Education & Pedagogy

Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa, the path of higher education transformation has been guided by the 'White Paper 3: A Programme for Higher Education Transformation'. This path has largely been conceptualised within a framework of equity through redress and social justice that sought to change the face of higher education through demographic changes. Hence higher education transformation largely took on a number-counting process. The curriculum changes that have taken place thus far have largely been of an instrumental and responsive modality. In this paper I argue that deep curriculum transformation in higher education will be possible if we shift our gaze from predominantly a number-counting exercise to curriculum intellectualism. The next wave of higher education curriculum transformation would be a fundamental rethink based on emerging curriculum theories.

While AIDS was neither the initial nor the sole factor, it had a profound impact on the development of school-based sex education policy and practice in 1980s Ireland. Attempts to introduce a national programme of sex education on foot of increasing rates of crisis pregnancy pre-date the AIDS era, but these efforts had been vociferously opposed by conservative Catholic interests. The fear generated by AIDS prompted a shift in what political theorist, John Kingdon terms, the 'national mood' that? coupled with the singular determination of then Minister for Education, Mary O'Rourke, who faced down intense opposition from conservative groups and the Catholic Bishops, created the conditions needed to introduce the "AIDS Education Resource" -- a forerunner to the Relationships and Sexuality Education programme -- in post-primary schools throughout Ireland in October 1990.

Global south onto-epistemologies are rarely part of bilingual and early childhood teacher education programs. Most university courses, even those that are critically oriented, remain embedded in global north conceptualizations of theory and practice. In this paper, we offer critical examinations of how global north colonialism and its latest reiteration, neoliberalism, have produced hegemonic discourses which have shaped the education of teachers in the fields of bilingual and early childhood education. We then share our "pláticas" about our global south approaches to teacher education. In doing so, we offer ways in which to make sense of our role as teacher educators in challenging and navigating dynamic, and often all-encompassing neoliberal systems of oppression within bilingual and early childhood teacher/education.

Education is at the core of South Africa's national development. The National Development Plan recognizes the potential of education to transform individuals and drive attainment of other development goals. The country's higher education system is characterized by low participation and high attrition. This presents challenges for the attainment of targets set by the NDP. A number of Open Education Resources initiatives implemented around the world have shown that, when combined with Open Educational Practices, such approaches have potential to address some of the challenges facing the South African higher education sector. This paper explores these initiatives and elements that would need to be considered to ensure an environment that is conducive to their sustainable adoption.

While the history of British higher education is not an unexplored field, this article offers a new perspective by focusing on the development of institutional self-representations. Based on the analysis of 133 undergraduate prospectuses of English and Welsh higher education institutions, the article investigates how higher education and the depiction of it have changed over the last 80 years. By concentrating specifically on what the prospectuses communicated concerning the purpose of higher education, the student experience and the power relations that structure higher education, it is shown how fundamentally the nature and understanding of higher education have altered over time and how much the institutions of higher education themselves contributed to these changes.

The purpose of this study was to survey the perception of alternate route and traditional route special education teachers, particularly as it relates to their training received in their teacher preparation programs to meet standards intended to prepare effective special education teachers. The study examined the perceptions of 465 pre-and in-service special education teachers nationwide. The analysis revealed that teachers in alternate route programs and traditional route programs both perceive that teacher preparation programs are providing training toward meeting professional preparation standards. Furthermore, satisfactions with teacher preparation programs are reported. Limitations of the study are described along with implications for education practice and further research on the preparation of alternate route special education teachers.

The authors analyze the profile and dynamism of the Japanese higher education system in comparison with the higher education systems of other East Asian countries, with special reference to East-West hybrid patterns. The authors reflect on the development and transformation of Japanese higher education, especially its interaction with neighboring higher education systems. The authors argue that the stress of competition and hierarchical recognition in regional higher education settings at the macro level may impede active interaction among various Asian higher education systems and institutions. At the institutional level, however, the linkage and interaction between Japanese universities and other Asian universities have been strengthened and deepened. Now, these institutional initiatives are resulting in the convergence of the Japanese higher education with regional higher education systems in terms of institutional values and identities.

This study reviews the Ontario secondary school curriculum in light of recommendations made by the 2007 Bondar Report, "Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future." It analyzes curriculum expectations and enrollment data for the purpose of reporting upon and providing recommendations for place-based environmental education. The extent and prescriptiveness of the coverage of place-based environmental education by subject, course, grade, and course progression or pathway are presented. Environmental education in Ontario does not have its own discrete compulsory courses and despite having been "embedded" in the curriculum, the important arenas of place-based environmental education are being applied inconsistently across the compulsory curriculum. Poor enrollment in electives shows that the focus of students remains elsewhere, fracturing progression of environmental education in Ontario's secondary schools.

Law-related topics arise in the school curricula of both developed and developing countries. Civics/citizenship education and social studies tend to be the curricular mediums into which law topics are inserted. This paper details law education at school level in Australia (State of Victoria) and Pakistan. The main challenge facing the law-education-for-all project in the context of schooling is the competence of teachers entrusted to teach children and adolescents about the law, particularly with reference to their own background knowledge. There are roles for curriculum developers, government ministries, pre-service and in-service teacher education providers, and professional associations to play for the ideal to be turned into reality.

Higher education in the college sector has become an increasingly important aspect of the tertiary education system in Scotland, particularly in widening access to higher education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this respect there is a distinctively different tradition in Scotland when compared with England. Despite the success of the college sector, a number of issues and challenges have emerged and it is important that these are recognised and addressed in developing policy responses which will improve the opportunities provided for students. This article explores the changing role of higher education in the Scottish colleges, the ambiguities which have emerged in its functions, the problems which this has led to, and the opportunities to address this through further policy initiatives.

That education is empowering is one of the U.S.'s most sacred tenets; however, for many Indigenous students, schooling has been intentionally damaging. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, in this article I highlight tribal education leaders' sensemaking about the paradoxes and promises of their work in education, as they navigate the antinomical ideas that education can be both empowering and damaging. Rooting analysis in Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) (Brayboy, 2005), I connect tribal nation-building with various Indigenous educational efforts, including opportunities provided by the charter school movement. Findings highlight values that Indigenous leaders hold for their students' education, including cultural and linguistic sustenance, cultural congruity, and self-determination. Using mathematics as a lens to examine some of the contours of Native education, analysis illuminates complexities inherent in Indigenous education and tribal nation-building.

The aim of the 15 collaborative projects conducted during the new funding phase of the German research program Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education--Validation and Methodological Innovations (KoKoHs) is to make a significant contribution to advancing the field of modeling and valid measurement of competencies acquired in higher education. The KoKoHs research teams assess generic competencies and domain-specific competencies in teacher education, social and economic sciences, and medicine based on findings from and using competency models and assessment instruments developed during the first KoKoHs funding phase. Further, they enhance, validate, and test measurement approaches for use in higher education in Germany. Results and findings are transferred at various levels to national and international research, higher education practice, and education policy.

Character education specialists seem to know it when they see it, but what it means to call something a character education program remains unclear. One possible source for this uncertainty is the manner in which character education has been defined. By identifying certain features as necessary, existing definitions fail to encompass the universe of programs that can reasonably be considered instances of character education. Using recent literature on definition via prototype as a starting point, this article suggests evaluating programs as character education based on consistency with a model for such programs comprised of 7 features. Two strategies for evaluating whether and to what extent a program can be considered an example of character education are discussed, called polythetic classification and prototype matching. The goal is to help researchers and practitioners more effectively distinguish character education from other sorts of programs intended for personal growth.

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of the learning environment in their program major and general education classrooms. The participants were 870 undergraduate students majoring in engineering, fine arts, education, economics and nursing programs at a university in Thailand. We found significant differences in the perceptions of the classroom learning environment across various disciplines. Engineering and economics students perceived the learning environment in general education classrooms as more cooperative than the learning environment in program major classrooms. Fine arts and nursing students perceived greater involvement among students in the program major classrooms than in the general education classrooms. Our findings contribute to the body of research on inter-disciplinary differences in classroom learning environments in universities and the ways in which these differences may impact student learning outcomes.

The effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) depends on the quality of interactions between the actors from the education and employment systems, which ensure the correspondence of skills supply and demand. This paper develops an instrument to measure education-employment linkage (EEL) by capturing EEL in each sub-process where these actors can and should interact. Surveying VET experts from 18 countries suggests that countries with dual VET have the highest EEL, while the included Asian countries score lowest in terms of EEL. The analysis further reveals that the three most important sub-processes are employer involvement in the definition of qualification standards; employer involvement in deciding the timing of curriculum updates; and the combination of workplace training with classroom education.