'The knowledge question', addressing what students need to know and learn, becomes particularly relevant during the process of a new school reform. This paper examines the political messages and the role of knowledge in the current curriculum reform initiative for primary and secondary education in Norway (2020). The study is based on a document…

This article aims to introduce Ernst Cassirer, and his philosophy of symbolic form, to education studies, and, in doing so, to challenge the widespread but deeply flawed views of knowledge and so-called knowledge-based education that have shaped recent education policy in England. After sketching the current educational landscape, and then some of…

Constructing effective and well-balanced learning groups is important for collaborative learning. Past research explored how group formation policies affect learners' behaviors and performance. With the different classroom contexts, many group formation policies work in theory, yet their feasibility is rarely investigated in authentic class…

The education of newly arrived students is a debated global policy issue. Less attention has been paid to the sub-group of students with limited experience of schooling, referred to here as 'newly arrived students with limited schooling' (NALS). This article explores Swedish policy frameworks that inform the education of newly arrived students,…

The significant contribution of parents towards education of children has been well explored in the literature. In effort towards practicing inclusive education, parents have been urged to work closely with teachers in order to sustain inclusive practices. In Ghana, the Inclusive Education Policy document has reiterated the need for diverse…

In the context of the Bologna reform, the Environmental Sciences programme at ETH Zurich was transformed from a Diploma to a Master's degree programme. In a comparative secondary analysis of graduate surveys of the last homogeneous cohort of Diploma graduates (N = 85) and two Master's cohorts after the reform (N = 108), this study investigated the…

In recent years, teachers in Western countries have developed beliefs and attitudes related to working with students with specific learning disabilities (LD) that may be critical in shaping their educational practices with them; however, their beliefs and attitudes differ across political and geographical contexts and may be influenced by specific…

Faced with accountability pressures and limited resources, education policymakers make difficult choices regarding school curricula. In recent years, studies have documented a decreased emphasis in arts and humanities instruction. One potential way for schools to fill this gap includes partnering with arts and cultural organizations to provide…

Taiwan's government enacted the Environmental Education Act in June 2011. In the beginning of the implementation of the Act, a national assessment of schoolteachers' environmental literacy was performed in order to establish the baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental education policy. This large-scale assessment involved a…

In the context of low-income countries, the role of donors in public policymaking is of great importance. Donors use a combination of lending and non-lending instruments as pathways of influence to shape policy directions in aid-recipient countries. This paper reports some findings from a doctoral study on the role of the World Bank in the recent…

This paper reports the results of an international study examining pre-service teacher reports of teaching self-efficacy for inclusive education; principally focusing on the explanatory relationship between a scale designed to measure teaching self-efficacy in this area and key demographic variables within Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and…

Improving the quality of training for no-fee preservice students is crucial in implementing the no-fee teacher education policy. This study used the Preservice Student Professional Growth Questionnaire to survey the level of professional knowledge of the first class (entering in 2007) of Northeast Normal University preservice students during the…

The 1999 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study revealed that most countries having recently undergone political and social transformations had lower civic knowledge scores than more stable nations. However, Poland, which instituted policies aimed at educating citizens for democratic…

As a new decade dawns, teachers stand at the center of a policy vortex. They serve as the primary focus of one of the Obama administration's four pillars of educational reform--effective teachers and leaders. Educational reformers of all stripes have focused tremendous energy on thinking of ways to identify effective teachers and in turn recruit,…

In an environment characterised by increasing complexity where teachers need to make sophisticated pedagogical decisions the minimum requirement for teaching in Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) is a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (CIV TAA). This paper asks: Does the CIV TAA provide opportunities for participants to…