Search

Students' scientific literacy may be improved by the integration of social issues into biology courses, enabling them to make informed decisions on social issues in the context of their scientific knowledge. Additionally, this may allow students to recognize the connection between science and society. Although there are a number of benefits with having students learn about social issues in biology courses, most undergraduate courses may follow a traditional curriculum, which emphasizes the scientific content without framing it in a social context. Here, we investigated whether undergraduate students have been exposed to social issues in previous biology courses and examined how their perceptions changed before and after taking a biology course that incorporated social issues. In surveys, most students reported having no exposure to social issues in biology courses. Most students, especially females and persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race (PEERs), agreed with the integration of social issues in biology courses before taking the course. Students found reflection essays to be a useful tool in allowing them to think and share their thoughts on social issues as well as relate the course content to their personal lives. These results highlight students' interest in learning about social issues from a scientific perspective and how reflection essays may be used to practice applying their knowledge to real-world issues.

Required undergraduate diversity courses often expose students to topics and worldviews which may push them out of their comfort zones and prompt dissonance and even resistance. This paper reports on interviews with 68 faculty members across 16 humanities and social science disciplines at five predominantly white institutions in the Southern United States, detailing how they navigated discussion of controversial topics in required diversity courses. Most instructors aimed to expose students to critical social issues yet were concerned that resistance could disturb the learning process. We identified 20 unique strategies for handling controversial topics in class that included proactively establishing community and safety and normalizing conflict, and reactively acknowledging and surfacing multiple perspectives, as well as connecting content to students' lived experiences. Some instructors also reported a lack of controversy or conflict in their classrooms, which they variously attributed to student characteristics or their own disinclination to promote heated discussion - which, we argue, calls into question the breadth and criteria of many institutionally defined diversity course requirements. We conclude the paper with implications for faculty, educational developers, administrators, and institutions.

Drawing on the survey data from 259 students enrolled at American universities, the study explores how recent tensions between China and the U.S. and issues of public safety would affect Chinese students' perceptions and aspirations for American education. The findings of the research identify significant correlations between the effects of U.S. policies regarding Chinese students, concerns about U.S. public safety, and the impact of U.S. foreign policy toward China on Chinese students at American universities. Students' responses reveal how the pursuit of an American college education remains deeply intertwined with broader societal dynamics and geopolitical realities, which challenge the aspirations of Chinese students for education abroad in an increasingly deglobalizing world.

The study examines the application of the collaborative learning model to improve 21st-century civic skills. The 21st century presents a number of unique challenges in the world of education. Rapid changes in technology, economics, and politics have placed new demands on individual learning and development. One of the key aspects of preparing students for these challenges is the development of strong civic skills. These skills include not only an understanding of the duties and rights of citizens but also the ability to collaborate with diverse individuals and groups in order to create positive change in society. The application of the Collaborative Learning Model has emerged as a highly relevant approach to developing civic skills in the modern era. This model emphasizes cooperation, active engagement, and knowledge sharing between students, which encourages them to collaborate in solving social problems, understanding cultural differences, and designing innovative solutions. In this study, the research method he research method in this study was a pseudo-experiment with a non-equivalent control group design. The data analysis technique used is the independent sample t-test with a significance level of 5%. Results showed that the model applied significantly influenced students' 21st-century citizenship skills, and collaborative learning models effectively improved these skills. This study concludes that the Collaborative Learning Model can be used to improve students' 21st-century civic skills.

This piece documents the collaboration between a team of four University of Pennsylvania students and seven youth partners from across the Greater Philadelphia area who came together to discuss, understand, and take action toward civic issues impacting their communities. As youth arrived at the Civic Engagement Summer Program, a joint Philadelphia Youth Network and Netter Center for Community Partnerships High School Voter Project iteration, alongside adult facilitators, they navigated the complexities of civic literacy discussions and spaces. Together, the adult facilitators and youth participants engaged in dialogue about local government, pervasive gun violence impacting their communities, and voter registration inequities. This piece centers the following inquiries: What happens when educators consider the self-efficacy youth have with regard to addressing civic issues in their communities? What out-of-school civic literacy spaces and experiences might youth need to feel empowered to use their voices? What are the ways in which youths' existing literacies and knowledge inform the way they talk about the issues they wish to address? What role do local universities have in working with youth through educational forums to learn more about the roles voting and local government play in ameliorating community issues, such as gun violence? Furthermore, this piece considers how these questions arose as the collaborative worked toward shared goals together (Plummer et al., 2019). To address these collaborative inquiries, the team highlights five aspects of the Civic Engagement Summer partnership that enabled facilitators and youth to build trust: sustaining community partnerships, highlighting youths' existing funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992), cultivating civic efficacy, reimagining critical civic literacy alongside youth, navigating intergenerational relationships and learning, and centering relationships (Campano, Ghiso & Welch, 2018; Plummer et al., 2019). With youths' consent, this article shares the history of the Civic Engagement Summer, and the discussions and experiences sparked by the 2023 iteration.

This study explores how pre-service mathematics teachers build alternative model simulations of real-world scenarios. Inclusion in the formal structures for wealth generation and accumulation is a fervently debated issue in South Africa. Share owning in companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa is one of many wealth-building tools. Related discussions evolved on the spread of share ownership among black and white citizens. Two mathematically motivated positions were reported in a newspaper. In one of their mathematics courses, prospective mathematics teachers were presented with the article and asked to reflect on it with the prompt 'Which of these two methods for determining the "number of Black South Africans holding shares on the JSE" would your group support?' Audio- and video-recorded data were collected and subjected to thematic analysis. The themes that emerged from the analysis were economic empowerment, authority of research and trustworthiness of information. The discussions reflected on the complexities and rationalities involved in decision-making of mathematically driven opposing positions on issues of social importance. The mathematically derived results of such issues will eventually be resolved in the political field. The findings revealed that building of alternative mathematical models by pre-service mathematics teachers begins with an explicit problem setting, followed by the development of mathematical models that included real-world problems.

The deficiency in providing quality education is a significant challenge across many developing nations. This study examines the connection between the education system and the level of socioeconomic issues in the context of Nepal. The main argument is that Nepal's gender-related issues, the training gap among its populace concerning pro-environmental behavior, lateness habits, skill deficiency among the young generation, and unstable economic growth are directly or indirectly connected to the country's education system. Nepal's school-level educational programs and teaching methods are less practical for fostering human capital and economic progress than Japanese educational programs. Based on the context of Nepal, human capital theory, and research literature pertaining to educational programs, we propose a comprehensive intervention model composed of several non-academic programs, including physical education, community cleaning, and school textiles, designed to augment Nepal's social and economic development.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the implementation of Pancasila learning with the goal of improving critical thinking skills through the application of the six thinking hats model. The research adopts a descriptive approach utilizing qualitative methods. The study was conducted at the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta. The participants were selected using purposive techniques based on specific criteria and considerations to ensure the collection of targeted information. Specifically, the research focused on students enrolled in the Manufacturing Engineering Class D. Data collection for this study involved the use of observation, interviews, and documentation techniques. To ensure data validity, triangulation techniques were employed by the researchers. Data analysis followed an interactive model based on the framework developed by Miles and Huberman, encompassing data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The six thinking hats learning model significantly improved students' critical thinking skills and character values. This approach enables students to approach problems from multiple perspectives, becoming more responsive to social issues and navigating real-world challenges. These fosters heightened awareness of societal matters, enabling students to contribute meaningfully to social progress.

Social skills play a central role in shaping individuals who are able to adapt and contribute to society. This article analyzes the comparative social studies curriculum in Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden), focusing on how students' social skills are developed through their approach to learning. The research method used is a qualitative approach with an emphasis on document analysis and uses a horizontal descriptive approach in the context of comparative education. The results of the comparison found that Denmark emphasizes the integration of social skills in practical learning and research projects, Norway through an integrated approach with its contemporary issues while Sweden applies innovation through technology and community involvement. The comparison between the three countries revealed similarities, differences, as well as challenges and successes in the development of students' social skills. The conclusions of this analysis provide a foundation for recommending best practices and improvements in social studies curriculum, which can be applied globally to enhance students' social skills development in this modern era.

Individuals hold a wide range of beliefs and ideas on immigration throughout Western societies. Some are highly embracive of immigrants while others want draconian restrictions. This mixed-methods study conducted in the U.S. examines these beliefs, specifically on immigration being a human right. Particular attention is given to the rationales of those advocating for more open immigration policies and those opposed to them. The analysis reveals that individuals appeal to economic arguments both to advocate for and against greater immigration. Issues of security and order are also employed to argue against immigration; In contrast, participants use ethical themes and the history of the United States in arguing for immigration as a human right. Others highlighted normative restrictions across the world as a reason to reject the idea. The findings of this study can help inform both researchers and immigration advocates as they seek to understand the complex perceptions of immigration.

The primary purpose of education is preparation for life. But what kind of life, and life for whom? Within the social studies, emphasis has long been placed on preparation for civic life in diverse and democratic societies within an interconnected world. This remains essential. There is an ongoing need for people who are willing and able to address the challenges of society, including structural problems such as racism, classism, and patriarchy. However, in addition to continuing threats to the quality of "human" life, growing concerns have also arisen regarding the quality, indeed the survival, of "all" life on the planet. One of the most urgent challenges of today is the decline of the environment upon which all life depends. This paper examines the implications of the environmental crisis for the social studies. First, I explore the deep interconnectivity that exists between humans and the nonhuman world and, by extension, between our social and environmental challenges. Next, I consider the implications of these connections for a socioenvironmental approach to social studies education. In addition to practical curricular and instructional factors, I argue that we must promote the development of a "critical ecological perspective" through which to interpret the fundamental relationships between humans and the world.

For much of human history, inequity was taken as a fact of life. However, as reflection on the human condition became more prominent, arguments that some forms of inequity can be ameliorated began to emerge. In this paper, the authors note that "inequity aversion" is a built-in human trait, and they reflect on the fact that, nonetheless, throughout human history, inequity has typically been the norm. In spite of the difficulties inherent to the challenge of making progress toward a less unequal world, the authors argue that progress is nonetheless possible, particularly if those bent on such movement adopt the following five rules of thumb: (1) Pick your battles, (2) articulate a precise doable vision, (3) speak to the collective imagination, (4) avoid virtue signalling, while embracing costly ones, and (5) get comfortable with tragic optimism. The article concludes by focusing on the need for educators to help shape the lenses of the next generation so that, when they view the enormity not only of the number of problems that humans face, but also the scope of each one, they are not overwhelmed either with anger or pessimism.

Paying reparations to Black Americans has long been contentiously debated. This article addresses an unexamined pillar of this debate: the United States has a long-standing social norm that if an individual or community has suffered a harm, it is considered right for the federal government to provide some measure of what we term "reparatory compensation." In discussing this norm and its implications for Black American reparations, we first describe the scale, categories, and interlocking and compounding effects of discriminatory harms by introducing a taxonomy of illustrative racial harms from slavery to the present. We then reveal how the social norm, precedent, and federal programs operate to provide victims with reparatory compensation, reviewing federal programs that offer compensation, such as environmental disasters, market failures, and vaccine injuries. We conclude that the government already has the norm, precedent, expertise, and resources to provide reparations to Black Americans.

Open Educational Resources (OER) and renewable assignments that create OER are closely related and promote access to knowledge, collaboration, and community engagement. Through both, PhD students can contribute to the advancement of open education while enhancing their own learning and professional development. Despite many advantages, OER and renewable assignments are widely underutilized in U.S. institutions of higher education. To enhance nationwide adoption, PhD programs may be an important context for using and creating OER because many PhD students will become faculty members in the future. This survey research collected data from April to December 2022 to explore the prevalence and perceptions of OER and renewable assignments among the 72 PhD programs in the top 100 ranked social work programs in the United States. Thirty of the 72 programs were represented in the sample. Most of the respondents (68%) reported using OER materials in at least one course, with audiovisual and textbooks the most reported type of OER used. In contrast, a few (6%) of the respondents reported their programs used renewable assignments. Lack of knowledge or awareness was the most commonly cited reason for not adopting OER or renewable assignments. Representatives from programs that had adopted OER had higher perceptions of positive student impact from OER use or creation than those from programs that had not adopted OER (Mann Whitney U = 61.0, p = 0.058). Our findings indicate a reasonably widespread adoption of OER as course materials in social work PhD programs in the United States. There is an opportunity for increased adoption of renewable assignments to both create suitable, high quality OER materials for use in social work PhD programs and to train future social work faculty in the logistics of creating and using OER.

This study examined the effects of students' argumentation standpoints on their argumentation learning in the context of socio-scientific issues (SSIs). To that end, four kinds of argumentation standpoints were defined: affirmative standpoints, oppositional standpoints, multiple standpoints, and non-standpoints. These four kinds of standpoints allow for six possible combinations of any two of the different kinds of standpoints, which enabled us to conduct six kinds of 2-team format debates. The resulting differences of students' four types of arguments (i.e., claims, warrants, rebuttals, and qualifiers) generated in six types of debates were examined. This study invited 208 10th-grade students to participate in a quasi-experimental research design. The results showed the affirmative group students demonstrated superior performance in terms of claims and warrants, and the oppositional group students had the largest number of rebuttals. The students in the debate with combinations of affirmative and oppositional groups exhibited the best performance regarding the generation of claims, warrants, and rebuttals. Based on the results, the present study concluded the standpoint had significant effects on the students' argumentation learning, which suggests that teachers can investigate students' standpoint on the learning topic of SSI and their prior knowledge about the standpoint before teaching.

In light of the increasing frequency of misleading information in social media regarding environmental issues, this study aimed to identify misleading information spread through TikTok videos and to discuss why such content is considered misleading, drawing on relevant literature. Hashtags with large numbers of views, such as #climatechange, #sustainability, #pollution, #biodiversity, #environmentalprotection, #environmentalissues, #energysource, and #environmentalproblems, were used for data collection through web scrapper called Apify (https://apify.com/). A total of 29 misleading videos were found. Content analysis was applied to identify and classify the topics and misleading claims. The topics of misleading videos, according to the most frequent mentions, were energy sources, followed by climate change, pollution, biodiversity, and environmental degradation. Among the misleading claims, videos related to pyramids as nonpollutant power plants and conspiracy related to pollution exhibited the highest frequency. The results show various misleading claims in videos related to environmental topics. Also, emphasized the importance of science education in addressing misleading information. In addition, the importance of an interdisciplinary approach for addressing environmental issues was reinforced.

Anchor movements rest on the premise that people- and place-based initiatives can be mutually reinforcing. The community development movement, however, has been haunted for years by the people-place dilemma -- the idea that efforts to help people harm efforts to uplift places and vice versa. Most of the literature on the anchor strategy has focused on one horn of the dilemma, namely, the problem that revitalizing a place may lead to rising housing costs that burden and ultimately displace longtime lower-income residents of the neighborhood. In this article, we examine the other horn of the people-place dilemma -- that helping people in disinvested communities may enable them to move elsewhere, leaving behind poorer communities. We examine this issue through a case study of the St. Louis Anchor Action Network (STLAAN), a collaboration of 16 anchor institutions. St. Louis is a classic legacy city that once enjoyed rapid growth but is now characterized by a falling population and high poverty. We document longstanding trends that have drained STLAAN's focus geography of people and resources, as well as more recent growth of an "eds and meds" economy that presents an opportunity to address decades of disinvestment and decline. We document STLAAN's efforts to invest in its focus geography and the people who live there and conclude with research proposals that could help guide anchor initiatives facing similar challenges.

This study comprehensively analyzes the effectiveness of the services provided to disabled people in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) within the legislation framework and the communication barriers experienced by these individuals. The research examines how disability affects individuals' participation in social life and how TRNC legislation limits this participation. While attention is drawn to the communication difficulties faced by disabled people, especially those living in rural areas, it is emphasized that technological innovations and updating existing legislation are of critical importance in solving these problems. The article provides recommendations for education, awareness programs and policy changes to improve services for people with disabilities. This study aims to serve as an essential resource for developing disability policies in TRNC.

Northeastern University's EdD faculty faced unique challenges during the pandemic and racial reckoning following George Floyd's murder. During this period, however, we found opportunities to adapt and improve our program. We prioritized compassion and connection. We made significant strides in curriculum development through design and implementation of three new concentrations. We focused all program elements on how social justice works in a variety of educational settings. We altered our approach to data collection and doctoral supervision. In so doing, we were able to maintain consistency for our students and develop a closer bond with our faculty colleagues.

The year 2020 brought not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also a wave of racial injustice, which impacted many in the U.S. and beyond. Combined, these phenomena have been characterized as dual pandemics, which introduced new demands that forced faculty to redesign aspects of their doctoral programs to ensure sustainability during the pandemic and post-pandemic era. The purpose of this essay is to highlight changes we made to sustain our EdD program during and post dual pandemics. We achieve this by employing Ginwright's (2022) four pivots and brown's (2017) emergent leadership as a framework and to conceptualize how we transitioned from viewing the events of 2020 as problems to embracing the possibilities they offered for the present and future of our EdD program. Practical implications and recommendations for this work are discussed to offer EdD faculty ways to design, develop, and sustain their doctoral programs in the post-pandemic era.

In summer 2020, Northeastern University developed a fully online curricular pathway for incoming fall first-year undergraduate students who could not learn in residence. This pathway included 18 Global Challenge (GC) courses, each designed around project-based learning (PBL), grounded in a complex problem defined by Northeastern University research faculty, and based on the classes' individual research agendas (e.g., social justice, health, the environment). The GC courses were designed to help students develop key intrapersonal and interpersonal skills as well as academic proficiencies. The GC development team conducted a systematic study of the courses during the first three semesters of their development and implementation. The investigation's guiding question was, "To what extent, and in what ways, can learning experience design, online structure, and facilitation support PBL learning, teamwork, and a sense of connection among students in asynchronous courses?" Data sources included student surveys, instructor reflections, and course observations. Findings highlighted the importance of a learning experience design infrastructure to support PBL challenge development; that design supports for challenge development are necessary, but not sufficient, and an online course architecture that reinforces PBL also needs to be developed; that student attention to course resources needs to be scaffolded within the course and optimized for the online modality; and that a system for instructor mentoring in online PBL pedagogy is important to course success.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning in sociology by examining a set of course redesign improvements made in a Social Problems course at the undergraduate level. These improvements center on increasing students' critical thinking skills by integrating research-based, innovation-driven learning and student-centered strategies into a four-part course assessment redesign. Using a primarily case study approach, we examine quantitative data in the form of an interdisciplinary pre- and post- Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) from students enrolled in one iteration of the redesign for this particular course. Results from this analysis highlight the potential of these pedagogical improvements to foster the development of critical thinking skills and as an example of how assessment data can be used to guide further iterations of a course.

Global environmental challenges brought on by over-consumption, limited resources, and climate change will task teacher education programs to prepare teacher candidates with new paradigms in problem-solving, collaboration, and innovation. Skills such as collaborating across cultures and borders, thinking critically and creatively, reflecting on deeply embedded assumptions, and negotiating uncertainty will all be needed to surmount these challenges. EcoJustice education addresses these needs. When combined with critical place-based pedagogies, skills, and attitudes associated with global citizenship may also develop. Four preservice teachers participated in a research trip to Lesvos, Greece, to learn about and aid in the refugee crisis there. Participants documented their experiences via critical reflections and dialogues and analyzed these data. Findings suggest that through engagement in a critical place-based learning experience, preservice teachers challenged conceptions of their role as Americans and shifted towards a more global, EcoJustice consciousness.

Social media serves as a virtual platform for young people to foster community and amplify marginalized voices, allowing them to actively engage with societal issues and take on roles as activists, advocates, and allies. A 2021 study (McDaniel, 2022) on teens revealed diverse literacy practices employed to address social justice, civil unrest, police brutality, state-sanctioned violence, the global pandemic, and other challenges faced by diverse communities. In a comprehensive three-month multi-case study focusing on the online literacies of teens of Color, the author examined how one youth, Tatum, an 18-year-old Black social justice activist, utilized social media for critical literacy practices and civic engagement. This paper emphasizes Tatum's multiliteracy practices and explores the intersection of justice-oriented activism, social media literacies, and youth identity work. The study advocates for the importance of recognizing youth of Color's multiliteracies and how it enriches teachers' pedagogical practices, providing critical insights for educators.

Purpose: This study considers the pedagogical dimensions of an event concept ]that combined participatory theatre and social scientific research to approach questions relating to ethnic relations and racism. The article aims to establish, with the help of a practical case example, the notion of public social pedagogy. Approach: Ethnographic research on 24 participatory theatrical events. The analysis utilizes the taxonomy of public pedagogy by Gert Biesta to provide an empirically informed theoretical 'autopsy' of the events. Findings: The analysis shows the pedagogical and societal importance of fostering encounters, encouraging communal discussion and nurturing dialogic competencies. "Public social pedagogy" would specifically address pedagogical processes relating to the public sphere, which revives the tradition of public deliberation. Practical implications: The study directs attention to pedagogical processes within the public sphere which have not been very prominent in social pedagogy or citizenship education. The autopsy of the participatory theatrical events provides perspectives for similar artistic interventions.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has recently been positioned as a serious problem requiring urgent policy response among partisan media outlets. Making a case for pressing policy demands, several policy makers have proposed federal, state, and local level legislation and other measures to restrict how race, racism, or American history in general can be taught in K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and state agencies. Anti-CRT rhetoric in media and policy proposals have also propagated the notion of CRT as being divisive as well as ubiquitous in public education. Given this, it is critical to examine whether policy opinions regarding reactionary legislation is based on a real understanding of CRT. We conduct a conceptual and theoretical inquiry into anti-CRT rhetoric relying on the sociological concepts of moral panics and folk devils. Then, we examine familiarity, knowledge, ideology, policy beliefs, and policy opinions regarding CRT in education using nationally representative survey data. The analysis showed that most parents are not familiar with CRT, and the average parent neither opposes nor supports teaching of CRT. The opposition to teaching of CRT is largely driven by political affiliation and related ideological beliefs and positions.

The recent spike in book challenges has put school libraries at the center of heated political debates. I investigate the relationship between local politics and school library collections using data on books with controversial content from a sample of 6,631 public school libraries. Libraries in conservative areas have fewer titles with LGBTQ, race/racism, or abortion content and more Christian fiction and discontinued Dr. Seuss books. This is true even though most libraries have at least some controversial content. State laws that restrict curricular content are negatively related to access to some LGBTQ and race/racism titles. Finally, I present short-term evidence that book challenges in the 2021-22 school year are associated with decreases in the acquisition of new LGBTQ materials.

The Brazilian Amazon is at the very core of current economic disputes driven by different versions of capitalism, which have determined a history of environmental devastation, and commercial and environmental exploitation. Accordingly, we thought about elaborating a study based on the following research aims: getting to know the environments' social representations and the Environmental Education giving meaning to environmental governance concepts, in the context of Pará State's Amazon. In methodological terms, this research was substantiated by the Theory of Social Representations, based on the ethnographic approach. It counted on the collaboration of 121 teachers trained in Pedagogy who work in municipal public schools in Castanhal City--Pará State. We used questionnaire, focus groups and participatory observation to collect data. Based on the main results, the environment's social representations and the Environmental Education elaborated by teachers provided powerful elements for natures' defense aimed at environmental awareness and citizenship participation in decision-making processes. Due to an adverse environmental scenario--of nature's commercialization and aggressive exploitation--the herein approached representations can help the population to redefine its history and, simultaneously, to set environmental governance processes to preserve the forest and the life of local communities.

Politics and science are inextricably connected, particularly in relation to the climate emergency and other environmental crises, yet science education is an often overlooked site for engaging with the political dimensions of environmental issues. This study examines how science teachers in England experience politics--specifically political participation--in relation to the environment in school science, against a background of increased obstruction in civic space. The study draws on an analysis of theoretically informed in-depth interviews with eleven science teachers about their experiences of political participation in relation to environmental issues. We find that politics enters the science classroom primarily through informal conversations initiated by students rather than planned by teachers. When planned for, the emphasis is on individual, latent-political (civic) engagement rather than manifest political participation. We argue that this is a symptom of the post-political condition and call for a more enabling environment for discussing the strengths and limitations of different forms of political participation in school science.

Two studies investigated students' critique generation, an elaborated form of content evaluation wherein students identify information selectively, inaccurately, or incompletely presented in text(s) and consider where such selective presentation may stem from. Critique generation, as an important critical reading outcome, was examined here, within the context of students' reasoning about two op-eds, presenting conflicting points of view on a controversial social issue -- whether or not Amazon should replace local libraries. Study 1 catalogued the types of critiques that students generated. Study 2 linked critique generation with both students' conceptions of what the task of critique entails and with students' reports of strategy use, although not with a host of, expected to be relevant, individual difference factors (e.g., need for cognition, media literacy). Both studies found critique generation to be significantly associated with performance on an argumentative writing task. Contributions of these two studies include documenting critique types that may distinctively emerge when students are asked to reason about a controversial social, rather than scientific, issue and identifying learner-reported strategies that constitute promising paths for fostering critique generation in future work.

Under 'post-truth' conditions the generation, circulation and status of knowledge are being transformed, with significant implications for institutional trust, social cohesion and public safety. These conditions raise complex challenges and opportunities within education, which plays a potentially pivotal role in supporting communities to respond in an assertive and critical manner. However, little is currently understood about the way key stakeholders within education position themselves epistemically in relation to post-truth conditions. The purpose of this research was to analyse epistemic aspects of educators' responses to post-truth conditions using a 'social lab' methodology, which is a qualitative, action-oriented approach to studying complex social problems. Analysis of data from the social lab, which involved a variety of education stakeholders, identified four epistemic aims (with associated ideals, processes and actions) to orient an educational response to post-truth conditions. However, overall, epistemic aims lacked precision and contextual specificity. Furthermore, aims were associated with divergent underpinning epistemological commitments, mirroring divergences in literature on the educational implications of post-truth conditions. Teachers may require additional training to enhance epistemic reflexivity and drive more productive and inclusive conversations about post-truth in classrooms, staffrooms and ITE programs. The findings are suggestive of the complex epistemological and institutional dynamics that need to be negotiated in educational responses to post-truth conditions.

When companies take a stance on sociopolitical issues, it is considered corporate social advocacy (CSA). This article examines to what extent perceived corporate motives of engaging in CSA affect consumer skepticism and brand equity. It is one of the few published studies of consumer attitudes toward companies' CSA involvement. An online survey was conducted (N = 375). It provides evidence that consumer assessments of the motives that inspire CSA are similar to the better-researched motives that inspire CSR. The findings imply that companies need to develop a good understanding of the consumers' attributions when engaging in CSA.

This study explores a "design fiction" approach in an educational context by applying it to a third-year industrial design studio class. The "Food Futures" project is conducted with thirty students in the design studio. We approached the future of food using a design fiction approach since the combination of food and design is a highly complex and social issue that requires a systems-level change. The project started with a design fiction workshop to adapt the approach to the class. After the students had written their briefs in the context of the future storyworlds, the project continued with weekly critique sessions. The data is collected through the project outcomes, recordings, and questionnaires. A methodological discussion about using this approach in the educational context is presented based on the collected reflections. We argue that design fiction can be used in studio projects for research and idea-generation phases to support divergence processes through building storyworlds. Furthermore, we examined how this approach can be integrated into design education based on how students defined their limitations considering their visualisation techniques and design intervention levels (product, product-service-system, spatio-social) within future storyworlds. Imbued with the ability to envision socio-technical environments, we see design fiction as a useful tool for adapting industrial design education to emerging approaches such as systemic design and transition design.

Educators, researchers, and institutions have long recognized experiential education's value for fostering ongoing learning and skill development. In recent years, experiential education has gained increased traction in higher education, based on recognized need for graduates to encounter and actively reflect on lived experiences in various disciplines. Yet, much of the research in graduate-level experiential education focuses on discipline-specific opportunities, often within the context of individual programs where students' career outcomes and program pathways are narrowly defined. In this paper, we examine experiential education as interdisciplinary practice. Through qualitative analysis of interviews, focus group, and data from a collaborative program evaluation, we respond to a gap in existing research to examine the perspectives of doctoral students from multiple faculties, programs, and degree types engaged in an interdisciplinary experiential education program. The study's findings contribute to a more robust understanding of the potential for experiential education as interdisciplinary practice, with direct examples of how doctoral students and higher education institutions are moving this work forward in this context. Research implications include examining similar interdisciplinarity in other contexts and reflection related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigenization initiatives. Practice implications include aligning participant and program goals across disciplinary contexts.

Ball State University's (BSU) bold strategic plan, which was drafted in 2019, states that all students will have access to one of four specific High Impact Practices (Immersive Learning, Undergraduate Research, Study Abroad, and Societal Issues) before they graduate. This article documents the key steps that occurred as the Ball State campus worked to meaningfully integrate HIPs into the campus curriculum and culture. It highlights one significant tool--a faculty learning community--and provides testimonials from two faculty members who have been crucial to campus implementation.

To fulfil its third mission and equip students with the appropriate competencies to address complex societal issues, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) offers undergraduates the chance to learn about issues that transcend the confines of their own discipline through the cross-disciplinary Broader Mind Course (BMC). This study investigates to what extent this 40-hour course may elicit transformative learning (TL) that can significantly trigger changes in students' awareness, perspectives, and behaviour. We gathered and analysed qualitative data (n = 41) to determine: 1) whether indications of emergent TL outcomes as proposed by Hoggan were visible in students' accounts and 2) what structural and interpersonal elements either facilitated or impeded this learning process. Our findings show that activating, creative exercises, productive conflict in group discussions, psychological security, and sufficient time - which is particularly challenging for HEIs - are crucial elements for TL. Therefore, when designing for TL, higher education institutes (HEIs) should carefully consider these four aspects.

This paper adopts a biopower lens to examine emergency declarations that posit race or racism as problems to be addressed through mathematics education. We argue that attending to "slow emergencies" of racism must avoid sustaining mathematics education as a self-evident cause and cure for societal problems. We analyze how declarations of emergency reanimate racializing hierarchies by reordering spaces, temporalities, and subjectivities. To explore these concerns, we compare three race-explicit emergency declarations in US mathematics education during World War II with recent emergency declarations of pandemic-related learning loss, disengagement, and a racial reckoning. We juxtapose past and present to spotlight what we outline as distinct biopolitical working arrangements. The analysis maps how emergency declarations rearrange hopes, fears, diagnostic techniques, and intervention strategies--sometimes inadvertently reracializing students in attesting to damage or demanding redress. Our purpose is to foster deliberation over paradoxes and possibilities of addressing racialization and racism in mathematics education transnationally.

This essay explains that periodic examination of the goals of education is essential for educational institutions to ensure they are adequately preparing students to address the challenges of the present and build a better future. It argues that education is an ethical enterprise, and that clear and shared goals provide education institutions with direction and coherence. Rapid societal changes challenge educational institutions to revisit whether their goals are supporting teaching students so they can develop the necessary knowledge, skills and dispositions to address them. The article discusses three accelerating existential challenges--challenges to human rights, democratic decline, and climate change--and argues that they require schools, universities, and systems to educate students to understand and be able and committed to address them. These three challenges also influence educational institutions, and the development of institutional strategies can help create synergies among functions and processes in schools and universities to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that can help understand and mitigate climate change and declines in human rights and democracy.

Global mindedness is increasingly crucial for individual, national, and global flourishing, and thus obtains great emphasis in school education. This study aimed to examine the associations between adolescents' global mindedness and three-dimensional school education aims (aims for academic achievement, employability, and narrow-sense holistic development). We further explored the role of adolescents' tolerance that might explain the associations. A total of 2448 15-year-old Finnish adolescents were selected and two-level hierarchical liner modeling was employed. Results showed that (1) academic achievement aim played a positive role in adolescents' global mindedness, whereas narrow-sense holistic development aim and employability aim showed insignificant and negative effect on it, respectively; and (2) adolescents' tolerance mediated the associations of these three school education aims and global mindedness. Findings identified the fundamental contribution of academic achievement aim to global mindedness, and imply schools to integrate global education with academic education, as well as to forbid the discouragement for tolerance and global mindedness in employability education.

In recent years, new expectations have been placed on universities, demanding academic contributions towards solving large-scale, interdisciplinary challenges. This is in conflict with existing insights from university governance research, which emphasises that scientific communities focus on reproducing disciplinary practices that are unsuitable in addressing societal challenges, because the problems associated with them are usually large-scale, complex and interdisciplinary. In light of this seeming paradox, we revisit the question of how--and on which theoretical grounds--universities may still be able to develop suitable internal governance mechanisms that allow them to address complex societal challenges effectively. Because university leaders are usually unable to coerce individual researchers to address such challenges in their research simply through their bureaucratic powers, we will argue that university leaders can, however, leverage individual researchers' agency to deviate from routine and disciplinary practice by developing novel or legitimising existing interdisciplinary scripts necessary to deal with such societal problems. Specifically, we outline that university managements can create a dual role consisting of the communication of legitimising interdisciplinary research on societal challenges, as well as providing for the necessary degree of interdisciplinary coordination by convening researchers around these topics.

The aim of this research is to explore emotional processes occurring during educational dialogues on civic and social issues (EDCSI) by asking what factors arouse emotions in EDCSI, how do these factors interact, how do they affect the participants, and how this effect can be explained from the perspective of group therapy. EDCSI involves a complex set of emotions at the individual, inter-personal, and group levels that cannot only be explained by already existing frameworks used in educational research. Thirty-three students discussed civic and social issues using digital media in two different settings: a three-day learning seminar for secondary school students and an undergraduate university course. Using a cued retrospective reporting protocol, the students were interviewed and asked to refer to their overall experience in the discussions and to emotional moments they experienced. The analysis of the interviews shows that factors that arouse emotions pertain to the personal, interpersonal, and group dimensions, and often interact with each other. The emotional processes described by the participants were consistent with factors identified in the field of group psychotherapy such as instillation of hope, universality, imitative behaviors, and interpersonal learning. We therefore claim that research about emotional processes in group therapy may contribute to understanding the multi-level emotional processes occurring in EDCSI and that psychotherapy practices may inspire educators in designing and facilitating EDCSI.

The 2017 general comment (GC21) to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on children in street situations, provides a framework of legal guidance for governments developing policies aimed at protecting street-connected children and sets up the rationale for more awareness raising and public education to counter negative and deficit attitudes towards street-connectedness. Within this framework, the media has a role to play in either challenging conceptualisations of street-connected children as out-of-place within the public and predominantly adult domain described by urban streets, or in reinforcing ideological constructions of citizenship and normalised notions of childhood that result in negative stereotypes of these children. GC21 recommends that interventions targeted at street-connected children should be ethically responsible -- adopting child rights approaches aimed at using accurate data/evidence that upholds the dignity of children, their personal integrity, and their right to life. As such, these approaches should also extend to how organisations engage with and utilise the media to represent street-connected children. Focusing on media representations of street-connected children during the six pandemic-affected months of February to July 2020, this paper provides a review of the content of the sources to provide an insight into the structural barriers that face street-connected children because of how they are positioned in society, during the pandemic and in general, and the extent to which the media reinforces or counters the rescue or removal narratives that can lead to inappropriate intervention responses.

Today, efforts in WAC/WID to address social issues are gaining traction. Parallel to the shift in WAC/WID is a shift in STEM. Practices in STEM are responding to larger social concerns that include recruiting more diverse populations and improving research in consideration of its value and consequence to various publics. Rather than conceive of STEM as a homogeneous group or as representing narrow interests of progress, the social context of STEM is also gaining traction, though the uptake is slower. STEM instructors often lack the knowledge to incorporate social issues into their curriculum, much less address social change through writing instruction. This article contributes to the social turn in WAC/WID STEM in two ways. First, it examines STEM students' attitudes toward science to find out how they view the social in science since its importance in STEM is increasing, but instruction is lagging. And second, given our results, we suggest grant-writing as one way to facilitate the social into STEM writing pedagogy because of its critical importance as a genre in the field.

This research will explore preschool children's metaphorical perceptions and views about the concept of "global problem" in the context of education for sustainable development. The study will involve 20 preschool children, who are aged between 60 and 70 months and are attending a public kindergarten in Izmir, Turkey, during the Spring of 2021-2022 academic year. The data collection process involved semistructured interviews. Interviews were carried out with 20 preschool children on their perspectives and perceptions of "global problem," which was interpreted via content analysis. The findings of the qualitative analysis provided participants' perceptions and views related to global problems. The sample group was formed via convenient and criterion sampling method. The data were collected through a demographic information form and a semi-structured interview form which includes a metaphor sentence and open-ended interview questions. The results suggest that the preschool participants created themes (pillars), sub-themes and eighteen metaphors regarding the concept of "global problem" during the metaphor formation process. It was found that children's metaphors and views regarding the global problem were placed under the themes named "social-cultural," "environmental" and "economic." It was also found that the participants placed their metaphors and views regarding the "global problem" under the "social-cultural" theme most frequently.

This paper presents a model that analyses the relationship between the coach's emotional competences and the training climate as predictors of the youngsters' emotional competences and psychological well-being. In the present study, 309 athletes and 17 coaches participated in the study. A general predictive model was estimated with path analysis and the maximum robust likelihood (MLR) estimation method. The results showed that the coach's emotional competences are associated with autonomy-supportive climates ([beta] = 0.15, p < 0.005). This climate is related to youth's emotional competences ([beta] = 0.30, p < 0.005) and lower emotional ([beta] = -0.27, p < 0.005), behavioural ([beta] = -0.51, p < 0.005), and social ([beta] = -0.33, p < 0.005) symptomatology. These results have important practical implications in designing interventions that promote coaches' emotional competences given its association with autonomy-supportive climates, which in turn are related to athletes' emotional competences and psychological well-being.

This study was conducted to examine the effect of mathematical modelling activities on the mathematical modelling skills of secondary school students in the context of STEM education. The study was designed according to the embedded design, one of the mixed research methods. The study group of research consists of 66 eighth-grade students studying in a public school in the central district of a large province in the south of Turkey in the 2020-2021 academic year. While the criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used to determine the quantitative study group of the research, the maximum variation sampling method was used to determine the qualitative study group. On the other hand, in the context of STEM education, mathematical modelling problems, evaluation rubric and semi-structured interview forms were used as data collection tools in the research. As a result of the research; It was concluded that mathematical modelling activities in the context of STEM education positively improved the mathematical modelling skills of secondary school students. In addition, it has been concluded that the students who receive education with mathematical modelling activities applied in the context of STEM education gain different interdisciplinary perspectives, experience positive developments in their thinking skills, adapt to group work more easily, and increase their interest in engineering and technology.