Education & Pedagogy

Internationally multicultural education research has pointed to the need to move from superficial to social justice-oriented multicultural education. However, realising this goal in policy and practice is a challenge. This study takes Finland as a case and examines the discursive developments of multicultural education in its national curriculum 1994-2014. Despite being a country which is known for emphasising equity and equality in education, superficial forms of multicultural education have prevailed. However, the results of this study show that the curricular discourse is clearly moving towards social justice education where multicultural perspectives are an integrated part of the curriculum. The 2014 curriculum, which came into effect 2016, emerges as a policy which aims to foster ethical and respectful students with a sense of fairness and an open attitude towards all kinds of diversity. The challenge for Finland is to ensure implementation and advance transformativeness in future curriculum reforms.

In this article we discuss the concept of improvisation as a professional teaching skill. Our professional context is teacher education and our discussion is aimed at developing a categorized understanding, or rather a tentative typology, of what professional improvisation in teaching and teacher education might be. Undertaking such a bold endeavour has included literature reviews and in-depth interviews with practicing physical education teachers. We argue that improvisation in teaching needs to be professionalized. We suggest that a tentative typology of professional improvisation should include sequential, dialogic and exemplary improvisation, and that a description and introduction of such a typology could be a first step towards making improvisational skills accessible to student teachers as part of their pre-service teacher education. We conclude by arguing that further research is needed within classroom teaching and teacher education contexts in order to explore how improvisational practices in teaching could enhance education, as well as student learning.

This article provides an overview of dance education in schools in Singapore with regard to physical education, co-curricular activity, initiatives by the National Arts Council's Arts Education unit, and pre-tertiary and tertiary dance programs. In an effort to gain a better understanding of how well the official discourse and the reality of schooling in dance interconnect, a meta-analysis of published articles, conference papers, committee reports, and curricula was conducted. Situated within the larger sociocultural, political, and historical contexts, Singapore presents a curious case for probing the merits and limitations of research, policy initiatives, and policy implementation. In the conclusion, the author argues that the development of a coherent dance education in Singapore requires "fixing" three dilemmas--meritocratic schooling in dance, the ill-defined and exhaustive use of the term "talent," and the uneven research that has not kept pace with the policy initiatives.

This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the "Education UK" and subsumed under the broader "Britain is GREAT" campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy.

The article aimed to develop knowledge of the educational background, participation and preferences of Iraqi prisoners in Norwegian prisons and obstacles to participating in education. The study is based on interviews with 17 prisoners in three prisons. An important finding is that war and political unrest appear to have been significant causes for respondents to leaving education at various stages. As a result only half of them have as much as one final exam and only three respondents have a certificate of education. Even if the respondents want an education while in prison, and although education is offered in all prisons, there is a lack of information about educational opportunities in an understandable language and long waiting time for a place at school. An implication of the study is that the criminal administration system and the educational authorities must take into account the multicultural reality by facilitating education and training offers accordingly.

Formal special education in many southern African countries can be traced back to the early Christian missionary activities in the region. Like elsewhere in the world, the development of special education in this region has been marked with both challenges and accomplishments. The challenges and barriers to the development of special education in the region have been well documented. In fact, they have been so well documented that they have eclipsed whatever achievements the African countries have made thereby creating a negative portrayal of the state of special education in the region. However, in spite of the challenges some African countries have registered many positive developments in the areas of legislation, funding, teacher preparation, inclusive education, and attitudes towards disabilities, among others. The purpose of this discussion was therefore, to highlight the achievements made by Zambia and Zimbabwe and encourage the African countries to continue building on the accomplishments.

The definitions and educational policies related to learning disabilities have been updated throughout the last two decades since the passing of the Special Education Promotion Act (1994) in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). In particular, the definition of learning disabilities was entirely revised in the Special Education Act for Individuals With Disabilities and Others in 2008. Additionally, guidelines for selecting students with learning disabilities were introduced by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology in 2010. With the help of special education policies and government guidelines, students with learning disabilities started to receive special education services. However, identification and evaluation of learning disabilities are still controversial issues in South Korea. This study reviews South Korea's special education policies and practices for identifying students with learning disabilities. This study also provides policy recommendations for improving current practice.

This study addresses the limitations and potential for the development of an adult environmental education program in two protected areas in Brazil. The investigation was based on critical communicative methodology and involved 25 people variously related to puma conservation and environmental education. We found that the staff of protected areas had difficulties interacting with the local community. The main cited obstacle was the lack of infrastructure and staff, but partnerships with scientists and other institutions might help to overcome this limitation. As we identified a great diversity of potential audience, a dialogical process would be necessary to collectively identify community demands and seek solutions. Moreover, an adult environmental education program must consider the characteristics of adulthood and should promote diverse types of activities. In conclusion, we suggest that dialogical learning and critical communicative methodology can contribute to the development of the adult environmental education.

In this paper, I reflect on the changing role of higher education by focusing on the case of online education. I consider the promise of online education as a means to mitigate educational inequalities. Based on the available empirical evidence, I argue that this promise is unlikely to be fulfilled because online education is not well-suited to developing the social and emotional skills that are needed by students from low-income and minority backgrounds to achieve social mobility. I argue that this flexible, context dependent, and empirically grounded way of theorizing about the aims of higher education should lead us to revise the classical vision of the university's aims in light of its changing social, political, and economic role. The resulting proposal is sensitive to the university's new role without falling prey to coarse pragmatism. This approach delicately navigates the middle ground between idealism and pragmatism.

The article investigates modern issues of engineering education in Russia related to introduction of the Bologna system. The author shows that the situation in the education in general gives reasons for concern; the issue of qualitative enrolment of students for engineering specialties escalates; graduates with masters and bachelors' degrees are not in demand in industries or agriculture due to poor training for work in the real life. The main cause of problems in the engineering personnel training in Russia (lacking effective relationship with employers and universities) is discussed. The ways to overcome such issues in quality engineering training were investigated. The author has considered new requirements to engineering education and have briefly compare the Russian model of engineering education with the European and American models. The prospects of the Russian engineering education (transiting to the sixth technological mode) and issues of NBIC-convergent engineering education have been examined.

South Africa, with its national cultural diversity and post-apartheid challenges and commitments, finds echoes in the European context, especially considering the imperatives of openness and non-discrimination in higher education. With an historical tradition of excellence in engineering education, the emphasis on supporting educationally disadvantaged learners was a notable characteristic, especially in the period of democratic transition from the late 1980s. This evolved into extended curriculum programmes--where the engineering degree is spread out so that it should take an extra year to complete--which are now in place at all universities across the country. This article draws some analogies with the French model and discusses the source and drivers of transformation of engineering education and training. It examines the potential for structural transformation of engineering education and raises the questions of conservatism and interoperability of programmes at an international level.

During the second half of 2014 in Seoul, South Korea, the author participated in the "Integrated Culture & Arts Education Workshop," which was held for local teachers and theatre practitioners. During the workshop, a group of participants designed a programme based on theatre conventions and dealing with social issues for youth. Author, Hyejoo Kim writes that the experience of participation in the workshop and designing a theatre programme affirmed a belief arising from a broader experience as a theatre practitioner--in the creative and educational potential of the intimate relationship between South Korea's Integrated Arts Education and Educational Drama. In this article, rather than exploring the benefits of Educational Drama, or fastidiously examining the distinctions between Educational Drama and Integrated Arts Education, she draws on training and education in theatre, to develop an argument for theatre based Integrated Arts Education--for theatre to play a central role in the recent growth of Integrated Arts Education in South Korea.

Education and health are both capital investments in national development, often viewed as independent factors on a country's labor force supply and productivity. This study uses the 2010-2011 Third Integrated Household Survey in Malawi to propose an Education-enhanced Health Human Capital (EHHC) model where education influences labor force supply directly as well as indirectly through improvements in adult health. Relative to the Health Human Capital (HHC) model, the EHHC model better fits the available data, capturing the multiple effects of education. A national economic simulation of the 2013 age 13 cohort in Malawi confirms the importance of education as a tool for national development. Specifically, if the mean education of the age 13 cohort increased from the present national mean to the completion of secondary school, the total effects of education would lead to a predicted increase in annual tax revenue of 580 million Malawian Kwacha.

The 200th year since Jullien published his influential book "Esquisse et vues preliminaries d'un ouvrage sur l'éducation comparée" (Preliminary plan and views of a work of comparative education) is an opportunity to reflect on the field of comparative education and potential new research and theoretical directions. This paper will consider the potential role of information and communication technologies in comparative education scholarship within the context of Jullien's plan for comparative education. Specifically, it uses the example of interactive Uyghur language websites to highlight their value as a vehicle for informal education, and how an understanding of cultural context, illuminated by an analysis of the content of social media messages, may contribute to more appropriate and successful educational policies for minority populations. Data for this paper are drawn from posts from the online community forums (munbar) of four popular Uyghur language websites.

The Makerspace phenomenon has morphed into three readily identifiable types characterised by accessibility: dedicated, distributed, and mobile. The research presented in this paper describes a type of Makerspace that is defined by its purpose: to improve the confidence and ability of primary education students in STEM education. This approach is innovative and timely given the renewed interest and investment of the federal and state governments into STEM education. A new model of professional learning that is currently being validated in an extended, funded project framed this research that involved 9 female teacher education students and 71 schoolgirls in Years 5 and 6. Whilst a large set of qualitative data was collected, this paper reports on the progress and reflections of the teacher education students, and shares insights into their personal learning and development as teachers.