Education & Pedagogy

In response to rising antisemitism in the United States, state governments have legislated Holocaust education mandates into their public school curriculum to encourage social-emotional growth in their students. This dynamic of Holocaust education is not unfounded, as the implementation of certain Holocaust education curricula have been shown to correlate with increased tolerance shown by the students, as well as decreased feelings of antisemitism later in life. Employing a traditional policy analysis to the 2020 Texas Holocaust education mandate, this paper finds that while the Texas policy is necessary, research-based and well-intentioned, it does not detail specific curricular expectations, appropriate necessary public funding and outline accountability and evaluation measures. This manuscript outlines paths for improvement in the Texas Holocaust education policy and concludes with a broader discussion of the purpose of Holocaust education moving forward.

This paper provides an extensive literature review of current approaches to sexual consent and demonstrates their insufficiency for teaching higher education students about healthy sex. Their overemphasis on the giving of consent to the detriment of attention to the process of gaining consent, as well as their inappropriate utilisation of incomplete legal frames, make them inadequate for preventing rape in a world shaped by gendered social norms. Additionally, these inadequacies make current approaches even less appropriate for the more aim of teaching the broader and vital topic of healthy sex. The goal of this paper is to challenge the way sexual consent education is currently framed in the USA, recommend a paradigm shift regarding perspectives on sexual consent education, and provide suggestions for formative research concerning the provision of university-level, interdisciplinary healthy sex education courses.

The guiding vision of the Tribal College Movement is an education system founded on traditional knowledge and focused on a prosperous future through job creation and community expansion. In 1973, the first six tribal colleges established the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) to provide a support network to more effectively influence federal policies on American Indian and Alaska Native higher education. Today, AIHEC has grown to 36 tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) in the United States. This article describes how AIHEC advances the Tribal College Movement through a broad range of policy efforts to ensure tribal higher education is acknowledged and supported by federal law and policy, including interfacing with Congress and the administration, developing an appropriations strategy, and testifying before myriad committees and subcommittees.

"Rural Special Education Quarterly" (RSEQ) is a journal that includes articles specific to rural special education and disability services. The journal provides "a forum for presentation of new research findings; description of innovative program models or current best practices; analysis of local, state, and national policies; and discussion of issues and trends for special education and related services personnel working in rural communities." In keeping with its mission, manuscripts submitted to RSEQ undergo a rigorous peer review process. This article provides an overview of the peer review process and strategies for successfully reviewing manuscripts submitted to RSEQ. The remainder of this paper will provide a description of, and insights into, the review process for RSEQ.

This opinion piece argues for the transformative value of Model United Nations (MUN) simulations, particularly SimONU, in higher education as a powerful means for experiential learning, global citizenship education, and Learning Development. Drawing on observations from the SimONU event hosted by a European higher education institution in partnership with the United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC), the article highlights the pedagogical, social, and developmental benefits of engaging students in structured, role-based international diplomacy. This piece is grounded in educational theory and explores how such simulations foster essential skills including research, negotiation, collaboration, and critical thinking in higher education contexts, while simultaneously offering inclusive, context-rich learning environments. The piece concludes with a call for broader integration of experiential, globally oriented pedagogies within higher education to better prepare students for the complexities of a multipolar, interdependent world.

The purpose of this study was to explore the positioning experiences of Muslim parents of children with disabilities in the special education process in the United States grounded in positioning theory. The participants were nine individuals (five women; four men) who self-identified as Muslim and parents of children with disabilities currently receiving special education services. The primary data sources were two semi-structured one-on-one interviews and researchers' reflexive notes. The following interrelated themes were constructed: (a) deliberate self-positioning as a Muslim parent, (b) deliberate self-positioning as an advocate in their child's education, and (c) challenges in special education. These themes highlight how Muslim parents took various positions depending on the alignment of rights and duties among themselves and special education teams.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004), the school and parents (or legal guardians) collaboratively develop Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) that include critical educational decisions related to the education of a child with a disability. Yet, for decades, parents have often reported difficulties navigating the special education process and meaningfully participating within IEP meetings. This qualitative study examined the experiences and lessons learned by 25 parents of children with disabilities in Texas. Using sensemaking, we explore how parents' understanding of their participation evolved over multiple meetings and years. In addition, the participants offered recommendations for school principals and parents that are new to IEP meetings and the special education process. Findings from this study have important implications for future research, educator and administrator training, and the potential reauthorization of IDEA.

The aim of this article is to stretch spatial theorising in the field of comparative education. Among the different spatial theoretical approaches that have been explored in educational research in the last 10 years, we review social topology, spatial-temporalities, and beyond-human spatialities and how they have been used in comparative education research. To illustrate the potential of these approaches we then use them to analyse recent technological changes, shifts in governance, the impacts of global crises and the complicated ways in which they are spatially related to education. Through our analysis, we argue that comparative education research would benefit from making space for spatial theorising in relation to time, materiality, and the beyond-human, not only to better understand the world, but also to consider how education is ethically linked to the existential challenges humanity is facing today.

Key Practices in P‑6 Integrated STEM Education: Delphi Panel Insights Over the past two decades, educators and policymakers have worked to improve STEM education for P‑12 students, yet patterns of engagement remain persistently unchanged, potentially hindering interest in STEM careers. This paper focuses on findings from a modified Delphi panel study involving expert teacher educators across the US. We identify crucial practices teacher educators use to prepare candidates for integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teaching in P‑6 classrooms. Additionally, the research highlights key attributes of integrated P‑6 STEM education compared to single‑discipline curricula. The study reveals 16 interconnected essential practices and nine differentiating attributes that define integrated P‑6 STEM education, offering insights for researchers, teacher practitioners, and policymakers.

Contemporary feminist education is riddled with inequalities that place Western feminist theories and pedagogies at the centre of teaching and learning feminism, while African knowledges and pedagogies remain marginalized. This article draws on the experience of teaching African feminism at a South African university to offer some propositions on decolonizing feminist education. It suggests that the project of decolonizing feminist education at universities entails epistemological and pedagogical transformations that legitimate indigenous ways of being, knowing and learning. Reflective in nature, it argues that there is a need for a uniquely African feminist pedagogical framework that enables African feminist teachers to bring African women's ontologies and epistemologies into the classroom. Ultimately, the article offers indigeneity and orality as core principles in African feminist pedagogy that foster a transformative feminist education, while affirming the need for ongoing reflection and action in decolonizing feminist education.

In an increasingly polarised world, in which religion/worldview is a growing marker of difference, an inclusive understanding of citizenship is crucial. We report on a project with secondary schools in England to explore young people's lived citizenship and its relationship to religion/worldview. Religion/worldview does not always feature within citizenship education, and the potentially generative space between Religious Education (RE) and Citizenship for exploring issues of identity, belonging and participation, is underused, under-theorised and under-resourced. At this interface, 'Understanding the Interplay' introduces an innovative methodology that is both a creative and inclusive form of data generation and a pedagogical model grounded in "praxis." Findings and analytical themes are shared to reflect how the project design contributes to both educational research and curriculum development in the pursuit of more inclusive education within plural democracies.

A group of comparative educators have embraced the notion of decoloniality, including presenting their ideas in a recent issue of "Comparative Education" devoted to the topic. In this piece, I engage with the concept, both as it has appeared in comparative education journals and in the broader decoloniality literature confronting modernism and Eurocentrism. I readily accept the critique made that comparative and international education (CIE) as a field emerged in the post-World War II years embedded in the US-led postcolonial project. However, as I spell out in this piece, the critique is conveniently ahistorical, completely ignoring the anti-imperialist, anti-racism, and feminist movements that rocked the world in the 1960s and 1970s. All this made CIE contested terrain ever since. Further, I consider some important issues regarding the politics of decoloniality as an organising onto-epistemology for proposing new educational models and for seeking alternatives to modernism.

Research examining state higher education governing agencies often focuses on their centralization of authority and structure as key differentiating factors (e.g., consolidated governing agencies vs. coordinating boards vs. planning/regulatory agencies). The utility of the resulting typology has been widely used and contributes extensively to the body of literature framing the collective understanding of these organizations. Despite studies questioning whether these groupings offer adequate nuance across state contexts, limited research has sought to compare similarly structured state higher education governing agencies. Accordingly, this chapter examines the similarities and differences in roles and structures across three state higher education governing agencies (Idaho, Nevada, and Utah), which are similarly classified as consolidated governing agencies and maintain some similar characteristics given their regional proximity, while providing additional insight into the operation of higher education in the US Mountain West.

This paper examines the impact of Disability Studies in Education (DSE) aligned curriculum at a United States university on the attitudes of general education pre-service teachers toward inclusive practices. The study employed a pretest-posttest design to compare the attitudes of teacher candidates at the beginning and end of a course that focused on inclusive instruction. Findings indicate that the course positively influenced students' attitudes towards inclusion, particularly in their affective beliefs. Students identified several DSE topics and their cooperating teachers as influential in shaping their inclusive attitudes. We discuss implications of the findings on the development of courses aimed at fostering inclusive attitudes and supporting teachers to navigate the tension between school practices and perspectives in DSE.

This paper explores the intersection of utopian imagination with higher education, addressing the opportunities and tensions between pragmatic, holistic and transversal utopias and their place within education theory and practice. In response to contemporary crises in higher education, we argue that we must reimagine educational futures by broadening the frameworks through which utopian educational institutions, systems and practices can be imagined and critiqued. Working with the multiplicity of educational utopias and emphasising the conflicting framings of pragmatic and holistic utopias, the paper uses the idea of transversal future-making and the 'placeness' of utopia to discuss how it might be mobilised in the design of educational futures. These theoretical approaches are illustrated and examined through two examples from future-making in education -- Speculative Higher Education Futures and Playtopias.