Education & Pedagogy

As part of the ongoing planning and debate around the next set of global development goals to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals, in July 2012 the UN Secretary General commissioned "a high level panel of eminent persons" from 27 countries to make recommendations on the development agenda beyond 2015. After conducting extensive national, regional and global consultations, and receiving input from a vast array of civil society organisations, business leaders, the scientific and academic community and individuals, the panel issued its recommendations in May 2013 (UN 2013). The High-Level Panel (HLP) Report includes a series of important recommendations on the post-2015 education agenda as part of a proposed new global goal entitled "Provide Quality Education and Lifelong Learning". The HLP recommended four national targets around this goal, with the particular percentage increases, indicated as "x%", to be taken up by countries in consideration of their particular challenges and circumstances. The targets are as follow: (1) Increase by x% the proportion of children able to access and complete pre-primary education; (2) Ensure every child, regardless of circumstance, completes primary education able to read, write and count well enough to meet minimum learning standards; (3) Ensure every child, regardless of circumstance, has access to lower secondary education and increase the proportion of adolescents who achieve recognised and measurable learning outcomes to x%; and (4) Increase the number of young and adult women and men with the skills, including technical and vocational, needed for work by x%. This Forum contribution offers the joint views of the Basic Education Coalition (BEC) and the Global Campaign for Education-US (GCE-US) in strong support of the HLP's education recommendations. The authors present a summary of their joint recommendations for strengthening and advancing the HLP recommendations at the end of this article.

Background: Preschool physical education has been largely unexplored by researchers. This article examines the meaning of the term "physical education", in relation to preschool contexts, to 14 practitioners working at three preschool settings in Scotland. Our focus on preschool physical education reflects a change in the language associated with young children's physical education in Scottish educational policy. The recently implemented "Curriculum for Excellence" refers to "physical education" in relation to preschool education, whereas the previous Scottish preschool curriculum referred to "physical development and movement". Methods: The study employed a poststructural type of discourse analysis concerned with identifying patterns in language use. Research methods employed were observations and interviews. Findings: Practitioners generally indicated that they were uncomfortable with the term "physical education" in relation to preschool contexts. Terms they preferred included "physical play", "exercise" and "health and wellbeing". Drawing on developmental discourses, they tended to associate "physical education" with schools, positioning it as something more formal and structured than what preschool children would (or should) experience. It seemed that, for some practitioners, their privileging of play clashed with the notion of "physical education". Conclusion: We suggest that researchers and policy-makers need to be aware that using the terms "physical education" or "PE" with preschool practitioners may be a problematic endeavour. Consulting with preschool practitioners is important for understanding why particular language, discourses and practices associated with physical education may be supported or resisted in preschool contexts. Furthermore, we suggest that preschool practitioners should critically reflect on taken-for-granted developmental discourses that position preschool children as "too young" for particular experiences.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively affected such populations as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) individuals, people of color, and the disabled. The social ecological model is introduced as a way of offering sexuality educators and school administrators a way of thinking more broadly about how to achieve sexual health through sexuality education efforts inside and outside of the school environment. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses critical analysis of current and historical school-based sexuality education methods and curricula used in the USA. Authors use both academic journals and their own expertise/experience teaching sexuality education in the USA to analyze and critique the sources of sexuality education information and curricula used in schools. Findings: Historically, sexuality education in school settings in the USA has been biased and has generally not offered an educational experience fostering sexual health for all students. There are now welcome signs of reform and movement toward a more inclusive and progressive approach, but there is still some way to go. Sexuality education programs in schools need to be further and fundamentally reformed to do more to foster sexual health particularly for LGBTQ individuals, students of color, and people with disabilities. Practical implications: This paper offers sexuality educators ways of addressing structural issues within the sexuality education curriculum to better serve all students to increase the quality of their sexual health. Integrating critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education can increase students' sexual health along physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. Originality/value: This paper provides historical analysis along with the identification of structural difficulties in the sexuality education curriculum and proposes both critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education as ways of addressing sex and relationships education.

The thematic justification is due to the fact that the problem of inclusive education implementation in the modern period is very popular and requires close examination. Object of the article is to determine the conditions of formation of social successfulness of students with disabilities in the system of continuous inclusive education on the basis of value approach. Basic methods of research are the study of research and methodological materials and regulatory documentation, analysis and synthesis, interpretation of findings; main research approach is axiological value approach implementable based on the principles of continuity, consistency and purposefulness. The study revealed and tested the conditions of formation of social successfulness of students with disabilities on the basis of value approach: ensuring the continuity of formation of social successfulness of persons with disabilities within the multilevel system of inclusive education "family-preschool education--general education--additional education of children--secondary professional education--higher professional education--further professional education"; creation of the system of continuous inclusive education taking into account the peculiarities of the medical and social models of disability in students; organized work of a teacher with the use of special methods and means of education that correspond to the individual peculiarities of students with disabilities; activities of an educational organization related to the creation of special conditions for training and education of students and ensuring the mutual understanding between the subjects of educational process; focused training of future and practicing teachers for fork with students with disabilities in the mode of inclusion implementation. Materials of the article can be useful for teachers of the system of training and further training of pedagogical personnel and provide the basis for the concepts on implementation of inclusion in multilevel and continuous educational system of Bashkortostan.

One of the major concerns of employers of labour in this information age is the recruitment of employees with requisite computerized office skills to fit into the various organization's jobs and positions. In Agricultural education, acquisition of these computerized office skills do not only depends on whether one is able to fulfill the paper requirements of specific jobs but also how one practically stands relative to others within a group of job seekers. In other words, acquisition of computerized office skills describes the possession of the requisite office job performance competencies by Agricultural Education graduates. Thus, the purpose of the study was to find out the computerized office skills required by Agricultural Education students of Colleges of Education for employment in agribusiness organizations in Enugu State. A survey research design was adopted for the study. A total of 176 respondents were studied with no sampling. A structured questionnaire was used for data gathering. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was 0.85 using Cronbach Alpha method while three lecturers carried out face validation of the instrument. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Mean statistic was employed to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses. It was found that Agricultural education students from Colleges of Education in Enugu State require computerized office skills to be employed in contemporary agribusiness offices after graduation. Findings showed that the computerized office skills required by Agricultural Education students of Colleges of Education for employment are word processing skills, database management skills and internet utilization skills. It was recommended among others that the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) should as a matter of urgency lay emphasis on skills acquisition and introduction of computing and information technology in Agricultural Education curriculum of Colleges of Education.

This study extends the comparative model of country groups to analyse the cross-national trends in the higher education expansion and opportunities. We use descriptive data on characteristics and outcomes of higher education systems in different countries groups, including the liberal market countries, the social democratic countries, the Mediterranean countries, the German-speaking countries, the Northern states, and the East Asian societies. At the theoretical level, we assess the validity of the maximally maintained inequality (MMI) theory in the cross-national contexts. We confirm the MMI theory in general patterns of the expansion of higher education opportunities; however, we argue that it is not sufficient to provide accounts on specific country differences in the strength of the relationship between participation rates and inequality of opportunities. Therefore, we explain the divergences from the general pattern of higher participation being associated with lower inequality. We propose three main contenders including the private contribution to higher education, less hierarchical higher education systems, and the participation in the dual higher education system and greater public support and entitlements. We use a series of indicators on the trends of participation in higher education and different types of universities, the private contribution to higher education, and the trends of public support and entitlements to assess the three contenders. Thus, we argue that there are different patterns of the trade-offs between expansion and equalising opportunities. Most rapid expansion is observed in countries with high private contributions to higher education and little government support for students mainly because governments can then afford more places but equalisation of opportunities from the expansion in these systems is limited because of financial barriers to access to less well-off groups. Most egalitarian systems seem to have somewhat lower participation rates with lower fees and strong government support such as the social democratic and the German-speaking countries.

In April 2013, the "New England Journal of Higher Education" ("NEJHE") launched its "New Directions for Higher Education" series to examine emerging issues, trends, and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs, and practices. In this series feature Philip DiSalvio, dean of the College of Advancing & Professional Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has interviewed leaders from the field getting perspectives on such topics as: the future of the credit hour; student debt; enrolling and graduating more students from college; and raising educational attainment in the U.S. and around the world. In this installment, DiSalvio interviews Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), on why liberal education is essential to America's global future. AAC&U sees liberal education as a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. This liberal education approach, characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, is more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study. While there abounds proclamations about "the death of liberal arts," and reports about student debt and the unemployability of those with an undergraduate liberal education, many graduating from college these days are going to hold a number of different jobs in their lives, and many of those jobs have not yet been invented. For a world like that, what's the best education? It appears to be a very general education that enables students to think critically. It is with the clarification of these issues that the interview with Carol Geary Schneider provides a perspective. [Support in writing this series is provided by the "New England Journal of Higher Education" Staff.]

The following papers dealing with education in Ireland are presented: "The Fortunes of Education as a Subject of Study and of Research in Ireland" (John Coolahan); "The Irish Charter Schools: The Grand Design in Principle and Practice" (Kenneth Milne); "Quaker Education in 18th and 19th Century Ireland" (Cyril G. Brannigan); "Images of Women in Nineteenth Century Schoolbooks" (Lorcan Walsh); "An Assessment of Rev. Professor Timothy J. Corcoran's Major Works in the Field of Irish Educational Historiography" (James G. Deegan); "St. Dominic's--The Rise and Fall of a Training College 1907-1924" (Finbarr O'Driscoll); "One Approach to Moral Education for Secondary Schools in the United States" (Gerald M. Reagan); "Language Manipulation: Doublespeak in Education" (Richard Pratte); "Some Curricular Aspects of Social and Civic Education in Ireland, 1966-1984" (Mairtin Fahy); "What Use Is Day Release?" (J. R. McCarthy); "Compensation for Deficiencies in the Second-Level System" (Tom Baum and Linda McLoughlin); "Summer Recreation Provision in America and Northern Ireland - A Comparative Overview" (Paul G. J. Anthony); "Rethinking the Nature of Educational Studies" (Padraig Hogan); "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of the Disciplines (Theorising about Theory of Education)" (Michael McKeown); "Some Philosophical Issues Relating to the Identification of Education with the Development of Reason" (Peter J. Gargan); "Predicting Success in First University Examinations in Home Economics Colleges of Education" (Eamonn O'Baiollain); "Imagination: That One Talent That Lies Buried" (Seamus V. O'Suilleabhain); and "School Choice and School Catchment: Post-Primary Education in Galway City" (Seamus Grimes). (RM)

The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress was asked to analyze various technological options for distance education, examine current developments, and identify how Federal, State, and local policies could encourage more efficient and effective use of technology in education. This report complements OTAs assessment of use of computers in elementary and secondary education; "Power On! New Tools for Teaching and Learning." Findings of the study include: (1) use of distance education in elementary and secondary education has increased dramatically over the past 5 years, but many students and teachers still do not have access to needed but distant experts and information; (2) rapid advances in technology are creating distance learning systems that are powerful, flexible, and increasingly affordable, but no one technology works for every application; (3) in most instances, distance learning appears to be as effective as face-to-face instruction in the classroom; (4) while reaching a small number of teachers today, distance learning will greatly affect the teaching force of tomorrow, requiring further training and institutional support; (5) state education agencies are both gatekeepers and catalysts for distance education; (6) federal and state regulations guiding the development of telecommunications infrastructure and services significantly affect distance education; and (7) federal funding for distance education has been important but modest. Four factors that will most affect the future of distance education are telecommunications policy; research, evaluation, and dissemination; support for teachers; and expansion of the infrastructure. Appendixes include a state-by-state profile of distance education activities across the nation; sample costs of transmission systems; a glossary of terms used in the report; information on obtaining contractor reports; and a list of participants at the Changing Telecommunications Technology and Policy Workshop held in February 1989. Photographs, diagrams, and project descriptions are provided throughout the report. (GL)

The article deals with the study of foreign experience in training engineering educators for modeling technological processes. It has been stated that engineering education is a field that is being dramatically developed taking into account the occurring changes in educational paradigms, global higher education space, national higher education systems, economics, society, etc. It has been indicated that the abundance of the latest information and communication technologies alter the approaches to training various specialists, and, in particular, engineering educators. It has been mentioned that engineering teacher education is undergoing significant development. The activities of the International Society for Engineering Education--IGIP have been justified. It has been found out that there is the vital need for those specialists able to combine the techniques of traditional teaching and innovative scientific achievements, design technical structures, be leader and facilitator of the education process. It has been defined that the activity of the society is aimed at providing engineering educators with relevant training that involves their obtaining the qualification that is accorded with European education standards. US experience in training engineering educators for professional activity has been analyzed. It has been specified that engineering education has become more integrated into the curricula of elementary, middle and high school because of the increasing focus on STEM subjects; the demand for engineering educators is dramatically growing at all the levels of the education system. The peculiarities of engineering educators' training have been demonstrated on the example of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute. It has been concluded that Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology Teacher Education is a rather interdisciplinary degree program and trains future engineering educators for a wide range of fields. The organization of the program is considerate and well-planned. It has been stated that in Great Britain future engineering educators should be able to apply innovative and less conventional teaching methodology, namely, via problem-based learning, virtual learning environment, etc. According to the mentioned above, the author has outlined the recommendations to improve engineering teacher education in Ukraine.

Context: The academic environment for athletic training is changing following the degree recommendations for professional education programs. Objective: To provide historical context by presenting definitions and information on doctoral degree programs in other health professions. Background: The National Athletic Trainers' Association called for a detailed analysis on doctoral education, and a workgroup was appointed by the Post-Professional Education Committee to fulfill this charge. Synthesis: Expert panel consensus. Data were extracted from a search of 38 databases in the University of Washington library, limiting results to full-text articles published in English between the years 2006 and 2016. Various supporting sources, including professional organizations, accrediting-body Web sites, and the US Department of Labor database, were used for regulatory and professional practice data. Two historical references were used to clarify definitions and provide context. Results: Many health professions began with apprenticeship or certificate models, professional growth led to progressive degree designations such that the majority have now adopted a professional doctorate educational model wherein the professional degree is the terminal degree for professional advancement. Some health professions use residency training as the graduate education equivalent for advanced-practice education, whereas others do not. Only nursing continues to offer professional education at the baccalaureate level. Recommendation(s): There is a growing need for research to further understand best practices in doctoral education and the educational routes athletic trainers pursue. Collection and analysis of new data and examination of past and present doctoral education programs will facilitate recommendations for the future of doctoral education in athletic training. Conclusion(s): Various postprofessional educational models exist among health professions, with different impacts on professional roles, clinical opportunities, student interest, research productivity, and faculty recruitment and retention. The recently created doctor of athletic training programs may be considered a hybrid model providing advanced training in both clinical and research skills.

Kauffman, Felder, Ahrbeck, Badar, and Schneiders (this issue) call for a more temperate approach to inclusion, arguing against its use in educating "all" students with disabilities. We argue in response that the issue should not be framed as "inclusion versus non-inclusion," asserting that our field would benefit by examining the alternatives that actually exist across the globe for educating children with and without disabilities. We first provide four concepts that are central to understanding how education is conceptualized and practiced on a global scale: (a) education for all (EFA), interpreted as nations valuing an educated citizenry; (b) primary and secondary education, discussed to make clear real differences in how these two periods of schooling are handled across nations; (c) tracking, the worldwide practice of ability grouping that affects the education of all students; and (d) comprehensive local schools, regionally centralized facilities educating all children, which offer the potential for greater equity. We follow the latter with five schooling "models" that represent the major educational options worldwide: (a) the selective schools model, which controls educational access, often with academic criteria; (b) the separate schools model, which tracks students into different facilities; (c) the tracked schools model, which stratifies students within the same facility; (d) the multi-tiered schools model, which starts with general education settings and curriculum, then provides interventions or programs as needed; and (e) the equity schools model, which uses general education settings and curriculum, providing supports as needed. We conclude with four points: (a) neither resource scarcity nor presumed limitations in general education capacity should preclude inclusive education; (b) the comprehensive local school provides a good base for enhancing equity in educational opportunity for students with and without disabilities; (c) special education is tracking, seriously impacting equity; and (d) inclusive schooling provides the best approach to EFA in the long run.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged in the last months of 2019, spread rapidly and has affected the whole world. The pandemic also affected higher education significantly, and face-to-face education in higher education institutions were suspended. Most universities have changed the teaching method from traditional to online education. Thus, more and more researchers focused on COVID-19 and distance education in higher education. The aim of the research was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education studies in the field of distance education. For this reason, the changes in distance education research in the pre-pandemic and the pandemic period were analyzed in terms of some performance variables. Two different meta-data sets, consisting of 1322 articles for the pre-COVID-19 period and 2103 for the COVID-19 period, obtained by querying the Web of Science database, were used for analysis. Vosviewer software were used for bibliometric analysis, while Harzing's Publish or Perish software was used for h-index calculation. Publications from the two different periods were compared according to researcher(s), publication, journal, institution, and country criteria using citation analysis. The citation analysis showed that the most cited researchers of the pre-pandemic period were A.Bozkurt, B. Rienties, and D. U. Bolliger, while the most cited researchers of the post-pandemic period were C. Herodotou, J. C. Bonk and M.Y. Doo. Computer & Education ranked among the most-cited journal in the pre-pandemic period, while in the post-pandemic period, the most cited journal was Education and Information Technologies The most cited studies in the pre-pandemic period were conducted by researchers working at King Saud University and the University of South Africa, while in the post-pandemic period Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Indiana University were in the leading position. The results clearly show that COVID-19 has given a new direction to distance education.

In terms of scale, shock, and disenfranchisement, the disruption to formal education arising from COVID-19 has been unprecedented. Anecdotally, responses from teachers and educators around the world range from heightened caution to being inspired by distance education as the "new normal." Of all the challenges, face-to-face and formal teaching have been most heavily affected. Despite some education systems demonstrating resilience, a major challenge is sustaining quality and inclusiveness in formal education suddenly delivered at a distance. In probing these issues, this article profiles international perspectives on the role of open education in responding to the impact on formal school and higher education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We proceed by highlighting and analysing practices and case studies from 13 countries representing all global regions, identifying and discussing the challenges and opportunities that have presented themselves. Reports cover the period from the beginning of 2020 until 11 March 2021, the first anniversary of the COVID-19 outbreak as declared by the World Health Organization. In our comparative study, we identify seven key aspects of which three (missing infrastructure and sharing OER, open education and access to OER, and urgent need for professional development and training for teachers) are directly related to open education at a distance. After comparing examples of existing practice, we make recommendations and offer insights into how open education strategies can lead to interventions that are effective and innovative--to improve formal education at a distance in schools and universities in the future.

Since October 2018, researchers at the Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education at Dublin City University have been engaged in the Adult Religious Education and Faith Development (AREFD) project. The overarching aim of the project was to facilitate a re-energising of adult religious education and faith development in Ireland. Working amongst local faith communities with an academic research focus, an area of interest that has emerged is how the insights gained from AREFD project can contribute to initial teacher education, particularly involving students preparing for employment as post-primary religious educators. This paper will outline some of the key themes that emerged from the data gathered in phase two of the AREFD project as it pertains to the initial teacher education (ITE) of religious educators. In phase two, a total of fourteen semi-structured interviews/focus groups were conducted between December 2019 and April 2021, featuring twenty-two people from across the island of Ireland who have a wealth of experience in AREFD across diverse contexts. The purpose of these interviews was to gather together the rich insights from the depth of experience of the interviewees on practicalities and possibilities central to adult religious education. The contexts in which they have worked are all pertinent to both the post-primary Religious Education curriculum in the Republic of Ireland and wider related learning experiences, in Ireland and beyond. Four key findings from this phase of the AREFD project are reported upon in this paper: the specific realm of AREFD as distinct from school-based religious education and catechesis; the need for intentional investment in AREFD; the physicality of religion; collaboration, communication and connection. These findings may contribute to the reflections of and course development by initial teacher education providers as they seek to offer the highest quality opportunities to their students, in the understanding that their students are adults themselves and that education is a lifelong endeavour.