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The approach to the support of gifted and talented children and youth has changed considerably in the past twenty years. While, until the 2000s, provision programmes predominantly focused on extracurricular activities for pupils, gifted education now follows a systemic and inclusive approach, including all (educational) institutions--kindergarten, school, college and university--as well as the family, the economy, the working world and the community. Furthermore, there have been considerable efforts to provide for gifted children within the regular classroom by way of differentiation and individualised learning. This new approach to talent support was first outlined in 2011 in the "White Paper Promoting Talent and Excellence," which the Austrian Research and Support Centre for the Gifted and Talented published in cooperation with the interministerial Giftedness Research and Gifted Education Task Force. The present article outlines the reasons that led to this new strategy, explains its main features and attempts an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses.

Throughout the last 30 years, many European countries have 'modernized' their governance of education. For the Central European school systems of Austria and the German Bundesländer it has been claimed that this 'modernization' was characterised by a sequence of reform 'waves' which culminated in introducing 'evidence-based governance' models characterised by nation-wide comparative performance testing, new school inspections, etc. This paper argues that we recently see the emergence of "revisions of the original 'evidence-based governance' models" which may be understood as a new 'wave of modernization' of school governance. These models aim to react to increasing criticism of the evidence-based philosophy, in particular to its ambivalent attitude to teacher professionalism. The paper at hand analyses the specific aspirations and features of 'revised evidence-based governance instruments' to discuss their potential as a policy future. In a second step, we take the Austrian quality management system SQA as an example for these new governance models. In an explorative study, we use case data to understand how teachers and school leaders evaluate this reform and its impact on their work. In particular, we are interested whether or not educational professionals feel that this reform conveys appreciation of and trust in their professional capacities.

Pre-service teachers often express a strong desire for more practical experience in teacher education, which requires teacher educators to consider new, meaningful opportunities for field experiences. This paper aims to bridge the gap between two 'practice worlds' - university teacher education and school practice - based on the example of the Austrian 'Partner School Programme' in order to overcome the theory-practice divide. In this conceptual paper, we explore how the 'Partner School Programme' has aimed at bridging the two 'practice worlds' by enhancing collaboration between universities and schools in different ways: pre-service teachers can take part in fieldwork in schools within the framework of a project ("project-based learning"), a research activity ("community-based research") or an organised service ("service-learning"). The paper shows the relevance of developing integrated approaches for encouraging pre-service teachers' reflective practice as thorough preparation for their subsequent careers and provides teacher educators with new ideas for practical fieldwork.

This paper explores ways to integrate social justice issues pertaining to decolonization and anti-racism into the world language classroom at all levels of instruction. It describes tasks designed to introduce language learners briefly to German colonialism, raise awareness of colonial legacies in contemporary German-speaking societies, and familiarize students with current decolonization initiatives. By engaging students with the complex diversity of German-speaking societies, the tasks provide examples for diversifying and decolonizing the language curriculum while fostering collaboration, critical thinking, and transcultural sensitivity. The examples highlight approaches to anti-racist pedagogies and ways of incorporating social justice practices across all levels of instruction and applicable to all languages.

The article deals with the problem of forming social partnership policy in vocational training of service sector specialists in Germany and Austria. The foreign and domestic pedagogical experience in establishing an effective system of social partnership in vocational education has been analyzed. The author has considered main factors of social partnership development in vocational education that influence the forming of normative and legal support; a multilevel structure of government management, powers of employers and trade unions, regional economic development authorities of local government (industrial, commercial, trade, agricultural units), professional orientation of future specialists vocational education institutions and enterprises where specialists are trained; continuous monitoring of labour market needs and dynamic response to its changes; mechanisms of multivariate and multilevel approach to vocational education funding. Based on the analysis of scientific and reference sources the author has concluded that the main feature of vocational education in Germany and Austria is the participation of social partners who make common decisions and bear responsibility for normative and legal support; a multilevel management structure; monitoring of labour market needs and dynamic response to its changes; an optimal combination of theoretical and practical vocational training of future specialists.

In this paper we propose STEAM practices that would foster mathematics learning through modelling architecture while connecting to culture and history. The architectural modelling process is applied by the teachers as participants of these practices from different countries allowing a broad cultural and historical connection to mathematics education. The modelling is implemented in GeoGebra platform as it is an open-source platform to allow teachers to model on a mathematics basis. The architectural modelling process does not provide participants with steps to follow but rather allows them to explore the architectural models' components and construct them with various approaches which may foster problem solving techniques. We aim to investigate how different phases of this approach (such as motivation, modeling, and printing process) reflect on opportunities of learning in STEAM education, with a particular lens in mathematical development from open tasks. This paper will show two use cases that took place in Upper Austria and the MENA region.

Intercultural Perspectives on Information Literacy and Metaliteracy (IPILM) is a discourseoriented learning environment that engages students from diverse cultural backgrounds to participate in collaborative knowledge construction. The objective is to evolve a thematic approach to course design that includes elements of open pedagogy, information literacy, and metaliteracy. IPILM invites participation from educators and learners from around the world and has witnessed an increase in participating countries. This paper describes the concept of IPILM and demonstrates the implementation of this approach in practice. The initiative was well received by students and is both feasible and sustainable as an intercultural learning endeavor. IPILM is an ongoing project and a work in progress that is an adaptable model which may be transferred to disparate fields of teaching and learning or adopted by international communities of instructors.

There is no doubt that the increasing use of technology and digitalization leads to a more differentiated discussion of the digital transformation in work and daily life. The digital transformation can now be regarded as central technological and social phenomenon (Fürst, 2019). It has triggered a hype. To "be digital" is now the basic requirement for work and the participation in society (Hartmann et al., 2019; Mertala, 2019). To get digital, it is important to keep pace with the social, cultural, and economic changes which are driven by the digital transformation. Educational institutions over all levels of education are concerned with the question of how educational offerings must be designed to prepare learners for encountering and participating in the digital change. This question will also be addressed in this paper. The paper tries to answer the research question, what are central problems and issues of business education due to new and changing qualification and skill requirements of future workers in the age of digital transformation. The aim of the paper is to show what is needed to design modern digital educational offers to prepare learners for the encounter of the digital transformation and to encourage them to participate in shaping it. To achieve this research goal a literature-based analyses was carried out. In addition to central aspects for further development of business education, like the development of educational staff (e.g. teachers) and the vocational theory, it is important to think about issues of digital transformation for the general business education and development, school education and in-company education and training. The bundling of relevant issues on the digital transformation of business Education and their answers will help to shape the digital transformation and prepare the next generation for the future challenges at work and in daily life.

Interest in higher education institutions (HEIs) as instruments for development has increased in recent years. The main objective of this paper is to address the contribution of HEIs to development through their missions, models, and challenges. With this purpose, we perform a historical analysis and characterise higher-education systems through the perspective of university models and missions, noticing relevant aspects regarding the evolution of this institution over time, as well as the transformations undergone. We also consider the main challenges that current higher education systems face in the 21st century. As methodological approaches, we carry out a literature review complemented by a comparative analysis based on data from the higher education systems of ten European countries. The findings show that HEIs can contribute to development through their missions, which are related to the models of higher education. Their first mission (teaching) contributes to improving human capital and attracting highly qualified people to their regions; the second mission (research) improves scientific knowledge which can foster innovative activities; and the third mission (community service) acts as a link between research and business, including patents, business incubators, and collaboration agreements. We also conclude that the challenges of higher education in the 21st century can be categorised essentially in three main areas: (1) globalisation and massification of higher education, as well as the internationalisation of HEIs' missions and diversification of the educational supply to attract new students; (2) new technologies related to the digitalisation of teaching and distance learning; and (3) higher education entrepreneurship, showing the importance of university-company relationships. This paper provides a global setting for a reflection on the role of HEIs in the 21st century, given their connection with society and the need for a more effective contribution to socio-economic development.

Literature has widely explored the learning processes with information and communication technology (ICT) in later life, mostly focusing on the individual learner rather than materialities--such as smartphones, notepads, and handouts. The aim of this paper is to introduce a socio-material perspective by focusing on the question: What role do materialities play in digital learning processes in later life? This paper draws upon a situation analysis of data from a qualitative multi-perspective study. Researchers conducted participatory observations of five ICT courses for older adults in Austria and semi-structured interviews with seven trainers and nine older participants (61-81 years). By identifying three social worlds (digital devices, education, and participants' everyday lives), the findings show how ICT-learning processes are embedded in the everyday lives of older adults and include not only digital, but also everyday materialities, such as pens, paper and books. These material convoys of digital learning in later life are vital in facilitating successful technology appropriation in later life.

This article investigates teachers' professional identity of beginning first-year students through their beliefs about being a teacher. The presented study focuses on Austrian teacher students' (N=18) conceptions of becoming a professional; what convictions student teachers reflect on, which professional identity emerges and what synthesis of a professional teacher identity position can be portrayed at the beginning of teacher education. Through inductively driven content analysis all statements (N=401) have been combined, and a unified synthesis of a beginning student teachers' professional identity was formed. Three main categories were found: the "ideal" teacher, "good" teaching, and the "optimal" working environment. The results showed a highly idealistic view of being a teacher. The majority of statements referred to teaching from a pupil-centered perspective by strongly emphasising personality traits, student-teacher relationships, and teachers' professional knowledge. Based on the results, the role of professional identity in Austrian's teacher education is discussed, and further implementations in research are recommended. [This paper was presented at the TDID Doctoral Students' Conference, 14-16 May 2020.]

A prerequisite for child reading support at school is adequate assessment. Embedding (repeated) assessment into daily teaching routine is often challenging for teachers in terms of time and organization. The use of digital tools can help teachersin the assessment process (in preparation, evaluation, documentation, etc.). A digital assessment tool (Graz Reading Comprehension test: GraLeV), focusing on assessing reading comprehension skills in Grades 3 and 4 is currently being developed in Austria. This reading assessment covers reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text level. Text level is assessed via two subtests (Subtest I: presentation of nonsense-stories and corresponding questions, and Subtest II: maze selection). The other levels consist of one subtest each. This paper focusses on the subtests at text level. More specifically, the paper reports the results of two studies. Study 1 describes the development phases and the first piloting of these two subtests (data collection: 10/2019-12/2019). Testing 273 students with preliminary versions of the subtests (Subtest I: 30 items, Subtest II: 60 items) produced information on (a) item difficulty, (b) item discriminatory power, and (c) time limits for future speed testing. Items not meeting the required quality criteria were excluded. The final version of Subtest I consists of 16 questions referring to eight different, short, nonsense-texts. Its testing time (without instructions) is three minutes. The final version of the Subtest II consists of 2 texts each with 15 maze selections (30 items) and testing time is 100 seconds. The internal consistency is found to be good for Subtest I ([alpha]=0.87) and Subtest II ([alpha]=0.78 to 0.80). Study 2 reports on testing for validity and retest-reliability (data collection: 09/2020-11/2020). Student scores in another reading comprehension test, together with teacher assessments of reading comprehension, were used to assess congruent validity. Divergent validity was assessed using teacher assessments of mathematical and socio-emotional skills. As expected, the correlations with the congruent measures were higher than those with the divergent measures. A subsample was tested twice with the GraLeV. Retest-reliability was acceptable for Subtest II. However, the scores obtained at time 2 were higher compared to those at time 1 in both subtests. This is probably the result of increased student familiarity with the digital device and the digital test environment at time 2. The results are discussed in the light of teachers' needs for standardized digital assessments in order to facilitate the tailoring of student reading support.

This article analyses the structure and development of Austrian apprenticeship in the context of the country's wider vocational education and training (VET) system. In doing so, it draws on official data and survey results as well as the available, related literature on historical institutionalism. It begins with an analysis of the basic structure of the VET system and shows that the modernising element in VET in Austria has always been situated in the schooling sector, whereas the structure of the apprenticeship system has changed little, remaining primarily in the traditional sectors of employment. It goes on to analyse recent developments in the apprenticeship system, revealing signs of a "crisis" that is being resolved by establishing more institutional forms of apprenticeship. Finally, the developments in Austria are analysed with regard to more basic questions relating to the strengths and weaknesses of the apprenticeship model, indicating some quite paradoxical features and unresolved puzzles. (Contains 15 notes, 2 tables, and 5 figures.)

Since its establishment, Islamic religious pedagogy at German-speaking universities has primarily faced basic questions like: What kind of methodological and didactic approaches can be employed in Islamic Religious Education (IRE) and how should the structural framework be designed? Analyses concerning these questions are often drafted via top-down approaches, which neither hypothesise from practice nor consider the perspectives of Muslim populations and parents. This paper gives a hearing to those voices from a practice-theoretical research perspective, which is built upon an evidence-based empirical analysis of everyday practical realities. The study of these realities was conducted in Austria, where IRE has been taught within the public education system nationwide since 1982/1983. This article evaluates the importance Muslim parents assign to religious questions among different concepts of education, and also deals with the question of which pedagogical approach they favour. Furthermore, the paper analyses the parents' position concerning religious formation in mosques and schools, and points out their related expectations, aspirations and worries. Consequently, the paper breaks new ground by profoundly illuminating the realms of experience of Muslim students and by providing the basis for pupils to be systematically taken into account in religious pedagogical and religious didactic approaches.

This paper reports results from a quantitative curriculum study on literature modules in Austrian undergraduate teacher education programmes. In order to optimise course delivery in literature classes at the University College of Education Upper Austria (PHOÖ), reading habits and attitudes of 153 first-year EFL students for secondary school education were assessed in an online-questionnaire. The questionnaire examined students' exposure to literary texts, their self-assessment as avid readers, their performative literacy, and their preferred reading stance. Results show rather limited avid reading, a self-centred performative literacy as well as a profoundly pragmatic reading stance. Such habits and attitudes could not only jeopardise success within the current teacher education study programmes but also aggravate the well-known Peter Effect, rendering prospective EFL teachers incapable of inspiring enthusiasm for literary reading in their future students. After discussing these results, the paper concludes with potential ramifications for curricular revisions as well as avenues for further research.

Due to the rising linguistic heterogeneity in schools, the inclusion of pupils with a first language other than the language of instruction is one of the major challenges of education systems all over the world. In this paper, attitudes of in-service teachers, pre-service teachers and parents towards the inclusion of pupils with a first language other than the language of instruction are examined. Additionally, as the paper focused on how the participants perceive the development of this pupils in different school settings (fully included, partly included, fully segregated). Data from 1501 participants were investigated. Descriptive results showed that pre-service teachers' attitudes towards the inclusive schooling of pupils with different language skills in composite classes were rather positive, while attitudes of in-service teachers and parents rather tend to be neutral. Regarding the results concerning the participants' attitudes towards the pupils' development in different school settings, all three sub-groups belief that pupils with German as first language would develop in a more positive way, compared to pupils without German as first language. Moreover, the migration background of pre-service teachers and parents had a positive influence on the participants' attitudes.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the manoeuvring room of higher education institutions to take action to reduce emissions from academic flying. In particular, this study investigates how university staff and central actors in university management evaluate potential measures in this area. Design/methodology/approach: The authors applied a single case study design encompassing an online survey directed at staff (N = 338) and 11 semi-structured interviews with key actors from management at an Austrian university. The authors used descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis to examine the data. Findings: This study found considerable support among university staff in principle for implementing measures to reduce academic flying, but also serious concerns about the fairness and viability of some restrictive measures, especially disincentives and caps on flying. However, bans on short-haul flights were largely supported. Actors from university management saw their manoeuvring room limited by the potential resistance and non-compliance of staff, as well as by framework conditions external to the university. Practical implications: Dedicated leadership is needed to facilitate broad commitment within the university and to avoid shifting the responsibility between different governance levels. Restrictive measures to reduce academic air travel will be more readily accepted if perceived as fair and viable. Originality/value: Although several papers have addressed the behavioural and institutional factors that sustain extensive flying in academia, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first contributions to investigate the potentials and challenges of introducing measures to reduce air travel in higher education institutions.

This paper explores how three organisations collaborate to support organisations and individuals to act on the challenges of sustainability through action learning, each using its unique skills. It examines the roles of each organisation and how by moving from individual to a collaborative they could do things better and do better things. The paper describes the challenges of collaborating at an organisational and international level and gives examples of two projects where the skills and capabilities of each organisation came together to create a new future for a commercial organisation and community.

This paper makes available to the broader educational community the instruments which have been originally designed and validated within the European project "CLIL for all: Attention to diversity in bilingual education" ("ADiBE") to determine how diversity is being catered to across a broad array of CLIL contexts in European Secondary Education (Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom). They include three sets of questionnaires, interviews, and observation protocols and are qualitative and quantitative instruments whose design has been based on the latest research and which have undergone a carefully controlled double-fold pilot process for their validation (external ratings approach and pilot phase with a representative sample of 264 subjects). The questions included in the three sets of instruments are initially characterized, together with their format and main categories. The paper then details the steps undertaken for their research-based design and the double-fold pilot process followed for their validation. The questionnaires and interview and observation protocols are then presented in a format which is directly applicable in any CLIL classroom in order to determine the accessibility of bilingual programs for all types of achievers and to identify the chief difficulties and best practices in promoting inclusion in bilingual education.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the effects of digital transformation on educational institutions and to outline the challenges that arise and need to be addressed in this context. Teaching and learning processes should be continuously developed due to changes in educational requirements as well as social and technological changes. Therefore, within this paper, these technological changes are described in the first step. In the next step, the challenges facing higher education institutions, as a result of digital transformation are discussed, and strategies for the further development of higher education, regarding digital transformation, are described. In this context, a research study that focuses on the self- assessment of the digital competencies of students is outlined and the results are presented. The first results emphasize the need for further development in technology-supported teaching and learning processes at higher education institutions. The implementation of technology-supported teaching and learning settings and the rethinking of present teaching content is seen as both a challenge and an opportunity for preparing students -- as well as lecturers -- for digital transformation. With regard to the current COVID-19 situation, this is a challenge that must be met sooner rather than later.

Open educational resource (OER) as free teaching and learning materials can contribute to the collaborative design and development of teaching. To support higher education teachers in their work with teaching in general and OER in particular and to encourage their use of OER, it is necessary to pay attention to their needs and requirements. This paper presents the results of a research project, identifying the usage behaviour of German-speaking higher education teachers. In an interview study, they were asked about their experience with OER to get detailed insights into their practices concerning their 'use' and 'revise' of materials. From this, four user types were derived according to different OER activities, such as creating, reusing, editing, and publishing OER, and their scope. Finally, these user types are transferred to considerations when designing OER infrastructures and establishing support options. These are aligned with the specifics of each user type, making the research findings a complementary contribution for application in higher education.

Teacher education's primary goal is to train prospective teachers, which differs from study programmes, such as philosophy or mathematics, that do not cater to defined professions. This traditional understanding of the teaching profession becomes apparent when students ask: 'How is this content, topic, method, task, or question relevant to school work?' It is also reflected in the inclusion of practical school training in teacher education curricula. In Austria's teacher training, these practical elements are accompanied by theoretical and methodological teaching foundations. However, students often question the applicability of theoretical knowledge to the teaching profession, which creates tension between the academic and pedagogical orientations. This paper discusses these very theory-practice tensions in teacher education based on findings from the project Habitus.Power.Education, which involved student teachers at an Austrian university. We argue that teacher training at universities is neither merely a place for producing a future workforce nor a self-growth space without purpose. Teacher training, rather, combines both (sometimes ambivalent) elements: education in its broadest sense and professional training. Using our empirical material, we show that the theory-praxis gap manifests in the tension between academic and pedagogical orientation. To address and mediate this tension, we propose the concept of habitus reflexivity. Promoting such a form of reflexivity among students makes it possible to bridge the gap between the different logics of university and school. Furthermore, it helps to comprehend inequality and power imbalances in the education system and develop agency, which is essential for navigating the ever-changing and complex world of modern schools.

The paper focusses on a collaboration between academia and industry. As an introduction, we present typical behavior of university researchers, who often define the area of application without consulting it with industrial partners, and we propose different approach which led to the definition of the scope of the WrightBroS project. The project, entitled "Collaborative Factory of the Flight Simulators Branch of RISE" is financed by the European Union in the frame of Horizon 2020 MSCA Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) programme. The international Consortium composed of Higher education (Silesian University of Technology from Poland) and industrial (LG Nexera from Austria and Virtual Reality Media from Slovakia) sectors, has designed a project as a collaborative platform whose know-how results from knowledge sharing among partners. Then, from the experience gained in the implementation of the WrightBroS and other similar projects, by using case-study methodology we demonstrate how representatives of education and industry in the new joint environment supplement each other in common research efforts. We also present methods for knowledge sharing, in particular achieved by intersectoral staff exchanging. Then we present the results achieved by collaboration of Higher Education with Industry in the WrightBroS project. Finally, the discussion in the context of tackling broader challenges of intersectoral collaboration leads to the conclusions that this kind of environment is very efficient way to overcome typical difficulties in academia and industry dialog, which is so common in the global world.

The second-level digital divide concerns individual levels of digital competences and demographic indicators of digital gaps. In this paper, we have analysed empirical data that allow a thorough and differentiated look into the second-level digital divide with a rigorous methodological quantitative approach. We investigated the relationship between results from a self-assessment of one's own digital competences, and a knowledge test about digital tools among Austrian citizens (N=1109). The study explores second-level digital divides in gender, education level, age, first language, and length of time living in the country regarding respective competence levels and areas, referring to the Digital Competence Model for Austria - DigComp 2.2 AT. Results show that the digital gender divide is paramount across all competence areas, while the age divide remains strong when comparing under 18-year-olds with over 60-year-olds. Moreover, positive effects are related to education level and first language.

Geospatial technologies have revolutionised the field of hazard research as well as geography field-courses, providing powerful tools to analyse and visualise geospatial data for decision-making purposes. This paper presents a case study of Paper2GIS, an application for field data collection tested during an international field course in Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland. The field course was designed to expose students to the practical application of interdisciplinary geospatial technologies in hazard research. Students experienced geological/physical geography field mapping as well as data collection using Paper2GIS. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of Paper2GIS in facilitating hazard research with a participatory component, as well as the simplification of data collection during geography field courses. Paper2GIS proved to be an effective tool for enhancing collaboration, data visualisation, and decision-making. The findings provide valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, and educators looking to incorporate low-tech geospatial technologies into their work.