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Despite schools being exposed to students from refugee backgrounds for decades, many schools still struggle to provide adequate academic and social support for them. As a result, this study sought to better understand the educational experiences of these students by examining their belonging experiences. The belonging experiences were captured in order to examine and interrogate teacher practice. More specifically, this paper examines how five students' belonging experiences are understood and interpreted by four classroom teachers. The broader study employed an arts-based approach in which data were collected from students' drawings and semi-structured interviews. These drawings were then used as a prompt to examine teachers' responses to the students' belonging experiences as presented in this paper. The findings revealed that the participating teachers acknowledged the importance of knowing their students from refugee backgrounds and allowing them opportunities to get to know their peers. They also recognised the role of home languages and how peers and Multicultural Educational Aides (MEAs) mediate students' visibility and audibility in the classroom. While the teachers identified strategies to foster belonging in the classroom, the findings also exposed the pervading deficit perspectives that continue to plague Australian schools and precariously position students from refugee backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Angolan Government has introduced two significant educational reforms which, among other goals, sought to liberate the education system from the colonial epistemologies and Eurocentrism. Though allegedly progress has been made in some sectors such as building school infrastructure and reducing illiteracy, the same cannot be claimed with regard to the curriculum, and in turn the textbooks, which seem unaltered. This paper examines one potent source of cultural politics, namely Portuguese language teaching, that is a compulsory subject at primary schooling level. The article traces semiotic representations in four randomly selected primary schooling textbooks by focusing on anthroponomy, ethnicity/race and occupation, using the postcolonial theory as a theoretical framework. In terms of methodology, the paper makes use of qualitative content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed at examining the effectiveness of inclusive primary education in enhancing power of blind differently abled children in India. This study aims at identifying the roles of teachers, administrators, and parents in Noida for enhancing the learning experience of these children. It focuses on the problems of blind differentlyabled students regarding availability of the resources and how the principles of inclusion have impacted their lives. The implication of the study is that education managers and policymakers should focus on creating awareness within the community, providing conducive learning facilities in schools and ensuring that the schools have the necessary learning resources to support the learning of all students. This paper also highlights on the support that the parents and the communities provide to these children in order to ensure that they grow up in an inclusive environment. This study contributes to building better knowledge on how to enhance and maintain inclusive education for blind differently-abled children in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Single- and mixed-sex grouping have long been a focus of attention in physical education (PE) and are matters often at the fore of discussions about curriculum planning, teaching, and learning. Nonetheless, there remains little consensus or guidance on which approach (or combination of approaches) should be preferred in PE in primary and secondary schools in England. Further, while single- and mixed-sex grouping have been extensively researched in PE in secondary schools, hitherto there remains an absence of research examining these practices in PE in primary schools. This research sought to address gaps in the literature to build a stronger evidence-base for decisions about gendered grouping practices in PE. Specifically, the study was designed to provide a snapshot of current single- and mixed-sex grouping arrangements in primary PE in England.Method: Data were collected via an online survey which was administered to all state-funded mainstream and special schools providing for children in Key Stage 1 (aged 5–7) and/or Key Stage 2 (aged 7–11) in the North-East of England (917 at the time of study). A total of 254 surveys were completed giving a response rate of 27.7%.Results: The responses indicate that nearly all schools were using mixed-sex grouping for PE, with children typically remaining in their mixed-sex form class and taught the same curriculum activities by their class teacher. Notably, no schools were using single-sex grouping for all PE lessons, although some were teaching combinations of single- and mixed-sex classes across different year groups and/or different activities of the curriculum. The responses also challenge the traditional dichotomous representation of single- and mixed-sex grouping by showing that some schools were grouping children into smaller single-sex groups within mixed-sex PE classes, particularly in activities requiring bodily contact. Some schools were also organising children into smaller mixed-sex groups within mixed-sex PE classes to encourage boys and girls to work together and support one another in their learning. Reported reasons for current grouping arrangements reflected both pragmatic considerations and perceived educational benefits of particular approaches, including school timetabling and consideration of gender equity in curriculum provision in PE.Conclusion: The conclusion calls for further research to explore the efficacy of single- and/or mixed-sex grouping in supporting and meeting the needs of all children in primary PE. Relatedly, we also highlight the importance of intersectional perspectives being brought to single- and mixed-sex grouping debates to inform the development of more nuanced, evidence-based policies and practices that promote inclusion and celebrate the diversity of children. We further suggest a need for research and policy to reconsider the language used in grouping practices to reflect commitments to gender diversity and gender equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was a pilot intervention to develop Year 5–8 students' close reading and writing of literary texts using the T-Shape Literacy Model (Wilson and Jesson in Set Res Inf Teach 1:15–22, 2019). Students analysed text sets to explore how different authors use language to engender mood and atmosphere. The study used a single-subject design logic for repeated researcher-designed and a quasi-experimental, matched control group design for repeated standardised measures of reading and writing. Nine teachers and their classes participated. The schools were part of a large school improvement programme using digital tools and pedagogy to accelerate students' learning participated that the authors were research-practice partners in. The schools all served low socio-economic status communities and the majority of students were Māori (51%) and Pacific (28%). There was a large effect size on the overall score for the researcher-designed measure (effect size = 1.00) and for the close reading of single texts sub-score (effect size = 0.90). There was a moderate-to-high effect for students' identification of language features (effect size = 0.75) but no significant effect on their synthesis scores. Students in the intervention significantly outperformed matched control group students in the standardised writing post-test (effect size = 0.65) but differences for the standardized reading comprehension test were not significant (effect size = 0.15). Results overall suggest the approach has promise for improving the metalinguistic knowledge, literary analysis and creative writing of younger and historically underserved groups of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents practical ways to harmonize English teaching by balancing linguistic, sociolinguistic competences with the pragmatic one at primary school. We employ psycholinguistic approach to facilitate close to real life communication in the classroom. The PURPOSE of this paper is to reveal an experimental psycholinguistic shift from prioritizing linguistic with the elements of sociolinguistic competences to a more balanced model of teaching speaking young primary learners, which resembles natural communication and includes pragmatic competence too. METHODS: The paper presents the results of an action research carried out among 9-10-year old schoolchildren from 3 primary schools. During the research, we turned to interviewing teachers and learners, used questionnaires and observation. We employed analysis and experiment during the intervention. The RESULTS reveal students’ interactive problems while speaking in English realized in their bodies, articulatory blockages predetermined by emotional and psychological tension as well as the lack of appropriate language and pragmatic skills. In CONCLUSIONS, we have developed a range of recommendations with examples to facilitate teacher’s work with primary students’ pragmatic competence along with linguistic and sociocultural ones.

With the explicit goal of today's school students being active citizens, critically engaged and democratically minded over the long course of their schooling, the authors of this article focus on the notions of rhetoric and, relatedly, rhetorical agency. While these notions are increasingly understood in secondary school contexts, their application in primary and early-childhood settings is under-explored. We define and propose rhetorical agency as a purposeful focus of school literacy practice and pedagogy, illustrating this with four examples in which rhetorical agency can be supported in the primary classroom. These relate to research we have undertaken or supported around children learning bilingually, students engaging in place-based investigations, rich text use, and critical literacy in the early years. Ultimately, we invite consideration of how primary classrooms and public schooling, and more specifically the practice of language and literacy education, might be enhanced expressly through a rhetorical lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing community and parental connection with schools is a widely advocated means of improving levels of student learning and the quality and accountability of education systems across South Asia. This paper draws on a mixed-methods study of accountability relations in education in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Bihar. It explores two questions: what formal platforms exist to enhance connections between socially disadvantaged families and the schools serving them; and (how) do they influence engagement with student learning? It finds that various platforms have proliferated across public, low-cost private and non-government schools. But, while they promote enrolment attendance and monitoring, a substantive focus on student learning is empirically demonstrated to be missing everywhere. The paper argues that an apparently surprising similarity of (dis)connection is located in system features that are common across school types, locations and social structures. It proposes that this is a 'field' in which connection, facilitated by various platforms, is performed according to bureaucratised norms of accountability that even pervade family and community responses. Seeing this as a socially constituted 'field' that constrains meaningful discussion of learning across schooling provision for disadvantaged families contributes new insight for accountability-focused reforms in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents practical ways to harmonize English teaching by balancing linguistic, sociolinguistic competences with the pragmatic one at primary school. We employ psycholinguistic approach to facilitate close to real life communication in the classroom. The PURPOSE of this paper is to reveal an experimental psycholinguistic shift from prioritizing linguistic with the elements of sociolinguistic competences to a more balanced model of teaching speaking young primary learners, which resembles natural communication and includes pragmatic competence too. METHODS: The paper presents the results of an action research carried out among 9-10-year old schoolchildren from 3 primary schools. During the research, we turned to interviewing teachers and learners, used questionnaires and observation. We employed analysis and experiment during the intervention. The RESULTS reveal students' interactive problems while speaking in English realized in their bodies, articulatory blockages predetermined by emotional and psychological tension as well as the lack of appropriate language and pragmatic skills. In CONCLUSIONS, we have developed a range of recommendations with examples to facilitate teacher's work with primary students' pragmatic competence along with linguistic and sociocultural ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One-way, or foreign language, immersion schools face unique challenges as they seek to support the literacy development of their students. This manuscript draws on sociocultural theories of literacy development and the concept of languaging, the process of using language to make meaning. Working with two classrooms over one semester, we asked: How were fifth-grade students using language to make meaning and develop new skills during literacy activities? Where and when did students apply their learning? Teaching the strategies in English, the authors posit, provided students with moments of languaging, or talk about language, that allowed them to transfer certain strategies to target language instruction. Examples from our work demonstrate how explicit languaging about literacy strategies in English helped students to develop new research skills, which they later applied to inquiry projects completed in their school’s immersion language. However, while we witnessed students’ languaging in reference to literacy strategies, we rarely observed translanguaging, or students drawing upon their range of linguistic repertoires (English, Spanish, Bosnian, African American vernacular, and so on) to make meaning. We conclude by highlighting the potential of languaging to develop new literacy skills in language immersion education, as well as the need for future research on translanguaging in such contexts.

Parental engagement is a common theme of education policy in most countries. In Aotearoa New Zealand, policies frame parental engagement in broad terms giving schools flexibility in enacting them. However, the generality assumes the complex and differentiated activities associated with parental engagement are well understood, leaving schools with little guidance for this work. This article examines the enactment of parental engagement in one New Zealand primary school to understand these activities better and provide a basis for improved policy. It partly draws on Ball et al. (Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203153185, 2012) policy enactment framework identifying several enactment roles associated with parental engagement, particularly in-school 'narrators' who are pivotal actors in articulating a rationale for engagement. Key findings were that teachers interpreted parental engagement differently, leading to differentiated practice, and parents are identified as important policy actors. The article concludes that there is a strong case for greater clarity in policy on parental engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All children have the right to quality education that respects their human dignity and their right to be protected from violence and abuse. However, in some developing countries this is not the case. According to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), sexual violence in developing countries over the past 15 years rose by over 370%. Sexual violence on girls results in physical and psychological harm including long-lasting suffering. In this study, our interest mainly lies in the social impact sexual violence is likely to cause to the victims. This includes, but not limited to, rejection by family and community, exclusion from economic engagement, isolation, and the likelihood of further violence. All things being equal, all of the these will affect the demand for schooling and the desire to acquire formal education. Therefore, the contribution of this study is to quantify the impact of sexual violence on girl-child education in a broad range of developing countries. To achieve this, we used country-level data from 72 developing countries between 2003-2017. The pooled OLS and fixed effects techniques were then used in estimating the impact of sexual violence on different measures of girl-child education. The results of the estimations showed a negative relationship between sexual violence and the different measures of the girl-child education. For example, using the fixed effects results, an increase in sexual violence by one standard deviation from the sample mean, will reduce girls' enrolment rate and completion rate by 2.385% and 3.150% points, respectively. The results provide an interesting dimension to what is already known of the girl-child education and can aid policymakers in their interventions in improving educational outcomes for girls. With respect to policy implications from the findings, countries must formulate adequate responses to protect their young citizens from the cruelty of sexual abuse. In addition, effective support mechanisms for victims of sexual violence should be facilitated and sustained in developing countries. This will help in ameliorating some of the negative impact of their violent experiences and help to prepare them to re-enter society and return to education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we draw on data from focus group discussions to examine the ways in which some young boys in a South African township primary school construct and negotiate hegemonic masculinity through bullying, and other forms of violence, within the school. Deviating from the simplistic victim-bully binary, we draw from critical masculinity studies to show how younger boys exert power over girls through violence but are, themselves, also victims of violence which, they say, is perpetrated by girls. Boys are often identified as bullies at school, but when we gave them the opportunity to talk about what it meant to be a bully, we gained a far more complex picture of how bullying behaviour manifests between learners at school. Indeed, our participants’ accounts of violence at school gave us great insights into the complexities of gender violence and highlighted the broader socio-cultural and economic conditions that produce it. We conclude that it is vital to understand the mechanisms of gender power relations among primary school learners, if primary school violence prevention interventions are to be effective.

The nation-state remains fundamental to our understanding of nineteenth-century schooling, which is commonly referred to in terms of national school systems or national education systems. While nineteenth-century school systems were often national in scope and promoted with the purpose of creating nationally minded citizens, this article examines whether such systems were national in the sense of being designed to impose national uniformity and standardisation on schools, teachers and pupils. Based on an investigation of public regulations of primary schooling in Sweden 1842–1920, this article shows that the Swedish school system promoted regional variation by officially sanctioning a wide range of school types, including ambulatory schools, junior schools and minor primary schools. As a result, this case study encourages considerate use of the term primary schooling and raises questions as to whether nineteenth-century school systems are, in this respect, more aptly described as regionalised rather than national. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at discussing charitable schools in the Ming dynasty, which was one form of primary schooling beside the village schools. Focus is on their aims, founders, teachers, and students, as well as what is possible to infer from the material about the content of studies and the pedagogy. Furthermore, the relation between Neo-Confucianism and primary schooling will be discussed. Several well-known works have been written on the higher levels of education and the examination system, but lower levels such as village schools and charitable schools are still not sufficiently studied. In the present article, I argue that the charitable school as a school form is a part of larger charitable projects established by local officials to improve social welfare. The locations of those schools were not necessarily in rural areas as was the case with the village schools, but more often in urban areas. However, the aims were the same, that is, to transform poor boys into well-behaving and morally good adults and to make them literate, most likely in that order, that is, moral transformation first and practical skills next. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses findings from a research project examining the Pear Tree Community School in Oakland, California, USA - a small, social justice-focused school primarily serving Black, Indigenous and other students of colour in grades from kindergarten to Grade 5. Through this multi-year case study, which included observations, interviews and focus groups, this article presents data from interviews with teachers and administrators who explain how they decolonise their primary school classroom curriculum, particularly amid national and global issues, such as heightened racial violence and increasingly polarised political discourse, which adversely impact the families and communities to which students belong. Teachers and administrators share concrete examples of decolonial approaches at the school level and within their classroom curricula that centre the lived experiences and histories of communities of colour. This article contributes an empirical study of one school's decolonial approaches at the early grades level to the emerging scholarship on decolonising education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situated in character-based education, the Indonesian Government mandates all teachers to incorporate moral values into school subjects. Teaching English to young learners (TEYL) is no exception. Little empirical evidence reports how school textbooks (e.g., language textbooks) discursively teach particular values explicitly and implicitly. To validate whether English for young learners (EYL) textbooks teach particular moral values, the present critical discourse study (CDA) reported in this article examines how moral content is discursively infused into EYL textbooks. Framed in Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory, it looks specifically at how particular moral values are represented in three nationally-adopted EYL textbooks through lexical choices, the representation of images, and selected texts that the textbook writers use to represent their attitudinal discourse. The findings show that the value of helping others is predominantly represented in the textbooks. The other dominant values encapsulated in the textbooks include politeness and caring. We conclude that the textbook writers place greater emphasis on such values as helping others, being polite, and caring in the textbooks in as much as they may want to teach these values at an early age.

This article analyses findings from a research project examining the Pear Tree Community School in Oakland, California, USA – a small, social justice-focused school primarily serving Black, Indigenous and other students of colour in grades from kindergarten to Grade 5. Through this multi-year case study, which included observations, interviews and focus groups, this article presents data from interviews with teachers and administrators who explain how they decolonise their primary school classroom curriculum, particularly amid national and global issues, such as heightened racial violence and increasingly polarised political discourse, which adversely impact the families and communities to which students belong. Teachers and administrators share concrete examples of decolonial approaches at the school level and within their classroom curricula that centre the lived experiences and histories of communities of colour. This article contributes an empirical study of one school’s decolonial approaches at the early grades level to the emerging scholarship on decolonising education.

Research on homework, particularly using qualitative approaches, is neglected in sociological literature. This qualitative study uses a Bourdieusian interpretive lens to explore parental homework practices in a middle-class, urban setting in Ireland. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held with six parents and six teachers of pupils aged 10–11 years. We found that parents' homework practices involved providing practical, educational, and emotional supports for their children. Homework offers a valuable analytic site wherein particularities of habitus, field, and capitals are revealed. Middle-class parents possess the requisite capitals to succeed in meeting schools' expectations; they align their practices closely with those of the school, successfully replicating the field of the school; and they activate economic, cultural, and social capital on behalf of their children, such that the presence and use of many capitals are normalised in the familial quotidien, thereby privileging their children, and making visible micro-processes of social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the perspectives of 14 primary school teachers subjected to a marriage ban in Ireland between 1932 and 1958. This oral history study provides a unique platform to examine the construction and articulation of these women's historical memories. Interrogating their perspectives on the marriage ban provides an important window into the social and cultural world in which they lived, the norms and dominant values they encountered, and the ways in which they negotiated their own individual consciousness within a specific cultural framework. Specifically, the analysis of these women's testimony generates significant insights into the gendering of teaching as a suitable profession for women in early twentieth-century Ireland; how gender shaped social and cultural roles; Church control over women's training and employment; and the use of policy to deepen women's social and economic subordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we draw on data from focus group discussions to examine the ways in which some young boys in a South African township primary school construct and negotiate hegemonic masculinity through bullying, and other forms of violence, within the school. Deviating from the simplistic victim-bully binary, we draw from critical masculinity studies to show how younger boys exert power over girls through violence but are, themselves, also victims of violence which, they say, is perpetrated by girls. Boys are often identified as bullies at school, but when we gave them the opportunity to talk about what it meant to be a bully, we gained a far more complex picture of how bullying behaviour manifests between learners at school. Indeed, our participants' accounts of violence at school gave us great insights into the complexities of gender violence and highlighted the broader socio-cultural and economic conditions that produce it. We conclude that it is vital to understand the mechanisms of gender power relations among primary school learners, if primary school violence prevention interventions are to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the evolution of the human capital gender gap in Liberal Italy (1871–1921). First, we show that Italy lagged some 50 years behind more advanced countries like France, Prussia and the UK, and that the regional divide in gendered literacy was unparalleled in the rest of Europe. Next, we test whether the shift to primary-school centralization in 1911 (the Daneo-Credaro Reform) brought about a decisive improvement in female literacy. We rely on a brand new, cross-sectional micro (municipal)-dataset of literacy rates in 1911 and 1921, as well as their potential determinants around 1911. Such data, combined with propensity score matching to improve identification, show that primary-school centralization increased the average annual growth of female literacy by 0.78 percentage points. Thus, even though the Reform did not aim at girls specifically, it brought about the unintended consequences of more rapid human capital accumulation for women and—ceteris paribus—a reduced educational gender gap. We briefly discuss why this "Silent Revolution" likely had important implications for Italy's economic history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from household data collected as part of the Annual Survey of Education conducted in rural Punjab in 2015, which included questions on disability developed by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics. Data reported here focuses on the disability status of children aged 5 to 16 years, their access to school and learning outcomes on basic reading and maths tasks. Our findings highlight that children who were identified by their carer/mothers as having moderate to severe disabilities were less likely to be attending school and had lower levels of learning on basic reading and maths tasks, than their peers who were not identified as having any difficulties in functioning. More importantly, our findings also suggest that being a co-resident/sibling in a household with a child with moderate to severe disabilities was associated with lower levels of basic reading and numeracy for the co-residents/siblings compared to other children. We conclude by highlighting important policy considerations and identifying areas of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the main features of the provision, organization and funding of nineteenth century European school acts. It indicates that these school acts promoted schooling that was basic, rather than compulsory, and provided a framework for schools funded by a diversity of revenues, and three types of local organization either based on the church, municipalities or several organizations. As a result, this article complements the analysis of determinants of rise of mass schooling, and the debate on decentralization, with an overview of European school acts and a theoretical challenge to further address the varying institutional framework of nineteenth-century schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situated in character-based education, the Indonesian Government mandates all teachers to incorporate moral values into school subjects. Teaching English to young learners (TEYL) is no exception. Little empirical evidence reports how school textbooks (e.g., language textbooks) discursively teach particular values explicitly and implicitly. To validate whether English for young learners (EYL) textbooks teach particular moral values, the present critical discourse study (CDA) reported in this article examines how moral content is discursively infused into EYL textbooks. Framed in Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory, it looks specifically at how particular moral values are represented in three nationally-adopted EYL textbooks through lexical choices, the representation of images, and selected texts that the textbook writers use to represent their attitudinal discourse. The findings show that the value of helping others is predominantly represented in the textbooks. The other dominant values encapsulated in the textbooks include politeness and caring. We conclude that the textbook writers place greater emphasis on such values as helping others, being polite, and caring in the textbooks in as much as they may want to teach these values at an early age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan's Punjab province has witnessed numerous education reforms in recent years. Many of these reforms have been aimed at improving the well-documented low levels of learning by focusing on improving teaching quality. The rhetoric suggests that government schools, particularly those in rural areas with a more disadvantaged pupil base, are especially ineffective at imparting learning. This paper seeks to investigate whether children in rural Punjab are learning literacy and numeracy over the course of a year, and if so, are some pupils progressing more than others. Using recently collected data, it finds that children in our sample are making progress. Variation in progress is found to be greater within schools rather than across them. The competence and qualifications of a teacher also makes a significant difference to a child's academic progress. The paper further finds differential progress for rich and poor students within schools, suggesting an important role for education policy to put in place targeted support towards those from disadvantaged backgrounds to ensure improvements in their learning keep pace with their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the goals for learning is fundamental to students’ success as writers. We investigated how Year 6 students in New Zealand experienced, understood and responded to goals during a writing unit. The study took place over seven weeks. Data were gathered through interviews with two teachers and six student participants; field notes from lesson observations; informal chats with students; and the collection of teacher documents, resources and student artefacts. Student selected goals, success criteria and rubric statements served as points of reference for a number of writing experiences. Findings indicated that the discourses underpinning students’ goals and the way they were framed resulted in the checking, highlighting, adding and ticking off of elements of persuasive writing. It was concluded if writing is to be understood and practised as an art rather than a technical activity, goals for learning need to address the more substantive aspects of the genre and the writing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Jordanian lower-primary national curriculum and its propensity for student-centred teaching and learning. It draws upon Basil Bernstein’s sociological theory of pedagogic codes to analyse the curriculum model and the advocated pedagogical approach within official curriculum documents, textbooks and teacher guides. Although the research conducted confirms the aspirations of the national curriculum for the adoption of student-centred pedagogies, analysis of the selected texts reveals mixed messages where in some areas the curriculum exemplifies an integrated code and in others a collection code. The messages about classroom framing are also found to be contradictory. The paper argues that if Jordan is to fulfil its stated aspirations to embrace more progressive pedagogies, a full review of the curriculum is needed to ensure its classification and framing cohere better with a student-centred approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Smoking, swearing and muscularity are vital elements of dominant masculinity. • Dominant masculinity is associated with the surrounding social conditions. • Race and class inequalities perpetuated in the performance of dominant masculinity. • Boys associate masculinity with sexual objectification and misogyny. • Early interventions recommended to address harmful masculine practices in schooling. In the context of gender and sexual violence in South Africa, there are growing efforts in the country to engage with and transform harmful patterns of masculinity. Whilst efforts to promote gender equitable versions of masculinity are ongoing and highlight the role of male culpability, questions about the experiences of younger boys are rarely the focus of attention. Given the value of problematising masculinity in boyhood, this article focuses on the ways in which 8–9-year-old boys construct their masculinity in a low-income South African primary school. Adopting a feminist poststructural lens to understanding children's agency, the article shows how a group of Indian and black boys established masculine status through the identification with adult male smoking practices, verbal abuse and swearing, and the idealisation of strong muscles. These strategies and practices were performed in relation to the understanding the boys had of status, bodily strength, heterosexual domination and the disparagement of femininity. Taken together, smoking, swearing and muscularity were mobilised to produce a competitive and stylised performance of young masculinity and demonstrates the pressures that boys face to uphold hegemonic and dominant masculinities. Through paying close attention to the specific manifestation of gendered practices and performances of young boys in the primary school, the findings foreground the need for educative practices to problematise and address harmful masculine practices at an early stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between solar off-grid electrification and socio-economic development of rural Sierra Leone through the lens of the Sustainable Livelihood approach. To this end, the study focuses on the level of household income, education, and fuel choices for cooking as three selected outcome variables. The empirical analysis is based on the field survey data from the recently electrified Mobai and non-electrified Pendembu - two rural communities in Kailahun district of the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. The study finds that electrification associates with a move of the household income to a higher income bracket and an increase of daily learning hours of the primary and low-secondary school-age children by 42 min a day. Furthermore, the clean electricity access in Mobai has not resulted in the replacement of carbon-intensive fuels such as firewood or charcoal with renewable electricity for cooking. This is attributed to the lack of affordability of electricity and electric stoves, and also the taste preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides insights into children’s perspectives on schooling experiences following immigration. Albeit focusing on a small cohort of children, the theory and methodology in the article could well be applied to children of immigrants from other cultures. In exploring the primary school experiences of children of Filipino immigrants in South Australia, symbolic interactionism as frame of analysis and in-depth interviews as research method have been utilised. This study shows that children constructed perspectives on the school environment, academic work and interaction with peers and teachers. Symbolic interactionism asserts that children defined their situations, took perspectives and adjusted their behaviour in line with that of others. This paper argues that children’s perspectives were informed by socialisation to prior schooling in the Philippines and interaction with family, peers and teachers. This prior schooling experience, likewise, informed the children’s construction of primary schooling in South Australia.