Education & Pedagogy

In the light of recent challenges facing the field of outdoor adventure education in higher education, this exploratory study sought to identify some of the underlying political and institutional factors and societal influences on an international level that have led to the success of some programmes and the closure of others. Thirty-eight outdoor adventure education academics with a minimum of seven years' experience in higher education institutions, representing seven countries (Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Norway, and Denmark) participated in the study. These academics were questioned as to their perceptions of the importance of various characteristics and attributes to an outdoor adventure education programme's survival and academic excellence. At least 80% of the respondents reported 10 characteristics to be "very important" or "critically important", including pedagogy, leadership, management, resources and advocacy. All respondents reported the critical importance of having a departmental chair/supervisor advocate for their department's outdoor programme. The findings suggest that outdoor adventure educators must collaborate on both national and international levels to promote the value of their discipline. (Contains 5 tables.)

Adult education programs should turn to the deliberative democracy movement in order to help their communities better address the "wicked problems" they face. The authors contend that due to the "wicked" nature of problems in the diverse democracies, communities must develop and sustain their capacity for deliberative democracy and collaborative problem solving through the high-quality interactive communication across perspectives fostered by deliberative democracy. As a result, civic education programs at all levels--K-12, higher education, and adult education--should be tapping into the resources and activities tied to the deliberative democracy movement in order to help build civic capacity. The authors begin this chapter by introducing the concept of wicked problems and outlining how the two currently dominant forms of politics--adversarial and expert--fall short in responding to such problems. They then introduce deliberative democracy as an alternative form of politics that holds particular promise. They connect these three forms of politics to current trends within civic education and make the case for civic education programs to significantly increase the extent to which they focus on developing deliberative capacity. They close by considering how adult education programs in particular can develop this capacity and take advantage of the available resources tied to deliberative democracy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly become a transformative force in PK-12 and higher education, reshaping how educators teach and engage students. This study explored the perceived impact of AI on education, highlighting varying levels of AI adoption between PK-12 and higher education. The study examines responses from instructors from PK-12 and higher education to understand their experiences and preferences regarding AI tools and their instructional use. The study addresses key questions: Do educators find generative AI useful for supporting instruction? What recommendations do educators have for their peers regarding AI use? The study was conducted via an online survey among Minnesota PK-12 and higher education instructors. The findings reveal that AI supports instructional delivery and personalized learning in PK-12 settings, and it is widely used for content generation in higher education. Despite its growing presence, many educators remain unfamiliar with AI applications or express concerns about ethical implications, such as bias, data privacy, and academic integrity. Understanding educators' perspectives on AI will help guide its future integration and address the challenges it presents.

This article examines how faculty at a college of education are integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools into graduate and doctoral educator preparation programs. Drawing on faculty inquiry and course-based observations across multiple contexts--including early childhood education, secondary education, special education, and doctoral programs in education--the article synthesizes emerging lessons and practices of AI literacy development, pedagogical approaches, and instructional design. We present an evidence-informed, reflective account of faculty practice through the lens of the scholarship of teaching, exploring how educators are navigating AI content, literacy, and practices in real courses, what students are learning, and what instructional decisions support thoughtful, critical AI use. Three shared themes emerge: the importance of developing professional judgment alongside technical familiarity with AI, the necessity of addressing equity and ethics explicitly rather than incidentally, and the value of positioning AI as a thinking partner and collaborator rather than a replacement for human expertise. The article concludes with practical implications for faculty seeking to integrate AI in ways that are forthright about uncertainty, grounded in pedagogical purpose, and attentive to learners' diverse needs.

The debate over whether higher education is a public or private good is primarily shaped by Western epistemologies and neoliberal paradigms, which commodifies education. This framing neglects relational and communal perspectives, such as "Ubuntu" philosophy, which views education as an interconnected process fostering individual and societal flourishing. This paper explores how "Ubuntu" philosophy dissolves the public-private dichotomy by offering an integrated vision of higher education that supports personal aspirations while serving the broader social good. Using Zimbabwe as a case, referencing other Southern African contexts, the paper examines how neoliberal agendas have influenced postcolonial higher education policies. While acknowledging critiques of "Ubuntu", particularly concerns about social conformity and individual autonomy, the paper argues that a well-theorised "Ubuntu"-based approach can create a more equitable higher education system. Instead of merely incorporating indigenous knowledge into exclusionary structures, "Ubuntu" philosophy reimagines the foundations of knowledge production, governance, and access. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for integrating "Ubuntu"-based principles in higher education, such as participatory governance, shared responsibility funding models, and broader success metrics beyond economic outcomes. The paper contributes to global debates on inclusive, equitable, and sustainable higher education.

As programming has become an integral part of technology education in Sweden, teacher education must prepare future teachers to integrate programming meaningfully into their teaching. However, research on how teacher educators understand programming in technology teacher education remains scarce. The purpose of this study is to explore teacher educators' experience of programming in primary technology teacher education. The phenomenon, programming in technology, is explored by using a phenomenographic approach in order to find the variations of experiences among a group of teacher educators. The empirical material consists of interviews with 12 technology teacher educators from 11 Swedish higher education institutions. The results identify four qualitatively distinct categories of how programming is experienced: (1) as a technological tool, (2) as a technological tool for control, (3) as a technological tool for problem-solving, and (4) as part of technological solutions in society. The study addresses the importance of the relationships between programming, systems thinking, and computational thinking, ensuring that student teachers develop a holistic understanding of programming as part of technological knowledge. The study also provides information that the understanding of the relationship between technological education and educational technology is crucial for the relevance of programming in technology education.

Through intersectionality theory, this study examines how gender and geographical location interact to shape adolescents' access to health education in centralized systems, using sex education in Chinese vocational high schools as an illustrative case. Drawing on data from 3167 adolescents across regions with varying development levels, we demonstrate how educational institutions reproduce gender hierarchies and geographical inequalities through differential access to sex education. Students in economically developed regions and urban areas show significantly higher odds of receiving sex education, with particularly pronounced effects for girls in developed regions. Gender emerges as the primary determinant of exposure to specific content, with girls consistently showing higher chances of being taught topics like pregnancy, contraception, and sexual behavior. These findings suggest two intersecting forms of disadvantage. Resource-wise, boys in less developed regions appear most likely to be excluded from sustained provision. Norm-wise, girls may be more harmed by how sex education is framed through gendered expectations that treat sexual and reproductive health as primarily their responsibility rather than a shared concern. Together, these patterns illustrate how intersecting dimensions of advantage and disadvantage, alongside underlying patriarchal assumptions, create systematic disparities that reinforce both gender and geographical inequalities.

This paper examines bilingual education policies and practices in China and the interconnection and influences of the west in the new developments in bilingual education in this country. It focuses on bilingual education in Tibetan areas considering the sociopolitical context, the Tibetan tradition, and the current developments and new knowledge in the area of bilingual education. It discusses the challenges and limitations that Tibetan teachers and students face today as well as their strengths and aspirations for an improved bilingual education system through which teachers can teach better, students can learn faster, achieve higher, and consequently communities can prosper. It presents the experience and lessons learned from the Gannan Tibetan Bilingual Education Project in Gansu Province, a bilingual teacher training project for Tibetan primary teachers, supported by the UK Department for International Development in China in collaboration with the Gansu Provincial Department of Education. This experience can provide insight and useful information for educators, policy-makers, and governments in the design and implementation of similar bilingual teacher professional development projects in countries where minority and indigenous people live. (Contains 4 tables.)

Although nutrition-related health education policies exist at national, state and local levels, the degree to which those policies affect the everyday practices of health education teachers who are charged with executing them in schools is often unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the nutrition-related health education policy matrix that affected one urban school district, the health education teachers' awareness of those policies, the impact of nutrition policies on teachers' instruction and challenges teachers perceived in executing comprehensive nutrition education. The study used interpretive ethnography to examine the educational contexts and perspectives of 27 health educators from 24 middle schools in one urban district in the Midwestern United States. Data were collected through school observations, interviews with key personnel and document collection. We found that a network of nutrition-related education policies governed health education teachers' instruction, but that teachers were uniformly unaware of those policies. Without institutional coherence and clear directives, health education teachers taught little nutrition content, primarily due to poor training, professional development, instructional resources and administrative accountability. The results are discussed in light of the enormous challenges in many urban schools and the need for nutrition education professional development.

With the creation of the European Higher Education Area, universities are undergoing a significant transformation that is leading towards a new teaching and learning paradigm. The competencies approach has a key role in this process. But we believe that the competence approach has a number of limitations and weaknesses that can be overcome and supplanted by the capabilities approach. In this article our objective is twofold: first, make a critical analysis of the concept of competence as it is being used in higher education, identifying its limitations and weaknesses; and second, present the potential of the capabilities approach for higher education and review its complementarity to the competence approach. We begin with a brief characterisation of the capabilities approach and its implications for education. Then we examine some implications of the competencies approach in higher education and the reasons that led us to choose the DeSeCo proposal for comparison with the capability approach. We then go on to compare the two approaches, addressing 1) the aims of education and 2) the concept of competence and capability. Finally, we address the implications of incorporating the capabilities approach in learning and teaching in higher education.

It has been 40 years since science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) education first appeared in science education research and practice. Although supported among many educators worldwide, there is much confusion surrounding the STSE slogan. Widely differing discourses on STSE education and diverse ways of practicing, have led to an array of distinct pedagogical approaches, programs, and methods. We are left wondering how we might orient ourselves amid such a diversity of propositions. What does STSE look like in practice? What ideological orientations underpin its practice? In this paper, we review the research literature and educational practices in STSE education to (1) map out a typology of STSE education in the form of currents and (2) provide a heuristic that educators can use for critical analysis of discourses and practices in the field. We identify, explore, and critique six currents in STSE education: application/design, historical, logical reasoning, value-centered, sociocultural, and socio-ecojustice currents. We suggest that these currents may serve as a didactic tool for others, a framework that will assist educators in informing their own theoretical understandings, choices, and practices in the context of STSE education. (Contains 1 table and 1 footnote.)

Public-private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a "programmatic idea" and, in particular, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communities by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures, and 17 notes.)

In this paper I discuss three issues relevant to the ideas introduced by Colucci-Gray, Perazzone, Dodman and Camino (2012) in their three-part paper on epistemological reflections and educational practice for science education for sustainability: (1) social studies of science for science education, (2) education for sustainability or sustainable development, and (3) curriculum studies and action-research. For the first issue, I address the need for science education efforts dedicated to an epistemological renewal to take seriously into consideration the contributions of the social studies of science. This perspective may be fruitful for an education for sustainability that also requires one to consider the political dimension of environmental issues and their intrinsic power relationships. It also encourages the abandonment of dichotomies that hamper democratic participation: experts/lay people, science/society, scientific knowledge/values, etc. For the second issue, my commentary focuses on the challenges that education for sustainability or sustainable development pose to science education with a shift from subject matter contents to socio-educative aims and socio-political actions. These challenges lead to the third issue with an invitation to apprehend science education for sustainability within the frameworks of curriculum theory and design-based research.

Since the late 1980s, there has been a resurgence of regionalism in world politics. Prospects for new alliances are opened up often on a regional basis. In East and Southeast Asia, regionalization is becoming evident in higher education, with both awareness and signs of a rising ASEAN+3 higher education community. The quest for regional influence in Southeast Asia, however, has not been immune from controversies. One fact has been China's growing soft power. As a systematically planned soft power policy, China is projecting soft power actively through higher education in the region. Yet, China-ASEAN relations in higher education have been little documented. Unlike the mainstay of the practices of internationalization in higher education that focuses overwhelmingly on educational exchange and collaboration with affluent Western countries, China's interactions with ASEAN member countries in higher education are fulfilled by "quiet achievers," mainly seen at the regional institutions in relatively less developed provinces such as Guangxi and Yunnan. This article selects regional higher education institutions in China's much disadvantaged provinces to depict a different picture to argue that regionalization could contribute substantially to internationalization, if a variety of factors are combined properly.

This article recounts the findings of a study that investigated pre-service teachers' attitudes and concerns regarding inclusive education and their degree of comfort when interacting with people with disabilities after completing courses on inclusive education. One hundred and eighty pre-service teachers from one higher education institution in South Africa completed the Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale. They were all being prepared to teach at either the primary (41%) or secondary (59%) level of education. Pre-service teachers' mean scores on the sentiments scale increased following the intervention (p less than 0.001), as did the mean scores on the attitudes scale (p less than 0.001). However, mean scores related to their concerns decreased (p = 0.01). With respect to the latter finding, as a result of the intervention the pre-service teachers became more worried about resources to support inclusive education (p less than 0.001), the reality of large classes (p = 0.01) and their workload (p = 0.04). Recommendations based on the research findings are made, suggesting that the quality of courses on inclusive education should be enhanced in higher education institutions. (Contains 2 tables.)