Monica Higgins is the Kathleen McCartney Professor of Education Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), where her research and teaching focus on leadership development and organizational change. Drawing on a background that combines organizational behavior, business, and education, she works with senior education leaders…

We might call this decade the era of early childhood. In the US, federal and state governments invest in the creation of public pre-kindergarten (preK) programs and create standards that articulate goals for practice and benchmarks that can be used to evaluate success. How have these trends provided a context for the evolution of preK curriculum?…

This paper examines how people find happiness and create wellbeing when confronted by extreme adversity. Utilising the Dialogical Self Theory for an analysis of published autobiographies, it investigates two case studies, Nick Vujicic, who was born without limbs, and Austrian author Barbara Pachl-Eberhart, who narrates creating a fulfilled life…

This paper is based on a phenomenologically oriented exploratory case study. It focuses on Bea, one of the many fascinating individuals the author met at a unique educational site who had an invaluable impact not only on the refinement of the initial guiding question of inquiry, but also on the author as an educator and educational researcher.…

The authors of the book argue that a fundamentally complex problem--how to assess the knowledge of a child--cannot be reduced to a simple test score. "Beyond Testing" describes seven forms of assessment that are more effective than standardized test results: (1) student self-assessments, (2) direct teacher observations of students and…

This article begins by reflecting on the present refugee crisis and its relevance to children in the UK. It identifies the need for teaching about the refugee experience to young children and argues that literature can provide a conduit for this. Since the millennium there has been a rapid increase in the number of books published for children…

Drawing on our experiences of interviewing elites, this article suggests that methodological reflexivity yields insights into the construction of symbolic and social hierarchies in contextualised interactions. The paper focuses on "academic culture" as the "locus" through which power relations were experienced in interview…

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Russian became a commodity in the global service industry in the decade between 2004 and 2014 and, in some places, much earlier. I will begin with a discussion of sociolinguistic theory of "commodification of language", focusing on aspects critical for this case study. Then, I will trace the…

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra presents a series of youth concerts each year to introduce and attract younger audiences to the symphony. Music teachers often attend these concerts with students, and the importance of such experiences is frequently emphasised and normalised. This article explores the historical roots of the following relations,…

This essay examines textual engagement of two students during a Multiliteracies lesson on a French poem ("Liberté", Paul Eluard) in terms of the "multilingual subject" (Kramsch, 2009) and "the authentic speaker" (Van Compernolle, 2016). The case studies are based on personal data: (1) the students' autobiographies…

Whilst the role of interactive play, thought and language in children's development has been acknowledged, less is known of the role of interactive play, thought and "music." Children's early music-making is both generative and performative in nature and provides a means by which they engage with self and others. Their independent…

This paper provides a critical analysis of art-based research in education, that is, in constructivist learning and teaching. It presents the methodological features and advantages of art-based research in terms of the axiological, ontological and epistemological features of the constructivist, participatory and critical scientific paradigm, and…

In many cases, political circumstances do not allow formal for transitional justice processes to occur in countries undergoing a transition from a violent past. In this paper, we ask if education can become a default front line of transitional justice work in the absence of explicit action by the state to address past injustices. Drawing from…

This article is a response to calls for more research on empathy and service-learning and is driven by the author team's deep interest in how empathy, gender, and personal connections shape students' service-learning experiences. To understand this issue, they have focused on an often-overlooked moment in the student's service-learning experience:…

Born in El Salvador, at the heart of the Americas, Archbishop Oscar Romero came to have a profound impact, both nationally and internationally. Speaking out fearlessly against injustice and oppression, Archbishop Romero's poignant and powerful homilies were heard throughout the world and made him one of the greatest prophets. In the 30-year period…