A persistent challenge for Australian higher education policymakers and researchers has been to understand why policies and practices have met with limited success in widening the participation and attainment of non-traditional students. This paper explores theorising Narrative Identity as a constructive methodological framework for understanding…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the academic community's perspectives about climate change learning and engagement opportunities by means of a case study at the University of Passo Fundo, Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: A set of interviews and focus groups were conducted, and data collection focused on three main groups, namely,…

Background: To address complex challenges of modern society, engineering education needs to help students develop sociotechnical perspectives of engineering. Research has documented efforts to incorporate sociotechnical thinking into undergraduate engineering education, but those perspectives must often compete with more dominant technocentric…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer direct tests of the effectiveness of renaming vocational education and training (VET) in enhancing the image and popularity of the subject. Although many proponents of renaming argue that the word "vocational" is associated with lower levels of skills and knowledge and should therefore be…

Experimental evidence of effects of instructors' growth or fixed mindsets has so far been provided only by studies on U.S. university students. Research outside the US and on primary and secondary school students has relied on correlational data. In two preregistered vignette experiments with secondary school and university students in Germany (N…

In any educational setting, stigmatisation and implicit biases can stifle growth and reduce the quality of the learning experience of students from low socio-economic status by creating invisible barriers to opportunity and achievement. Furthermore, due to the lack of monitoring and mentoring, these invisible barriers become harder to detect and…

This study explored the potential of a training intervention to build equity-minded capacity among practitioners in higher education. The goal of this Dissertation in Practice was to determine if a workshop grounded in organizational learning theory could be effective at changing practitioner language, beliefs, and practices around racial equity…

Recent evidence suggests that higher education promotes moral attitudes typical of the progressive left. What aspects of the university experience contribute to this moral change? We conduct an exploratory analysis unpacking how curricular content and peer networks--two aspects of the 'bundle' of social influences that occur in university…

The purpose of this paper is to share how schools and universities can partner intentionally through Professional Development Schools to enhance democracy by answering the questions: (1) What is it about Professional Development Schools, as robust school-university partnerships, that give voice to teachers to enhance democracy, particularly in a…

Between the decades of 1970 through 1999, there were major shifts in higher education in New Jersey. Utilizing a grounded theory approach this dissertation created a database of legislation, hearings transcripts, and education reports. Searching this database for commonly used terminology, this dissertation was seeking a pattern in language use…

Internationalization policy in higher education facilitates a nation's economic growth and demonstrates generosity to other nations. This study investigates the impact of the International Higher Education Scholarship Program of the International Cooperation and Development Fund on recipients' perceptions of and experiences in Taiwan. Based on the…

As concerns about sexual and reproductive health and rights become integrated into public health policies, the demand for higher education in sexology rises. There is a need therefore to evaluate established pedagogical methods to ensure that they are relevant, efficient and lead to valuable competencies. This study explored the current evidence…

Across higher education there is a misalignment between the policies and practices of evaluation and the core values for which universities profess to stand. Values of inclusion, transdisciplinarity, and publicly engaged scholarship are routinely undervalued in university practices of evaluation. Shifting attention toward high-impact ends of…

Often second generation young adults and their immigrant parents aspire high and towards general education despite a modest socioeconomic background. Little is known about the interrelation between educational aspirations and institutionally co-structured educational pathways. These interrelations are particularly important in an early tracking…

University participation gaps between free school meals (FSM) and non-FSM students have remained largely stable in the UK since 2006. The efficacy of UK widening participation (WP) interventions in changing attitudes towards university and increasing participation of disadvantaged students is uncertain. Some approaches have shown to be effective…