Job satisfaction among teachers is important for their motivation to effect changes. However, in China, job satisfaction in early childhood education is a pressing issue, which leads to high attrition rates among preschool teachers. Thus, this study examined the role of school culture regarding job satisfaction and teaching autonomy among teachers…

A significant paradox of school autonomy is that it tends to constrain the autonomy of teachers, instead subjecting them to the increased controlling of their work, heightened monitoring, and greater accountability. This paper draws on interview data to show how teachers in accountability-driven and business-like schools face three different but…

Commercial platforms are being increasingly used in classrooms as teaching and learning tools. Beyond shifts in practice to accommodate this, the teacher becomes a tool of the platform -- generating and collecting data for commercial entities. It is time to move from commercial platforms working through teachers to influence education, towards…

The aim of this article is to explore how Swedish principals experienced the decentralisation and re-centralisation reforms and how they affected principals' autonomy and decision-making capacity. Data were obtained from three surveys of Swedish principals, carried out in 2005, 2012 and 2019. The results show that principals experienced a high…

The participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforces is overwhelmingly low as compared to their male counterparts. The low uptake of cybersecurity careers has been documented in the previous studies conducted in the contexts of the West and Eastern worlds. However, most of the past studies mainly…

The rise of performative culture in education and intensifying forms of test-based accountability have subjected teachers to a ubiquitous 'field of judgment' through which they are held to account. Within this context, professional development is consistently deployed as a key solution to stagnant or declining student outcomes. In this paper, we…

Recent circumstances (e.g., COVID-19, socio-political tensions) exacerbate persistent teacher shortages, reinforcing the need to attend to factors associated with teacher retention. In this multimethod study, we explore outcomes of an online, year-long professional development focused on collaboration and autonomy -- two factors correlated with…

This paper examines how teachers see policy and how the visibility of various aspects of policymaking are mediated by our school contexts. As a perspective from a K-12 classroom teacher conducting policy research with other classroom teachers, this paper also explores how teachers, in turn, might make our policy work visible to ourselves and the…

This article explores how the new Curriculum for Wales offers an alternative to the traditional status quo in the schooling of industrialised societies by providing an opportunity for inquiry-led approaches. It argues that mainstream schooling is beholden to dominant discourses that have an alleigance to a factory-model of education. As a…

The recent discussion paper on teachers presented at the United Nations Transforming Education Summit emphasizes the inclusion of teachers in social dialogue at the global and local levels. However, the requisite structural arrangements are not yet in place for teachers' voices to be heard or their perspectives acted on, especially in humanitarian…

The successful learning and professional development of student teachers in field experiences depend on the conditions at the individual practicum school. As a consequence, researchers have investigated the relevance of various contextual factors (e.g. mentoring) and ways of improving them (e.g. mentor training). Whether and to what avail student…

This dissertation study investigated secondary mathematics teachers' designing and enacting lessons to draw on students' multiple mathematical knowledge bases. The ultimate objective of incorporating open spaces in mathematics lessons is to support students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in developing mathematical…

Professional development should be linked to fostering best practice and improving student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2009). By providing ongoing opportunities for professional learning that focus on best practice, teachers are more likely to develop the knowledge and skills associated with high-quality teacher instruction and raising student…

Using social constructivist theories of adult learning and complexity thinking perspectives, a long-term, multi-tiered professional development (PD) programme was designed, implemented and evaluated at Qatar University. This qualitative study explored the systems of influence on 24 university teachers' professional agency for learning and leading…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore two research questions around how novice special education teachers in the United States describe their experiences, obtained in formal preservice training programs or informal settings, that positively affected their self-efficacy to manage a classroom of students with complex…