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This study explored teacher collaboration to support a particular cohort of students with twice-exceptionality (2E), specifically students with the concomitant of autism with intellectual giftedness (IG), to transition from primary to secondary school. Findings indicated a general lack of teacher collaboration regarding the sharing of student information between primary and secondary sectors. Teachers seemed to lack an understanding of 2E and did not collaborate with 'knowledgeable others' (learning support teachers and gifted education teachers) in the school to learn how best to support students' transition. Moreover, teachers tended to take a deficit approach with a focus on student misbehaviour rather than on the transitioning needs of these students.

Inclusive education is central to achieving high-quality education for all students and is a recognised commitment of the Australian government under international human rights law. However, Australia's lack of commitment to move away from segregation is reflected in its persistence in maintaining and funding segregated (special) settings. Queensland led the way with the introduction of an inclusive education policy in 2018; nonetheless, this does not go far enough, as there is no commitment to diminish segregated schooling for students with disability. This lack of action works against the effective implementation of the policy. Using the "Framework of Drivers for and Barriers to the Closure of Special Schools," we conducted a thematic analysis focussing on societal, systemic, school and family drivers for and barriers to educational desegregation. Our findings indicate where and why discrimination, segregation and exclusion remain strongly embedded in our society and education system. We provide recommendations for future reforms to the Disability Standards for Education in Australia.

Service-learning is used by universities to promote community engagement thatbenefits both the students and the recipient community; however, evidence largely demonstrates only the shortterm effects of such experiences. This paper presents ananalysis of the transformational learning of a group of Australian students who travelled to Fiji in an organised service-learing project. Using Kiely's model oftransformational learning, this case study describes the dissonance felt by a sub-groupof three (n = 3) students, from a cohort of thirteen (n = 13), who subsequently used this transformational learning to make major changes in their career and life goals. Rather than being adversely affected by the dissonance they experienced, these students used this learning as an opportunity for personal and professional growth. These findings support the notion that service-learning has the potential to provide students with challenging, life-changing opportunities that can have long-lasting effects.

The use of a pedagogical practice known as 'differentiation' has become more common over time as educators have sought to respond to increases in the diversity of students enrolling in their local school. However, there are now so many misperceptions and definitional inconsistencies that it is difficult to know what is being enacted in the name of differentiation or indeed what is being researched internationally. The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics of and conceptualisations within peer-reviewed empirical research on differentiation published between 1999 and 2019, as well as to map the ways in which this body of research was produced. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used to inform a systematic screening process and resulted in a final sample of 34 articles focusing on differentiation in regular schools. Half were conducted in the United States and most in the elementary school phase. Survey and case study designs were dominant, as was research of and influences on teacher practice. Only a small group of studies focused on differentiation's impact on student outcomes and these typically only examined specific elements of differentiation or its use in specific academic domains. The diversity of focus and methodological approaches across the 34 studies prevents comparison of findings and weakens the evidential basis to make claims of either differentiation's effectiveness or indeed its ineffectiveness. The review concludes with recommendations for future research and practice in this important area of practice.

The United Nations has called upon Governments that are signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to adopt practical but progressive systems to transfer resources from segregated settings/special schools into mainstream schools. What will this mean for Australia's special schools, particularly given their significant rise in enrolments over the past decade? What will it mean for the education of Australian students with disability? In this paper, we examine recent Government reviews/inquiries into the education of Australian students with disability to determine whether future planned actions align with Australia's international obligations to move away from segregated schooling. We conclude by examining both the barriers and the potential for providing a high-quality education system that realises the UN's commitment towards inclusive schools and societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that teachers have one of the most significant influences on the educational development of gifted students, reports of negative attitudes and beliefs in popular myths about giftedness are cause for concern. It is important to understand teachers' attitudes and beliefs to implement effective training and educational practices to improve education for gifted students. This study explored the attitudes of Australian primary school teachers (N = 126) towards intellectually gifted children and their education at eight schools. These schools could be categorised into four different classifications in regards to their involvement in gifted education. Key findings include significant associations between teachers' attitudes and their school classifications (p < 0.001), and their participation in gifted and talented education inservice training (p < 0.001). Findings from this study suggest that further teacher training and school-wide involvement in gifted education may assist in improving attitudes towards intellectually gifted children and their education.

Staffing rural and remote schools is an important policy issue for the public good. This paper examines the private issues it also poses for teachers with families working in these communities, as they seek to reconcile careers with educational choices for children. The paper first considers historical responses to staffing rural and remote schools in Australia, and the emergence of neoliberal policy encouraging marketisation of the education sector. We report on interviews about considerations motivating household mobility with 11 teachers across regional, rural and remote communities in Queensland. Like other middle-class parents, these teachers prioritised their children's educational opportunities over career opportunities. The analysis demonstrates how teachers in rural and remote communities constitute a special group of educational consumers with insider knowledge and unique dilemmas around school choice. Their heightened anxieties around school choice under neoliberal policy are shown to contribute to the public issue of staffing rural and remote schools.

This article explores the role a writing group played in influencing the scholarly identities of a group of doctoral students by fostering their writing expertise. While the interest in writing groups usually centres on their potential to support doctoral students to publish, few studies have been conducted and written by the students themselves. Using a situated learning perspective on identity, we explore the connection that emerged between our perceptions of ourselves as developing expertise as scholarly writers and the function of the writing group as a dynamic space for transforming our identities. Findings show that our writing group served as a flexible and interactive Community of Practice (CoP) that shaped critical and durable shifts in identity amongst members.

There is concern within education research about the rigor of research conducted and published. Grounded theory is a qualitative research methodology about which there appears to be many misconceptions. To respond to these concerns, this article proposes six methodological attributes that rigorous grounded theory research shares: developing theory, generating concepts from data not existing theory, using the constant comparative method, collecting and analyzing data concurrently, conducting theoretical sampling and saturation, and composing memos. These attributes are presented with illustrative examples from a grounded theory study of adolescent creativity. The attributes are used to analyze "grounded theory" education research. This article emphasizes the importance of explicit discussion of research methodology in presenting rigorous research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arts subjects such as drama provide an effective context for developing 21st century skills, yet drama teaching in Sri Lanka is still mainly delivery through traditional, lecture-based methods. This article presents evaluation results of a drama-based intervention program that was designed specifically to develop junior secondary school students' creative thinking capacity and adaptability skills in the Sri Lankan context. The participants were 128 students aged 11-12 years in Year 7 drama classes. The program was implemented over twelve consecutive weeks in weekly two-hour sessions by regular drama teachers who had been trained in a process drama teaching approach. Results evidenced a positive effect emerging from the intervention: creativity and adaptability test scores of the students in the intervention group increased significantly compared to those of the students in the control and active control groups. This paper identifies implications of these findings for Sri Lankan drama teaching and learning and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]