In addition to the third edition of EUA's Autonomy Scorecard, which was published in March 2023, a series of country profiles were released between Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024. The comprehensive analysis of all indicators in these systems revealed that in some cases there was a need for a different categorisation of specific situations. While the…

Children develop and learn within dynamic contexts, yet the simplifying assumptions of common statistical methods often relegate such complexity to unexplained error. This chapter discusses ideas from the dynamic systems literature, which focuses on the interplay within and between components of complex systems, such as individuals and their…

Conditioned fear memories that are context-specific shortly after conditioning generalize over time. We exposed rats to a context reminder 30 d after conditioning, which served to reinstate context-specificity, and investigated how this reminder alters retrieval-induced activity in the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex (aCC) relative to a…

Classroom assessment and large-scale assessment have, for the most part, existed in mutual isolation. Some experts have felt this is for the best and others have been concerned that the schism limits the potential contribution of both forms of assessment. Margaret Heritage has long been a champion of best practices in classroom assessment. Neal…

This article presents an analytic approach to assessing the relationship between policy advocacy activities and outcomes for discrete episodes of advocacy, using a holistic array of factors that affect the relationship between advocacy and policy change. The factors pertain to not only advocacy organizational structure and strategies, but also the…

Whereas the significance and potential impacts of messiness in mixed methods research have been well acknowledged, the literature on mixed methods research has accumulated few examples of engaging and navigating mess. This article provides an account of the nitty-gritty of messiness and its consequences during the process of mixed methods…

This article describes aspects of the physical education context that set it apart from other instructional contexts. While physical educators share numerous attributes with other teachers--for example, a love of children and a commitment to their content area--many distinctions exist, as well. The nature of physical education is such that…

English became one of the common modes to get back to the audience and common mass. Media jargons and registers are not very easy to handle and vocabulary is a key issue in media studies. This research solely emphasizes on the importance of professional English vocabulary. It also focuses on professional vocabulary of Electronic and Print Media in…

This paper is designed to contribute to the discussion on how to conceptualise and study contextual influence in local school development. We propose a theoretical framework and an empirical illustration to supplement former research on rural school research. Focusing on what the school perceives as important in its community may explain why…

The centrality of education in the pursuit of better economic and social prosperity is now well established. The dominance of human capital theory, which provides a strong argument for better education as a key factor in fuelling economic growth, has encouraged policy makers, in various countries, to focus on education reform as a key priority and…

In this paper, we outline a pilot project aimed at exploring the role of contextual factors in the facilitation of creativity and innovation within a range of South African art forms. Interviews with 11 people who have rich experience of the South African art domain delivered an insightful perspective on the contextual factors driving lifelong…

Although any mainstream thought is subject to theoretical challenges, the challenges to the mainstream cognitive perspective on transfer have had an unfortunate divisive effect. This article takes a pragmatic view that transfer perspectives are simply designed objects (Plomp & Nieveen, 2007), which provide different information for different…

Allowing nonschool organizations to provide sex education in a released-time format would disestablish state-funded sex education and give families a choice in the sex education that would be provided for their children. Released-time programs, as originally conceived and currently practiced, allow students to be released for a period of time…

Market reforms in education are part of the educational policy landscape in many countries. Central to arguments for market reforms is the idea that competition and choice will spur changes in schools to be more innovative, which in turn will lead to better student outcomes. We define innovation in terms of a practice's relative prevalence in a…

This essay raises concerns over the future direction for educational aid designed to promote literacy in developing countries. The essay focuses on the EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment) initiative in Africa. At one level, this essay challenges the claims for empirical and research-based support for the EGRA. At a broader level, this essay…