Discussions of diversity in relation to children's education are often characterized by binaries of same/different, mainstream/margins, inclusion/exclusion, self/Other. Curriculum remains a contested site in educational debate, with differing views about curriculum as reinforcing social norms, beliefs, and values, as addressing the learning and…

Through an analysis of school uniform policies and theories of social justice, Samantha Deane argues that school uniforms and their foregoing policies assume that confronting strangers--an imperative of living in a democratic polity--is something that requires seeing sameness instead of recognizing difference. Imbuing schooling with a directive…

This article critiques the notion of individually-focused notions of leadership, instead offering an ecocritical conceptual framework that works to support education at all levels with the aim of recognizing the importance of how leaders in Western industrial culture think, act, and thus organize communities. This framework is applied to examine…

This article examines the main strands of thinking about gravity through the ages and the continuity of thought-experiments, from the early Greeks, through medieval times, to Galileo, Newton and Einstein. The key ideas are used to contextualise an empirical study of 247 children's ideas about falling objects carried out in China and New Zealand,…

This critical literature review argues that, in a world of increasing global interconnectedness, balancing the two diametrically opposite forces of globalism and tribalism is of critical importance. The article begins with a brief description of the world of the 21st century and goes on to discuss the terms "globalism" and "tribalism" within this…

Global citizenship education has been suggested as a means of overcoming the limitations of national citizenship in an increasingly globalised world. In divided societies, global citizenship education is especially relevant and problematic as it offers the opportunity to explore identities and conflict in a wider context. This paper therefore…

This commentary focuses on school leadership as connective activity. Leadership is essentially about designing, managing and energizing the right connections, and untying the wrong ones, in order to make schools successful, equitable, happier places. The author's basic proposition is that school leaders who influence students and their communities…

Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification, and it can be a challenging place for adolescents to grow up. "Unequal City" examines the ways in which Chicago's most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the…

Western and East Asian people hold fundamentally different beliefs about learning that influence how they approach child rearing and education. Reviewing decades of research, Dr. Jin Li presents an important conceptual distinction between the Western mind model and the East Asian virtue model of learning. The former aims to cultivate the mind to…

As a flashpoint for specific instances of conflict, Muslim sartorial practices have at times been seen as being antagonistic to "western" ideas of gender equality, secularity, and communicative practices. In light of this, I seek to highlight the ways in which such moments of antagonism actually might be understood on "cosmopolitical" terms, that…

Turner's (1974) conception of liminal space provides an entry point to look beyond the given and to create opportunities to examine, critique, and challenge the assumptions inherent in many music programs. Building upon his theory of liminality as a place that is "ambiguous, neither here or there, betwixt and between all fixed points of…

This forum constitutes a cogenerative inquiry using postcolonial theory drawn from the review paper by Zembylas and Avraamidou. Three teacher educators from African, Asian and Caribbean countries reflect on problems confronting their professional practices and consider the prospects of creating culturally inclusive science education. We learn that…

Efforts to improve education, including the use of educational technology, are subject to factors within the context where the change is intended. In countries not typically classified as advanced, the change methods to be used, the probability of success, and even the ways of measuring achievement most likely will vary on the basis of cultural…

Substantial growth of Hispanic and Asian immigration in the United States during the past decade has begun to affect almost all school systems, not just those in urban or coastal areas. This realization has led the author to choose Developing a World View for Science Education as the theme for his National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)…