Increasingly, there are expectations internationally that schools will use research to inform their improvement initiatives. Within this context, this paper brings together findings from two large-scale Australian studies - the Monash Q Project and the University of Newcastle's Quality Teaching Rounds Project - to explore educators' patterns of…

This paper seeks to examine a specific development in the history of teacher education to explore whether it might illuminate and inform contemporary debate. It offers a historical/comparative analysis of the contribution of teachers' centres to the professional development of teachers in England and Spain during the late 1960s to the early 1990s.…

Most education systems have set a minimum age until which students must stay at school. In the case of Spain, students can drop out the same day they reach that age, even without finishing that academic year. In the present research work, we intend to analyse the influence of early dropout on later life outcomes for the Spanish population, i.e.…

In 2010, the Department for Education in England decided to reform the vocational qualifications offered in secondary education (i.e., for 14-18 year olds) in order to increase their rigour and status. They set out new criteria that vocational qualifications needed to meet, which changed their nature in fundamental ways (e.g., content, assessment…

This article examines the effects of education system types and characteristics on changes in the distributions of literacy and numeracy skills during the upper secondary phase of education and training. Whereas there is a substantial literature on system effects on skills during the primary and lower secondary phases of education, much less has…

Educational discourses have embraced therapeutic discourse, a psychology-based system of assumptions about the self, its boundaries, development and social relations. While scholars have debated the virtues of this therapeutic turn, there has been little empirical study of therapeutic discourse in teacher pedagogical discourse. This article, using…

This meta-analytic review examines the relationships between students' sense of school belonging and students' motivational, social-emotional, behavioural, and academic functioning in secondary education. Moreover, it examines to what extent these relationships differ between different student groups (grade level, SES), measurement instruments,…

Neglected in policy and the public consciousness, Alternative Provision is the expanding putty of the education sector, working within the gaps left by other agencies to re-engage children. Yet to engage children, Alternative Provision must first engage families and home visits are crucial to this process. Often triggered by absences or…

The importance of teacher subject knowledge as key professional knowledge has been emphasised in successive studies over the past thirty years, yet there are very few empirical studies which address either content or pedagogical knowledge for teaching writing. At the same time, in a number of international jurisdictions, writing attainment lags…

Agentic teacher learning is central for teachers' professional development, school development and student achievement. The purpose of the study was to explore trajectories of teachers' professional agency in the professional community during a three-year follow-up period. The data comprised surveys with Finnish comprehensive school teachers…

Reading is fundamental to academic success, but international reading surveys indicate current pedagogy fails a fifth of adolescents, disproportionately from lower-socioeconomic groups. This UK, mixed-method study evaluated the impact of two whole-text reading approaches on comprehension, using standardised tests. Twenty teachers of English and…

Against the backdrop of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the number of educational migrants from the member states, particularly African international students, has dramatically increased over the past decade in China. Much of previous research on international student mobility (ISM) and its…

Teacher Efficacy (TE) refers to teachers' confidence in their ability to promote student's learning. Research shows that generalist teachers' TE for music education is generally low, with many teachers associating music education with innate musical talents -- a problem exacerbated by music education programmes that focus on singing or playing…

Politics and pragmatics are central and inseparable features of curriculum reform. In a federated system like Australia, many individuals and organisations are invested in reform at the national and jurisdictional level. This paper focuses on the policy work and roles of key actors positioned at the interface of national and state-based curriculum…

This study reports on the adaptation and outcomes of a teacher professional development (TPD) programme in a rural Zimbabwean secondary school. The programme incorporated Open Educational Resources (OER), specifically OER4school materials, that were provided via tablet computers for teachers and students. A mixed-methods case study was employed to…