This special issue on "The Role of Spirituality, Religion and the African American Church on Educational Outcomes" is extremely timely. Moreover, the fact that this conversation is taking place in "The Journal of Negro Education" ("JNE") demonstrates once again that the "JNE" has its finger firmly on the pulse of significant educational and…

Alexander, Van Wyk, Bereng and November (2009) are of the opinion that the purpose of education is the development of human capital towards meeting and achieving the individual and psycho-social needs of learners and communities which should be brought about through a process of transformation. In essence, this would imply that any discourse with…

This paper explores, with a qualitative framework, critical social theory and thematic analysis, the narratives of many Aboriginal elders of Mornington Island (Kunhanhaa) about their history and their potential to form productive kin-based relationships with visiting teachers in order to influence the curriculum and pedagogy delivered at the local…

Online education has a presence in most Australian universities, and its uptake has been broadly understood as being driven by external imperatives associated with intensive competition within the global knowledge economy. However, the implementation of online education does not take place uniformly, and tensions can arise as a consequence of the…

This paper investigates regional Australian students' aspirations and expectations for their future and, more specifically, the manner in which these are formulated around a view to move outward--that is, away from regional, remote and rural communities--and onward--that is, to make something of their lives. Drawing upon interview data, the paper…

During the past decade, there has been more than an adequate amount of research addressing issues regarding social studies methods courses. However, the apparent void is that there is no clear understanding of what pedagogical content knowledge or understanding of pedagogical approaches teacher candidates bring with them to social studies methods…

An economically healthy continuing education institution thrives or declines on its ability to offer courses that sufficient numbers of students want to enroll in and do in timely fashion. A key metric associated with this is the percentage of courses offered in any given quarter that are cancelled. Low cancellation rates contribute to…

The "fingerpost" is that ubiquitous hand with one extended finger long seen in public places, accompanied by directions such as "to the ladies' toilets" or "exit this way." More recently, that same finger has been widely adopted in electronic media, for the purpose of leading people simply and intuitively to a…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a national survey of government primary school principals in Australia, investigating the purposes of education, in terms of the importance and level of enactment of those purposes in schools. Design/methodology/approach: In 2009, an electronic survey was distributed to government…

This study was conducted to examine the expectations of adult graduate students enrolled in an online degree program at a research university in the mid-South United States. Students who were pursuing their master of education degree were invited to participate in an e-Focus group regarding their expectations of the degree program. Focus groups…

It has become commonplace for Canada to take last place in international comparisons of early childhood education and care (ECEC) arrangements or to be chastised and exhorted to do better. In 2007, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, following on an election commitment to bring in "full-day early learning", appointed a Special Advisor on…

Inclusion, promoted internationally by both legislative mandate and societal values, is a practice in which early childhood educators are encouraged to explore new methods for serving children with disabilities and developmental delays in typical early childhood programs. The belief that children with disabilities should participate within natural…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), one of the most widely used annual surveys of undergraduates in the country, is specifically designed to assess the extent to which college students are engaged in empirically vetted good practices in undergraduate education. One of the major assumptions of the NSSE is that in measuring the extent…

Language learner strategies (LLS) have long been viewed as a variable of individual differences, or as cognitive skills. This study, focusing as it does on the data taken from a series of focus groups with 47 senior secondary students in mainland China, seeks a new interpretation of strategy development and use from a sociocultural perspective.…

Italy's poor performance in various indicators of educational achievement, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has featured strongly in analyses of Italian education policy, and its progress towards the Lisbon objectives has been slow. With weak outcomes often linked to a highly stratified system of upper secondary…