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This paper aims to understand the influence of Islamic religious philosophy on the application of gifted education in schools. To date, little attention has been paid to the influence of religion, particularly Islam, on how giftedness or areas of talent are viewed and accommodated in the education system. The article considers that Islamic culture pays more attention to areas of talent, such as religious studies, leadership, wisdom and morality, with much emphasis on highly able people with spiritual, social and emotional needs. While in the West, religion may have less impact on gifted education which could be because of separating religion from the state. Therefore, a number of areas of giftedness/talent may be admired or ignored due to the influence of religion when it comes to educational practices. This paper gives an example of how Islam influences some areas of giftedness/talent such as music, art, sports and leadership.

A key features of the globalised environment of the twenty-first century is that populations across a range of societies have become more diverse in culture, heritage and identity. In turn, this has led to further emphasis on the teaching of cultural understanding in schools, as exemplified by the Australian Curriculum and their equivalents in countries such as Singapore, India and New Zealand. However, educational research has tended to focus on cultural education for the students, with relatively little consideration given to the attributes required by both teachers and school leaders to frame and deliver cultural education that meets the multiple needs of twenty-first century cultural environments. This paper comprises an initial exploration of the connections between the educational concept of transcultural dispositions and culturally responsive leadership behaviours of school leaders as they work to deliver a form of cultural education that is relevant to the context of the twenty-first century.

The increasing cultural diversity of students in Australia's schools is one of the salient changes in education over the last 30 years. In 2011, nearly half of all Australians had one or more parents born overseas, with migration from China, the Indian subcontinent and Africa increasing during the early 2000s (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). However, despite these long established patterns of exposure to a multicultural environment, the incidence of racism experienced by children in Australian schools remains highly problematic. Recent research has shown that around 70% of school students witness or experience some form of racism (Mansouri, Jenkins, Morgan & Taouk, 2009). This paper argues that, although the reasons for this persistent marginalisation of cultural difference are multivariate, the background attitudes of teacher educators cannot be ignored. It posits that, in line with recent research (Casinader, 2014), the development and awareness of transcultural modes of thinking in educators, which are inclusive and reflective of different cultural approaches, are essential for modelling an educational environment for students in which cultural difference is accepted and prized, and not held up as a point of separation. It is also argued that such a transition will be facilitated only when the existing monocultural reality of the Australian teaching profession) is acknowledged and addressed.

Fluidity of cultural identity is an enduring inheritance of contemporary globalisation. One of the less-spoken consequences of this shift has been the increased pressures on young people as they navigate the transformation of their cultural identity between the new and the old. For this group, which comprises not only the children of migrants, but those born into families of multiple cultural heritages, the hybridisation of their cultural identity is occurring at a time of their lives when self-image is challenged on numerous fronts, especially at school. As scholars interested in cultural histories, geographies and pedagogies, the authors became interested in this research when they discovered mutual links with Sri Lanka and its post-1945 diaspora. This autobiographical family study draws upon micro history and life history techniques to demonstrate how the circumstances of their own families challenge macro-Australian education policy discourses about global citizenship, cultural identity and cultural understanding.

This expository paper critically examines the value of school geography in social debates that have a direct significance for the lives of young people. Migration is chosen as a focus, both because it is a defining feature of everyday life and the world we live in, and an area of research and debate in the discipline of geography. We draw on two national contexts, those of Australia and England, and illustrative examples from the authors' research, to discuss how social change through migration is explored, expressed and represented in geography education by the national curriculum of each country. This occurs through two particular lenses, geocapabilities and transculturalism, which are presented as potential transformative strategies for ensuring that geographical teaching of such issues remains pertinent to the lives and futures of the young people in the classroom. In doing so, the paper seeks to critically consider the omnipresent socio-political agendas and landscapes of compulsory schooling in each nation that influence the construction of geography education, using the context of migration as a defining social dimension of contemporary global society. The paper concludes by arguing that geography teachers and educators should actively consider the use of a geocapabilities and/or transcultural lens when exploring complex social geographies such as migration. In doing so, it is contended that these dual concepts can support and empower young people in their academic and social navigation of the complexities of current society.

It is now generally accepted that the teaching of cultural understanding is central to international education, exemplified in globally directed curricula such as those of the International Baccalaureate. However, research in this area has tended to focus on "student" outcomes of cultural education, even though globalisation and the nature of modern society has heightened the need for "teachers" who have the expertise to teach cultural education in ways that are more contemporarily relevant. Studies of teacher capacity to meet the specific demands of cultural learnings have been under-researched, tending to be situated within discourses that do not reflect the complex cultural reality of 21st century society. Using the context of a research study of Primary Years Programme teachers in International Baccalaureate schools, this paper argues that cultural education could be improved if teacher expertise is developed under the more inclusive paradigm of transculturalism.

The higher degree of global mobility and connectivities within contemporary societies has led to increasing cultural diversity within school student cohorts. In turn, the human activities and interactions within the territories and boundaries of a school have become increasingly complex. During a 2017 study of how transcultural capabilities are being developed and utilised by teachers of the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) in Canada and Australia, one theme that emerged was the extent to which teachers felt they could or should influence their students' moral outlooks on cultural difference. Teachers often expressed spatially bounded moral views of cosmopolitanism; that is, teaching and learning about welcoming and engaging the stranger were framed within a personal, moral geography that was closely associated to defined places that were typically localised within the school community. This paper examines the moral geographies of PYP teachers to highlight the complexities, tensions, paradoxes, and contradictions embedded within the relationships between inclusion and exclusion of difference in the PYP schools. These phenomena are related to a broad range of challenges that arise as a result of the complex interactions between teachers, PYP curriculum and the principles related to engaging difference.

Common notions around the concept of sustainability tend to be framed within the values and principles that the world's natural environments need to be used and managed in such a way as to make them available for future generations. Consequently, pedagogical approaches in environmental education that follow this intellectual thread tend to adopt a standard scientific approach to inquiry-based learning. This article argues that the features of a geographical approach to inquiry, particularly in its wider conceptualisation of fieldwork, provides a much more effective means of developing an environmental education that is more cogniscent of the deeper aspects of sustainability. While the importance of the natural systems components of sustainability cannot be ignored, they tend to displace other inherent facets within the sustainability concept and, in particular, the reality that any discussion as to the sustainable use of natural environments must incorporate knowledge and understanding of the way people interact with these environments. We contend that sustainability, when taught in schools, has tended to be environmentally and scientifically based, diminishing the role of humans. In an example of how this deficit might be overcome, the Australian Curriculum incorporates "sustainability" as one of the three mandatory cross-curriculum priorities; that is, one of the avenues for encouraging complementary learning and teaching across different disciplines. Within this curriculum framework, the concept is expanded to not only include a consideration of the mutual interdependence of the environmental spheres ("Systems"), but also "World View and Futures"--thus including the human component. However, using the notion of the "fieldwork imperative" (Casinader & Kidman, 2017), which distinguishes between the reasons "why" we do fieldwork and the reasons "why we should" do fieldwork, we argue that sustainability education would be placed more effectively within the disciplinary domain of Geography, rather than as part of an integrated curriculum approach or in Science.

In school education, one of the few visible responses to increasing globalisation of educational practice has been the implementation of short-term experiential overseas student learning programmes. This paper analyses the results of a comparative research project on three Australian schools that offer such learning experiences. It argues that teachers who possess or who are capable of developing a transcultural--as opposed to an intercultural--capacity are more likely to be effective educators on these special programmes, as well as being more receptive to the personal and professional development that derives from participation in them.

This paper explores the findings of a pilot project that investigated the impact of the International Professional Experience (IPE) programme within a Faculty of Education at a research intensive Australian University in developing the capacity of preservice teachers (PSTs) to work and teach amidst culturally diverse environments. The pilot was a precursor to a project investigating the impact of IPE on PSTs' cultural capacity across a range of IPE locations. The importance of teachers acquiring transcultural capacity has become more acute in recent years. Educational globalisation has influenced Australian educators and schools to see working and learning in countries outside Australia as opportunities that support readiness for a professional career. Australian graduate teachers are now required to possess and demonstrate the skills and capacities to relate to, engage with and teach students from diverse cultures. Migration has altered Australian demographics to the point that cultural understandings are now mandated in the national curriculum. The pilot study findings suggest that the IPE experience has a significant impact on the development of transcultural capacity amongst PSTs especially those who have not had opportunities for, engagement with cultural modes outside their place of origin.

Globalisation has increased the importance of schools as a space for developing cultural understandings within students. However, how this is translated into curriculum pathways within schools remains a matter for debate. Using the context of the new Australian national curriculum, this paper argues that notions of multicultural and intercultural education need to be updated to incorporate transculturalism. It further posits that the use of geography as a school-based forum for cultural education within national curriculum frameworks has been diminished, and that its reinvigoration ultimately depends upon a reaffirmation of "place" that highlights a positive sense of difference.

At first glance, the introduction of a national curriculum for Australian schools suggested a new era of revival for school geography. Since the late 1980s, the development and introduction of more integrated conceptions of curriculum design and implementation has seen the decline of Geography as a distinct subject in Australian schools, with statewide guidelines or frameworks that promoted the integration of Geography along with History into Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). The approval of the Australian Curriculum: Geography design in late 2013, therefore, offered some degree of optimism that Geography would be revived as a distinctive area of learning in the secondary environment. Utilising a qualitative comparative case study of three Victorian secondary schools, this paper argues that the hopes of renewal engendered by the institution of an agreed national Geography curriculum have been confronted by the reality of school curriculum and governance processes, in which existing local staff structures and priorities are more of an imperative in school-based Geography curriculum decision-making than policy-driven curriculum change.

Educationally, it is arguable that transnationalism has been primarily framed around course delivery by educational institutions within international contexts. However, it is a more complex notion, incorporating ideas such as global citizenship and intercultural understanding. Consequently, if the Australian Curriculum is the national substantiation of Australia's educational priorities, designed to prepare young Australians for a globalised future, it should reflect such transnationalist elements. This paper contends that, despite contrary impressions, the Australian Curriculum is more of a protective reinforcement of older conceptions of a "Western" community than one centred on forward-looking global principles. Its codifications dominate at the cost of acknowledging other points of reference that represent a collective transnational sensibility, and thus it embodies a lost national opportunity. Recent criticisms that the Australian Curriculum fails to adequately reflect 'Western' civilisation are ill-founded, as they ignore the strong presence of 'Western' intellectual constructs throughout the Australian Curriculum's design and content.