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This paper draws attention to empirical work on widening access to understand the silence on race matters in English higher education. This work repurposes a critical race theoretical framework that offers a glimpse of how the issue of unequal access to higher education has been framed in the research field. It is argued here that the framing of widening access reveals a persistent colour-evasiveness that is dominant. The findings show that widening access policy has not benefitted students of colour as they are not accessing higher education with the same kind of success as their white peers. The paper concludes for a call for race-conscious interventions to remedy the continued race inequity in accessing highly rejective institutions based on the evidence gathered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses why similar institutional rules (Municipal Plan, Fund, and Council) and intergovernmental transferences) may influence municipal decision-making to participate in inter-municipal consortia differently in two Brazilian federal public policies—health and education. The paper argues that the more institutionalized the national policy design, the higher the probability of the municipalities getting into IMC. Based on quantitative analysis, findings show why the financial dimension is relevant for health policy, the most institutionalized in comparison with education, regarding municipal options for IMC. Similar evidence was not found in both policies considering the effect of their institutional rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the work of teachers at the intersection of educational policy and professional discretion, by undertaking a conceptual reading of Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, and examining how the report conceptualises teacher practice. Drawing on the Bourdieusian notion of regulated improvisation, the study explores the constraints of pedagogical practices as conceptualised by influential policy reports of this kind, highlighting the paradoxical expectations of the report on teachers whose situational awareness of classrooms is curtailed through regulation. The study examines the tension between teacher autonomy and constraints, negating important considerations to temporalities of learning. The central contribution of the paper is a conceptual understanding of how policy drivers position teacher expertise through standardisation, compliance and performance, a concern not unique only to the Australian context of educational policy, nor schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing research literature focused on ‘invisible energy policy’ that explores the complex links between policies in non-energy sectors and energy demand. Invisible energy policies are those that do not include energy as a visible policy objective but still pose implications for energy demand that are largely unrecognised in non-energy organisational settings. Within this innovative area of analysis, to date, little attention has been paid to how ‘energy’ features in the discourse of non-energy contexts. This paper makes a distinctive contribution by examining how energy issues, such as energy demand, travel, and energy skills, do or do not feature in the policy and wider strategy of a non-energy policy setting. The research focuses on the content of policies and other documents in the non-energy policy context of UK secondary schooling, using a case study approach. It aimed to identify how energy surfaces and/or remains absent in different types of documentary evidence at the school. The textual analysis shows how openings for energy to surface as a concern at the school are often heavily bounded in specific policy areas, such as sustainability and education. It also foregrounds the lack of recognition in the sample for how school operations and strategy can produce demand for energy more fundamentally. It argues that these openings for energy to surface can provide points of negotiation to discuss the more fundamental energy impacts of policy. The paper concludes by reflecting on the analysis’ implications for research on ‘invisible energy policies’ and low-carbon transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the BP-CM teaching model to solve the problems of lagging classroom feedback, poor learning initiative of students and students rapidly forgetting what they have learned in Internet of Things (IoT) hardware technology courses. This BP-CM(BOPPPS, PAD, cyclic memory, memory system) teaching model is based on BOPPPS(Bridge in, Objective, Pre-assessment, Participatory learning, Post-assessment, and Summary), PAD(Presentation, Assimilation, and Discussion), and the memory system model. This paper compares the BP-CM teaching model with the traditional teaching model by having research participants teach and learn separately in each teaching model. Taking the Microcontroller Unit (MCU) course as an example, this paper introduces each link of the teaching design of this model. It also explains the design method and intention of each link. Finally, the practical results indicate that the BP-CM teaching model proposed in this article positively impacts students' learning initiative and memory. In addition, teachers can obtain timely feedback using the BP-CM model, and the model significantly improves students' knowledge and ability levels. It enhances the teaching quality of IoT hardware technology courses and is conducive to cultivating students' sustainable learning abilities. This research not only promotes education and teaching reform but also provides a reference case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue introduces recent research on mathematics in interdisciplinary STEM education. STEM education is widely promoted by governments around the world as a way of boosting students' interest and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and preparing STEM-qualified workers for twenty-first century careers. However, the role of mathematics in STEM education often appears to be marginal, and we do not understand well enough how mathematics contributes to STEM-based problem-solving or how STEM education experiences enhance students' learning of mathematics. In this survey paper, we present a narrative review of empirical and conceptual research literature, published between 2017 and 2022. These literature sources are organised by a framework comprising five thematic clusters: (1) interdisciplinary curriculum models and approaches; (2) student outcomes and experiences; (3) teacher preparation and professional development; (4) classroom implementation and task design; and (5) policy, structures, and leadership. We use the framework to provide an overview of the papers in this issue and to propose directions for future research. These include: investigating methods and rationales for connecting the constituent STEM disciplines so as to preserve the disciplinary integrity of mathematics; clarifying what is meant by student "success" in interdisciplinary STEM programs, projects, and other educational approaches; moving beyond classroom practices that position mathematics as just a tool for solving problems in other disciplines; understanding what makes a STEM task mathematically rich; and asking how STEM education research can productively shape STEM education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale assessments are rich sources of data that can inform a diverse range of research questions related to educational policy and practice. For this reason, datasets from large-scale assessments are available to enable secondary analysts to replicate and extend published reports of assessment results. These datasets include multiple imputed values for proficiency, known as plausible values. Plausible values enable the analysis of achievement in large-scale assessment data with complete-case statistical methods such as t-tests implemented in readily-available statistical software. However, researchers are often challenged by the complex and unfamiliar nature of plausible values, large-scale assessments, and their datasets. Misunderstandings and misuses of plausible values may therefore arise. The aims of this paper are to explain what plausible values are, why plausible values are used in large-scale assessments, and how plausible values should be used in secondary analysis of the data. Also provided are answers to secondary researchers' frequently asked questions about the use of plausible values in analysis gathered by the authors during their experience advising secondary users of these databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies educational inequality in the Philippines from 1950 to 2015, examining changes in the association between social origin and educational attainment against a backdrop of educational expansions and fluctuating economic conditions. Using data from the World Bank STEP Skills Survey, the study employs a sequential logit model to illustrate trends in secondary and college completion, followed by a multinomial logit model to look into differences in college destinations (type and status) between advantaged and disadvantaged students. The findings indicate that despite sustained expansions in the past six decades, disparities in secondary and tertiary completion deepened in relation to social background. The paper also finds that although expansions occurred mainly in public higher education institutions, it did little to alter the trends in college destinations, with advantaged students still more likely to complete in "high-status" universities than disadvantaged ones. Finally, the paper sheds light on how economic recessions have varying consequences on educational attainment, routing disadvantaged students out of college in the short term, while resulting in significant declines in the likelihood of completing higher education for advantaged students enrolled in "high-status" public entities in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering education has slowly been making its way into schools with the aim of promoting engineering literacy, which is central to learning and working in a technology-oriented society. Educators and policy makers advocate the need for developing students' understanding of the nature of engineering (NOE); yet, there is an ongoing debate on the heuristics that should be applied. In this article, we review and discuss current studies on engineering education in schools and the integration of engineering into the science curriculum. We describe four aspects of engineering fields: Structures, Machines, Materials, and Data, each uniquely characterized by the technology used and the artefact produced. We discuss the application of the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to the characterization of NOE, focusing on the cognitive and epistemic domain. Accordingly, we describe NOE through four categories: Aims & Values, Engineering Practices, Methods & Methodological Rules, and Engineering Knowledge, which can guide teaching and learning about NOE. Building on the FRA, this paper provides a framework for a continuous discussion on NOE and the theoretical and practical relationships between science and engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the transition between educational levels is one of the main themes for the future of mathematics education. In particular, the transition from secondary school to STEM degrees is problematic for the widespread students' difficulties and significant for the implications that it has on students' futures. Knowing and understanding the past is key to imagine the future of a research field. For this reason, this paper reports a systematic review of the literature on the secondary-tertiary transition in Mathematics Education from 2008 to 2021. We constructed two corpuses: one from the proceedings of three international conferences in mathematics education (PME, ICME, and INDRUM) and the other from peer reviewed research papers and book chapters returned by the databases ERIC and Google Scholar. A clear evolution in perspectives since 2008 emerges from the analysis of the two corpuses: the research focus changed from a purely cognitive to a more holistic one, including socio-cultural and — to a lesser extent — affective issues. To this end, a variety of research methods were used, and specific theoretical models were developed in the considered papers. The analysis also highlights a worrisome trend of underrepresentation: very little research comes from large geographical areas such as South America or Africa. We argue that this gap in representation is problematic as research on secondary tertiary transition concerns also consideration of socio-cultural and contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased presence of management consultants in public policy has resulted in concerns from practitioners and policymakers that consultants are too influential. At the same time, there are genuine reasons to downplay consultant influence on policy processes and to instead see consultants as 'servants of power'. This tension raises questions about how much influence consultants have and the ways in which their influence might vary. Previous studies have shown how two concepts—openness and trust—are useful in understanding variability of consultant influence. As part of this, public decision-makers must be open to the involvement of consultants in a reform process and must also trust the specific consultants involved. At the same time, limited consideration has, to date, been given to discursive explanations of variability. Focusing its analysis on the influence of coalitions on education policy, this paper's main contribution is to show that consultants will be more influential when their discursive repertoire demonstrates resonance with the narratives of the coalitions they are trying to influence. As part of this, consultants should deploy concepts and language that are recognisable to those coalitions, but which also align with the coalitions' underlying narratives about the problem being faced and appropriate solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps the most important element of James Buchanan's contribution to constitutional economics is his differentiation between pre- and post-constitutional levels of decision-making. At first glance, a tension may appear between those two levels of analysis. In one, the rules by which we live are up for debate, allowing us to exercise our creative and imaginative capabilities in constitutional construction. In the other, the rules are viewed as fixed, and we are left simply to treat them as constraints. This paper explores three key elements of Buchanan's thought that allow him to navigate successfully between the two levels. The first is the importance of "the relatively absolute absolute", a concept learned from his mentor, Frank Knight. The second is Buchanan's approach to "truth judgments" in politics, and their status in our political discussions. Third, we draw on Buchanan's insights in his 1959 paper "Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy" to show how political economists should participate in this decision-making process—not as expert philosopher-kings, but as co-equals with their fellow citizens. Finally, we illustrate Buchanan's system of thought in action by presenting two case studies: Virginia education policy in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, and the 1928 Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Schoene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The replacement of existing technology or the introduction of novel technology into the day-to-day routines of higher education institutions is not a trivial task. Currently, many higher education institutions are faced with the challenge of replacing existing procedures for administering written exams with e-exams. To guide this process, this paper proposes the novel technology-based exams acceptance model (TEAM) and empirically evaluates its model structure and usefulness from the perspective of higher education teachers. The model can be used to guide the transition from paper-based exams to e-exams and the implementation of innovative (e.g., adaptive) e-exam formats. The model includes perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, prior experience, facilitating conditions, and subjective norm as predictors of the behavioral intention to use e-exams. To test the model empirically, the responses of 992 teachers at 63 German universities to a standardized online questionnaire were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The model fit was acceptable. With 77% (conventional e-exams) and 82% (adaptive e-exams), a large proportion of the variance of the intention to use these types of exams was explained. With TEAM, a highly predictive model for explaining the behavioral intention to use e-exams is now available. It offers a theoretical basis that can be used for the successful implementation of e-exams in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of published scientific papers and patent applications are indicators of a country's research and development (R&D) capabilities. Since the 2010s, these indicators have declined in Japan. One important reason for this decline is the change in science and mathematics education provided in schools. Education in school can greatly impact the quality of future researchers in science. To examine the impact of the number of class hours in science and mathematics that researchers received in school over the past 50 years, this study analysed data from two surveys conducted in 2016 and 2020. The results show that there is a decline in the number of patents for the younger generation that cannot be explained by age differences, and it is highly correlated with a decline in the total number of hours of science and math in junior high school. Educational policies influence student attitudes towards learning. Changes should be implemented only after validating their effects from a long-term perspective because education policies may have unintended negative impacts on a country's economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correctly anticipating the earnings for different education profiles is pivotal in making informed education decisions. In this paper, leveraging unique survey data, we study the wage expectations for academic and vocational education backgrounds in Switzerland. Personal reference points matter in forming these wage expectations as we find significant heterogeneity in their distributions by gender, age, socioeconomic status, region of residence, and migration background. Asymmetries exist between beliefs for academic and vocational backgrounds since relative differences in wage expectations also vary by respondents' characteristics. These heterogeneities are vital for education policy because our analyses show that the wage expectations are associated with preferences for specific educational tracks for the own (hypothetical) child. If education decisions are ill-informed, this possibly leads to educational mismatches and related adverse effects later in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-cognitive abilities, also termed as Social and Emotional Skills (SSES), are believed to have a profound and far-reaching impact on individuals' growth and development. Previous psychological experiments confirmed that non-cognitive factors could have an impact on education, health and social well-being. The SSES reports by OECD offer insights on multiple facets of non-cognitive information during adolescents' growth, which seeks further understanding of the mechanisms and contextual features influencing the formation and development of students' non-cognitive skills as well as subject learning. Based on the OECD 2019 Suzhou data, this study tested a number of hypotheses concerning social and emotional skills and subject learning achievements, including mathematics, reading literacy and arts. The results confirmed that various social and emotional non-cognitive constructs emerged to be facilitating disciplinary learning, including mathematics, reading literacy and arts achievements. This paper offers some reflections on the integration of non-cognitive skills in designing the education policy guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how linear tax and education policy should optimally respond to skill-biased technical change (SBTC). SBTC affects optimal taxes and subsidies by changing (1) direct distributional benefits of each policy instrument, (2) indirect, general-equilibrium effects on wages, and (3) education distortions. Analytically, the effect of SBTC on these three components is shown to be ambiguous. In simulations for the US economy, SBTC makes the optimal tax system more progressive and lowers optimal education subsidies. This is because for both income taxes and education subsidies; their direct distributional effects become more important, which more than offsets the larger general-equilibrium effects and increased education distortions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of research impact as a 'third' space (next to research and teaching) within the universities in the United Kingdom and beyond, academics are increasingly expected to not only produce research but also engage in brokering knowledge beyond academia. And yet little is known about the ways in which academics shape their practices in order to respond to these new forms of institutionalised expectations and make sense of knowledge brokering as a form of academic practice. Drawing on 51 qualitative interviews with researchers and research users involved in two large knowledge brokering initiatives in the UK, this study identifies four repertoires of co-production practices: (i) Challenge to the existing policy framework, (ii) Deliberation between diverse stakeholders, (iii) Evidence intervention producing of actionable knowledge, and (iv) Advocacy for specific evidence-based options. By exploring knowledge brokering as navigation of different knowledge production regimes – traditionally academic and policy-oriented – the paper contributes to the existing debates by providing insights into the nature of navigating science-policy interactions as a process of epistemological bricolage, requiring an assemblage of different meanings, values and practices into new repertoires of practice. Importantly, the choice of a repertoire is not limited to the individual choice of a researcher but rather, it is shaped by the broader institutional context of higher education, risking instrumental bias in which practices oriented towards practical solutions are incentivised over critical or participatory forms of engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important dimension of international comparative analysis in education is studying the models of regulation that structure the way in which educational provision is organized. The specialized literature has defined three predominant regulatory models: the traditional bureaucratic professional model, the quasi-market model inspired by neoliberal thought, and the evaluative state model linked to the notion of new public management. This paper seeks to contribute to this line of analysis by studying the evolution of the Chilean education system since 1980. We describe and analyze the models of regulation that have governed Chilean education and their expression in educational reforms and policies; we assert that Chile has adopted all three mentioned models. We also identify some of the principal consequences of these policies: a highly atomized, privatized, and socioeconomically segregated school system; an improvement in access to education and the conditions for the educational process; and an increase in learning outcomes, despite starting from very low levels and stalling during the past decade while remaining highly unequal in character. Thus, we propose some hypotheses to interpret those changes, relating them to the models of regulation as well as the policies previously analyzed. Overall, we affirm that the market and evaluative state models have achieved modest positive effects while producing relevant undesirable consequences. We conclude the paper with a reflection on the character of the particular hybridization of regulatory models developed in Chile, and the types of policy we believe should be prioritized to improve quality, increase innovation, and diminish inequity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' engagement in educational reform is an emotional process, yet the emotional dimensions of school improvement efforts remain understudied. This paper explores the emotional experiences of two teacher teams navigating a reform centering collaboration for instructional improvement. Drawing on group emotion (Kelly and Barsade in Org Behav Hum Decis Process 86(1):99–130, 2001) as a conceptual framework, this paper illustrates how individual beliefs and dispositions, group norms, and broader contextual factors mediate group emotion and engagement in reform over time. Findings indicate that leaders should attend to how teacher turnover impacts group emotion and engagement in capacity-building, particularly when teachers lose team members who have previously driven productive collaborative planning. Findings also highlight the nested nature of grade-level collaboration, revealing the influential role of department norms and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abundance of research in Indigenous education has not resulted in significant systemic change in relation to Indigenous education in Australia. In this paper we examine convergence and divergence across the policy, practice and research realms with the aim of identifying key sites of opportunity for innovation and change. Through analysing how research and evidence is produced and included/excluded in Indigenous education policy settings, the complexities of how different types of evidence are considered rigorous and relevant were found to be clearly implicated with broader social and political discourses with relation to Indigenous peoples and interests. Whilst we argue for an Indigenous based evidence approach that centres Indigenous agency and solutions, we propose that deeper conversations about Indigenous voice and diversity is needed in implementing such an approach. We re-visit some key policy cycles that resembles the new co-design approach announced by the Australian Government in 2019 and consider the implications based on published literature to date for Indigenous education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to calls from past and present students to increase the value of postgraduate scholarships in Aotearoa New Zealand. Here we provide context for understanding the scholarship landscape in Aotearoa, including how scholarships are understood in relation to dominant neoliberal framings of higher education and persistent inequities within the sector. We present data which provides insight into the current inequities in Summer, Masters and PhD scholarship values. The average value of PhD scholarships has remained stagnant between 2011 and 2019 resulting in the average being $11,238 less than the Living Wage in 2019. We show that the average length of time full-time PhD students take to complete their doctorates exceeds the three-year tenure of scholarships. We argue the status-quo of low scholarships, supplemented by postgraduate 'sweat', excludes people from participating in postgraduate education, preventing them and their communities from realising the public benefits that such an education can produce. We suggest that these inadequacies could be addressed through (1) raising Summer, Masters and PhD scholarships to the living wage; (2) extending tenure of PhD scholarships; and (3) reinstating the postgraduate student allowance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocacy strategies are characterized by collaborations amongst various stakeholders working together to create changes and reforms. In language education policy, this refers to various types of initiatives and activities intended to create language policy reforms on local and/or national levels. In this paper such activities are traced, analyzed and evaluated in relation to language education policies in Israel spanning over 20 years in two points in time, in 1996 and 2016. In 1996 the advocacy acts resulted in the first national educational policy to be introduced in Israel, and in the second led to a call for proposals by the Ministry of Education for research and subsequently the development of a new expanded multilingual educational policy. The call addressed the need to expand the language repertoire of school students to learn additional languages, beyond Hebrew, throughout their school years, viewing immigrant languages as significant resources and encouraging their maintenance, exposing students to various world and community languages, as well as improving the ways Arabs and Jews learn the languages of the other (e.g., Hebrew and Arabic). The paper describes the various advocacy strategies that preceded the acceptance of both policies, dwelling specifically on the creation and impact of a policy document submitted by a collaborative consortium of language policy experts to the Ministry of Education. The paper concludes with analysis of the relative and cumulative impact of advocacy strategies and ends with a call to broaden the perspective of advocacy and advocacy literacy, and recognize a much wider group of bodies, roles, and individuals as possible 'advocates'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1988 Dawkins reforms were designed, at least in part, to encourage public universities to organize themselves as if they were corporate enterprises, in order to create a more efficient and competitive sector that was less reliant on government funding. This paper assesses whether successive policy changes since the 1988 Dawkins reforms have achieved these efficiency, competition, and funding objectives. It does so by examining their financial performance over time, applying the techniques employed by investment analysts in the private sector to assess the performance of market participants. It demonstrates that the policy changes have reduced efficiency and competitiveness, and weakened the financial position of a number of universities. It provides empirical support for previous research highlighting the significant structural and regulatory constraints on the creation of a competitive market in higher education. Furthermore, it demonstrates that 35 years of policy change have merely reinforced pre-existing market positions and that, even before the impact of the COVID pandemic is considered, the financial position of the sector has been weakened as a result of the changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a large sample of students from a Dutch university to describe variations in academic performance following a change in the strictness of academic dismissal policies. The research setting includes one moment in which the performance threshold for academic dismissal has been changed, keeping constant other characteristics of the educational system. Using a descriptive approach, we show that after the threshold has been raised the number of credits earned by academically weak students increases. A higher threshold level also brings their study effort forward in time, as evidenced by a decrease in the number of no-shows and an increase in the number of credits earned during regular exams. We also show that some students perceive the minimum performance level as a target level. The evidence suggests that variations in the implementation of academic dismissal policies affect students' tendency to procrastinate, especially among weaker students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remediation reform is an influential policy movement in U.S. higher education that aims to increase college completion rates. College first-year reading and writing course requirements have been a major focus of this movement, particularly prerequisite "developmental" course sequences for entering students who are deemed underprepared for college. However, the policy implications of this movement remain unclear for the growing number of multilingual students entering U.S. colleges and universities, and particularly for multilingual learners (MLLs) who are still in the process of developing college-level English proficiency. Accordingly, this paper examined the policy discourse on websites of three prominent remediation reform movement (RRM) organizations to identify explicit and implicit ideologies about language, multilingualism, and literacy that underlie reform policies. Using a Critical Discourse Studies approach to language education policy analysis (Barakos, 2016) and focusing specifically on lexical choice, we find that RRM organizational websites discursively maintain and promote English monolingualism as the normative medium and goal of college literacy instruction. Using a California-based RRM organization as an example, we also suggest that the prevailing English monolingual ideology of the RRM may be moderated by context. Based on these findings we suggest further research and consider implications for RRM college language and literacy education policies for MLL and other multilingual students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the traditional face-to-face forms of educational instruction and has led to increased involvement in online learning. Consequently, online learning has gained popularity and has become the norm worldwide today, because it offers a safe learning environment as well as convenience and flexibility. During the pandemic, school campuses in Brunei were closed, classes were conducted online, and parents/guardians were expected to cooperate and assist their children with home-based online learning. However, online teaching posed a different set of challenges for teachers and students, which warrant research and policy attention at the national level. This study provided a review of the literature on the policies and best practices for online teaching and learning and formulated three key objectives. The first was to identify the policy initiatives and guidelines introduced by the government of Brunei to facilitate and ensure the effectiveness of online teaching and e-learning. The second referred to obtaining the perceptions of teachers and parents on three specific dimensions, namely, the implementation of blended learning, the use of online pedagogy, and enhancement of the e-learning experiences of students. The last objective was to identify the challenges associated with these dimensions and to propose actions and policy recommendations for improvement. This study employed document analysis, interview, and data collected from public social media. The implementation of online teaching and e-learning in Brunei was met with many challenges due to the poor network infrastructure and weak knowledge and content development of ICT. Thus, this study serves as a basis for improving innovation and governance in education, which focuses not only on the enhancement of academic performance but also on the digital divide. The paper was first presented at the 21st International Conference on Education Research (ICER) at the Seoul National University, Republic of Korea on October 21, 2021, by the first author. This research is part of the research project entitled: Pandemic Policies and Governance in Small States in the Southeast Asian Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of work in free speech theory is interested in the nature of counterspeech, i.e. speech that aims to counteract the effects of harmful speech. Counterspeech is usually defined in opposition to legal responses to harmful speech, which try to prevent such speech from occurring in the first place. In this paper we challenge this way of carving up the conceptual terrain. Instead, we argue that our main classificatory division, in theorising responses to harmful speech, should be between pro-discursive and anti-discursive responses. Some legal responses to harmful speech, so we argue, make a positive discursive contribution in their own right. That is, legal restrictions on harmful speech can have a function that is importantly similar to speech that aims at countering the effects of harmful speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new, broader, and more realistic lens to study (lacking) linkages between government policy and school practices. Drawing on recent work in organization theory, we advance notions on cluster of organization routines and the logic of complementarities underlying organizational change. This lens allows looking at how schools do (not) change a cluster of organization routines in response to multiple, simultaneous demands posed by government policies. Thirteen purposively selected Dutch secondary schools responding to three central government policies calling for concurrent change were analyzed, taking the schedule of a school as an exemplary case of a cluster of organization routines. Five distinct responses were distinguished, which can be sorted according to their impact on the whole organization. The study finds that ten of the thirteen schools did not change anything in response to at least one of the three policies we studied. However, all schools changed their cluster of organization routines, which impacted the whole organization in response to at least one of the three government policies. Therefore, looking at combinations of responses and considering the impact of change on school organizations qualifies ideas about schools being resistant to policy or unwilling to change and improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong's 'trilingual and biliterate' language policy (TaB, 三語兩文) is almost as old as the special administrative region (SAR) itself. Through free education and language support measures in school, students are expected to be conversant in English and Putonghua in addition to Cantonese, and be able to read and understand written Chinese and English. After being implemented for over two decades, however, there are signs that most students' language standards in Chinese and English fall short of the TaB target, as measured by the public examination results of successive generations of secondary school leavers. Designed with essentially Cantonese-dominant Hongkongers in mind, the TaB policy consists of many measures, with the 'medium of instruction streaming policy' introduced since September 1998 being the most controversial. Driven by the twin principles of monolingual English-medium instruction (EMI) and 'no language mixing allowed', secondary schools are divided into two streams. Stringent requirements must be met before a school could claim to be an EMI school. According to this 'late immersion' model for students aged 11–12 at secondary level, every year about 30 percent of the primary school leavers are allocated to an EMI school. Following Li (Multilingual Hong Kong: languages, literacies and identities. Springer, Cham, 2017), this paper will first discuss why the TaB target is such a tall order for Cantonese-dominant students by reviewing the relevant literature along five inter-related dimensions: contrastive linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and instructional strategies and bilingual pedagogies. I will then examine the SAR government's language support measures to assess their effectiveness and explore possible alternatives. The paper will end with a number of recommendations, which together constitute an LPP (language policy and planning) roadmap for improving the chance with which the TaB policy is likely to produce more positive outcomes. (i) To re-prioritize the investment and extent of language support by strengthening the quality of language input at the key stages of learning from age 3–9, which in curriculum terms correspond with K1–P3; (ii) To use Cantonese as the medium of instruction for teaching all subjects except English and Putonghua as separate subjects at preschool (K1–K3, age 3–6); (iii) To explore the possibility of implementing total immersion in Putonghua for three years at lower primary level (P1–P3, age 6–9); (iv) To abandon the 'maximum exposure, no mixing' dogma in secondary education and to encourage basic and action research in bilingual pedagogies and instructional strategies informed by Content-and-language integrated learning (CLIL); (v) To attract academically bright and linguistically gifted students to receive professional training and be prepared and committed for a career in language teaching; and (vi) To encourage civil servants of various government offices, schoolteachers, and university staff to initiate a 'speak English/Putonghua where we can' campaign. For these policy measures to be successfully implemented and bear fruit, apart from careful planning, there ought to be strong leadership from within the government and the education sector, plus mechanisms for coordinating concerted actions on the part of various groups of stakeholders, notably teachers, school principals, educationalists, and experts of language teaching and learning in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National policies on school digitalisation take shape in their local contexts. Consequently, to understand the outcome of national policy, the local translations must be set within a contextual perspective. This article explores how four contextually different municipalities in Sweden translate national school digitalisation policy. It draws on a comparative cross-case study with data gathered from interviews, and over 150 local documents dating from 2018 to 2020. The results show how contextual aspects affects responses to national policy, and that municipalities approach school digitalisation in two distinct ways. The first, general approach, emphasises competitiveness and the creation of an enabling environment for the teachers. This is manifested in the development of special support organisations, and generous access to digital technology. The second, specific approach, emphasises local consensus in policy translations along with unity in policy adherence. Here, critique of national policy is explicit. The two approaches exemplify how translational power may be distributed differently, the former prioritising individual translational precedency for teachers over a unifying policy translation controlled through local governance. The paper suggests that contextual factors matters in the choice of approaches, one in which size matters. The paper concludes that policy makers need to acknowledge contextual dimensions within governance by weighing translational power in relation to translational coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that the inclusion of meso- and micro-level perspectives has been under exploration in the study of the internationalization of humanities and social sciences, in particular, in a state-mandated system where policy interventions in higher education and knowledge production have typically been aligned with state construction and national development. It argues that institutional and individual responses to state policies on the internationalization of humanities and social sciences should be investigated due to their respective roles in policymaking and implementation. It has, therefore, retrieved recent and historical policy documents during the post-WTO period and collected empirical data from two Chinese universities. A constructivist-interpretivist qualitative approach and a qualitative case study strategy were adopted for this investigation. Based on an in-depth analysis of the empirical data, this paper reveals the gap between the macro-level ambition of achieving outward-oriented diffusion of innovations and the local-level realities, as well as institutional dilemmas and conflicts in facilitating the internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English language learning students in China often feel challenged to learn English due to lack of motivation and confidence, pronunciation and grammar difference, lack of practice and people to communicate with etc., which affects students mental health. Adopting Big data and AI will help in overcoming these limitations as it provides personalized guidance to the students in all aspects. The paper has established an automatic early warning system to monitor the students' psychological state at any time period. The data is collected from 650 respondents from four different public universities in China. The data analysis has been done with the help of powerful SPSS software and the methodology which we used for determining sample size is, Random sampling. The study involves a qualitative assessment to identify participants' characteristics and categorize them to appropriate clusters. The findings of the research showed that the most obvious differences in mental health between students who used automatic warning and those who did not use automatic warning were: depression, anxiety, hostility, terror, and psychosis. The proportion of students who use early warning was less than those who did not use early warning. Research contributes to policymakers to emphasize the importance of incorporating mental health support and resources into educational policies. The novelty of the study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of how AI and big data can optimize mental health education for English students. With the support of AI and Big data there is a constant monitoring and improvement effect on English education students' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wales' education system is part-way through an extensive journey of reform. This contextual paper explores the evolution of that journey, from the establishment of the Welsh Parliament in 1999 to late 2020, as Wales readies itself for the launch of a radical, new national curriculum. Drawing from a range of international literature and experience, it provides an overview of key policy developments and insight into the rationale for decisions taken by the Welsh Government to effect change. To do this, it separates reform into three core phases, each with its own characteristics borne out of landmark events that helped shape contemporary political and public discourse. In particular, the paper examines the impact of Wales' shifting approach to policy development on the teaching workforce and considers implications for those at the site of practice. Ahead of forthcoming parliamentary elections, the paper resolves that a new, long-term approach to policy reform and teacher development is needed if Wales is to realise its ambitious vision for education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of performance-based research funding systems (PBRFS) in many countries has generated new information on their impacts. Recent research has considered whether such systems generate convergence or divergence of research quality across universities and academic disciplines. However, little attention has been given to the processes determining research quality changes. This paper utilises anonymised longitudinal researcher data over 15 years of the New Zealand PBRFS to evaluate whether research quality changes are characterised by convergence or divergence, and the processes determining those dynamics. A unique feature is the use of longitudinal data to decompose changes in researcher quality into contributions arising from the entry, exit and quality transformations of retained researchers, and their impacts on convergence or divergence of research quality across universities and disciplines. The paper also identifies how researcher dynamics vary systematically between universities and disciplines, providing new insights into the effects of these systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Switzerland, like other countries in Europe, has long depended on migration and mobility for its economy. Facilitating the integration of migrant children in school, primarily through the acquisition of the local language, has therefore been a priority for policymakers. In recent years, mobility has been on the increase and mobility trajectories have become more diverse. A growing percentage of families arriving in the country have experienced repeated mobility and may not plan to settle in Switzerland for good. This paper examines institutional responses to the increasing number of mobile children in Swiss public schools, in particular, the manner in which such children are welcomed. It presents the main findings of an exploratory research project focused on children in repeated mobility, defined as having lived in multiple countries before their arrival in Switzerland, regardless of family background or legal status. Adopting a sociocultural psychological approach, the paper examines the macro-social level of cantonal educational policies regarding welcome processes, the meso-social level of local school policies, and the microsocial level of teachers' practices and interactions in classrooms that welcome mobile children. Data include documentary analysis, interviews, and observations. Our analysis shows that a deficit view of mobile children and the preoccupation with language proficiency dominate policies and practices, resulting in the diversion of mobile children into special integration classes (so called "classes d'accueil" in the French speaking region, and "Integrationsklasse" in the Swiss German-speaking region). Mobility is conceptualized by Swiss policymakers, school directors, and teachers in terms of its challenges. In particular, school directors and teachers conceptualize mobility as increasing heterogeneity of the classroom. However, the situation varies greatly according to the personal orientations of school directors and teachers' personal engagement. The paper emphasizes the ambiguous role of the integration classes: while they may impair the long-term chances of educational success by reducing academic expectations for non-native-speaking mobile children, they may also be used as "third spaces" which afford pedagogical freedom for dedicated teachers, potentially of benefit for children. The paper examines these propositions in the light of sociocultural educational literature and draws upon the case of welcoming mobile children to question a series of assumptions about the ultimate purposes of public schooling in Europe today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At this stage, there is a big gap between the cognition and practice of smart devices in universities and the theoretical development of universities. Theoretical and practical scientific research on university wisdom factors from the perspective of wisdom culture education can sort out the essential attributes of university wisdom in terms of actual practice and appearance and give references for the development of university theory and within the field of wisdom practice. In the age of the information explosion, modern education is developing toward an intelligent system approach. In this cultural education environment, universities in China are paying close attention to the construction of smart schools. Among them, the national Ministry of Education policy document emphasizes the construction of "intelligent education demonstration parks" and promotes the construction and implementation of smart campuses in all aspects. Given this, the paper takes university culture education as an example and explains how to build smart classroom teaching to promote the development of modernization and intelligence in China's education and improve its quality of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notably, the authors of this study do not contextualise the focus of micro-credential development in regional terms, where there is an emphasis on micro-credentials to support the transition from secondary schooling to further and higher education. References 1 Brown M, Mhichil MNC, Beirne E, Mac Lchlainn C. The global microcredential landscape: Charting a new credential ecology for lifelong learning. At the Micro-Credential Summit, held in Barcelona, Spain in March 2023, a representative from the European Commission borrowed the tagline of a global sports brand in his presentation on micro-credentials, urging those present to "Just do it".[1] In this Special Issue of the ETHE, we sought to uncover what was both being done and why in order to unpack micro-credentials in the so-called next "new normal" in higher education ecosystems. [Extracted from the article]

As the third-largest export industry, international education occupies an important place in the Australian economy and society. Employing Bacchi's "What is the Problem Represented to be" (WPR) approach, this paper critically analyses four key policies pertaining to international students in Australia since the 1990s. Drawing upon theorising of the globalisation of international education policy, we uncover contestation and problem representation in discourses around the economisation of education and of international students' experiences. The findings reveal multiple discourses of the problematisation of diversity at play, including a "pivot" towards protection of international students' rights as consumers and as potential future citizens, and increased attention to the intrinsic value of international students as people, and not simply as economic agents. The findings have implications for other national contexts, in which international students contribute to the economic viability of education, and in which internationalisation of education in universities has the capacity to foster enhanced cross-cultural understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing interest in the role of narratives in policy-making, as evidenced by the consolidation of the Narrative Policy Framework, a theory of the policy process whose overall aim is to explain how policy narratives influence policy outcomes. However, with the focus on only policy narratives, there is a risk of underestimating the relationship between the policy dynamics in a specific subsystem and the pursuit of consent in the political arena. To attract more scholarly attention to this relationship, this paper distinguishes between two types of narratives—the political narrative and the policy narrative. It focuses on how political leaders address the trade-off between the content of their political and policy narratives, not only adding analytical and theoretical leverage to the Narrative Policy Framework but also providing a fine-grained comprehension of the multilayered dynamics of narratives in politics. Our main assumption is that political leaders continuously address relationships and the eventual trade-off between their political narratives (the stories through which they shape the preferences of public opinion by proposing their general political vision) and their policy narratives (the stories they tell to shape the policy process and its outputs). The way leaders decide between these trade-offs can make a significant difference in terms of political and policy outputs. We test this assumption with a comparison of the use of narratives by the same political leader in labour and education policies in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex relationships between educational policy and classroom practice. By employing a sociocultural perspective, we examine formulations inscribed in socio-material artifacts about what students should learn and how they should engage with knowledge. We explore how these formulations are mobilized in instructional work and the implications this activity has for student participation. To address this issue, we analyzed video data of how teachers invoke competence aims from the national curriculum in their instructional work in six classrooms. The analytical procedures were derived from interaction analysis. The analysis focuses on how such formulations explicitly mediate social interaction as it unfolds on a micro level. The findings show that competence aims gain different functions as they are mobilized in classroom practice; in other words, they serve different purposes in teachers' instructional work and anticipate different modes of student participation. In this study, the competence aims were (a) invoked as a source of authority, (b) translated into instructions, and (c) mobilized to obtain social order in the classroom. More rarely, the competence aims were used in meta-level discussions, where they functioned to reach agreements on how to pursue work toward joint goals. We discuss the implications of these ways of invoking competence aims for student participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increasing growing need for learning experience or instructional designers. As a result, online courses on user experience (UX) design for learning are in demand to prepare those much-needed professionals. This paper reports the first circle of educational design research (EDR) on such a completely online problem-based course using group contracts and peer-evaluations to promote collaborations. Multiple datasets were collected from a range of data sources from a graduate-level course and were analyzed by two researchers. The study yielded several meaningful results: (1) group contracts helped students work smoothly and keep goals focused on collaborative learning in PBL; (2) the instructor could facilitate the group formation process; (3) peer evaluations helped group collaboration and monitoring; and (4) collaborative technologies are critical for collaboration. The findings also revealed important design principles for collaborative learning in PBL that can be used in similar courses. In addition, this study provides a successful example of how to teach UX design in an online PBL environment, and sheds light on how to further improve similar practices while contributing to the limited body of research on UX design for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection of data on values through instruments such as the World Values Survey has focused attention on two opposing but inter-related trends, namely the combination of substantial cultural change in many countries and the persistence of distinctive traditional values. This reflects the interplay between social changes associated with modernisation and globalisation—including increased global trade and the rise of global popular culture—with traditional values country-specific systems. In this paper, we introduce a focus on another potentially important source of change, that of widening higher education participation and attainment, and the extent to which self-reported values differ between university graduates and non-graduates. We investigated this question using data from the most recent collection of the World Values Survey (2017–2020) for six core values—family, friends, leisure, work, politics, and religion—and tested for the influence of higher education attainment on the perceived "importance" of each value and the extent to which this influence differs across values and in gender, generation and country grouping sub-samples. We find evidence for consistent effects in most contexts, with no statistical differences between graduates on non-graduates in relation to the propensity to view family and work as important, statistically significant positive effects on the propensity of graduates to view friends, leisure, and politics as important, and a significant negative effect in relation to religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, an undergraduate teacher education course is used to explore whether and how academic reading seminars reflect the theoretical notion of academic literacies and provide a learning environment for developing academic and professional learning and engagement. The data analyzed in this article are transcribed recordings of small group activities where students discuss scientific articles based on a template. First, our empirical analysis shows that the use of the template facilitated dialogical discussions and the development of a cognitive skillset and disciplinary categories when used in a social setting. Second, we found that the most challenging part of designing a reading practice related to the academic literacies tradition was fostering a dialogical environment for discussing the validity of findings across different contexts and provide for discussions encompassing complexity, nuances, and meaning making. We found traces of such discussions in all the transcripts; however, many examples were in a premature stage. The paper concludes with a discussion on, and some suggestions for, further development of the template used in the reading seminars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusion has been increasingly recognised as a global common goal in education. In China, inclusive education for children with special educational needs and disabilities is currently practised as 'Learning in Regular Classrooms' (LRC). However, not only has the inclusion policy frequently been criticised as failing to provide clear, systematic, or consistent strategies, but also the actual practices of LRC have also been found to merely concern children's physical integration into the mainstream settings. This discussion paper explores key structural barriers to inclusive education through reviewing policies within the wider education ecosystem that are relevant to the theme of inclusion but outside the LRC policy itself. The analysis illustrates how the complex and interlocked structural barriers embedded within the wider context of current education policies pose persisting constraints for inclusion to progress in China, and how these structural barriers unique to the Chinese education system also reflect the common 'wicked problems' for practising inclusive education globally. The paper discusses five main education structures: neo-liberal education policies, national college entrance examination system, teacher evaluation system, staffing quota system and the 'combine medicine and education' policy. The conclusion illustrates the complexity and main issues facing future inclusion policy reforms and highlights key objectives for policy change. It indicates that, for inclusion reforms to be effective, broader changes are needed within the wider education ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational technologies have captured the attention of researchers, policy makers, and parents. Each year, considerable effort and money are invested into new technologies, hoping to find the next effective learning tool. However, technology changes rapidly and little attention is paid to the changes after they occur. This paper provides an overall picture of the changing trends in educational technology by analyzing the Horizon Reports' predictions of the most influential educational technologies from 2011 to 2021, identifying larger trends across these yearly predictions, and by using bibliometric analysis to evaluate the accuracy of the identified trends. The results suggest that mobile and analytics technologies trended consistently across the period, there was a trend towards maker technologies and games in the early part of the decade, and emerging technologies (e.g., VR, AI) are predicted to trend in the future. Overall, the specific technologies focused on by the HRs' predictions and by educational researchers' publications seem to coincide with the availability of consumer grade technologies, suggesting that the marketplace and technology industry is driving trends (cf., pedagogy or theory). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The calls for family-school partnerships have been strong within the literature and educational policy within Australia, however, there is little research that demonstrates what such partnerships might look like. Much of the research demonstrates a one-way street approach where schools focus on educating families, particularly parents, to build their alignment with the already defined direction of the school. This paper draws from cultural models theory to explore the artefacts and practices within the figured worlds of two South Australian primary schools. It focuses on the sites' re-imagining of family engagement as part of their participation in the South Australian Collaborative Childhood Project, inspired by the educational principles of the Reggio Emilia Project in Italy. This paper argues that an early childhood perspective on family engagement provides valuable insights in re-imagining practices and artefacts to support authentic family-school partnerships in primary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School bullying is a pervasive social problem that has been linked to severe mental health consequences for students. Though 50 states have adopted anti-bullying policies, research into the effectiveness of these policies has suggested that many such policies are not effective in reducing rates of bullying in schools. This paper aims to identify strategies for policy makers and social workers to reduce bullying in schools. This paper focuses on the Iowa Safe Schools Law as a case study for better understanding the strengths and limitations of statewide anti-bullying laws. Consistent with general evaluations of statewide anti-bullying laws, comparisons of rates of bullying before and after the passage of the Iowa Safe Schools Law reveal no reductions in rates of bullying. Through an examination of the extant academic and popular literature, this analysis identifies several critiques of the policy, namely that such policies infringe upon freedom of expression and that such policies focus on individual behavior modification rather than on changing underlying social norms that contribute to hostile environments. This paper presents several recommendations for advancing the prevention of bullying. Future research should identify underlying factors that render these policies ineffective and common factors of policies that have been found to be more effective. Bullying prevention policies should include funding allocated to these efforts and components that have been empirically linked to reductions in bullying. Social workers hold a key role in advocating for funding for this policy and offering institutional and individual-level interventions to reduce bullying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As augmented, virtual and mixed reality have become more user-friendly and affordable, these technologies gained increasing interest from education. Teachers all over the world are triggered by the perceived benefits and start experimenting. However, teachers encounter obstacles to pursue effective implementation. This paper describes how these obstacles are being tackled in Flanders (Belgium) via a large-scale, nation-wide framework for the implementation of augmented, virtual and mixed reality in K-12 technical and vocational education. This framework was designed, adopting an Educational Design Research approach, and consists of five interrelated pillars: hardware, software, professional development of teachers, practice-oriented research, and coordination. The proposed framework provides guidelines, both for researchers and education policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]