This paper draws on a case study conducted in a Chinese university in the context of national College English reform. The aim is to investigate the policy enactment of the latest College English reform in China and the interaction between national policies, institutional policy, and teacher agency in responding to this educational reform from an…

Educational reforms are often translated in and implemented through artifacts. Although research has frequently treated artifacts as merely functional, more recent work acknowledges the complex relationship between material artifacts and human/organizational behavior. This article aims at disentangling this relationship in order to deepen our…

The current zeitgeist in education in the USA emphasizes accountability for schools, students, and teachers, based on performance that can be easily quantified. Within this, current debates involving who should be teaching, what a good teacher looks like, and how best to evaluate and reward teachers are actually debates about the teaching…

Digital technology is increasingly central to our lives, particularly among young people. However, there remains a concern from government and businesses of a digital skills gap because many youths, especially girls, tend to be consumers rather than creators of technology. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally skilled teenagers…

This article aims to investigate how the discourse on national identity is approached in the new Taiwanese citizenship curriculum. The differing opinions on Taiwan's relationship with China and the constant threat from this rising superpower have deterred the explicit promotion of either a Taiwanese or Chinese identity. The new curriculum follows…

The study of recruitment practices for teacher educators (TEs) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) universities reveals the academic category of TE constituted along three related trajectories: a professional expert (not required to research), a traditional academic (not required to hold a teaching qualification or teacher's practicing certificate), and…

Operating within a neoliberal education reform context, performativity and teaching in schools has been a focus of study for a number of years. However, less is known about the effects of performativity on teaching and curriculum in the early childhood (preschool) context. Making a case for the intensification of performativity in Australian early…

This article studies the problem of the implementation of European educational standards in Kazakhstan higher education. This is considered in the frame of post-socialist education, when reforms in several post-Soviet states were undertaken under the Bologna Process. Kazakhstan, as this article argues, is justified for consideration in the frame…

Purpose: This article shows the effects of competing political forces on citizenship education in Turkey during the period of commitment to European Union (EU) accession (1999-2005). Methodology: It draws on textbooks, archival documents and interviews. Whilst Turkey had a history of civic education to promote a secular national ethos and…

The imperative of continuous improvement has now become normative in education policy discourse, typically framed as setting "aspirational" targets for pupil performance as a prerequisite for gaining competitive advantage in the global economy. In this context, teachers, leaders, teacher assistants and other practitioners working in…

Classroom talk patterns are notoriously resistant to change. This article examines changes in one fifth-grade teacher's discourse practices and beliefs as she and the author engaged in inquiry-driven professional development. Discourse analysis of class discussions and qualitative analysis of transcripts of professional development sessions…

Policy discourse officially operates to distinctly influence public perception in an irrevocable and normalising manner. In a Maltese educational scenario of gradual decentralisation and increased accountability, I explore the "effects" of both the global and the local policy discourse of networks and networking on the practising…

There has been a growing concentration of high-achieving students attending selective public schools of choice as part of the neoliberal reforms of education. While this growth has had an eroding effect on the aim of inclusivity in public education, few have explored this development as a new segment of elite schooling. This paper fills this gap…

This paper describes a qualitative study that explored the understandings of human rights, pedagogical perspectives and practices in human rights teaching of three Greek-Cypriot elementary teachers. The study revealed some significant challenges in human rights teaching that seemed to be common for all three participating teachers. First, all of…

Drawing on data from a series of semi-structured interviews this article reports on findings from a research project focusing on the responses of two local authorities and their secondary schools to the Academies Act 2010. The article considers the background and the development of the education system in both localities. It goes on to focus on…