Education & Pedagogy

Distance education has experienced soaring development over the last decade. With millions of students in higher education enrolling in distance education, it becomes critically important to understand student learning and experiences with online education. Based on a large sample of 11,351 students taught by 1,522 instructors from 29 colleges and universities, this study investigates the factors that impact student evaluation of instruction in distance education, using a two-level hierarchical model. Key findings reveal that in a distance education setting, gender and class size are no longer significant predictors of quality of instruction. However, factors such as reasons for taking the course, student class status and instructor's academic rank have a significant impact on student evaluation of learning and instruction. Findings from this study offer important implications for institutional administrators on utilizing the evaluation results and on developing strategies to help faculty become effective online instructors.

In the ten years following 9/11 there was unprecedented interest in, and commitment to, religious education in the school curriculum in England. Politicians, academics, and professionals all argued that learning about religion could foster "social cohesion" and even prevent terrorism. Accordingly there were a number of national and international initiatives to develop religious education as a part of intercultural education. With a focus on England, but taking full consideration of landmark transnational collaborations, this article examines developments in policy and professional discourse concerning religious education that occurred after, and sometimes as a direct result of, the events of 9/11. It is argued that this emphasis, often instigated at the behest of politicians, led temporarily to an increased status of the curriculum subject in England, but that this influence may have also led to increased instrumentalism, and with it, associated risk to the subject's intellectual autonomy and integrity. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

During the Bologna process, from 2003 to 2006, degree programmes, including teacher education curricula, were developed in line with the two-tier system--the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and modularization. The purpose of the present study is to contribute to the development of teacher education profiling measures by comparing the Finnish and Estonian curricula covering initial teacher education. The aim was to analyze and compare studies in the science of education as part of the class teacher education programs through the development of a sufficiently universal meta-structure. The written curricula were subjected to discipline-based content analysis, which covered the main elements of the curricula and the contents of the theoretical substance studies in the science of education. The resulting differences and similarities between the Finnish and the Estonian curricula are reported. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Popular education movements can be dated back to the religious heresies of the Middle Ages but only become well-formed movements following the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. In this article I outline the scope and nature of some of the most effective of these movements which have come to inform the concept of the "public sphere" advanced by Jurgen Habermas. It continues with a brief description of contemporary popular education movements dating from the anti-imperialist liberation struggles of the mid-twentieth century and the post Freirean Latin American movements and asks: what was the legacy of the older popular education movements? It concludes with an assessment of the current direction of higher education made by Slavoj Zizek, as "producers of expert knowledge" and compares it with the "Popular Universities" that have emerged in Venezuela in the last decade. (Contains 1 note.)

Forty percent of undergraduate students are non-traditional students. The purpose of this study was to identify what attracted the participant to physical education, identify what situational/social factors facilitated the career choice, and the beliefs of the participant about what it meant to be a physical educator. The study consisted of one male non-traditional student. Artifacts, observation, and interview methods were employed to gain an understanding of why the participant wanted to become a physical educator and what were the beliefs of the participant about physical education teaching or teachers. Findings indicated the participant was attracted to physical education by his love for physical activity, sport, and the chance to work with youth. His socialization into physical education was influenced by situational and social factors, such as positive experiences with a teacher/coach, positive support of family and friends, and his strong beliefs/values for physical education/teaching.

Education is oftentimes understood as a deeply ethical practice for the development of the person. Alternatively, education is construed as a state-enforced apparatus for inculcation of specific codes, conventions, beliefs, and norms about social and political practices. Though holding both of these beliefs about education is not necessarily mutually contradictory, a definite tension emerges when one attempts to articulate a cogent theory involving both. I will argue in this paper that Habermas's theory of discourse ethics, when combined with his statements on constitutional democracy and law, manifests this tension for formal education. Through a contrast with Dewey's social-liberal view of education on the one hand, and the procedural liberalism and its associated view of education, common to Rawls and others writing in the contemporary Anglo-American tradition on the other, the questions of what this means for education and why it matters are raised and addressed.

Framed by historical and contemporary discussions, this article reviews the principal foundations of meritocracy and uses the public University of California system as a point of departure for examining the connection between meritocracy and higher education within the context of the United States. Through consideration of four dimensions that inform the concept of meritocracy--merit, distributive justice, equality of opportunity, and social mobility--this review examines the underlying tenets of meritocracy to better understand how higher education functions within it. In "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society," Daniel Bell (1973) suggested that higher education would become a "defensive necessity." However, if colleges and universities are to serve as instruments for creating and expanding opportunity, then higher education must be more profound than simply being reduced to "defensive necessity," and it is important for researchers to examine more closely the theoretical concerns of meritocracy and the higher education implications. (Contains 5 footnotes.)

An intensification of interest in early childhood by government, parents, and employers, focuses primarily on the provision of private early childhood education services outside of the home. With a focus on New Zealand, the paper argues that the form of early education now promoted is a particular form of care and education that moves children away from family and community narratives embedded in the historical, cultural and humanist intentions of the national curriculum Te Whariki (Ministry of Education, 1996). It argues that current early childhood policy directions, largely driven by global economic agendas, pay scant regard to the lived experiences of children and families. Working with Ricoeur's narrative identity, Ricoeur's "capable subject" is considered in order to examine the emerging purposes and aims of early childhood education, with a particular focus on just institutions for children and families.

In this article, we address whether international student comparisons have changed the dynamics of French secondary education policy. We focus on the increasingly significant impact of the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD)'s "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA) on France, a country previously known for its aversion to international comparisons and its turbulent relationship with the OECD. We argue that not only are transnational pressures--in our study the perception of PISA--crucial determinants for the fate of potential reform measures, but also the capacity of the state to transform its education system and take corrective measures. Along these lines, we also examine the role of historically embedded guiding principles of education, in the French case most notably that of equality ("egalite"). We focus, in particular, on efforts of French policy-makers to emulate elements of the recent "PISA champion" Finland. (Contains 1 table and 21 notes.)

This paper reports some findings from an investigation of educational practice in ten (formal and informal) education for sustainability (EfS) initiatives, to characterise exemplary practice in school and community education for sustainability, considered crucial to Australia's future. The study focused on rural/regional Australia, specifically New South Wales sites in the Murray-Darling Basin (crucial to Australian agricultural economy, under substantial environmental threat, undergoing significant social and demographic change). The research used and explored new developments in practice theory, aiming to achieve innovative rich characterisations of individual and extra-individual (cultural, discursive, social, material) aspects of practice. The study aimed to derive implications for theory, policy and practice in relation to sustainability and EfS, practice theory, education, and more specifically education for the professions (including the initial education and continuing professional development of educators). (Contains 5 tables and 3 figures.)

This article documents the current classroom practice of creative arts education of respondent classroom teachers in the New South Wales Greater Western Region, Australia. The study provides a descriptive account of classroom practice in creative arts education through the employment of a quantitative methodology. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to teachers as the sole data collection instrument and analysed to identify innovative classroom practices that anticipate the needs and challenges of creative arts education and the young people it serves. A significant gap in the literature regarding the nature of creative arts education classroom practice was identified. The criticality that such a description of current practice be produced is asserted, with a view towards illuminating current classroom practices and working towards improved models and practices of creative arts education in K-6 classrooms. (Contains 1 table.)

The teaching environment in business schools has changed dramatically over the last decade. But the last comprehensive review of the scholarship of teaching was conducted more than a decade ago. Where and from whom do the best practices for teaching originate today? To answer this question, the authors examine marketing education scholarship between 2000 and 2009 by assessing individual and institutional productivity in the two primary marketing education journals, "Journal of Marketing Education" and "Marketing Education Review". Past findings that the most productive institutions for marketing education research were concentrated in the South no longer hold. In the last decade, interest in marketing education research is found at a large number of schools with most authors appearing only once in the two primary marketing education journals and most institutions having only one or two appearances. Higher levels of research productivity appear to be related to institutional mission. (Contains 7 tables.)

A key concept in contemporary Catholic educational discourse makes a distinction between religious education and catechesis. This distinction is based on the assumptions of faith commitment on the part of catechesis and the focus on cognitive outcomes on the part of religious education. Many official documents on Canadian Catholic school education, however, reflect an understanding that closely associated catechesis with religious education or fail to sufficiently distinguish between the two. The article argues that changes in contemporary culture make catechetical models of religious education problematic and that Catholic schools in Canada would be well served by an approach that emphasizes the educational goals of religious education. This is not to say that catechesis has no place in religious education but this is best achieved by making use of cognitive and effective outcomes in lesson planning and realizing that the school as a whole has many opportunities to foster catechesis.

Health education in New Zealand schools has a chequered history, peppered with controversy since its inclusion as a school subject in the early nineteenth century. In this paper we examine the trials and challenges faced by health education teachers over time, pointing to the particular components of this subject that are regarded as controversial and analysing the obstacles to its successful implementation. We briefly map the changing nature of health education across time, before discussing contemporary aims and purposes of health education. We suggest health education seeks to enable and equip children and young people with the knowledge, skills and motivation to make health enhancing choices for themselves and for others. To conclude, we explore future directions for health education, proposing several health competencies as viable options for a 21st century world.

This article addresses the dilemmas emerging from efforts to integrate human rights values within a peace education programme being carried out in a conflict situation. Although the article is largely theoretical, it is grounded in the author's reflections on a series of teacher workshops and his overall experiences conducting ethnographic research on issues of human rights and peace education in conflict and post-conflict situations, especially in his home country, Cyprus. The article outlines several interpretations and critiques of the human rights framework, offers an overview of human rights education and peace education, and then discusses two dilemmas that emerge from efforts to integrate human rights values within peace education programmes. Finally, it argues that an approach to human rights that is based on values and oriented towards praxis, with an emphasis on cross-cutting principles such as non-discrimination and equality, could perhaps be more compatible with peace education efforts.