Social mobility and improving the performance of disadvantaged pupils is a focus for policy in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. The findings from PISA 2018 provide a unique opportunity to explore the impact of disadvantage on pupils aged 15, to contextualise achievement outcomes with information about home-life and school, as well as providing…

Designing investigative skills sessions for key stage 5 students based on field research in the Ghanaian savannah prompted reflection on the similarities and differences in the ways farmers and students learned about and applied scientific methodology. Circumstantial constraints mean that farmers' experiments were less controlled than those…

As the world changes, education must also change. People can no longer afford to rely on a 19th century or even a 20th century education system any more than they can afford to rely on 19th century transportation, communication, or medical systems. This author discusses the obligation of educators to foster for their students the knowledge and…

This paper is concerned with the cultures of learning and the customs of learners. A distinction is drawn between the base learning culture of the learner as that which represents the knowledge, learning orientations, and strategies the learner brings to a learning situation, and a cultural learning posture that comprises the knowledge, learning…

Defines and documents the interplay between indigenous folk knowledge and modern (western) curriculum practice in African schools. Raises questions of cultural identity. Explores the definition of indigenous knowledge, examines dilemmas that undermine efforts to integrate indigenous education in formal school curriculum, and outlines the rationale…

Defines self-regulated learning as a problem-solving or goal-directed process orchestrated by the student but influenced by others in the student's environment. Discovers that self-regulating programs in Japan and the United States are remarkably similar with some differences. Praises Japanese instructors' emphasis on effort over ability. (MJP)

Identifies problems with the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) as a survey instrument for use with non-Western students. A study using ASI attempted to examine the effects of secondary educational experiences on Fiji college students' study habits. Responses suggested the students were influenced by an acquiescent response bias. (MJP)