Current research around the middle grades has brought a heightened attention by teachers, policymakers, and researchers recognizing that this stage is a time when a students' health and social and emotional well-being directly impacts their academic progress. To date, school leaders and teachers have not been well served by explicit resources for…

This Australian study examines whether and how technologies such as Artificially Intelligent (AI) toys in a home-based setting might socially and emotionally support children with diverse needs through play. Building on the concept of 'emotional capital', and employing a design-based research approach, parents during the COVID-19 lockdown periods…

The time children spend in nature has severely decreased. While nature-based learning at school is considered an important strategy in addressing this, numerous knowledge gaps continue to remain. To address these, a systematic review was undertaken. Nine commonly used health and education databases were searched from inception to January 2019. To…

Drawing on data from preschools in Australia and the United States, the authors highlight strategies to help teachers demystify the process of engaging young learners with tangible technologies and showcase how robotic manipulatives serve as catalysts for peer collaboration, socio-emotional development, and creative problem solving.

A thriving and evolving pool of research and commentary is emerging in relation to the integration of mindfulness techniques in school and out-of-school settings. In the current study the author explored how experienced mindbody wellness instructors make sense of teaching children mindfulness. The methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological…

We write as critical theorists, who consider that in terms of scoping out robust conceptual elaborations which are suitable for contemporary schooling, that physical education has ground to make up connecting theory with practice and practice with theory. We advocate that aspects of existentialism and phenomenology can provide a theoretically…

Australia has always been known as one of the most multicultural countries in the world, but as globalisation becomes the norm and we begin to welcome people from countries with vastly different backgrounds, experiences, ideologies, values and belief systems, how can we harness the power of education to develop intercultural competence and enhance…

This study examined how teachers support kindergarten children's social and emotional development in everyday contexts. It used an ethnographic qualitative mode of enquiry, employing participant observations and semi-structured and structured interviews to examine the ways teachers optimize opportunities for supporting kindergarten children's…

Duoethnography and narrative inquiry are used to investigate the perspectives of two experienced teachers from contrasting curriculum specialties, one in music and the other in mathematics within a primary school setting. Initiated by the music teacher, research focuses on the usefulness of embodied and participatory forms of music-making for…

This paper investigates the commercialisation of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in Australian schools. Specifically, it focuses on understanding why teachers value commercial resources, and how they enact these in their classrooms. Theorising around teacher agency suggests teachers are now choosing to use a range of commercial resources and…

This article reports on the findings of a learning and teaching project exploring the application of flipped classroom models, funded by Macquarie's Faculty of Arts. Scholarship on the impact of flipping in tertiary institutions has been focussed mainly on the sciences rather than the arts. This article reports on the author's early experiments…

Decades of research on social skills assessment and intervention indicates the importance of social skills in improving academic achievement. Additionally, a strong evidence base promotes the inclusion of social-emotional learning into the whole school curriculum. In recognition of this evidence, the new Australian Curriculum, under Personal and…

Early adolescence marks a developmental period during which there is a window of opportunity to explicitly teach and make a significant difference in a young person's development of social and emotional competencies (SECs). All students can benefit from the inclusion of SECs and failing to develop such SECs can result in poor outcomes in several…

The transition to formal education is a critical transition in children's lives that has importance for socio-emotional and behavioral functioning. In the transition process, teachers are key players who work intensively with children and their families. This article focuses on teachers' perceptions of children´s socio-emotional behavior during…

There is a strong belief by most governments, enterprises and higher education providers that competence in the academic fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is not developing as quickly as required in spite of the importance for innovation, productivity, prosperity and international standing. This belief is often…