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This study examines how an online training into teacher research has been evaluated in relation to the three main elements of the community of inquiry framework (CoI): teaching, social, and cognitive presences. We held the online training as a part of TESOL's Electronic Village Online (EVO) and offered a course on how teacher research can be conducted. A survey was administered to elicit the perceptions of 27 volunteering teacher researchers regarding how social, cognitive and teaching presences within the framework of CoI support professional development of teachers, and to examine how CoI presences correlate with overall satisfaction in this research-based professional development online course. In addition to quantitative measures including means, modes and standard deviations, we analysed the data through the Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient on SPSS to explore the correlation between the degree to which each of the three presences supported these teachers in their professional development. Findings imply that participants held highly positive perceptions towards cognitive, social and teaching presences of CoI and that these different aspects of the framework correlate positively with the overall course satisfaction. Moreover, there are important implications for instructional design of online professional development programs using the CoI framework and maintaining effective online research mentoring practices.

In recent decades, a global consensus has emerged that acknowledges that Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) requires systemic, cross-sectoral approaches. In this context, integrated early childhood approaches are flourishing in South America. Although these policies have been successful in many aspects, ECEC provision in the region continues to be fragmented. In this exploratory article, we analyse the role of ECEC curricula in the conceptual integration of ECEC systems in South America. We focus on the 'regulative intent' of curriculum frameworks to explore the extent to which these policy instruments support systemic change. Our analysis draws on an extensive revision of documentary sources and interviews with key local informants in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. We reconstruct the institutional architecture of ECEC provision in each country and examine curricula against this background. Our findings highlight the emergence of a new curricular wave in the region that contributes to integrated approaches. Recent curriculum frameworks move away from sectoral intents and towards more comprehensive and cohesive regulative intents. We call for a reconceptualisation of ECEC curricula from a whole-systems perspective that supports the holistic nature of the education and care of young children.

This paper uses data from the OECD's 2015 PISA and an endogenous treatment effects model to investigate the impact of different intensities of digital device use for academic purposes on science learning outcomes. When we do not differentiate the location of device use, we find that greater use can help students improve their science scores in most of the countries. When we consider school and outside-of-school use separately, we find the above positive results are driven by outside-of-school digital device use and that there are more negative results of increased device use at school.

Writers of this article share their seminal work of creating the Latin American Region (LAC) as part of the United States NASPA-Student Affairs Administration in the Higher Education Association's Global Division. Webinars, exchanges, conferences, some research initiatives, and a new student affairs administration minor as part of a higher education master's degree are beginning to shape the work of student affairs in South America.

The growing phenomenon of university courses designated as English-medium-instruction (EMI) worldwide presents new demands for non-native-English-speaking educators. However, adequate preparation and professional learning support for them to teach academic subjects in English remain a challenge. An understanding of their challenges and professional learning (PL) needs in EMI teaching is critically needed. This review examines 115 articles in English and Chinese on PL for EMI educators in HE, covering numerous countries. It critically reviews the literature to identify the common challenges in EMI teaching, and "how" and "to what extent" educators are prepared and supported for EMI teaching. Findings revealed EMI educators are often found unprepared and/or inadequately supported for their new roles. They face multiple challenges when embarking on EMI teaching. The review reveals misalignments between challenges facing educators and formal PL on offer. It also highlights the importance of informal ongoing PL and educators' agency in orchestrating their learning.

Implementation of the European Higher Education Area changed the assessment model in higher education towards a competence-based system, so that students are assessed by what they demonstrate they can do (competences). However, assessment of certain key competences, such as reading, ceases at higher education. The question remains whether reading competence continues to influence academic achievement at this level. We designed a reading comprehension test based on PISA questions and administered it to new-intake university students. The results were linked to students' grades in each first-year subject and their sociodemographic administrative data. The influence of reading competence and socioeconomic status on grades in all first-year subjects was analysed through structural equation models. The results show that reading competence at the start of university education has a direct influence on grades in all first-year subjects and an indirect influence through the admission grade. In conclusion, reading competence needs to be further developed and promoted even in the university context.

Race in the US is shaped by a history rooted in settler colonialism, colorism, and nativism. Yet, international students are typically excluded from most conversations about race and racialization. Using Fries-Britt, George Mwangi, and Peralta's (2014) emergent framework on learning race in US contexts, we examined international students of Color's racialized experiences at a predominantly White institution, including how their racialized experiences were often shaped simultaneously by issues of race and racism in the US, as well as preconceived notions of what their US collegiate experiences would be. Findings indicated that most students did not expect to experience racism in the US; however, after a critical incident on campus, many participants had to navigate how they conceptualized race and racialization as international students of Color in the US.

With the advent of smartphone technologies, connections to other people, information, and services have transcended everyday norms. However, together with the evolving technologies, unprecedented changes in the behaviors of individuals are emerging. Among these changes is phubbing, the practice of ignoring those in the immediate surroundings during real conversations in favor of smartphones. In light of this, the aim of the present study was to determine if there is a relationship between smartphone addiction and phubbing in international students and if mindfulness is a moderator of this relationship. A cross-sectional survey with snowball sampling was adopted, and a total of 294 international students volunteered to complete self-report measures. In this study, while there was a significant positive relationship between smartphone addiction and phubbing, no such significant association was determined for mindfulness in its relationship with smartphone addiction and phubbing. The moderation analysis revealed that mindfulness significantly moderated the relationship between smartphone addiction and phubbing; however, high mindfulness did not serve as a protective factor against the effects of smartphone addiction on phubbing.

This study explores how distributed leadership influences student reading achievement in Turkish high schools, with the mediating role of teacher professional practices and self-efficacy. After assembling school- and student-level data from the datasets of The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 and The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018, we conducted a multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) using the estimation method of Maximum Likelihood to analyse the structural links among our variables. The results revealed that distributed leadership had a significant indirect association with student reading achievement via teacher professional practices and teacher self-efficacy. This study adds nuance to the literature by indicating that distributed leadership can make a difference in student achievement by promoting teachers' engagement in professional practices and their self-efficacy.

This study explored a relationship between internet access and literacy using quantitative data regarding students' reading performance. Data used in this study included reading scores provided by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the internet access data made available by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The reading scores dataset of selected OECD countries for the study was categorized into three groups based on internet access levels: very high, high, and moderate. One-way ANOVA was used to interpret and report any statistical significance of the dataset. The result indicated a positive relationship between high internet access levels and students' reading performance. This study implies that the constant provision of robust internet access could help eliminate the literacy gap in education worldwide, improving students' reading performance.

With the ubiquitous presence of media devices, media multitasking has become prevalent in an educational context. Several authors have synthesized the literature on this topic, but no systematic review has been carried out so far. The present study fills this gap by examining the academic papers in the past decade to delineate the research trends, gaps, and directions for future research. Following the Standard Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), we analyzed 88 papers from various aspects including study focus, contexts, participants, and methods. Findings point to the necessity to focus on the reasons behind multitasking, include more K-12 learners, and adopt qualitative methodology. To support future work on the predictors of media multitasking, we propose a conceptual framework that includes nine variables in technology, personal, and environment domains.

The widespread adoption of technology-based assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated concerns about the digital divide, given global disparities in digital access, connectivity, and coping strategies. This systematic review was intended to assess how the use of technology-based assessments has affected the education system's functioning in pre-college education, compared to traditional assessments. It covered 34 countries from 34 full-text English sources in 2018-2022. A total of 12 assumptions were tested, corresponding to six hypotheses about the learning, educating, and management facets associated with the use of technology-based assessments. Our findings revealed mixed evidence about technology-based assessments in reducing cheating, enhancing learning, supporting monitoring, improving instruction, and reducing non-teaching workload. However, strong evidence supported the assumptions that technology-based assessments improve measurement precision, interpretability, engagement, interaction, and teacher-parent communication. Limited but positive evidence supported the assumptions that technology-based assessments may reduce the cost and time of test administration.

Research in the UK suggests that multi-componential interventions focusing on language and pre-literacy skills can improve children's reading and language skills. However, simple translations of such programmes may not produce equivalent effects in diverse communities. The reasons for this are multi-faceted and include factors beyond the rationale and content of the intervention programmes themselves. Understanding these factors is critical for creating programmes that will generalise across settings. In this review, we reflect upon challenges encountered in two reading and language intervention programmes in South America to identify community and cultural contextual factors that can influence the implementation and scalability of educational programmes. We use our findings to develop an education-specific framework to guide the development and implementation of high-quality evidence-based approaches to language and literacy intervention. Our model guides implementation practices in diverse contexts and stresses the importance of the evidence-base and communication.

This study analyses international research collaboration (IRC) trends of South African public universities during the 2012-2021 period. While previous studies have explored IRC trends between South Africa and the rest of the world, there is a gap in literature when it comes to the analysis of institutional IRC trends. Using bibliometric data from Scopus, we analyse the internationally coauthored scholarly output of 24 public universities. Our focus is on the annual and overall institutional IRC trends; a comparison of IRC trends between different institutional types; and an analysis of institutional IRC trends broken down by world regions. Our findings show that the inequalities rooted in colonial and apartheid policies continue to be evident in South African higher education, and that most of the scholarly output through IRC is produced by historically white institutions (HWIs). The findings highlight that HWIs prioritise IRC with the Global North while neglecting research collaboration with the African continent and Global South. On the other hand, even though research output at historically black institutions (HBIs) is low, these institutions prioritise intra-Africa and South-South IRC. Our findings highlight the need for the government to move beyond the policy rhetoric and implement programmes that would enable HBIs to develop capacity to produce scholarly output through national and international collaboration. The government also needs to develop incentives for universities which are contributing to the expansion and strengthening of IRC within the African continent and Global South, in line with the national higher education and research priorities.

Knowledge and abilities with social media technologies are perceived as critical premises for human development. Familiarity with different types of social media technologies has become pivotal for collaborative learning and successfully solving problems. This study examined the impact of social media technologies, compartmentalized into social media usage and students' attitudes towards social media usage, on their collaborative problem-solving (CPS) achievement by adopting the sample from the PISA 2015 dataset across 37 countries/regions. A three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was adopted to identify the significant factors related to CPS achievement. Results indicated that social media usage had a significant impact on CPS achievement and they are varied in terms of different learning contexts, different social media types (e.g., e-mails, social networking sites), and different purposes of social media use (leisure or academic use). Furthermore, students who had a more positive attitude toward social media were more likely to achieve higher CPS performance.

The paper presents the results of an investigation into the virtual teamwork of culturally mixed teams engaged in common projects in international settings. Data was collected from students attending four different universities on four continents (Asia, Europe, North America, and South America). They worked for a semester, in virtual teams, to solve problems for real businesses in Asia and/or Latin America. Each team worked with a specific client that asked them to make recommendations and develop action plans. A model was developed to understand the way satisfaction with teamwork outcome, as dependent variable, is fostered on antecedents such as global identification, collective mind, and team cohesiveness. The analysis, exploratory as structured, was conducted using the partial least squares method provided by SmartPLS. Results show the similarities and differences in behavior for different groups of students coming from different countries and their implications for teaching teams in a multicultural virtual environment.

The field of applied linguistics is a remarkable case of deep intersection of the skewed geopolitics of knowledge (epistemic inequalities) and language (the ascendency of English as both a topic of research and academic lingua franca). The dominance of the Anglo-sphere through epistemology and language in applied linguistics renders the process of decolonization even more problematic than in other fields, for the only available tools to decolonize are those of coloniality. We argue that despite the end of formal decolonization and the incessant decolonial impulses, the Global South(s) may be still colonizable. Through ages of epistemic dominance, the Global South(s) may have encountered some tensions and challenges to exercise and legitimize ways of theorizing and doing applied linguistics research "otherwise." That is, these alternative visions and praxis may again be underpinned by western traditions of thought that have shaped their foundational understandings of what language, linguistics, and practicality are. Epistemological delinking may be impossible as long as decoloniality itself is enunciated through the dominant voices and channels and according to the rationalities against which decoloniality in applied linguistics has been made to be understood. We go beyond the usual question of whether decolonization is possible, to ask: What decolonialities are possible to account for the Global South(s) and their varying degrees of colonizability? We employ what we term 'collective introspection-retrospection' as an epistemological journey of re-knowing, re-feeling, re-sensing, and re-imagining alternative epistemologies in applied linguistics.

Teachers who see themselves competent in their professions might have high self-efficacy beliefs and these beliefs might reflect positively on their job satisfaction. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher job satisfaction. In this meta-analysis, the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher job satisfaction was analyzed using the "Teaching and Learning International Survey" (TALIS). The average effect size of teacher self-efficacy on teacher job satisfaction was determined, and the moderators that may impact average effect size were examined. Data from a total number of 102 independent data belonging to 50 countries included in the TALIS 2008, 2013, 2018 were combined, and a sample of 426.515 teachers was obtained. The results showed that there is a relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher job satisfaction. In addition, the year in which the survey was conducted, moderated the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher job satisfaction. On the other hand, continents, countries, cultural structure of the countries and the human development indices of the countries did not moderate the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher job satisfaction. For future studies, it is recommended to examine reports such as TALIS, which allow the comparison of OECD countries in terms of different variables including education.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of countries' development level in sports medicine, exercise and sports performance on their success in Olympic Games. Within this purpose, 1027 papers that were published between 2010 and 2018 in the journal of Sports Medicine, of which impact factor was 7.074 in 2017, were examined in analytical and correlational terms considering the first author and total author numbers. Pearson Correlation was utilized to find out the relationships between the papers from various countries and their success at Olympic Games. Regarding the number of medals won by the countries in the 2016, 2012 and 2008, Olympic Games were found significantly correlated with the number of first author (r = 0.73) and total author (r = 0.74).

The university is faced with tensions and demands resulting from the transformations that society demands. The new public management (NGP) imposes new paradigms as far as university administration is concerned. Concomitantly, the international rankings of universities establish standards and classifications, placing the focus on access to information that should be available to interest groups. This work has been proposed as a central purpose, to describe the ways of appointing the rectors in Latin American universities, with the purpose of elaborating in theoretical terms a taxonomy that allows to differentiate and classify the universities of the region, opening the discussion on what is the most appropriate mechanism to provide the position of the highest university authority. The information used for this study was obtained from a primary source: the database of universities in Latin America; which consists of the Laws, decrees, statutes, regulations of election of authorities among others that regulate 1080 institutions of the Ibero-American region. This information establishes a taxonomy of four types that attempt to simplify and demonstrate the different forms of organization of the institutions. These allow to describe the degree of participation of the interest groups in the process of appointing the rector. The proposed taxonomy confirms the existence of dissimilar mechanisms for appointing the rector and that these are dependent on the type of ownership of the institution.

Environmental literacy is indicated as one element of learning that is able to solve environmental problems. However, the extent to which the environmental literacy component is embedded in various levels of education has not been revealed much. This study aims to determine the environmental literacy of students in several countries, starting from primary school to university level. Research of the content analysis model was carried out by analyzing 25 articles from international journals and proceedings during 2012-2018. Environmental literacy instruments in this study refer to the evaluation of environmental literacy developed by Liang. The data analysis was performed quantitatively and presented as a percentage. The results showed that the majority of environmental literacy components that were widely studied and developed included cognitive, affective, and psychomotor (48%). Furthermore, junior high school (30.77%) and senior high school (23.08%) were chosen as research subjects in an effort to form a literate generation of the environment. The results of this study can be followed up with the optimization of efforts to strengthen environmental literacy through an appropriate learning process.

Widespread use of the Internet in 21st century society is not risk-free. This paper studies the comorbidity of some problematic uses of Internet with depression in order to assess their correlation. With that aim, a meta-analysis of 19 samples obtained from 13 different studies (n=33,458) was carried out. The subjects of these studies are adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years ([mu]=15.68) from different cultures and continents (Europe, Euro-Asia, America and Asia). The effect size obtained from the use of a random-effects model (r=0.3, p<0.000) is significant, moderate and positive, thus confirming the relation between pathologic uses of the Internet and depression. Moreover, meta-regression test results showed that 9% of the variance (R2=0.09) is associated with the male gender, while age and culture are not significant variables. The variability rate of the studies is high (I2=87.085%), as a consequence of heterogeneity rather than publication bias, as Egger's regression test shows (1-tailed p-value=0.25; 2-tailed p-value=0.50, and [sigma]=1.57). Therefore, the need for specific interventions in secondary education dealing with this issue is evident to ensure that it does not extend into adult life.

Uncertain times require prompt reflexes to survive and this study is a collaborative reflex to better understand uncertainty and navigate through it. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic hit hard and interrupted many dimensions of our lives, particularly education. As a response to interruption of education due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this study is a collaborative reaction that narrates the overall view, reflections from the K12 and higher educational landscape, lessons learned and suggestions from a total of 31 countries across the world with a representation of 62.7% of the whole world population. In addition to the value of each case by country, the synthesis of this research suggests that the current practices can be defined as emergency remote education and this practice is different from planned practices such as distance education, online learning or other derivations. Above all, this study points out how social injustice, inequity and the digital divide have been exacerbated during the pandemic and need unique and targeted measures if they are to be addressed. While there are support communities and mechanisms, parents are overburdened between regular daily/professional duties and emerging educational roles, and all parties are experiencing trauma, psychological pressure and anxiety to various degrees, which necessitates a pedagogy of care, affection and empathy. In terms of educational processes, the interruption of education signifies the importance of openness in education and highlights issues that should be taken into consideration such as using alternative assessment and evaluation methods as well as concerns about surveillance, ethics, and data privacy resulting from nearly exclusive dependency on online solutions.

The COVID-19 crisis has led to widespread temporary school closures and a deep economic recession. School closures have threatened children's ability to learn and later return to school well prepared. The impact of the economic recession is going to be even more devastating: first for students, but also for the ability of some Catholic schools to maintain their enrollment and remain sustainable financially in countries where they do not benefit from government support. This paper, the first in a set of two, looks at some of the likely impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on Catholic Schools in developed countries with a particular focus on the United States, a country not only hard hit by the crisis but also where Catholic schools are especially vulnerable to downturns. While Catholic schools may be able to respond to the immediate challenge of school closures among others through distance learning options, their ability to maintain enrollment during the economic downturn is less clear. How schools will respond to the twin challenges of ensuring learning during school closures and beyond, and remaining affordable for families at a time of economic stress, may affect whether they are able to maintain their comparative advantage. A key aim of the paper is to make Catholic school teachers and leaders aware of some of the discussions on how to respond to the crisis, and provide links to online resources that may be useful. [For Part II of the series, see EJ1278501.]

This article discusses the challenges and opportunities identified in the implementation of the Citylab project in Latin America during the period of 2015-2018. The project was funded by the Erasmus+ Key action 2 programme of the European Union. The project aims to innovate teaching for sustainability in higher education institutions through Problem Based Learning (PBL). Opposed to traditional teaching methods, the pedagogical approach of PBL is a learner-centred approach that takes a complex problem as point of departure instead of existing established knowledge. Since application of such learning methods is limited in Latin America, the Citylab project attempts to introduce PBL in the existing curricula of 12 Latin American universities through the implementation and development of interdisciplinary Citylab modules focusing on sustainable urban development. Citylab project will be presented. Third, we highlight some critical issues and success factors experienced during the project. The findings of this paper are based on (1) self-reported questionnaires from the partners at the end of 2017; (2) onsite visits by the authors and expert visits; (3) focus groups, interviews and conversations with project leaders of the participating institutions during the project. Depending on the institution, the project results were varying in terms of innovation and upscaling potential. Critical factors were related to the role of the project leader in the organization, the flexibility of the implementation and cultural differences. Internal regulations created both incentives and disincentives for participation. Competitive elements in the project and available resources for equipment can act as stimulators in some cases. The challenge lies moreover in detecting windows of opportunities for change in order to accomplish curriculum reform and by doing so, pursue continuation of the PBL approach after the project's horizon.

Bilingual education, usually a community's L1 and English continues spreading geographically and across educational systems worldwide. With this expansion, the development of bilingual education approaches is under constant scrutiny. One recent approach is content and language integrated learning (CLIL). European in origin, CLIL can be viewed as an educational or language teaching approach and it refers to the teaching of curricular content and L2 in an integrated manner. This approach has received international attention, yet, how CLIL unfolds in settings outside Europe appears underrepresented in international publications. The aim of this article is to provide a critical review of CLIL in Latin America between 2008 and 2018. We surveyed 64 items (articles, book chapters, and dissertations) published in regional and international outlets: 41 empirical studies, 19 practice-oriented publications, and four reviews. It begins by summarizing the CLIL continuum with a focus on content- and language-driven CLIL and CLIL frameworks. It then provides a synthesis of empirical studies and practice-oriented publications about CLIL in different Latin American settings. The corpus is analyzed following these unifying themes: pedagogy, perceptions and beliefs, teacher education, global citizenship, and language development. From this review, it transpires that Latin American CLIL is mostly implemented and examined from a language-driven perspective in private primary, secondary and higher education. Suggestions and implications for further research and practice are included.

Emergence and development of the blockchain technology, which is able to transform into "a most powerful disruptive innovation", shall definitely concern universities. Moreover, nowadays the blockchain technology meets the challenges that both the system of higher education and the entire society are currently facing. Advantages of the blockchain technology are decentralized open data, absence of forgeries, safe storage of information, and reduction of transaction expenses related to data checkup, control, and verification. This paper provides a critical analysis of application of the blockchain technology considering with its applicability opportunities and restrictions in education; it also aims to identify the consequences of its influence upon the development of education. The article analyzes real cases when this technology was applied, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an example. The MIT applied it to protect and validate the certificates that it issued. Another example is the Sony Global Education that forms individual data on its trainees' competencies and productivity; a third one relates to the University of Nicosia, which was the first to use smart contracts and accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. The paper also considers the elements of the blockchain technology at universities (both in Russia and outside it), which participate in massive open online courses. It determines the scope of application of this technology in the Russian educational system. In addition, this article provides a literature review related to application of the blockchain technology; the review includes works by such renowned researchers as D. Tapscott, B. Bleir, A. Watters, A. Grech, A. Camilleri, M. Swan, A. Zaslavsky, etc. The paper analyzes the obtained findings of the survey that its authors have conducted among experts, professors, and specialists involved in accreditation. Thus, the paper provides an analysis of opportunities and restrictions related to application of the blockchain technology in higher education.

Under globalization conditions, the main priority of the state education policy in many countries of the world is to ensure higher education quality. This is possible through close and efficient cooperation between the state, higher education institutions, future specialists, employers and innovative structures (clusters). This study focuses on the development of indicators that can comprehensively assess the effectiveness of regional innovation clusters in the higher education system. The main attention is given to the analysis of innovations, business, education development and competitiveness, as indicators of the effectiveness of regional innovation clusters in the higher education system. The following methods have been used within the research: content analysis, statistical, correlation and regression analysis, econometric modeling and the graphical method. As a result of the research, indicators of the effectiveness of regional innovation clusters have been identified and the impact of these indicators on the higher education system has been evaluated. The authors have shown that there is a close relationship between the level of development of regional innovation clusters, indicators of business and innovations development, and the level of competitiveness. The direct impact of those on the higher education system has been established and confirmed by the provided calculations.

Is income during children's earliest years a key determinant of long-term child and adult success in the longer run? The research to date, Christopher Wimer and Sharon Wolf write, suggests that it is. Wimer and Wolf review substantial descriptive evidence that income can enhance child development and later adult outcomes, and that it does so most strongly during children's earliest years. Next they wrestle with the question of whether this relationship is causal. After outlining the challenges in identifying such causal relationships, they describe a number of studies that purport to overcome these challenges through quasi- or natural experiments. Among other topics, the authors examine how family income affects the outcomes of young children compared to those of older children, and how its effects vary among poor, low-income, and higher-income families. They also look at the evidence around other dimensions of income, including nonlinear relationships between income and key outcomes, instability in income versus the absolute level of income, and various forms of income, and they review the evidence for impacts of in-kind or near-cash income supports. Finally, Wimer and Wolf highlight some recently launched studies that will shed further light on the relationship between income and development in children's earliest years, and they suggest how policy might better provide income support to low-income families and their children.

The premise of this brief opinion piece is that the fundamental paradigm of education appeared with Plato. It is that there is a co-location in time and space of learners, teachers, and resources. The absence of any of these elements can lead to shortcomings in the meaning of the term "to be educated". Recent events such as COVID-19 demonstrate that the paradigm is subject to challenge but that its premises are firmly established. It is recognised that there are complex philosophical and theoretical arguments surrounding distance education debates. It is not possible in a short article like this to canvass all the possible philosophical positions that affect education. Pointers to these debates are referenced in the article. For the purpose of this article, "philosophy" is taken to mean that department of knowledge or study that deals with ultimate reality, or with the general causes and principles of things. More narrowly, it is the study of general principles of some particular branch of knowledge, experience, or activity--in this case, distance education or flexible learning. "Theory" is taken to mean a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena.

The aim of the research and investigation methodology was based on an expert survey, using questionnaires translated into German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese languages. The experts, interviewed in this study as part of the international community, represent institutions or organizations, that are involved in educational policy or in university research and teaching contexts with the topics and content as well as the implementation of ESD. The answers of the experts provide a different and wide range of variations in assessments of the implementation of the UN Decade and its characteristics of democratic potential and support. This shows that the potential democratic influences can always be assessed much more positively through sustainable development than that of actual democratic changes, particularly in reference to good governance, to the basic and human rights, to the protection of minorities, to civil society participation and to the separation of powers and the rule of law.

Autistic people report greater comfort socialising and easier communication with each other. Despite autism being stereotypically associated with lack of social motivation, an autistic community has been described briefly in the literature but is not well understood. Autistic community connectedness may play a role in promoting wellbeing for autistic people. This qualitative study involved interviewing autistic individuals (N = 20) in-person, via a video-based platform, a text-based platform or over email to investigate autistic community connectedness. Critical grounded theory tools were used to collect and analyse the data. There were three elements of autistic community connectedness: belongingness, social connectedness and political connectedness. Belongingness referred to the sense of similarity that autistic people experienced with each other. Social connectedness referred to specific friendship participants formed with other autistic people. Political connectedness referred to a connectedness to the political or social equality goals of the autistic community. Participants described the benefits of autistic community connectedness as being increased self-esteem, a sense of direction and a sense of community not experienced elsewhere. Lack of connectedness involved ambivalence with an autistic identity and/or feelings of internalised stigma. Experiences of autistic community connectedness may have implications for autistic people's wellbeing, as well as how they cope with minority stress.

This paper discusses three relationships between content and language integrated learning (CLIL) research and practice in the context of South America. The first relationship focuses on research with successful results in the areas of language learning motivation and intercultural communicative competence and citizenship. The second relationship discusses research which has yielded mixed results to support language learning and cognitive development. The last relationship suggests what areas deserve special attention to offer further support to teachers involved in CLIL provision. The following areas are addressed: teacher-made CLIL materials, language and content gains, L1-L2 (first language, second language) curriculum design, and inclusion. In conclusion, I assert that CLIL in South America can be invigorated if researchers and educators carry out research, preferably in collaboration, that recognises, maximises and improves CLIL in practice. I also suggest that the CLIL community in South America may engage in creating CLIL models and conceptual frameworks that respond to the particularities of their settings with the aim of making CLIL context-responsive and sustainable.

The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionized the education system and forced fundamental changes in the teaching-learning process. The present study aims to explore various modes of education used by educational institutions across the world and provide a holistic understanding of different measures taken by governments and universities to endure the crippling crisis. The radical shift to digital pedagogy followed by online assessments and examinations brought new experiences to both educators and learners. This paper elucidates the extraordinary challenges encountered by various stakeholders in making the required shift to digital learning and the substantial attempts made by educational institutions to minimize learning losses. The paper also presents various opportunities induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the need to develop appropriate mechanisms to deal with such an unforeseen crisis in future. To this effect, some recommendations have been made that may enable educational institutions to eliminate adversities and maintain academic integrity in tempestuous times.

The Open Education movement has made efforts to systematise experiences and to evaluate the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER). However, OER adoption is not part of the prevailing paradigm in higher education, both at the global level and in Latin America. This paper describes results of a study that analysed the social representations regarding the development, use, and reuse of OER by university teachers in their pedagogical practices. We conducted a study of 12 cases from Latin American universities based on Grounded Theory. The results show that the use and reuse of OER lacks of public and institutional policies. The main agents are teachers organised in teams that support OER adoption. The reasons that encourage the creation of OER are mainly intrinsic, such as the pleasure derived from contributing and sharing, as well as external and related to professional development needs from the reflection on one's own educational practice. Educators consider it essential to evaluate the resources created so that they can be reused in continuous improvement processes. Commercial use and misappropriation of the works are two of the main tensions identified. The community factor of teaching guides most behaviours in OER adoption in educational institutions and is presented as an inherent part of the development and transformation of the curriculum.

This reflective article explores the different experiences of two higher education professionals who utilized intentional reflection to help with the transition to new countries and cultural environments. Both stories focus on how these higher education professionals grappled with challenges of being members of majority and minority groups within the racial and religious contexts of their new environments. The article concludes by sharing recommendations for how other higher education professionals can utilize reflection to help with transition and cultural adjustment.

"Go to temples of science and ideas of Europe. Imitate the Tugendbund, 'the Union of Virtue', of which thousands of German youth are the members. Always keep the rule of 'Fit soul is in fit body' in mind" (Petrov, 2013, p. 72). This study aimed to show the similarities, in terms of expression, emphasis, and implication, in the about/mission/vision/goals/objectives of various science centers from around the world and in the basic themes derived from Snellman's statement above, namely, Science for all, Science Centers for all, and Human welfare that he made as a challenge to not only his people but to everyone. Document and content analyses were applied in the study. Within the scope of these analyses, this study investigated the about/mission/vision/goals/objectives sections of websites of science centers from around the world (Asia, Europe, Global, Latin America/The Caribbean, North America, Africa). From this investigation, similar basic themes, derived from Snellman's statement challenging his people/everyone to adopt this devotion to science, were found in the areas of i) expression in ASTC, CIMUSET/CSTM, CASC and SAASTEC; ii) emphasis in ECSITE, ASDC, ASCN and NSCF; and iii) implication in ASPAC, ASTEN, NCSM, ABCMC and Red-POP. These basic themes, as found in the about/mission/vision/goals/objectives of science centers, can, in effect, be narrowed down to the one theme of "cultural institutions will be a big part of human life" (Madsen 2017, p. 68) science centers in the global village (Touraine, 2016, p. 121) of the future.

This paper approaches the state of academic production in communication confined to the Hispanic sphere (Spain and Latin America) during the period extending between 2013 and 2017. As in previous meta-research, the aim here is to highlight potential shortcomings in the discipline, both theoretically and methodologically. From an instrumental standpoint, a systematic, objective and quantitative content analysis was implemented on a probabilistic sample of 1,548 articles from the seven main journals in the field, all indexed in the first quartiles of the SJR-Scopus ranking. Aside from the percentage report for each variable, two-stage cluster analyses were performed twice to identify statistically significant publication patterns. As far as the results are concerned, it is worth highlighting the empirical nature of the studies, generally relying on quantitative methodologies, although no specific theoretical corpora are referenced. On the other hand, and although social networks and ICTs have gained a notable prominence, traditional media continue to be, collectively, the most prominent in communication research. Finally, the challenges of the field seem to revolve around two axes: providing studies with methodological robustness and, above all, with the theoretical background necessary to confront, with guarantees, the understanding of the liquid communicative manifestations that flow, at great speed, from the Information Society.

This paper conceptualizes the practices of one urban-defined school's development of two uniquely designed student-led advocacy and research initiatives to promote social consciousness and student advocacy among the school's faculty, staff and community. This paper considers urban-defined to be any school, system, or teaching force that operates in a suburban populated city or area that carries the socially constructed and political descriptor of "urban" because the school demographics are characterized as including a majority of children of color (Black and Brown) and/or children with low socioeconomic/high poverty status. Two tenets of Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework are identified: (1) racism as an invisible norm and (2) the use of counter narratives to provide voice to historically marginalized groups. In addition, the grassroots frameworks for African American educational lobbyists to enact African American legislative voice (Griffen, 2015, 2017, 2018) were used to as a way to mobilize community interests through youth advocacy and voice, which resulted in a collaboration of this urban-defined school's leaders and teachers to empower students to (1) conduct grassroots oral history research and (2) propose an accepted study abroad program. Recommendations for replication include frameworks for developing a grassroots Oral History and Study Abroad course in order to promote social justice equity, social consciousness, and student advocacy.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the scientific production on teacher stress. It is a cross-sectional descriptive study of articles published in journals indexed in the SciELO collection between 2010 and 2018. An estimate of publications per year, journals, institutional affiliations and publication topics was analyzed. It was found that between the aforementioned years, 60 articles on the subject have been published, out of which the years of greatest production fluctuate between 2014 and 2018. The main journals that published articles on this topic are: Research News in Education, Uninorte Health Magazine and the Magazine of Medical Sciences of Pinar del Río in Cuba. In addition, Brazil, Colombia and Cuba have the institutional affiliations with the highest number of published articles. We can conclude that teacher stress as a research variable has been studied gradually in Latin American countries; however, it is necessary to continue strengthening these studies in other databases.