critical examination of Jones' framework and subsequent applications, reveals that these approaches do not fully capture the complex relationship between societal values and values education. Thereafter, three constructive conclusions emerge in response to this initial critique. Firstly, an argument arises for untangling values from function during the analysis of values education. Second, the function of values education is determined by the relation between societal values and the values conveyed within education. Lastly, I emphasize the importance of recognizing and navigating dissonance within and between different value systems.