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The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

University is a remarkable institution which is always expected to change the world through its constantly innovative technology and science advancement and civilization promotion. Academic institution relies on its efficacious leader with vision and implementation to fully accomplish its missions. However, limited attention goes to this crucial leader's requirements and characteristics, even faculty members in the higher education institutions studiously conduct research for external organizations. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis addressing innovative academic leader's characteristics based on the current global situation, university mission, and unique culture. Finally, this article concluds the competencies and characteristics of efficacious academic leader demands in this changing era: envisioning the institutional future, integrating social resources with reciprocity, modeling the way with morality and integrity, executing university missions with professions and humanity, empowering team members with full support, and inspiring students with humanity. Those integrated characters could effectively guide faculty members for their future self-development, and contribute to achieving university mission on science development, producing high-quality human resources, and contributing of the human civilization promotion. This conclusion retrospectively raises further suggestions for future study, how faculty members build these characters considering the unique and complex situation of interpersonal and external factors within the university.

Learning management systems (LMSs) have long been adopted by tertiary education providers to be the conduit through which courses are delivered. However, debates about the capacity of the LMS to meet all the required current and future needs of both students and educators have become more pronounced over the past few years, particularly given the rapid shift to online learning during COVID-19. This qualitative study aimed to examine practitioners' current experiences in using the LMS for formal teaching and learning in tertiary environments. To discern the possibilities and issues, a focus group was held with fourteen practitioners from Australasia (Australia and Singapore), Canada, and the UK (England and Scotland) attending virtually. Adopting a novel and recognised approach to thematic analysis, a Delphi process was adopted on the de-identified webinar and chat transcripts. Analysis revealed several key themes ranging across pedagogical, technological, and managerial issues with the LMS. The findings in this paper have become even more pertinent as a result of COVID-19 with institutions urgently reviewing standards for teaching in the LMS whilst also reviewing their overall technology ecosystems to ensure a suite of complementary teaching and learning tools to enable best teaching and learning practices. It appears the LMS still has a key role to play in contemporary learning ecosystems.

Compare is a leading journal in the comparative and international education research field. To assess this journal's productivity and influence, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of 428 papers published in Compare between 2010 and 2019. The findings show that in the past decade, Compare experienced significant growth in the number of publications and citations. This growth primarily stemmed from England, which yielded over half of the top 20 most productive authors and institutions. Among the numerous research topics discussed in Compare, the disciplinary development of comparative and international education, the internationalisation of education, gender studies in education, and citizenship education were the most frequently addressed. A detailed analysis of these four topics reveals that despite having published many papers falling within the scope of international education, Compare is encouraged to publish more papers about this subfield in the post-COVID-19 era.

Research shows that athletes across levels and sports have been subjected to maltreatment with non-sexualised forms such as psychological abuse and neglect found to be the most common. With the normalisation of many of these forms of abuse occurring in sports, researchers have called for the 'safeguarding' of athletes to focus on prevention through evidence-based education. Yet evidence-based education that teaches about abuse remains limited in the research literature. Further, an examination of educational theory, design considerations and the implications of such applications when applied to learning contexts in sport remains scarce. This paper is the first generated from a project where an online athlete-and coach-led abuse education program was designed, implemented, and evaluated with the purpose of teaching children through to adults (coaches, athletes) about non-sexualised types of abuse, along with the effects of such maltreatment. This paper provides an overview of the educational theory and design considerations, namely Ivor Goodson and Scherto "Gill's" narrative pedagogy and the use of culturally responsive and culturally relevant content, with challenges and possibilities of these applications outlined. Recommendations are then made, based on facilitator and participant feedback which may assist sporting organisations and child protection agencies worldwide when designing, developing, revising, or implementing their own education programs to teach about abuse.

The paper combines an autoethnographic approach with a literature review of general and discipline-specific research linked to the theme of cross-curricular citizenship education ("CE") from the 1990s to the present. It identifies 20 reasons why cross-curricular CE struggles to take flight in secondary schools. These reasons are organized into four categories: structural, epistemological, attitudinal and pedagogical. While the focus is mainly upon citizenship education in England (and, to a lesser extent, in Australia), the paper suggests that the barriers identified exist in most nations.

This article analyses the ways in which notions of student diversity and student voice are defined in five European countries, two terms directly related to notions of inclusion. In so doing, it examines links between the two terms, noting that, often, they are used in international research without acknowledging the ways that they are defined within particular national contexts. Using literature and policy documents from five countries (i.e. Austria, Denmark, England, Portugal and Spain), the article highlights similarities as well as differences in the various contexts. Through the analysis of these texts, the paper concludes that diversity is conceptualised in five ways, although there is occasionally overlap of different conceptualisations in some of the countries. Meanwhile, the term 'student voice' is a term that is not used in some of the countries' policies. Instead, other terms that relate to student voice, such as 'participation', are used. The paper discusses the implications of these varied understandings for the promotion of the inclusion of all students in schools.

This paper explores perceptions of work intensification around the world. Underpinning this analysis is C. Wright Mills' (1959) argument that many personal troubles are public issues, and the notion that a significant dimension of the privatisation of public education, a concern of public education advocates worldwide, is the ways in which school work has become a private issue. One hundred and thirty interviews were conducted with education stakeholders across Australia, England, New Zealand and Canada exploring the issues of work intensification, school autonomy and accountability policies. The paper argues that the work done in public schools is increasingly becoming a private problem as a result of policy interventions. It suggests that we need to widen the scope of defining publicness in education beyond that of governance and funding to include consideration of how work is organised and experienced.

Purpose: This paper aims to understand the development track of skills mismatch research and discover the hidden internal connections between literature. Design/methodology/approach: The authors gathered data through scientometric quantitative analysis using CiteSpace. Specifically, this article applied basic analysis, journal cocitation analysis (JCA), author cocitation analysis (ACA) and document cocitation analysis (DCA), cluster analysis, citation burstness detection, scientific research cooperation analysis and coconcurrence analysis of keywords of 3,125 documents from Web of Science core collections for the period 2000-2020. Findings: Through the document cocitation analysis and the keywords' co-occurrence, this article identifies influential scholars, documents, research institutions, journals and research hotspots in research on the skills mismatch phenomenon. The results showed that the publications had ballooned, and the phenomenon has become an interdisciplinary research subject. The USA and Finland remain the main contributors, which is attributed to their high-yield institutions such as the University of Helsinki, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Washington and so on. While the African continent lacks research on skills mismatch even with the continent's effort to overcome such a crucial issue. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of skills and educational mismatch issues to better understand the evolutionary trajectory of the collective knowledge over the past 20 years and highlight the areas of active pursuit. Research limitations/implications: The authors only used Web of Science core collection to collect data; however, they can added Scopus indexed database as well to extend the research trends and explore more new research hot topics to solve the skills mismatch phenomenon. Originality/value: The scientometric analysis is of great significance for identifying the potential relationship between the literature and investigating the knowledge evolution of skills mismatch research. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization are the giants who are mostly concerned of the mismatch skills phenomenon. Researchers can refer to this study to understand the status quo, gaps and research trends to deal with the skills mismatch issue.

Given the intense politicisation of education, many teacher educators are caught in the cross-hairs of government's reform agendas, university expectations and student teacher needs. This paper reports on a study of 28 literacy teacher educators in four countries (Canada, US, Australia and England). This paper reports on the broad question: How is politics affecting literacy teacher educators? Three specific aspects are considered: their pedagogies, identity and well-being. It describes how their pedagogy (goals and teaching strategies) has narrowed because of mandated curriculum and exit exams. It shows how their identity as academics is being complicated because they often do not have time for their research. And their well-being is compromised because of excessive external inspections and as their community in the university splinters.

Throughout the last decade in Malaysia, participation of students with disabilities in higher education has seen minimal growth. This paper investigates the policies and practices regulating disability in Malaysia's higher education. Three aspects -- legislation, funding, and governance -- are analysed. To reveal the gaps in policy and practice, comparison is carried out with the cases of England and Australia. The research involved examining government documents such as disability acts, action plans, and research and statistics reports, combined with interviewing university administrators. It was found that Malaysian legislation requires more supporting details and that disability funding for universities should be considered. For governance, systematic legislation review and specific university monitoring are recommended. Establishing an independent national entity to conciliate grievances is proposed to address the inadequate redress mechanism available for students with disabilities. Overall, the government and universities could ensure that disability information is available in the public domain, especially online. Such practice would enhance disability awareness and knowledge for all. Although this paper mainly takes on the perspective of a developing nation, it attains an international orientation as it also depicts the workings of the developed world in governing disability in higher education.

This paper provides an outline of, and rationale for, an international research project that will identify commonalities and disparities in illegal school exclusionary practices in Australia and England. The aims here are to situate such practices within a global context and to map the events and processes through which children and young people, particularly those with 'special' educational needs and disabilities, are removed from school in Australia and England. The research we advocate is premised on evidence that inequitable and illegal exclusionary practices are endemic in education systems globally; hence, 'pushout syndrome' in the USA, 'off rolling' in England, facilitated 'dropout' in Italy and 'grey exclusions' in Australia. The authors argue that the repeated commissioning of research by national governments and school inspectorates, intended to accurately ascertain the scale of this problem and its impact on the life trajectories of the excluded, serves to defer meaningful action to prevent its occurrence. School exclusion, whether legal or illegal, can be conceptualized as a process rather than an event, and this paper discusses a descriptive continuum through which exclusionary practices in Australia and England can be mapped An experiential continuum is proposed that facilitates a thematic mapping of contributory factors, identified from a relevant literature, as a preliminary analytical framework for future research.

The sabbatical provides an important illustration of the changing nature of academic life and is a symbol of the growing demands of performativity. Drawing on historical literature and archival sources concerning university sabbaticals at Australian and English universities, the paper demonstrates that underlying assumptions about its purposes have changed slowly, but markedly, over time. A shift has occurred from a conception of the sabbatical as a period of rest, recuperation and academic travel to one of hyper-productivity. This change is linked to the emergence of the so-called research university, the rise of performativity, and the increasing demands of an audit culture. The academic sabbatical is also an often forgotten but significant indicator of the internationalisation of universities in the nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century.

Trans and non-binary youth (TNBY) face high levels of interpersonal and social adversity as well as disproportionate rates of mental health issues such as depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Among protective factors, context plays a key role. In addition to parental support, access to gender-affirming medical care begins to emerge as crucial for young people needed them. This paper compares, through thematic analysis, the experiences of TNBY with regard to access and experiences to care in Canada, Switzerland, England, and Australia. It identifies similarities and differences in barriers to access to care, as well as impacts of gender affirming care on young people and their well-being. The article concludes with a discussion on the importance of prompt and easier access to gender-affirming medical care, of training of professionals, and a hypothesis about the role of context in TNBY well-being.

This paper explores the emotional work involved in leading schools in marginalised communities, through case studies of Australian and English government-school principals theorised through Lynch's framework of affective justice and the embedded concepts of love, care and solidarity. Participants demonstrated solidarity in their choice of working in these particular schools, which brings with them a higher level of emotional complexity. Their work towards social justice manifests through their care relationships when interacting with students, staff and communities. These interactions, full of emotion, impact the third affective relation -- love. Findings show the impact of participants' solidarity and care work on their own personal relationships. In exploring the affective domain of school leaders' work, we seek to articulate how principals can be empowered to continue to undertake their solidarity and care work while mitigating impacts on the relationships that are vital for their own wellbeing.

This paper investigates the phenomena of overclaiming -- the propensity for individuals to claim more knowledge about an issue or topic than they really (or could possibly) do. Using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from nine Anglophone countries and over 40,000 young people, we examine teenagers' propensity to claim knowledge of three mathematics constructs that do not really exist. We find substantial differences in young people's tendency to overclaim across countries, genders, and socio-economic groups. Those who are most likely to overclaim are also found to exhibit high levels of overconfidence and believe they work hard, persevere at tasks, and are popular amongst their peers. Together this provides important new insight into overclaiming, how this differs across groups, and how it relates to other psychological constructs.

There is considerable rhetoric internationally around the need for national curricula to reflect the changes that are taking place in the world outside school. This raises questions about what a quality curriculum in a technological era should look like, and equally challenging issues about how to achieve the necessary changes in schooling in order for such a curriculum to be realised. This paper summarises the views of 11 experts from seven countries. It introduces a sociocultural framework that highlights the complexity of achieving alignment between policies and practice spanning the national to local school to classroom levels. Three key issues that underpin alignment are then explored, each of which link with the issue of trust: (1) stakeholders engagement; (2) teacher professionalism; (3) summative assessment. By exploring and exemplifying these three issues the paper indicates potential ways of addressing them and provides 'tools to think with' to enhance future curriculum development initiatives.

This paper explores schools' new role in promoting children's mental health, as a key focus for policy makers across the global north. An education policy analysis is conducted for England and Australia, two nations advocating a 'bottom-up' approach to mental health promotion, granting flexibility to schools and municipal authorities. Here it is argued that a common policy lexicon is evident where key concepts--wellbeing, resilience, character--are constructed on taken-for-granted assumptions. These are argued to be limited by an emphasis upon the individual constituents of mental health, which is contrasted against a broader conception of wellbeing, evident in recent non-governmental international policy. Empirical data is then presented from two separate studies in England and Australia, where young peoples' perspectives are used to arbitrate the efficacy of the policy construction of wellbeing, in canvassing a relational and social identity approach as a viable alternative. Both studies privilege the voices of young people on wellbeing and identity, with findings from England highlighting that the dominant schooling narrative of resilience perceived by students, misses the ontological and social dimensions of their wellbeing. Research with Indigenous young people in Australia is then evaluated for the affordances generated by identity building and affirming programmes in schools. Notwithstanding cultural differences, common aspects were evident across both datasets, revealing the centrality to young people of self-authenticity, relatedness, and connectedness to nature, as key to their wellbeing. The paper concludes in advancing a set of principles to underpin a relational and social identity approach to schools' wellbeing promotion strategy.

This Fritz Duras lecture argues for the importance of physical educators' critical engagement with issues of race and ethnic diversity. Despite its colonial history and close relationship to sport--where racialised discourses about the body contribute to shaping commonsense ideas about race--we have yet to engage in any sustained way with issues of race in Health and Physical Education (HPE). Concerns over rises in racism, coupled with persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations in developed countries, point to the need to support teachers' critical engagement with race. In the paper I examine the potential--and challenges--of adopting a critical whiteness perspective for this task. Antiracist perspectives focusing on the effects of racism position white teachers 'outside' of race, and contribute to a deficit view of minority ethnic students in HPE as 'problems' for not being 'active or healthy enough' in relation to an accepted white (male and middle class) norm. Critical whiteness perspectives shift the focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, centralising white teachers within processes of racialisation. I ask what such an approach might mean for HPE educators and our (antiracist) practice. To do this, I draw on recent research, funded by the British Academy, that sought to explore the cultural resources on which physical educators draw to make sense of race, including an analysis of discourses of race evident in national curricular policy. Examples from the findings demonstrate how whiteness in HPE works through two discursive techniques, universalisation (the way in which white experience and knowledge is taken to count for the experiences of everyone) and naturalism (the ways in which race is defined in relation to 'others', so that white bodies and perspectives are seen as 'natural' and the norm). The paper concludes by returning to what a critical whiteness perspective might offer teachers in their anti-racist practice.

The collection of papers presented in this issue of Critical Studies in Education adds to the expansive body of work on teachers and teaching. Collectively, the papers draw our attention to new ways the field is problematising the emerging and evolving conditions that shape the work, lives and identities of teachers. With this editorial introduction to the issue, I not only summarise the various themes of the collection, but also offer a provocation that I hope will inspire new questions moving forward. As critical researchers, we have an obligation to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions -- not only by looking outwards at the policymakers, edu-businesses, and intergovernmental agencies (e.g., the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development [OECD]), but also by looking inwards and challenging our own assumptions about power, discourse and subjectivity. The authors in the special issue take up both challenges in their geographically diverse accounts of 'the teacher' and 'teaching', demonstrating what it means to do critical research well.