Education & Pedagogy

This article examines the discrepancy between the ideology of inclusive education and the national education policy in the Finnish comprehensive school education. The study covers twenty years and is based on observations that indicate that the change in comprehensive school education, grounded in inclusive education ideals, has been slow. This has been the case, even though Finnish education policy has, on principle, committed to many international statements that promote inclusion ideology. The data consists primarily of statistics indicating the number of students in special education and national and international research on the subject. It confirms our supposition, but also the fact that statistics are not merely challenging but also capable of distorting reality. While examining the changes in student quantities over the last twenty years, we came to the conclusion that the fluctuation does not result from any real growth in student numbers. Changes in statistical methods, terminology in the field of study, norms, education systems or even social phenomena can also cause distortion.

Inclusive education is regarded as one of the global agendas of education; in recent years, many countries have implemented an inclusive education policy. This case study aimed to examine the actual practice of inclusive education among children with disabilities today. More specifically, this study analyzed the case of inclusive education for children with visual impairment in Yangon, Myanmar. In Yangon, "a limited inclusive education in phase" allows children with visual impairment to experience both special and regular schools. This study's findings revealed that the special schools had met the students' needs with life-skills courses, supplementary study time, and a safe environment. However, there were some challenges, including a lack of communication between the special and regular schools and inadequate bonding between students with and without visual impairment. However, it also suggests the importance of addressing the wider range of needs of students with disabilities for inclusive education. This case in Yangon is considered as a type of inclusive education which utilizes their resources to fit their context.

Adult education centres provide a final opportunity for adult learners who have transitioned out of mainstream schools to earn a high school degree. These centers overwhelmingly serve low-income, African-American and Latinx students whose needs were not met by traditional schools. Adult Education Centers are underfunded, under-resourced and challenged with high attrition rates. Little is known about factors that promote adult education persistence in the adult education context. To address this, the authors conducted a cross-sectional study examining the relationship between social support, coping through emotional processing and expression, stigma consciousness and attitudes towards participation in adult education. Results indicate that higher levels of self-reported coping (via emotional processing) and social support improve attitudes towards adult education and higher levels of self-reported stigma consciousness increase negative attitudes towards adult education. Study findings have significant policy implications for constructing student centred supports for adult education students who experience multiple levels of social inequality.

The purpose of this article is to review recent literature on twice-exceptional students and consider implications for their education in the context of the trend towards increased inclusive education for students with disabilities. The review focused on teachers' experiences and perceptions and the school experiences of twice-exceptional students. Fifteen articles were reviewed, published between 2000 and 2020, selected according to a systematic protocol from two widely used online databases. Findings indicated that the implications that need to be considered were the importance of teacher preparation, the need for a continuum of special education interventions, the need for collaboration with parents and specialists, and teachers needing to focus on developing strengths as much as remediating difficulties. It was concluded that twice-exceptional students can be taught effectively in inclusive education settings as long as they are able to access appropriate strategies and programs from the fields of special education and gifted education.

The concept of distance education has become even more substantial in the days when humanity is having difficult times with pandemic. Besides, there is an idea that education will have transformed when the life after pandemic starts. Aim of this research is to discuss artificial intelligence-supported or artificial intelligence-based education, which is a type of distance education and to contribute to people's manifesting different perspectives on education, which has differentiated under emergency cases such as pandemics or natural disasters and in technological advances as well. To reveal methods that can contribute to increase efficiency of distance education is aimed within the scope of the research. Whether the human education may be left to machines or not, and what kind of situations will be encountered is discussed within the scope of the research. Results indicate that such a system is used is artificial intelligence-based education should be discussed in depth by stakeholders in all areas and should be arranged for the benefit of human beings.

Although higher education plays a vital role in the socio-economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa, enrollment in universities in the region is unexpectedly low compared to other regions. However, Sub-Saharan African countries have made strides in increasing access to higher education amidst constraints and challenges. The efforts have led to increases in enrollment and what many countries did not anticipate is the increase in unemployment from the greater output of students. In this study, we use panel data from eleven Sub-Saharan African countries for 2000-2018 to analyze the relationship between higher education and unemployment. A panel fixed effect model was estimated, and the results indicate that unemployment has a negative and significant effect on higher enrollment. Besides, higher education enrollment has a significant but negative effect on employment. Per capita income significantly affects enrollment into higher education and has the expected sign. The estimates further show that government expenditures on higher education play a significant role in the demand for places in higher education.

The aim of this study is to explore Omani and Kuwaiti physical education teachers' teaching efficacy level and to determine differences in terms of gender variables. The sample consisted of 164 physical education teachers from Oman and 187 from the State of Kuwait. There were 49.9% male physical education teachers and 59.1% female physical education teachers from both countries. Data were collected through a developed teaching efficacy scale, which was borrowed from the literature, consisting of 5 main categories: content knowledge, pedagogical special knowledge, general teaching, classroom management, and assessment in physical education. Generally, the results revealed that physical education teachers hold a positive and medium level of teaching efficacy. In addition, physical education teachers in the State of Kuwait possessed higher levels than Omani physical education teacher in all dimensions except in the general teaching and classroom management dimensions. Furthermore, the level of teaching efficacy was higher for female physical education teachers compared to their counterparts. Further recommendations for future studies are also suggested.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of associate degree formal and distance education students course attendance upon their course achievement. The data were obtained from the institutional records of 516 students who registered in formal education programs and 510 students who registered in distance education programs of a vocational school affiliated to a state university in Eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey. It was noticed that course attendance of formal education students was higher than those who registered in the distance education programs; on the other hand, formal education students were more successful rather than distance education students in terms of midterm, final exam and grade point average. It was determined that course attendance was a significant predictor of midterm, final exam and grade point average, and the achievement scores increased as the course attendance increased, as well. Taking measures to encourage students' attendance in courses in distance education programs and optimizing access and technical infrastructure could positively contribute upon this issue.

Purpose: Education policies require inclusive practices across student learning environments internationally. In Canada, provinces and territories oversee their own curriculum development. This study presents a critical discourse analysis of how inclusive education is addressed within Ontario's 2015 Health and Physical Education Curriculum, Grades 9-12. Method: Fairclough and Chouliaraki's approach to critical discourse analysis, which encompasses structural, linguistic, and interdiscursive analysis, was used to show how language is interwoven within ideologies of physical education to represent inclusivity. Results: Three discourses were identified: (a) the discourse of equity and inclusion, (b) the discourse of opportunity, and (c) the discourse of positive outcomes. The curriculum reflects inclusivity through overt language and intention, holding the possibility for choice and opportunities beyond traditional notions of physical education. Discussion: Concerns included whether ideals presented in the curriculum reflect the realities of "discourse in action." Transformative discourses within physical education should emerge from the student voice.

This research uses feminist methodology to investigate the multi-contextual narratives of pre-service teachers in sex education when they were K-12 students, their emerging understandings of sex and sexual violence, and their experiences learning about prevention in undergraduate and teacher education. Participants experienced inadequate sex education in K-12 school, where they learned about sex and sexual violence through the margins of rather than the formal curriculum, leading to difficulty negotiating sexual ethics and developing sexual citizenship. Participants critically reflected on their own teachers' discomfort with teaching about sex and addressing incidences of sexual violence, as well as on the absence of prevention education in the teacher education. They had limited understandings of sexual violence and expressed desire to learn more as they emerge into their teacher roles, to do better than their teachers did. Implications include the need for mandatory integration of prevention education throughout the teacher certification curriculum.

The Resource-based View argues that achieving a sustainable competitive advantage depends on managers seeking valuable and rare resources with a high cost of imitation from within an organization, particularly on the ability to organize such resources. Concomitant with the progression of the four stages of entrepreneurship education at Chinese higher education institutions--the formation stage, the development stage, the expansion stage, and the reform stage, entrepreneurship institutes have gradually become the primary vehicle through which higher education institutions provide entrepreneurship education. Due to the different characteristics of higher education institutions, three organizational models, namely independent, dependent and cooperative models, have been formed in the actual operation process. However, the current organizations of entrepreneurship education face organizational governance failure, target positioning deviation, and poor openness. They must innovate in optimizing organizational governance mechanisms, reshaping entrepreneurship education goals, and the collaborative participation of internal and external subjects. This research has practical and policy significance for deepening the reform of innovation and entrepreneurship education. [This article was translated by Carissa Fletcher.]

Value-oriented education has been an integral facet of education. The need for value education stems from the social malaise in the society and education, being purposeful in making students responsible citizens, must address such deficiencies in values. This study aims to understand the attitude of student teachers and in-service teachers' towards current education and its value systems and seeks their stand on requiring value-oriented education as they are the major stake holders of direct classroom education experience other than students. The case study of Elizabeth Holmes and Annie Dookhan was used to assess how academically strong individuals end up straying into fraudulent ways. The study was administered using an electronic questionnaire, the frequency range was established using SPSS and indexed to percentage values. The data shed light on the attitude of student teachers and in-service teachers feeling that current education fails to inculcate values and suggested some methods of reform in the value systems of current education.

This article introduces the reader to past, current, and future trends in science teacher preparation and professional development in Vietnam. The authors rely on document analysis for data collection and focused analysis to describe the general education system and the mechanisms for teacher training in Vietnam from the past to the present. Research questions focused on exploring changes in the organization of the education system over time, identifying advances that have been made, and describing what challenges teacher education faces today. In addition, this paper offers a special focus on how Vietnamese pedagogy institutions are working to prepare new teachers. Finally, the authors describe how Vietnam is preparing to implement a new national general education program that will strongly affect all aspects of education, including training and retraining of teachers. The authors conclude by raising some important questions for future research and development.

The objective of this article is to analyze the strategies adopted by Brazilian universities for the continuity of higher education internationalization actions during the pandemic of COVID-19. Taking as a guide the stages of development of the internationalization of higher education proposed by Brandenburg; de Wit; Jones; Leask & Drobner (2020), a new stage of development is proposed: the virtualization. The research results suggest that it will continue after the pandemic. In an empirical qualitative study, conducted with six Brazilian Higher Education Institutions well evaluated by the Times Higher Education 2020 ranking, it was identified that the Internationalization actions developed to contribute to a new sustainable model of internationalization in the country, based on virtualization of Internationalization at Home, and that meets the main objective of the internationalization of higher education: to provide opportunities for all students to develop international perspectives and intercultural competencies during their formative journey.

Given that achieving gender equality is a global development agenda, girl's participation in education has been taken as one of the most important indicators. The purpose of this article is to analyze the status of girls' participation in higher education and explore the reasons behind the disparities among them. Similarly, some ways forward to address disparities of the girls' participation are also explored. To analyze the status, the secondary data have been collected from University Grants Commission Nepal (UGC-Nepal). The data are tabulated, analyzed, compared, interpreted and the conclusion is drawn. Similarly, other related documents are consulted and reviewed to make recommendations for achieving gender equality in education. Girls' participation in higher education has increased significantly from nineteen percent to forty-two percent during the thirty years. Though there exist many disparities in different groups, interventions need to start from the school education and access of technical higher education should be expanded in rural areas and to underprivileged groups.