Education & Pedagogy

Contextualizing science and STEM learning through agriculture can bring both science and agriculture to new audiences, and improve understanding of both fields. Such agriscience education benefits from informal education resources to support classroom work, but teachers may struggle to locate cost-effective free-choice learning resources in their area. This case study categorizes the various agriscience nonformal education resources that Gainesville, Florida, has to offer within the city limits and open to the general public. We found destinations and events through web searches, brochures, and ideas from local residents. Using constant comparative methods, we categorized 90 resources in 11 categories. While our study took place in a well-resourced part of the world, many resources we identified could exist with minimal infrastructure. This categorization will serve as a guide for teachers looking for local field trip destinations and informal agriscience education resources and for researchers interested in the spectrum of informal agricultural education or science education resources in their area.

Despite many nations having policies that mandate inclusive education for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the levels of implementation vary. In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of the grassroots' interpretation of inclusive education for students with ASD in order to identify local contextual barriers and enablers of inclusion. In line with this research agenda, a study was conducted with 87 special education teachers in Penang, Malaysia to identify factors integral to their attitudes towards inclusive education for students with ASD. The analysis, which considered demographic factors, knowledge of ASD and societal attitudes, pointed to societal attitudes as a strong predictor of the special education teachers' perceptions towards inclusive education for students with ASD. Given the findings, the ways to promote inclusive education for students with ASD in Malaysia and other developing nations alike were discussed.

The current Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which contains the most recent reauthorization of the McKinney Vento Act (M-V), places a focus on homeless youth that is intended to facilitate access to K-12 education, higher education and eliminate barriers in-between the two. Through each reauthorization of the McKinney Vento Act since its enactment in 1987, homeless youth have gained more and more access to key school personnel and academic support. Yet homeless youth still face barriers to accessing education and postsecondary success. Currently homeless liaisons, specially designated people in K-12 settings, work daily to assist youth who are homeless with issues surrounding barriers to housing, transportation, public education and higher education access. This paper examines homeless liaisons along with other school personnel as natural mentors with practices found in the McKinney Vento Act to support this vulnerable, invisible population with appropriate steps to eliminate the youth homeless to adult homeless pipeline.

An education equity mindset is fundamental to assuring all students are supported to achieve to their highest capacity. We have identified six attributes of an educational equity mindset critical to assuring teachers' practices and professional choices are aligned with meeting the needs of all students. In an effort to promote education equity mindset among teachers we determined there was a need to first empirically document the construct. We surveyed 452 teachers in the southern region of the United States. Our results indicate that we effectively measured our definition of education equity mindset. We found multiple differences in the mindset attributes based on personal and professional variables. Our data indicate that teachers may hold competing or fragmented mindsets. Our research uncovered multiple needed lines of research and implications for teacher preparation and professional development.

There are many similarities between the Nordic countries of Sweden and Finland, but they have made different decisions regarding their teacher-education policies. This article focuses on how the objectives of teacher education, particularly the vision of the ideal teacher, have changed in Sweden and Finland in the period after the Second World War. In Finland, the period since the 1960s can be described as a gradual scientification of teacher education. The image of the ideal teacher has transformed according to a research-based agenda, where teachers are expected to conduct minor-scale research in the classroom. In Sweden since the 1980s, on the other hand, teacher education has oscillated between progressivist and academic orientations, following shifts in government between the Social Democratic Party and the centre-right. Since the turn of the millennium, however, a consensus in favour of a strengthened research base of teacher education has also emerged in Sweden.

Purpose: This article aims to shed light on a latest education policy blueprint in China, titled "China's education modernization 2035," which was issued by the Central Government of China in February of 2019. Design/Approach/Methods: This is an analytical policy review. Findings: The author argues that this new Chinese educational policy was driven by three factors--UN 2030 Agenda, China's national strategy, and Chinese educational reform and improvement. In "China's education modernization 2035," eight key principles were rooted in the Chinese context and also recognized by international society. According to this policy initiative, 10 specific strategical tasks are outlined to reform Chinese education toward 2035. Originality/Value: The article will be useful to learn and understand the new directions and the future approaches of Chinese education development and reform toward 2035.

Using new estimates of state-level public opinion, I explore the relationship between support for increased education spending and statewide per-pupil expenditures from 1986 to 2013. In the 1980s, there was a modest, positive relationship between public opinion and actual spending: States with greater support for increased education spending tended to have slightly higher per pupil expenditures. Over the next three decades, this relationship reversed. States with relatively low per-pupil expenditures tended to increase their spending at a slower rate despite steady growth in support for more spending. As a result, public opinion and education spending became inversely related. By the end of the time series, states with greater support for increased education spending tended to spend less per pupil. The changing distribution of local, state, and federal sources of education spending partially explains this pattern. As federal education expenditures rose, some states spent proportionally less from state and local sources, resulting in smaller overall spending increases in those states.

Studies of regionalism -- intra and comparative regionalism -- have often used the European experience to explain the emergence and evolution of regionalisms in other parts of the world. This tendency in approaching the European experience as explanatory has permeated sector-specific developments. In this article, we consider the developments in higher education to examine the purported influence that Europe's Bologna Process has had on other regional initiatives. Taking the case of the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA), we delineate the narratives from the actors involved in this initiative to show how they initially perceived and conceptualized higher education cooperation in the Asia region. Applying higher education regionalism framework, we show how AUA actors designed higher education regionalism in Asia independent from Europe's influence. We conclude with the potential implications that AUA's emergence has for Europe, taking into consideration the growing influence of China in developing higher education regionalisms in Asia.

Educational resources are important in the development of education. In Nigeria, Western education was commenced by the Christian Missionaries (that is by private efforts). However, the quality of education was criticized by the elites and the nationalists to the extent that the government subsequently got elaborately involved in the provision of Western education. This research examines the educational resources in the development of private schools, particularly in private secondary school education in Ekiti State, Nigeria, from 1999 to 2016. Historical research method was employed because the study is historical in nature. It was found that: the quantity and quality of teachers in the private secondary schools were fairly adequate; the material resources and performance of students in external examinations were fairly adequate. It was concluded that the educational resources enhanced fairly good quality of education and educational development. It was recommended that the resources be sustained and improved upon.

We propose that social psychological findings on the intuitive bases of moral judgment have broad implications for moral education. The "five foundations theory of intuitive ethics" is applied to explain a longstanding rift in moral education as an ideological disagreement about which moral intuitions should be endorsed and cultivated. The Kohlbergian moral reasoning side has sought to limit the domain of moral education to Harm and Fairness-related moral concerns, whereas character education approaches have tried also to cultivate intuitions concerning the Ingroup, Authority and Purity foundations. Recent attempts to merge the two lines of moral education have not fully addressed this ideological rift, for example by delineating how a single approach could reconcile opposing group- and individual-focused conceptions of moral education. We conclude that psychological research on moral intuition offers a descriptive account of human morality that reveals problems with attempts to create a normative basis for moral education from either side of the ideological divide.

Federal legislation such as IDEA (1997) and NCLB (2001) have led to an increase in the number of students with significant disabilities receiving instruction in the general education classroom. This inclusionary movement has established a more diverse student population in which general and special education teachers are responsible for providing instruction that meets the needs of all their students. Although most research focuses on effective inclusionary practices for students with high incidence disabilities (e.g., learning disabilities), literature has revealed a dramatic increase in the number of students with severe/multiple disabilities receiving support in general education settings. Therefore, it is imperative that educators acquire the effective inclusive practices necessary to meet the unique needs of students with severe/multiple disabilities. A review of literature was conducted to determine effective ways to include and support students with severe/multiple disabilities within the general education classroom.

This exploratory paper seeks to shed light on the methodological challenges of education systems research. There is growing consensus that interventions to improve learning outcomes must be designed and studied as part of a broader system of education, and that learning outcomes are affected by a complex web of dynamics involving different inputs, actors, processes and socio-political contexts. How should researchers in comparative and international education respond to this call for complexity? To begin to answer this question, we draw on recent and ongoing research within the Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems research programme -- a programme of 30 projects funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The paper explores critical ways in which the methods used by individual research projects, and across the programme as a whole, offer opportunities and raise challenges for advancing systems thinking in education research.

This case study documents a professional learning community (PLC) comprised of urban elementary educators working toward equitable education for students with dis/abilities. We employ an equity-expansive learning frame to evoke and then examine tensions and contradictions that emerged during the PLC and mediated learning as evidenced by participants' expanded notions of equity. We introduced equity-oriented mathematics education content and tools based on what emerged from the PLC, then utilized an interpretive approach to analyzing data through a multistage process. Results indicate identity and power tensions that worked against equitable practices. However, participants recognized several tensions and proposed to address them as contradictions that mediated learning, thereby expanding notions of equitable education.

This paper compares the findings of two studies on the publication patterns in leading Australian, English and German education journals. The first study was funded by the German Research Association and the second one was unfunded, and they were conducted by a team of international researchers. The first study compared three English and three German leading education journals. The second study analysed the publication patterns in three leading Australian education journals. All papers published between 2001 and 2010 in the nine selected education journals were analysed according to their author profile, thematic focus and methodology used. The analyses (covering three geographical regions) showed the publication patterns in the selected journals, indicating similarities and also some key differences. This paper focuses on the Australian education journals and how their publication patterns relate to the English and German journals.

This paper responds to a growing literature arguing that change in higher education institutions might be better understood and managed if such institutions are understood as complex systems with emergent properties. Based on complexity theory, the paper articulates a set of characteristics that might be expected if institutions are in fact acting as complex systems. The utility of these characteristics for identifying complexity in the field is tested in the context of a large partnered research project involving the mathematics, science and education colleges from six Australian universities and their local K-12 schools. The study finds evidence of subsystem variations on the initial partnership priorities, including substantial boundary crossing, leading to emergence and co-evolution, indicating that a macroscopic view of emergent variation rather than 'micromanaging' may be an essential factor in scaling and sustaining collaborative partnerships.