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This article argues that reforms of higher education finance for undergraduates in England introduced by the Blair government in 2006 provided a progressive strategy for achieving the central objectives of higher education of quality (better), access (wider) and size (larger). Reforms in 2012 are a not a strategy but a collection of ad hoc arrangements. They include the good (a higher fees cap, a higher interest rate on student loans, better information and improved support for part-time study), the bad (abolishing most taxpayer support for teaching in the arts and humanities and the social sciences, and raising excessively the threshold at which loan repayments start) and the unspeakable (abolishing Education Maintenance Allowances and AimHigher). The reforms are fiscally costly and hence perpetuate the central problem of capped student numbers, and will not stand the test of time. The concluding section outlines the next White Paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the series of articles pertaining to science teacher education and the content and impact of science method courses. Assumptions on the basis of teacher preparation programs; Adoption of conceptual change model; Differences in elementary and secondary science method courses; Reform of science teacher preparation.

Introduction: This discussion paper investigates workforce shortage of Australian sonographers through identifying educational responses to the shortage. Method: An ethnographic content analysis of insights into the sonographer workforce provided in the Australian Government Department of Employment occupational reports (2007‐2016) and current education models across providers of prequalification sonographer education and data correlation with Australian Sonographer Accreditation Registry, education provider correspondence, and website information were conducted. Results: Industry‐identified shortage factors related to prequalification education including sonographer quantity and suitability, education model and location, student admission, and skill and attribute training. Educational changes related to these factors were identified. Queensland demonstrated the greatest increase in sonographer (166%) and student (1000%) numbers (2007‐2016). Population‐weighted binomial ratios identified South Australia with the highest number of sonographers and students per head of population (2016). In 2016, sonographers graduated from the UG+1 Postgraduate Model (74.6%), Direct Entry Postgraduate Model (18%), and UG+1 Postgraduate Model with mandatory simulated skill training (7.4%). Discussion Sonographer and student supply increased, indicating growth in clinical training capacity (2007‐2016). Increased sonographer demand meant workforce shortage was relatively static. Educational response involved change to education models with characteristics related to shortage factors. Research into these education models may identify strategies to further increase clinical training capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period when the British Educational Research Association (BERA) was founded was one in which there was an increasing recognition amongst the research community that a wind of change had stirred up the settled traditions of educational research. It was a time which celebrated the promise of alternative paradigms for research. Ten or so years on we are entering another era where the emphasis is not on the reconceptualisation of what research is but on how it is organised. I think one can discern at least two factors, not wholly separate from each other, that will increasingly influence how a substantial part of research will be organised. These two factors are the changes which have taken place in the composition of the research community and the direction of current Government policy concerning the school system. I aim to show how these are leading to a fruitful form of collaborative research at local level which should be encouraged and supported—not least by BERA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of learning ecologies emerged in a context of educational change. While the "learning ecologies" construct has offered a broad semantic space for characterizing innovative ways of learning, it is also true that its potential to promote innovative educational interventions may have been hindered by this same broadness. Based on this assumption, in this paper the authors carried out a systematic review of the literature on learning ecologies with the aim of analysing: (1) the varying definitions given to the concept, including the ontological perspective underlying the phenomena studied; (2) the methodological approaches adopted in studying the phenomenon; and (3) the applications of the research on this topic. Throughout this analysis, the authors attempt to describe the criticalities of the existing research, as well as the potential areas of development that align well with the theoretical/ontological issues, methodological approaches and educational applications. The authors selected and analysed 85 articles, which they then classified in a set of 20 categories defined by them on a theoretical basis. Moreover, in order to triangulate the manual coding, a bibliometric map was created showing the co‐citation activity of the 85 papers. The emerging picture showed significant variability in the ontological definitions and methodological approaches. In spite of this richness, few educational applications currently exist, particularly with regard to technology‐enhanced learning developments. Most research is observational, devoted to describing hybrid (digital and on‐site) learning activities that bridge the gap between the school and social spaces. Furthermore, many of the studies relate to the field of secondary education, with fewer studies exploring adult learning and higher education. The studies dealing with professional development relate mostly to teachers' continuing education. The authors conclude that the concept of learning ecologies could be used to address further experimental and design‐based research leading to research applications if there is proper alignment between the ontological, methodological and applicative dimensions. The main potential of this strategy lies in the possibility of supporting learners by raising their awareness of their own learning ecologies, thereby empowering them and encouraging them to engage in agentic practices. This empowerment could help maintain and build new and better learning opportunities, which every learning ecology can incorporate, amidst the chaotic abundance that characterizes the digital society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, pupils aged 16 take the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations for a range of subjects. The current assessment models for GCSE include a two-tier structure for some subjects and a non-tier model for the others. The tiered subjects have a higher tier designed for high achieving pupils and a lower tier for low achieving pupils. The higher tier paper is targeted at grades A*–D (with A* the highest grade available), while the lower tier paper at grades C–G (with G the lowest grade). The UK government has proposed a comprehensive reform of GCSEs. It suggested that, with tiered papers, pupils are forced to choose between higher and lower tier papers, which will place a cap on the ambition of those entering for the lower tier. The government therefore suggests avoiding tiering in the reformed GCSEs when possible. This paper discusses the technical and equity issues with the use of tiered examinations in current GCSEs and reviews potential alternative assessment approaches for effective differentiation between pupils for the reformed GCSEs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pillar 2 of the OECD's global tax reform proposal will have significant direct and indirect impacts for low‐income developing countries (LICs). Most interesting and problematic is the question as to how the global anti‐base erosion (GloBE) rules for a proposed global minimum effective tax will affect tax competition behaviour in LICs, and how LICs should respond when a critical mass of higher‐income economies adopt the new structure. Most LICs are source‐only countries, and they are very much in competition to attract foreign direct investment. Do LICs want to continue to compete using the tax system to the extent possible, to step back from that competition, or to take some intermediate course? Pillar 2 does not itself change a country's desired position on the competition spectrum – it merely affects how, and to what extent, that position can still be obtained. This paper posits that LICs should adopt qualified domestic minimum top‐up taxes, and that this will not itself have a negative impact on their competitiveness. The primary focus of the paper, however, is on the design of the substance‐based income exclusion (carve‐out), examining the following three questions. Should the GloBE have been designed without a carve‐out? Would there have been a better way of designing it? How will LICs be affected? The paper concludes that, as little real advantage is likely to accrue to LICs from intangible assets, minimising tax competition for those assets will have relatively little impact on them; and that, from an economic efficiency standpoint, shifting the tax burden away from a normal return and toward economic rents – albeit imperfectly – is a reasonable solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines reflection on my experiences as a public school principal with an analysis of two papers about safety in schools: "School Safety and Violence: Research and Clinical Understandings, Trends and Improvement Strategies" by Jonathan Cohen and "Tipping the Balance: Moving Toward School Safety While Considering Student Needs" by Nancy Rappaport. Cohen and Rappaport offer sound guidance on how to make schools safe—from macro system reforms to more micro, interpersonal interactions. I agree with Cohen's assertion that "learning how to have constructive controversial conversations is an essential foundation for healthy relationships on the one hand and democracy on the other." Indeed, I believe that safe schools are necessarily democratic schools. And I strongly agree with Rappaport's assertion that we must "make learning deeply personal." Just as important and true is the assertion conveyed by both Rappaport and Cohen that educators must be attuned to environmental conditions in the society—contemporary and historical—that erode safety in school communities, from systemic racism to pandemics and other threats to the wellbeing of children and families. My critique of both papers, and of many social‐emotional school reform efforts in general, is that there is not enough emphasis on the place where students and teachers spend the majority of their time: the classroom. The teaching and learning that happen in the classroom—both what is taught and how it is taught—are dominant forces in determining whether a school is healthy and safe. Drawing from my own work as a teacher and principal, I describe several essential ingredients for curriculum and pedagogy that enable classrooms to be places of trust, healthy risk‐taking, empathy, democratic practice and, ultimately, safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on migration and education have examined homeland returns as part of family strategies around acquiring desired cultural capital. However, the impact of return migration and transnational mobility on homeland educational landscapes remains under‐researched. Using ethnographic data from Ghana, Senegal, the UK and the US, this paper shows how 'international' schools on the African continent have emerged as places where young transnational Africans can acquire cosmopolitan and Afropolitan competencies and outlooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of globalisation and the widespread dominance of English, Southeast Asian countries have experienced significant shifts in their foreign language policies, prioritising English instruction over other languages. While numerous studies have explored teacher agency in response to educational change, understanding the motivations behind their actions warrants further attention. Amidst this evolving educational landscape in culturally nuanced contexts like Southeast Asia, unpacking the influence of Asian sociocultural values on how teachers exert agency during this transition could provide in‐depth insights into teacher agency and their decision making. Employing a sociocultural approach and drawing on Bourdieu's theory of practice, this paper examines the sociocultural factors shaping the agency of 20 teachers in a Vietnamese university as they respond to a profound educational change—the transition from teaching modern foreign languages (e.g., French, Chinese, and Russian) to teaching English. Through teacher interviews with 20 transitioned teachers, supplemented by insights from interviews with two faculty and university leaders, the findings reveal the embodiment of Bourdieu's concepts of Habitus and Capital in Vietnamese adaptability, flexibility, family roles, responsibilities, and teachers’ sense of collectivity as influential factors on teacher agency. Additionally, the hierarchical nature of change implementation, as reflected in leaders’ orientations, organisational constraints, and administrative styles, viewed through the lens of Field and social networks, contributes to the intricate dynamics of the transition process. Understanding these findings is crucial for comprehending the factors that constrain and facilitate teachers’ responses to change within the complex interplay of individual dispositions, societal structures, and power distribution within the educational sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on recent education reform guidelines to prepare professionals who are able to handle new technological, economic, social, and environmental challenges, pedagogical modifications are deemed necessary by the educators. Specifically, in biology, the rapid changes in the content and biological products demand changes in the curriculum. We aim to address this current need by providing an example of a course that was redesigned to meet the current trends of biological engineering education. In this course‐based undergraduate research experience (CURE), learning objectives and possible outcomes were developed and assessment mapping was performed to align the course objectives with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) recommendations. A description of how one can assess authentic inquiry courses while adhering to the recommendations are discussed. For example, in this particular course, students completed weekly reflection assignments, maintained lab notebooks that were graded every week, presented their research to their peers at the end of the semester, and submitted a final paper to be graded. "Holistic" engineering is crucial for the all‐around development of a 21st century engineer. Altering the traditional lecturing with more hands‐on learning is crucial for the development of professional and communication skills of students. Such alterations could lead to the production of well‐rounded life‐long learners to serve the upcoming world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed decomposition analysis of rising long‐term earnings inequality among West German men born between the years 1955 and 1974 based on high‐quality administrative data. Educational upgrading is identified as a leading factor behind increasing inequality in the upper part of the long‐term earnings distribution. The study also reveals a substantial shift from full‐ to part‐time employment and shows this to be an important factor in explaining rising inequality in the lower part. This effect seems to be quantitatively more important than the increasing incidence of non‐employment for the studied cohorts. Overall, increasing inequality in long‐term earnings can primarily be attributed to an increasing inequality in average yearly earnings during times of employment as opposed to changes in the total years of employment. The analysis also reveals similarities with the development in the US by documenting a stagnation in long‐term earnings among the cohorts studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New reforms in science education call for three‐dimensional learning by integrating disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). These reforms defined the new term, crosscutting concept (CCC), as a lens that has explanatory power across disciplines. To describe how researchers are examining and using the CCCs related to science teaching and learning, a literature review was conducted to identify articles that included the term "crosscutting concept" since its introduction in 2012. The articles were narrowed to those that use the term CCC as a component of the framing, analysis, findings, or discussion of their empirical or nonempirical article. A subset of the identified papers elaborated on the CCCs beyond existing policy documents and references. These papers were open‐coded to identify themes in how the CCCs were used. The identified themes suggest that the CCCs are useful for science teaching, learning, and research in terms of creating opportunities to learn, connecting to the big idea, linking to practice, drawing on funds of knowledge, and connecting across topics and disciplines. These themes were analyzed to identify areas of existing focus and those in need of additional research. This synthesis of the literature has implications for using and studying the CCCs within three‐dimensional teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education changes, and pupils and students require a more active role. Educational competitions could be an answer. This paper highlights the key points as these were revealed through setting up an event of an educational robotic competition from zero. It, also, presents statistics collected in different periods: before the competition, directly after it, and finally at a notable time after the competition (about 6 months). To collect the data, the completion of four different questionnaires, for every annual event, was asked separately, by the participants and the organizers. The paper provides empirical insights on setting up an educational competition. It also outlines the characteristics of the students taking part and underlines the results that the contents have on them. It suggests that teamwork and collaboration within the team is a prerequisite for a competition to have an impact on the educational process. Furthermore, robotic competitions raise the interest of students in robotics, programming, and STEM, while they develop social skills and create bonds between the participants. Moreover, it is a useful tool for educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunities for children to be involved in the decisions made about them is a part of current statutory educational legislation. Person‐centred planning (PCP) has been proposed as an appropriate method of meeting statutory requirements. However, there is a dearth of research into its application within education. The paper describes a systematic literature review of current research into PCP within education for pupils with SEMH and the associated outcomes. PCP appears to be an effective way of engaging children, young people and their families but research within education is currently limited and methodologically weak. More rigorous research is needed into PCP and its effectiveness and should include the use of standardised and/or observable measures, more varied ranges of contexts and participants, and longitudinal and child‐led designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores several collections of books and literature concerned with change in educational organizations. The three groups of schools of literature on change are people-based studies, power-based studies and gradualist studies. There are more papers dealing with ideas and thoughts in the form of theories and models than there are studies with real data and examples which can be used to illustrate action or to generate further study. It would be necessary for prospective researchers to become familiar with the key texts in the three schools.

Across the world, countries have engaged in different iterations of curriculum change, and one of the common denominators of reform is the proposal of more agency for teachers around curriculum making. This is not an easy task for teachers. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the effects that international ERASMUS+ mobilities have had on the power of curricular agency of teachers from two European countries. This work is based on an empirical investigation of a qualitative nature which collected the testimonies of four school headmasters, a deputy principal and eleven teachers from Ireland and Portugal, teaching different curriculum matters, who were involved in the ERASMUS+ programme. Our findings evidence a very positive impact on secondary teachers' capacity to self‐organize and achieve agency in relation to curriculum making by adapting their knowledge and skills, learnt through the mobility, to their own culture and context through collaborative communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coalition Government's ' Green Paper' (DfE 2011) proposes a systemic overhaul of services for pupils with special educational needs in England, with increased parental choice of provision and 'sharper accountability' (p. 67) in schools. Deadlines for various stages of this reform have not been met, and its final nature remains uncertain. This paper reveals SENCOs' insights into their changing role in this turbulent policy context. This is achieved through the thematic analysis of 227 responses to an 'open-ended' question in the national Special Educational Needs Coordinator ( SENCO) Survey 2012. Findings from this sample indicate that SENCOs predict that schools in England will become more inclusive, with greater shared responsibility for achievement for all, and SENCOs' increased involvement in staff training and other whole school capacity-building activities. Respondents predict a greater partnership with parents, for whom they will provide advice and links to other services. They foresee their reduced involvement in direct teaching and an intensification of their work in other ways, especially in terms of paperwork associated with pupil tracking and other accountability measures. These changes are anticipated against a backdrop of resource cuts, requiring SENCOs to show increasing self-reliance and imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of school reforms to advance reconciliation with Indigenous peoples provides an opportunity to explore what Canadians think is important in framing their identities and values. This paper draws on data from a survey of public perspectives on education for reconciliation activities in two Canadian provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. We consider the broader community context within which schools are located. By examining public perspectives, we are able to assess how curricular initiatives related to reconciliation are understood by community members, both as a priority in itself and in relation to other key curricular areas. Informed by critical race theory, our findings suggest that reconciliation is restricted to activities that do not involve extensive change to existing curricular and ideational frameworks. These perspectives exist alongside extensive opposition to reconciliation justified by claims that Indigenous experiences and perspectives are receiving undue attention relative to more pressing educational priorities. Our findings suggest that aims to transform dominant understandings about Canadian history and identity remain far from being fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial essay is for the special issue "Intersectionality and education work during COVID‐19 transitions." We reconceptualize intersectionality in the contexts of COVID‐19 to theorize change to education work, introduce the six special issue papers, and provide directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on educational technology. Educational technology research and study of change; Systemic change within a rural school system; Changes in the way people teach and learn.

Meta‐analysis comprises a powerful tool for synthesising prior research and empirically validating theoretical frameworks. Using this tool and two recent multilevel models of educational effectiveness as guiding frameworks, this paper synthesises the results of 195 studies investigating the association between system‐level characteristics and student learning outcomes. Results show a broad range of system‐level factors studied in the international literature, which could be grouped into the three categories used in the integrated multilevel model of education: antecedents determined by the larger societal context, including factors such as level of development, inequality and societal values; system ecology and structural reform, covering factors such as decentralisation, accountability and stratification; and direct educational policies, including financial resources, time resources and variables related to teacher training and qualifications. Results highlight the importance of the larger context in which educational systems operate, as well as the need for further research looking at actual educational policies. Further analyses provide support for a generic effect of system‐level factors, regardless of the educational level or subject domain assessed. However, results show variation in terms of methodological choices, such as the number of levels used in the analysis. Based on these results, implications for theory, research, and policy are drawn. Context and implicationsRationale for this studyWe present a meta‐analysis of the international literature on system‐level factors associated with student learning outcomes to contribute to the improvement of quality in education.Why the new findings matterA synthesis of the literature is important to identify what kind of factors have been studied so far, their consistency and significance, and to identify future research needs.Implications for theory, research, and policySocioeconomic factors, such as affluence and inequality, and other characteristics of the larger societal context are important system‐level conditions. Conducting the meta‐analysis allowed to identify areas where more research is needed, such as on the impact of national educational policies, and on the impact of system factors on non‐cognitive learning outcomes. Further studies are also needed with a longitudinal component and focusing on the indirect effects of system‐level factors. The results of the meta‐analysis give further support to exerting caution when it comes to educational reforms and their implementation across different contexts, particularly because of the role that system inequality plays for educational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue including health and physical education, teachers' expertise and vision, and educational change.

Copyright of Higher Education Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents the first causal evidence that compulsory education improves retirement financial outcomes in a developing economy. By exploiting the 1986 compulsory schooling reform in China, we show that compulsory education increases rural residents' participation in the New Rural Pension Scheme, the world's largest public pension program. Using an instrumental variables strategy in a difference‐in‐differences framework, we find that an additional year of schooling significantly increases pension participation by 3.5 percentage points, and this positive result is more prominent among women. Mechanism analysis suggests that cognition and access to information are essential pathways in the education–pension nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: The Government of Ethiopia has a long‐standing commitment to improving the quality of education. In recent years, this has shifted to include a more explicit focus on equity in learning outcomes. In this paper, we examine the education reform design process in the context of Ethiopia's political environment which is widely recognised as a strong developmental state. Purpose: The article examines how federal, regional, and international donor actors negotiate their interests in relation to Ethiopia's national quality education reform programme, the General Education Quality Improvement Programme for Equity (GEQIP‐E). Methods and approach: We conducted 81 semi‐structured, key informant interviews with federal and regional government officials and international donors who were involved in the design of GEQIP‐E. Findings We find that federal government was able to leverage considerable political influence over high‐level priorities and the framing of GEQIP‐E. Large donors leveraged financial influence to exclude some specific priorities, while smaller donors were able to draw on social influence and technical expertise to include priorities aligned with their interests. Regional governments—which are responsible for policy implementation—were largely excluded from the reform design process. Policy implications: Our analysis highlights the importance of recognizing and understanding different forms of influence in the dynamic process of negotiating reform between government and donors. It identifies that both government and donor voices counted in the process of negotiations, but in different ways and to varying degrees. Understanding how different actors draw on their relative political, financial, and social influence is vital for ensuring successful implementation and sustainability. Importantly, we identify that voices of local actors are left out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum change is an intricate, lengthy process, requiring commitment, cooperation and compromise amongst the agencies and stakeholders involved; its development is more complex in divided societies, particularly when the subject content is open to contention. The addition of Local and Global Citizenship (LGC) to the Northern Ireland (NI) curriculum in 2007 was intended to prepare students for life in a post‐conflict and increasingly diverse society, and the precariousness of current events locally and globally have reinforced its relevance. Yet, the initial curricular aspirations underpinning citizenship education have been largely unfulfilled and its diminished status within the education system reflects the divergences that beset its development and implementation. This paper employs Fullan's change model of implementation to critically reflect on the interplay of factors that informed and influenced the design and introduction of the LGC curriculum in NI. Using Fullan's framework as an analytic tool, interviews with key stakeholders directly involved in curriculum reform at the time illustrate how the complexity of change motivated and undermined in equal measure. Whilst the paper assesses the implications of a dislocated citizenship curriculum and identifies lessons learned for NI, the findings have wide‐ranging relevance for education systems generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect on academic performance of an exogenous educational reform that reduced the school calendar of non-fee-paying schools in the Madrid region (Spain) by approximately two weeks, leaving the basic curriculum unchanged. To identify the consequences of such a measure, we exploit the fact that it did not affect private schools (control group) and the existence of an external cognitive test that measures academic performance before and after its application in the region. We find that the reform worsened students' educational outcomes by around 0.13 of a standard deviation. This effect was especially strong in the subjects of Spanish and Mathematics. We further explored quantile effects across the distribution of exam scores, finding that the disruption had a more negative effect on students in the upper quartile than those in the lower quartile. Overall, the analysis shows a reduction in the gap across non-fee-paying schools and an increase in the gap between non-fee- and fee-paying schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special paper provides a critical overview of wicked problems in special and inclusive education. Practically, this paper provides a strategic framework for future special issues in the Journal of Special Educational Needs. Critical attention is also given to the concept of a wicked problem when applied to research in special and inclusive education: the suggestion is made this focus can stimulate innovations necessary for educational change and begin the process through which key problems in the field are addressed. A final observation made is that tangible change is unlikely to occur in special and inclusive education without addressing the underpinning beliefs and behavioural motivations which sustain today's wicked problems. Systematic transformation is therefore unlikely to be sustained without disruptive attention to the psychological, cultural and political aspects of 'the way things are'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The upgrade educational information technology triggered by COVID‐19 has shaped a new educational order and new educational forms. As a result, traditional educational measurement is now facing a systematic transformation, that is, from the Assessment of Learning (AoL) to Assessment for Learning (AfL), and finally to Assessment as Learning (AaL). By showing the initiative and the flexibility of large‐scale online learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic, this paper examines the evolution from AoL to AaL from four aspects: participants, test form, multivariate data for process‐based measurement, and measurement models for multivariate data. We propose multidisciplinary corporations in the field, which integrate education, psychology, and information technology into the theories and methods of educational measurement. Further, we emphasize that the validity, ethics, and fairness of the measurement should also be considered the critical issues. Researchers and practitioners of educational measurement must persist in pursuing the substantive significance of measurement and provide unique experience and guidance for the theoretical and practical development of educational assessment in this great revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given growing systemic investment in the designing of new learning spaces, researching the relationships between physical space and learning and teaching processes is imperative. Researching innovative learning spaces is challenging, therefore the aim of this paper is to demonstrate a pedagogical characterization based on a three‐dimensional theoretical framework. The study presented here includes three schools in the process of implementing a constructivist pedagogical change involving gradual development of educational intiatives including the redesigning of learning spaces. We characterized learning environments by space, pedagogical practices and curricular potential and explored the relationships between space, active learning and the development of high‐order thinking skills (HOT). Characterization of teaching and learning processes was based on interviews with 12 teachers, 478 class observations and analysis of 307 learning tasks. The findings indicate a higher expression of active learning in the innovative learning spaces compared with the traditional spaces. Nevertheless, results demonstrated difficulties in designing constructivist learning tasks and developing HOT skills, with relatively low encouragement for problem solving skills and critical thinking. Learning tasks were characterized by low cognitive complexity. This study provides a new methodology for investigating teaching and learning processes in innovative learning spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper charts the historical and political contexts for the evolution of Chinese adult and continuing education over the past 40 years, focusing on the national adult education reforms and relevant policies, and establishing the national lifelong education system. The progress and transformations of Chinese adult education, including how purposes and roles of adult education have been defined and adjusted to meet the needs, is situated and contextualized in the three main eras, under four Chinese leaderships to clearly understand each ideological foundation and national strategic plan. Reflections on the changes in the Chinese adult education landscape lead to some theoretical understandings of China's ideological shifts and a focus that moved from adult education to vocational and adult education, toward building a lifelong education system, serving the realization of the China Dream, through the current Xi's One Belt and One Road national initiative. Finally, this paper concludes and shares implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The free-market is commonly presented by its supporters as the best environment for introducing innovations. This paper challenges the universality of this contention by arguing that free-market dynamics cannot provide the appropriate conditions for significant educational changes. By adopting the perspective of systems research, I claim that the degeneracy characterizing free-markets lodad educational systems with extreme resilience to changes. Based on Barabasi's network theory, I argue further that introducing change is extremely difficult due to the need to invest extensive effort in identifying specific sources of power (i.e., hubs) and removing them. Thus, this paper suggests that despite the prevalent image of public institutions as highly conservative and stagnant, it might be interesting to investigate their potential as sources of innovations that are no less radical than the alternatives proposed by free-market ideologues. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Levels of internal migration have declined since the 1980s in many advanced economies. Australian studies remain largely descriptive, making it difficult to ascertain the extent to which the decline in aggregate levels of migration is due to shifts in the socio‐demographic composition of the Australian population or driven by deeper behavioural changes. This paper aims to address this gap by applying an Oaxaca‐Blinder decomposition method to individual‐level data from the 2001 and 2016 censuses. Our results confirm the strong impact of population ageing on the decline in migration although its effect has been fully counteracted by other compositional changes such as education and immigration. We find behavioural effects to be the principal factor explaining this downward trend. This finding points to a secular shift in migration behaviour and represents a starting point in developing a more comprehensive understanding of the factors underpinning the long‐term decline in internal migration in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian Higher Education (HE) sector, following a global trend of rapid transformation, has undergone marked changes over the past two decades. These changes have involved the design of quality assurance tools as instruments for regulatory governance. In presenting an overview of the recent history and characteristics of quality assurance in the Brazilian HE sector, this paper contextualises the Brazilian experience according to broader conceptual frameworks and discusses how and why regulatory governance in this sector has so radically changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years ago, the decision was taken to close Brunel University's Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and its undergraduate programmes. Since this time, most of the human geographers have remained at Brunel, but now work from beyond the boundaries of conventional academic Geography. In this paper we argue that this situation, which is not uncommon for geographers in the UK and elsewhere, has significant implications for both individuals and the discipline more broadly. Through our everyday experiences of interdisciplinary working, this paper reflects on what it means to be a geographer working outside of ' Geography'. The paper examines the implications of this at three different yet related scales: the immediately personal scale in terms of identity and individual academic performance, the institutional scale and its organisation that can lead to the presence/absence of academic subject areas, and then finally the disciplinary scale with its attendant spaces of knowledge generation, dissemination and protectionism. Our arguments are framed by neoliberal-led higher education changes and conceptualisations of institutions, (inter)disciplinarity and identity, and point to broader significances for the shape of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data sets used in statistics education have changed over time, from mathematically "well‐behaved" ones that facilitated computation, to more context‐rich sources and now, with the increasing influence of data science practices, to "found" data, often from open data sites. As data sources change, it is important for educators to take a fresh look at the ways we engage students in thinking about the processes that generated the data they encounter. The use of already collected data requires particular attention because many of the decisions that went into the processes of obtaining the data are hidden. Students need to learn to ask "Who, When, How, Where, and Why?" data were collected and to wonder if the data really measure what needs to be measured. Our advocacy in this paper is to deepen the educational treatment of data production to better reflect the current and future practice of statistics and data science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For well over a century, the journal Science Education has been publishing articles about the teaching and learning of science. These articles represent more than just a repository of past work: they have the potential to offer insights into both the history of science education as well as well as the dynamics of field‐specific change. It can be difficult, however, for educators, researchers, reformers, and policymakers to grasp the nuances of over 100 years of scholarship given the overwhelming amount of textual material. To address this problem, we have used latent Dirichlet allocation, an automated machine‐learning algorithm from the field of natural language processing, to perform an automated literature review and classification of the corpus of work in Science Education. Using this technique, we have classified research in the journal into 21 distinct topics, falling into three thematic groups: science content topics, teaching‐focused topics, and student‐focused topics. We have also quantified the rise and fall of these topics and groups over time, and used them to begin to extract insight into the development of the field, including the effects of national policy changes on topics of interest to the research community, the interrelationships between different research topics, and the effects of intellectual cross‐pollination. Based on this analysis, we argue that this technique shows great promise for even larger‐scale analyses of educational literature and other textual data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pharmacy education, we are experiencing the "new normal" after an "inflection point" along with a host of other overused phrases. Yet, without doubt, there is pressing need to reconsider what was once standard operating procedure. When an inflection point is viewed as opportunity, it sparks a strategic boom. Indeed, the confluence of threats and opportunities caused—or revealed—by the COVID‐19 pandemic is setting the stage for an acceleration of change in professional education. In this paper, we investigate the motivations and approaches to accelerate needed change in pharmacy education. Though prompted by the demand for rapid restructuring in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, these ideas transcend any one driver. We argue that now is the time to disrupt current practices through innovation leading to new educational models and present sample solutions. We consider academic, social, technological, economic, and political (ASTEP) forces driving the imperative to educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides analysis of British government policy documents related to the ways schools are funded for special educational needs and disability (SEND). Topics discussed include the alleged marketisation of SEND in Great Britain, the entitlement aspects of SEND, and proposed educational reform to SEND.

This paper aims to reconcile diverging results in the literature on the effects of compulsory schooling reforms on earnings. I point out, through a simple model of human capital accumulation, the importance of identifying parental education information to better target the set of potential compliers. Using parental background data, the empirical analysis uncovers the large and positive effects of a French school leaving age reform previously shown to have produced zero and statistically insignificant effects on the earnings of impacted cohorts. The analysis suggests that identifying parental background information is likely a crucial effort in analysing contemporary compulsory schooling policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents findings on physical education (PE) trainees' and teachers' attempts to design and implement authentic curricular experiences, within the constraints of a neoliberalist context. It involved adopting a principle‐based approach to promoting active lifestyles designed to align PE trainees' and teachers' health‐related philosophies and pedagogies. The promoting active lifestyles (PAL) project was framed by social cognitive theory and the social ecological model and adopted a qualitative explanatory case study approach. Participants were secondary school PE trainees and teachers involved in a University‐based Initial Teacher Education partnership in the East Midlands in England. The 32 participants were involved in professional development which included co‐constructing and implementing PAL principles in the schools in which they were employed or undertaking their placement. All participants viewed the PAL principles positively and were able to implement at least some of them. Participants experienced unanticipated benefits beyond increased physical activity such as improved pupil behaviour. Many participants described transformative and enduring changes to their health‐related philosophies and pedagogies. This low cost, flexible principle‐based approach to pedagogical change addresses calls for evidence‐based PE‐for‐health pedagogies and the development of possibilities that acknowledge the complexity of supporting physical educators to become more effective promoters of physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of shortening the duration of pre‐university education on long‐term labour market outcomes in Ghana, expl'oiting the education reform of 1987 as a natural experiment. Our results indicate that the drastic cut in the duration of pre‐tertiary education from 17 to 12 years improved the labour market success of treated cohorts. However, this is driven by a 'quantity' effect: the shorter course duration reduced the direct and indirect costs of acquiring post‐primary education and allowed more students to enrol, which provided access to better job opportunities. On aggregate, this has dominated the negative effect on education 'quality'. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impetus for test‐based accountability systems is to improve the educational opportunities afforded to all students so as to improve their learning; therefore, integral to the validity argument of these systems is the appraisal of test‐based inferences and decisions in terms of their consequences. Both positive and negative consequences of test‐based decisions have different effects on different groups of students and in different schools, and these differential effects need to be examined as part of the validity argument and in addressing fairness issues. This paper addresses intended and potentially unintended consequences of test‐based accountability systems in the validity argument. Legislation for test‐based accountability systems, as well as studies evaluating their consequences, is discussed. A conceptual framework that provides a principled approach for evaluating both intended and unintended consequences of assessment and accountability systems, including those that arise due to using tests as policy levers for educational change, is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines comparatively the curricula of six Physics MSc degrees from three countries (England, Portugal and Denmark) in the European policy context driven by the Bologna Process, which advocates degree comparability and student-centred learning. Degree programme descriptions were analysed and interviews were conducted with students and lecturers from the selected degrees, exploring their teaching and learning practices and experiences. Findings reveal predominantly country-based differences in degree curriculum regarding students’ freedom to decide their learning path. Curricular flexibility and student input appear high in the English and Danish degrees and low in the Portuguese ones, despite attempts – so far little feasible in practice – to empower students to tailor learning to their interests. In drawing attention to the force of national pedagogic traditions in shaping curricula, the paper has implications for the degree comparability and student mobility advocated by recent European higher education reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When it comes to the creation of higher education policy, state legislators are challenged with addressing the diverse academic needs of college students enrolled across a spectrum of institutions. In this paper, we explore how 203 individuals at five rural‐serving colleges in Florida engaged in state‐wide developmental education (DE) reform using the theoretical framework of "situated cognition." Specifically, we ask whether the colleges implemented DE reform in unique ways that may have differed from their non‐rural counterparts and what their rationale was for doing so. Our work indicates that institutional culture and capacity generated a combination of strengths and constraints in how reform played out in a rural context. In some ways, a rural‐serving identity made colleges more flexible and better able to adjust their advising and curricular structures to comply with the mandates of SB 1720. But in other ways, rural‐serving institutions lacked the resources necessary to adequately support students and campus personnel through this dramatic transition toward new ways of providing DE. In looking toward the passage and implementation of future education reform, we call upon policymakers to consider more deeply the design of policies to ensure they support rural and non‐rural colleges alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose that successful education needs to fulfil three purposes while being cognisant of time and context: (a) learning, (b) lifework and (c) well-being. An education system is successful if it can develop future-ready individuals who will continue to learn beyond graduation, take on future lifework, and thrive in a changing society and environment. The future is context-situated and context-dependent. We have chosen to examine the economic, social and environmental context of Singapore to provide insight on the values, skills and knowledge that are required of future-ready learners according to the three purposes. We have compared the trajectories of other high-income nations with those of Singapore. Traditional teaching and learning practices no longer serve us well in the new realities that emerge. Education practices need to evolve in tandem to meet the demands of the 21st century. The roles that school leaders play include creating teaching and learning environments where these practices can be implemented. In our review of leadership practices and concepts, we have found that it is important for school leaders to question existing assumptions of teaching, learning and leadership practices in order to advance the development of 21st century skills, knowledge, values, and habits in learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which like‐with‐like marry is important for inequality as well as for the outcomes of children who result from the union. In this paper, we present evidence on changes in assortative mating and its implications for household inequality in the UK. Our approach contrasts with others in the literature in that it is consistent with an underlying model of the marriage market. We argue that a key advantage of this approach is that it creates a direct connection between changes in assortativeness in marriage and changes in the value of marriage for the various possible matches by education group. Our empirical results do not show a clear direction of change in assortativeness in the UK between the birth cohorts of 1945–54 and 1965–74. We find that changes in assortativeness pushed income inequality up slightly, but that the strong changes in education attainment across the two cohorts contributed to scale down inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an academic analysis and review of the recently completed WTO Trade Policy Review (TPR) of Malaysia, 2018. This includes suggesting policies that can help to promote Malaysia's international competitiveness. We show that the sharp decline in commodity prices that started in 2014 contributed in narrowing Malaysia's trade balance and current account balance as a share of GDP. The faster decline of exports as a share of GDP compared to imports accounted for most of the substantial reduction. Further, the collapse of commodity prices was accompanied by a sharp depreciation of Ringgit Malaysia. We also show that Malaysia is losing international attractiveness in terms of FDI inflows relative to its economic size. This is evidenced by the downward trend in Malaysia's FDI performance index since 1992. Further, international tourism has fallen on average since 2014, due largely to a drop in tourist arrivals from Singapore. Policymakers should introduce policies to enhance international competitiveness, such as reforming the education system to produce skilled workers and reducing reliance on low‐skilled foreign workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]