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Purpose: Through reviewing an education policy blueprint in Norway, titled "An Offer of Homework Assistance" (issued by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training in June 2010), the present article aims to shed light on how Norway uses education as an arena to realize social equality and equity. Design/Approach/Methods: This is an analytical policy review. Findings: By examining the background, goals, contents, and implementation of the homework assistance program, we have found that the Norwegian government institutes evidence-based policies in education. Although there is criticism concerning the policy and its implementation, empirical evaluative investigations have found that it brings a variety of benefits. Originality/Value: The present article is useful to understand educational policymaking in Norway and how the country is making efforts to achieve social equality and equity through education.

This article presents a case study on changing food practices from traditional cold sandwich meals to hot meals in a Norwegian kindergarten. Data were sourced from interviews, complemented by non-participatory video observation and observational notes. Building on Fullan's model for understanding a change process, this paper presents the initiation, implementation, continuation and results of such a change, and identifies three key factors that contributed to the successful change in practices in the case kindergarten. These factors are: (1) shared leadership in the change process; (2) the support for change from the parents; and (3) children's (as change partners) involvement and participation. The conclusion section of the paper discusses the implications of the findings for kindergartens and educators in terms of how to facilitate a locally relevant and context-specific change. In addition, this paper illuminates children's agency and their indispensable roles in the change implementation in particular, and sheds light on the importance of their involvement to increase the likelihood of a successful change.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted countries across the globe. The pandemic has created a completely new teaching-learning environment of interaction for early childhood educators. In many countries, face-to-face teaching has been replaced by remote teaching, while in others, there have been intermittent lockdowns and limited interruptions to regular teaching norms. Given the play-based nature of preschool teaching-learning activities in most countries, educators are required to reimagine the sociocultural relationships to their pedagogical practices in their everyday teaching-learning contexts. This paper sheds light on educators' experiences and the dramatic shift in their indoor-outdoor teaching-learning environment due to the evolving health measures. The study draws on notions of teachers' identities and Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept of social situation of development (Vygotsky, 1994) to capture the new forms of relationships that early childhood educators experienced with their pedagogical environments across different countries during the pandemic. Data were collected from preschool teachers across five countries--Australia, Bangladesh, Norway, Singapore and India using online surveys which included open- and close-ended questions. Findings reveal the on-ground realities and teachers' adaptations to new pedagogies emerging across the five countries. The new digital environments provided an equally new dimension for change. These changes were seen in interactions, relationships within the everyday pedagogical contexts, as well as the shifting physical and social environment of early years educators.

The aim of this study was to examine the internal consistency and factor structure of the Traditional Chinese version of the Impact on Family Scale in order to make cross cultural comparisons. The Traditional Chinese version of the scale was administered to 137 Hong Kong Chinese parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Two short versions of the scale based on 15 and 11 items were examined to investigate whether the single factor of the short scale from the United States could be replicated. The shortened version of the Impact on Family Scale has the potential to be useful for cross-cultural comparisons between United States and Traditional Chinese samples.

The unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic have required the global world to adapt swiftly and cope with the demands. The pandemic, in particular, has caused severe disruptions to young children's learning experiences, requiring a closer examination of teacher resilience. This complex, individual and context-driven quality requires educators to adapt, negotiate existing challenges and endure in adverse stress-inducing environments. Drawing on two models of teacher resilience, with a specific emphasis on protective factors, we present the empirical findings of a study that involved 284 early childhood educators from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Norway and Singapore. Participant experiences in their professional contexts indicate the role of protective factors, which include both individual and contextual factors, that facilitated quality teacher-child interactions during the pandemic. The data highlight personal strength and learning situated in their heritage cultures as crucial components of developing a strong sense of professionalism. In addition, the findings reveal the importance of professional development opportunities as an enabler of teacher resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the mean-square bounded consensus problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems under hybrid attacks composed of deception attacks and denial-of-service attacks. The network consists of a leader and several followers. The attacks can disrupt network connections and inject false data. Using an impulsive control approach, the mean-square bounded consensus is analyzed. Meanwhile, the upper bound of error is also calculated. Based on the knowledge of the Lyapunov stability theory, graph theory, and linear matrix inequalities, sufficient conditions for the mean-square bounded consensus of multi-agent systems are obtained. Finally, the feasibility and validity of the theoretical results are verified by the provided numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the experience of Chinese parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) living in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Seventy-five parents of children (aged 6 months-18 years) with ASD diagnoses completed the Family Quality of Life Scale. Forty-five parents from the original surveyed cohort, also participated in semi-structured interviews. Parents' perceptions of their child's disability were influenced both by their cultural background and by the limited and expensive, pre- and post-diagnostic services available. Longer waiting times to diagnosis were associated with lower emotional well-being and perceived disability-related support. Clinicians are encouraged to become part of the support network for parents of children with ASD, to help parents to adjust to caring for their child.

Food and meals in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings play a vital role in health promotion and sustainable development because they constitute a significant part of the children's total diet and considerably influence their eating habits and preferences. This paper aims to find and identify traces of sustainability in food practices in a Norwegian kindergarten by analyzing each of the four dimensions of sustainability relevant to ECEC: ecological, economic, and social/cultural sustainability, and good governance. Primary data sources for this paper include interviews with kindergarten staff, supplemented with non-participatory observation during mealtime. By looking into how this kindergarten integrated sustainability thinking into their practices and organizational structures--from designing a menu to managing a meal and incorporating children's voices in the process--this study shows that purposefully designed food provision may promote sustainability in ECEC. In addition, it draws our attention to how the kindergarten environment can serve as an arena for children to act as change agents for sustainable food practices in kindergarten settings and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]