Traineeships have been shown to be successful in generating improved labour market outcomes and are often recommended as a policy option for disadvantaged youth. Regretfully data indicate that one such target group, Indigenous Australians, continues to have lower traineeship completion rates than the non-Indigenous. To address this issue, a…

Children's development is fostered by both high quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings and high quality home learning environments. As we know little about the interrelations between these two environments, we examine whether the child's attendance in a high quality ECEC arrangement relates to the quality of her home learning…

Research on the role of institutions in influencing students' readiness for college has so far focused primarily on the school level and the state policy context, with only little attention to the district. This case study, based on interview data and documents collected over the course of a year, analyzes an urban district's attempt to create a…

Background: Authorities recommend that youth undertake at least 60 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), with young people having the opportunity to undertake at least half of this MVPA during school hours. Methods: In this study, we examined the influence of school-level socioeconomic status (SES) on children's PA,…

Studies on student engagement in learning have mainly focused on undergraduate degree courses. Limited attempts have been made to examine student engagement on open access enabling courses, which is targeted to underrepresented students in higher education. Students on open access enabling courses are at high risk due to a low academic achievement…

The central purpose of this paper is to examine validity problems arising from the multiple-choice items and technical passages in the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test (TOEFL iBT) reading section, primarily concentrating on construct-irrelevant variance (Messick, 1989). My personal TOEFL iBT experience, along with my…

In February of this year, music educators from around the state of Ohio gathered once again for the annual Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) Professional Development Conference held in Cleveland. The research track of the conference commenced with the Graduate Research Forum featuring music education scholar Dr. Regina Carlow of the…

This paper aims at examining language socialisation practices of members of two groups of migrants of Nigerien origin living in Ghana, i.e. Tamasheque-speaking beggars in Accra and Hausa/Zambarima/Buzu-speaking hawkers at the Akuapem Ridge. We examine the migrants' language practices in various domains, such as work and home, interrogate whether…

While the terms student-centred and learner-centred are used to describe a range of neo-liberal educational policies and practices around the world, the meaning is not clearly defined. This limits its utility as a concept in policy, research and practice. This article applies abductive reasoning to explore how student-centred education is…

Poverty is discussed here from pedagogical and therefore instructional perspectives. It is analyzed in novel ways, seeing charities as environments wherein adult learning occurs. Charities are shown as overlooked "adult learning institutions" that "instruct" the poor by conveying to them (indirectly "through" the type…

The early reading gap among diverse subgroups of students in schools has made teachers conscious of how students' culture affects their perceptions of reading and the literacy materials now being used in classrooms. The reported racial and gender gap among elementary literacy readers leaves African American boys on the fringes of literacy growth…

This article revisits questions on the utility of identity in literacy studies. Following a review of the range of conceptions of identity and framings of its uses, we argue that "identity-as-position" is needed as a pragmatic tool in the field of literacy studies, and grounds responsive critical literacy practices. Drawing on a…

This article contributes to expand the definition of equity in education and science education through the consideration of the challenges and opportunities for addressing social justice issues in a particular community in Argentina. We discuss (a) the relationship between equity and culture and personal histories and heritage in education and (b)…

The present study explores how officials in Swedish secondary schools define and categorize situations in which students have been exposed to violence in the school. The study is designed as a case study of two secondary schools, situated in two demographically different urban neighbourhoods. The results indicate that different socio-economic…

This article addresses the controversy surrounding the Safe Schools Coalition Australia. Certain politicians and media commentators have accused the initiative of harming the students it ostensibly aims to benefit. Those accusations have, in turn, been labelled 'homophobic' by supporters of the Coalition. This article suggests that the term…