Education & Pedagogy

This article examines the integration of citizenship education into school music education in China, highlighting the influence of state control and political ideology. It focuses on three key areas: the historical context of embedding citizenship values in music education, the regulation of music textbooks, and the promotion of citizenship through official song singing. By analysing selected songs from state-approved textbooks, the study reveals themes of love, harmony, and unity that foster a sense of belonging and identity across family, school, national, and global contexts. While the findings indicate that state-led citizenship education can effectively cultivate these values, it is essential to balance ideological alignment with opportunities for open dialogue among students. This balanced approach is crucial for preparing students to engage actively in a complex and interconnected world. Further research into teachers' and students' perceptions of citizenship education is needed to evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of this framework in shaping citizenship in China.

Universities occupy a contested space regarding their responses to the climate and nature emergencies. They are criticised for their neoliberalism, marketisation and corporatism yet they provide education to the leaders of tomorrow who are essential for the transition to a sustainable world. In this paper, residential education is explored through a three-phase Rites of Passage framework based on teaching to transgress. Dependable and trustworthy literature sources were identified to develop strands of a pedagogical framework. Autoethnographic vignettes added further novel strands based on insights into residential education from the authors' lived experiences. Thus a residential education pedagogical web emerges to reimagine learning, teaching and research in higher education that deals directly with the climate and nature emergencies. We argue that more residential education centres should be developed to operate as semi-autonomous satellites of their parent universities because they can be more participatory, flexible and dynamic.

Since 2010, the Chinese government has adopted a series of services and policies to provide early childhood education for disadvantaged children. The rapid economic development and urbanisation process since the mid-1980s have led to great changes in social structure and demographics in China. This creates new challenges for the education of disadvantaged children. One important issue to be addressed is the lack of quality education opportunities for a special group of disadvantaged children in China, children of migrant worker families. This article presents the social background of migrant children in China, analyses early childhood education system of China, and argues for equal education rights for migrant children. Finally, according to our long-term analysis of practice and policy in early childhood education, we discuss current problems and present future directions for providing compensatory education for these children.

With this article, we challenge the successful implementation of critical perspectives in an increasingly neoliberal and neoconservative educational climate. Although many teacher education programs challenge teachers to be critical and to empower students, current top-down accountability practices and policy mandates do not allow teachers the freedom to do so. Are we just setting teachers up to fail? Through our analyses of teacher accreditation practices in the United States, we highlight examples of the contradictory measures set through the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to prepare teachers for diverse populations. We question why social foundations of education and multicultural education, both disciplines that we believe capable of forming critically conscious teachers, are not more prevalent in teacher education programs. In a climate where critique becomes insubordination, we argue for spaces of resistance in both teacher preparation programs and in the classroom.

The purposes of this study were (1) to develop a science and technology (ST) ethics education program for prospective science teachers, (2) to examine the effect of the program on the perceptions of the participants, in terms of their ethics and education concerns, and (3) to evaluate the impact of the program design. The program utilized problem-based learning (PBL) which was performed as an iterative process during two cycles. A total of 23 and 29 prospective teachers in each cycle performed team activities. A PBL-based ST ethics education program for the science classroom setting was effective in enhancing participants' perceptions of ethics and education in ST. These perceptions motivated prospective science teachers to develop and implement ST ethics education in their future classrooms. The change in the prospective teachers' perceptions of ethical issues and the need for ethics education was greater when the topic was controversial.

Inspite of the fact that primary education forms the foundation on which education at the secondary and tertiary levels rests, the issue of poverty is undermining its roles in Nigeria. In this paper, this issue of poverty of primary education was examined, from the perspectives of its history, scope, indicators, in terms of inadequacy of resource inputs (i.e. funds, facilities, and teachers), narrow curriculum, and limited access. The effects of the poverty, particularly on the other education levels as well as the economy on which it depends for fund, were also examined. To eradicate/alleviate the poverty and enhance the status of primary education in the country, allocation of more funds to the education sector and primary education, recruitment of more teachers, provision of more infrastructural facilities in primary schools, among other suggestions were made.

Education has been powerfully affected by the rise of a neoliberal political, economic and cultural agenda. The Australian experience since the 1980s is outlined. Educators need to understand neoliberalism, and also to think about the nature of education itself, as a social process of nurturing capacities for practice. Education itself cannot be commodified; but access to education can be. Markets require a rationing of education, and the creation of hierarchies and mechanisms of competition. Hence, the redefinition of schools and universities as firms, and the striking revival of competitive testing, as well as the expansion of public funding of private schools. Teachers are placed under performative pressures that tend to narrow the curriculum in schools, and make the sector's workforce more insecure. Even the knowledge base of education is impacted, with technicization of professional knowledge and a growth of cultural fakery around education. Bases for alternatives exist, but have not yet found institutional articulation.

Arts education and special education within public schools have faced similar challenges in the wake of school reform. Services and programming have been reduced, leaving a larger gap in resources and accessibility. Because of loopholes in policy, new reform initiatives such as vouchers and charter schools will continue to marginalize students with exceptionalities, minorities, and students in poverty, as well as arts and humanities programs. Recommendations to reduce this gap include an alliance between arts, humanities, and special education organizations in order to create a stronger voice for advocacy and accessibility. In addition, the author recommends that charter schools and private schools that use federal and state dollars (e.g., voucher programs) should be subject to federal special education law and required to offer arts programs. Admission to charter schools should not be talent-based and should be accessible to all students.

Less than one third of early childhood educators have a bachelor's degree, yet national indicators of high-quality early childhood program standards emphasize the importance of higher education for these practitioners. In order to adequately serve and retain these nontraditional learners as they strive to earn their degrees, teacher education programs must go beyond the standard curriculum and strive specifically to engage these adult learners. One innovative way to engage nontraditional students in higher education endeavors is to supplement coursework with applied experiences in outdoor adventure education settings. In this study, rich descriptions are provided of the trials and successes of groups of nontraditional early childhood education students as they participate in a fixed facility low ropes and team challenges course. Furthermore, these observations and narratives are also thematically examined in order to portray key characteristics of participant experiences of "a day in the woods."

Despite differences among progressive educators, they share the conviction that democracy means active participation by all citizens in the social, political, and economic decisions of their countries. The aim of this paper is to explore how Georgia is meeting goals and perspectives of progressive education by widely implementing civic education programs in schools and how its schools are developing a civic society. The paper highlights the 2010 inaugural national needs assessment, which studied conditions and attitudes towards civic education. The qualitative and quantitative results revealed the importance of civic education to diverse stakeholders. Civic education develops civic understanding founded on liberal and democratic values and helps students to comprehend their rights and responsibilities for their family, community, and state. Civic education developments in Georgia include adopting the diversity principle, empowering teachers to select and implement educational process, and using modern educational technologies and foreign pedagogical innovations.

This article examines the role of language policies in mediating access and equity in education. By examining a range of research and case studies on language policies, the authors explore how educational language policies serve as a central gatekeeper to education itself, as well as to quality education that may fundamentally depend on language ability, not only for literacy and classroom interaction but also for textbooks, materials, assessment, and other language-related aspects of education. The analysis offers an argument for placing language policies at the center of debates about educational access and equity, as well as a broad range of sociopolitical processes that shape learners' educational achievement.

The papers in this collection were originally developed for use in Further Education Staff College (England) conferences for senior staff in further education establishments. (Further education is similar to American adult education.) The process of curriculum development in further education is viewed as operating at levels associated with the course, the subject, and the lesson. Within the levels are five skill areas: (1) establishing overall aims, (2) writing specific objectives, (3) selecting learning situations, (4) selecting patterns of assessment, and (5) student selection. Topics covered in these papers, in addition to the five skill areas, include management of curriculum development, behavioral objectives, curriculum evaluation, writing and evaluation of multiple-choice items, and training of college staff in curriculum development. Also provided are an annotated bibliography on curriculum development and two versions of a workbook on writing learning objectives, one directed towards technical subjects and the other to business courses. (Author/MLF)

In discussing the future of teacher education, several factors can be considered. The control of teacher education is exercised by college and university faculty, professional associations, government agencies, and accreditation groups. In preservice and inservice teacher education, there is a need for more discipline-based study and clinical internships, broader advisory councils, increased college education faculty involvement with school classrooms, and higher admission standards for entry into teacher education. Anticipated changes in the field of teacher education are in the areas of enrollment patterns, reallocation of resources, accreditation standards, and the supply and demand of teachers. New incentives for students and programs are needed. These can be in the areas of specialized grants or loan forgiveness, incentives to discontinue or consolidate unneeded programs, allocation of resources to high priority areas, leadership development, cooperation between schools and colleges, and attracting new persons to teaching. The new priorities for teacher education should include attention to learning research and basic school curriculum. (JD)

The document describes findings of a study of the cost of special education and related services for handicapped children, using information from a national survey taken in 1977-1978. Twenty chapters cover the following study components: objective of the study; summary of study findings; description of sample states and localities; data collection and analysis methods; personnel salaries and work years; age, handicapping condition, and type of educational placement of the handicapped student population; instructional costs of special education teachers; special education aide costs; instructional costs of regular education teachers and aides; costs for related services personnel; screening costs; assessment costs; admission and individualized education program development costs; staff inservice training costs; technical assistance costs; transportation costs; other costs of educating handicapped children; other costs of educating nonhandicapped children; total and added costs of special education; and total cost of special education by size of local education agency enrollment. Tables with statistical data are provided throughout the report. (SB)

Providing guidance to Connecticut schools and districts that are developing curriculum, this book presents curriculum frameworks in 10 disciplines for thinking about the knowledge, skills, and understandings that students should have. The 10 disciplines addressed in the book are: (1) the Arts; (2) Health and Safety Education; (3) Language Arts; (4) Learning Resources and Information Technology; (5) Mathematics; (6) Physical Education; (7) Science; (8) Social Studies; (9) Technology Education; and (10) World Languages. The curriculum frameworks in the book include the following components: program goals, which describe the broad results students should achieve by the end of grade 12; K-12 content standards, which specify what students should know and be able to do by the end of grade 12; and performance standards, which specify by grade cluster how adept or competent student performance must be to signal attainment of the K-12 content standards. (RS)