Understanding the challenges of inclusive education is essential for evaluating its effectiveness. By identifying these obstacles, stakeholders, policymakers, and educators can systematically address the issues. This study investigates the barriers to including children with Down syndrome in kindergartens in Kuwait, focusing on teachers'…

The role played by innovative educational environments to support learning for the 21st century has attracted the interest of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development at the global governance level and at the national policy level internationally. This article draws on global, European and Australasian research and data from a…

This paper examines the design of school buildings in the last decade of the Portuguese dictatorship (1964-1974) and its relationship with the country's educational policies, geared towards the objectives of industrialisation and economic growth. It also considers the economic constraints placed on the building of schools, the technical and…

New Zealand's National-led Government, elected in 2008, has pursued a deliberate policy to design and construct modern school facilities around the country. This article argues that this policy is not simply focused on providing cutting-edge school buildings. A more complex agenda is to fundamentally alter teacher practice and, as the Christchurch…

During the Portuguese dictatorship (1926-1974), the former president Oliveira Salazar started to slowly open the regime to European policies after World War II. In 1960, the Minister of Education, Leite Pinto, integrated Portugal in the OECD Mediterranean Regional Project, which was created to improve the educational system in developing…

School leaders across the United States face the challenge of creating safe and secure environments across their campuses in a way that helps promote the achievement of schools' educational objectives. To help them meet this challenge, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency asked the Homeland…

This issue of the "European Journal of Education" examines a crucially important, though largely overlooked, area in educational design research: architecting and building physical educational environments. Effective policymaking in school design necessitates the negotiated, shared and timely input of key educational stakeholders,…

It is recognised that educational environments influence learning experiences, so it is important to ensure that educational buildings are designed to be fit for purpose. In order to ensure that educational buildings meet the needs of those who use them, all relevant stakeholders should be involved in the design process. However, this is not…

The idea that the New Zealand education system will cater to all students, regardless of ability, and support them in developing their full potential to the best of their abilities, is enshrined in the famous 1939 Beeby/Fraser statement. Equality of access policy discourse has shifted to emphasise equitable outcomes, focussed increasingly on…

Internationally, Intercultural Understanding (ICU) is increasingly prevalent in the field of education. The recent evidence base includes a growing academic literature and examples of specified education policy and curricula. In regards to leveraging ICU, research suggests a multi-level and longitudinal approach is needed to ensure effective and…

The manner in which the built environment is constructed has a tremendous effect on the degree to which health, wealth and social outcomes are distributed within a society. This is particularly evident when a crisis of the natural environment affects the built environment, as was the case after the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Understanding the…

This article seeks to augment an emerging interest in education policy research in enactment theorising, to explicitly consider the role and contribution of materiality in this theorising. Guided by the notion of policy "matters," the article takes as its empirical context a major policy initiative, the Building the Education Revolution…

This article investigates how school building design can support primary school feeding programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Furthermore it argues for schools to become community "development hubs"; incorporating both local access to education and also to programmes for nutrition, ICT, health education and other services,…

A lot of misunderstandings exist regarding sustainable, or green, construction. It is important that educators understand the benefits so they can communicate them to stakeholders. According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a $4 investment (per square foot) in building green nets a $58 benefit (per square foot) over 20 years. Savings…

Public education is one of the central tasks of a democratic society, and the buildings that house this important task not only shape the way one teaches, but provide icons and symbols for the values people hold common as a society. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this context has placed school buildings squarely in a position of debate and innovation…