Education & Pedagogy

This paper focuses on the relationship between the media and educational policies in the context of the "neoliberal newspeak," which has characterized the current circulation of ideas in cultural production. Using framing theory, this article presents a critical discourse analysis on the editorials published about the 2011 student movement by "El Mercurio," the most influential newspaper in Chile. "El Mercurio" is more than a newspaper. It is an institution; an institution that supports conservative ideas. "El Mercurio" framed the public discussion about educational policies and defended neoliberal education based on three discourses: the neoliberal system is absolute, public education is valued less than private and education is a technical issue, not political. By invoking this rhetoric strategy, these discourses attempted to maintain the neoliberal education system in Chile, which in turn rejected the social struggles of the student movement.

Recent thinking in multicultural education can contribute to environmental education (EE) in culturally diverse societies. This article uses case studies of two minorities in Israel to illustrate the potential for bringing together these two areas of educational research that have developed significantly in recent years. After introducing the topics of EE and multicultural education, we discuss some compelling intersections between them. We then introduce the Arab and ultraorthodox sectors, and describe the ways in which issues of educational contents, representation, resources, and infrastructure affect EE in these sectors. We show how policies and concrete measures for forwarding EE in these groups in a multicultural manner can draw on their specific culture, education systems, and environmental situations.

In this article, we evaluate the impact of social origin on the realisation of educational intentions at the time of becoming eligible for higher education in Germany. In general, we find high persistence of intentions and actual attendance of higher education. However, effects of parental education on the changes of educational intentions increase the existing social inequality with regard to higher education at the time of leaving secondary school. The group which is affected most are those young adults planning to study after vocational training-while the gap between different origin groups does not widen much during other stop-outs from education. This can be explained only partly by previous educational performance. The findings suggest that estimates of educational inequality are attenuated when entry into higher education is approximated by educational intentions of young adults.

Employer support for employees who are studying part-time for higher education qualifications constitutes a form of indirect employer engagement with higher education institutions that has contributed strongly to the development of work-related skills and knowledge over the years. However, this form of employer engagement with higher education institutions now seems to be in some jeopardy, with reduced employer willingness to subsidise high education course fees: partly because of slow economic growth since the 2008-09 recession and partly because of increases in tuition fees. These cutbacks in employer support for part-time study may have contributed to the sharp decline reported in the numbers studying for part-time undergraduate higher education qualifications in the United Kingdom since 2009. One important implication for policy-makers is that, without new initiatives designed to encourage employer support for part-time study, this form of education is now less likely to contribute to the adult skills upgrading required to bring United Kingdom skills up to the standards of leading industrial nations.

Student teaching is considered to be the most critical event and capstone experience of teacher preparation programs. However, within the discipline of business education, very few studies have investigated the challenges and issues of developing future business teachers within the student teaching internship. This study examined the perspectives of an expert panel of 31 business education university supervisors from the U.S. and Canada using a modified Delphi approach. Findings indicated business education student teachers are most prepared in the areas of content knowledge, instructional planning, and technology integration. However, business education student teachers are most unprepared in the area of classroom management. The university supervisors also articulated initiatives business teacher education programs could implement to enhance the preparation of their future teachers.

As it is in many countries in the world, in Turkey the effects of neoliberal ideology have rapidly increased since the 1980s, and social and economic structure has been transformed. Education, which is the basic dynamic of constructing social and economic structure and regeneration, stands in the center of neoliberalism. In this process, what determines education is global policies and market relations rather than public. Every practice, such as privatization of education, decreasing public expenses, enforcing "flexible" working, leaving employees without insurance and making the curriculum more conservative is a result of neoliberal policies. Descending all these actions to the level of simple evaluation prevents a detailed analysis of the reasons for these policies while also hindering the response to these policies. In this study, neoliberal education policies practiced in Turkey and transformation in education are described with a critical perspective.

This article argues that, in Greek higher education policies of the 2000s, "equality of educational opportunities" is not given as much importance as in the 1980s and the 1990s, when higher education had been massively expanded. In the 2000s, the issue of equity is giving way to that of efficiency/quality, in accordance with a neoliberal rationale in higher education policies in Greece. The interest of the state is in economic efficiency and the "output" of higher education and thus, the state starts exerting control from a distance, reducing expenditure on higher education, individualising the responsibility for education, and trying to formulate the so-called "entrepreneurial university". Such developments are directly related to the unwillingness of governments to finance the universities, as public institutions, in the framework of the withdrawal from the welfare state.

Today, in the era of open access to digital-based information and communication, one of the biggest challenges in higher education to realize moral education and to build academic culture and integrity is the emergence of academic dishonesty behaviors among academic members. The paper describes academic dishonesty behaviors in Distance Higher Education (DHE) institutions within the context of moral education in the digital era. The paper reviews the results of the research on academic dishonesty behaviors and practices in DHE institutions worldwide; factors which have a very significant role for the emergence of academic dishonesty behaviors and practices. It is also discusses an integrated model of moral education as interdisciplinary strategy in combating academic dishonesty and in promoting academic culture and integrity in DHE.

Teacher education institutions (TEIs) that are pioneers and leaders in education for sustainable development (ESD) have advanced the field through efforts in programmes, practices, and policies during the United Nations Decade of ESD. An international survey of TEIs by the UNESCO Chair on Reorienting Teacher Education to Address Sustainability at York University revealed strategies used to advance ESD included incorporating ESD into existing coursework and creating new classes as well as certificate and degree programmes. Internal and external review processes ensure ESD remains embedded in teacher-education programmes. The greatest challenges to TEIs during the DESD were lack of awareness of ESD and lack of financial and human resources. Recommendations for the post-Decade Global Action Programme on ESD include creating guidelines for ESD materials development and evaluation, addressing the aforementioned challenges, and building on the experiences and expertise of the ESD pioneers to scale-up ESD in TEIs internationally.

Though it is widely used, the concept of "underserved" is sorely undertheorized in art education. Before the field of art education can effectively address the persistent educational disparities across different sociocultural and economic groups, we need deeper understandings of entangled sociocultural and political processes that create and conceal underservedness. The term "underservedness" moves us away from conceiving of populations, and instead draws attention to cultural articulations and material conditions that prevent certain groups from fully accessing and benefiting from the resources and opportunities for effective education, including high-quality art experiences. In this article, the authors discuss four theoretical perspectives--critical race theory, intersectionality, critical multiculturalism, and social justice education--that can foster nuanced analyses and cogent explanations of art education in the context of underservedness. The discussion focuses on key tenets of these theoretical perspectives, important points of tension and synergy, and their relevance for art education research.

In this study, we investigated elementary student teachers' scientific habits of mind for a series of socioscientific issues, and compared their views with respect to academic performance and type of programme. The sample consisted of 1,600 student teachers from science education, mathematics education, primary teacher education and social science education programmes (100 student teachers from each grade) at a Turkish University in the fall semester of the 2010-2011 school year. The data were obtained from the Scientific Habits of Mind Survey consisting of 32 items which had been previously validated, in this setting. The findings suggested that the teacher education programmes need to help student teachers grasp better scientific thinking as measured via scientific habits of mind if they are to engage more effectively in decision-making and discussion of socioscientific issues in their classrooms.

In classic Western movies, the good guy could be frequently identified by his trademark white Stetson hat, whereas the bad guy always wore black. James J. Gallagher wore many hats during his career that spanned over six decades; he too would be known as the "man in the white hat,"--trusted to do the right thing. From 1967 to 1970, chiefly during the Nixon Administration, Gallagher wore the hat of public servant in Washington, D.C. He served as the first chief of the Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped (BEH) and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation--Both the positions were within the United States Office of Education (USOE) and under the larger umbrella of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This article outlines his federal contributions and their enduring impact on the fields of both special education and gifted education.

In this cross-case study we focus on school-based teacher education in Sweden and Finland. Through the use of focus-group interviews with mathematics teacher educators in Finland and Sweden, the study shows that there are substantial differences in how school-based teacher education is introduced and portrayed in the discourse about teacher education and prospective teachers' learning. The school-based teacher education among the Finnish groups is made relevant in relation to several aspects of prospective teachers' learning. In the Swedish groups, school-based teacher education is portrayed as an organizational problem and few aspects of prospective teachers' learning are brought into the discourse. The results cannot be generalized to the two countries but show interesting conceptualizations of school-based education potentially useful for teacher educators and scholars. (Contains 5 footnotes.)

This article draws from ethnographic data produced inside mathematics teacher education in Sweden. It explores and makes visible the ongoing process of education during workshops in information and communication technology (ICT) laboratory contexts in which student teachers were working with spreadsheet applications on the computer. The main finding is that, contrary to the intentions to renew and revitalise education, ICT in use seemed to operate as a relay in the reproduction of traditional ways of teaching and learning. However, the investigation is not one of the failures of education to make use of ICT but one that tries to distance itself from the traditional enthusiastic rhetoric, with the ambition to contribute to a more realistic discussion. Bernstein's concept of pedagogical discourse has been used. One education setting has been studied in detail. (Contains 1 note and 3 figures.)

Nationwide, only 56% of students attended physical education class on one or more days per week, and only 33% of students attended physical education daily in 2009. Physical educators have the responsibility to create positive experiences in physical education, as well as to develop physical skills and feelings of self-efficacy in their students. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education guidelines for youths recommend that children get 60 minutes of daily physical activity and avoid long periods of inactivity. In order to achieve this, physical education programs need to do more to promote lifetime fitness activities and more physical activity outside of the school day. This article outlines how to transform a traditional physical education class into one that provides relevant opportunities for students to be active for a lifetime based on their needs and interests. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)