In recent years right-extremist ideologies, parties and regimes are gaining popularity and power all over the globe, and as days go by, hope for equality, freedom and peace seems more and more unrealistic, delusionary, perhaps even dangerous. To what goals and in which ways should one educate in a reality that offers no end in sight to oppression?…

Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is an important psychological construct that can have significant implications for individuals' positive development and adjustment. The multifaceted nature of ERI has been well documented, and scholars have identified clear distinctions between process and content dimensions of ERI. ERI affect is among the most widely…

This paper explores the critical difference a certified Action Learning Coach makes to the outcomes of the Action Learning process, which underscores WIAL's insistence that the coach is indispensable to achieving breakthrough solutions with Action Learning. Real-life coaching examples are used to illustrate three key benefits of having a coach:…

In this article, I leverage the sociological insights of Randall Collins to examine contemporary accounts of "fun teaching" in teacher education: the pervasive mood of "fun," "energy," and "enthusiasm" in North American education faculties and popular teacher professional development literature. Focusing on…

The popular trend of manifesting involves supposedly making something happen by imagining it and consciously thinking it will happen in order to will it into existence. In this paper Laura D'Olimpio explains why manifesting is a form of wishful thinking and argues that it is an epistemic vice. She describes how such wishful thinking generally, and…

In this exchange, the authors each address five questions about creativity, and then provide a final synthesizing response. The five questions they address are: (1) What is creativity? Are there different processes, types, or kinds of creativity, and if so, what are they? (2) What are the major obstacles to people thinking and acting creatively?…

This is a conceptual paper that explores critiquing picturebooks set in Africa. The paper is grounded in BlackCrit (Black Critical Theory) and Racial and Ethnic Socialization (RES). Using pragmatism as a method, we offer a detailed analysis of 3 carefully selected books, on the broad basis of authenticity, accuracy, and respectfulness. A deeper…

This paper analyses potential links between extreme optimism and student loan debt. Prior work finds extreme optimism to be associated with imprudent household savings and investment decisions. This paper explores whether these findings are relevant to student loan decisions. Using the most recent administration of the Survey of Consumer Finances…

This article seeks to explore how, why and under which conditions a move away from critique as a negative practice towards an -- educationally more valuable -- affirmative notion of critique is important in formulating pedagogies that might respond more productively to the challenges of the post-truth era. What is at stake here in reframing…

The increased governmental focus on happiness since the late 1990s, and particularly since the economic crash of 2008, has been informed predominantly by a conceptualisation of happiness promoted by the field of positive psychology, and adopted and developed in fields such as behavioural economics and more recently in fields such as…

Research shows that utilizing Google Chat aids in positive student experiences (Saadatmand et al., European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning 20:61-79, 2017), promotes learner interaction (Kobayashi, Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education 16:28-39, 2015), and has a higher level of satisfaction over traditional communication tools such…

Based on the analysis of "Zhuangzi" (especially the inner chapters), this paper attempts to illustrate the positive aspects of Zhuangzi's idea concerning contented acceptance of fate ("anming" ??), which is completely different from a fatalistic viewpoint. Through probing into the meaning of some important ideas and their…

How can we teach critical hope, amidst contemporary challenges that seem intractable, within neoliberal educational institutions that work to foreclose transformative pedagogies and through academic critique that can result in cynicism and disillusionment among students? Here, I draw on the writings of Paolo Freire, J.K. Gibson-Graham and Sarah…

There is a rising crisis in respect to teacher wellbeing, with emerging international literature indicating high levels of work-related stress, anxiety and/or depression, cited alongside an increasing exodus of teachers from the workforce. Within this available literature, teacher wellbeing terms are typically collated under frameworks of poor…

We develop a spreadsheet-based game to illustrate fundamental statistical concepts in the first class of an undergraduate Statistics course to motivate students about the topics that they will learn in upcoming classes. This game has been implemented by Google Forms and Google Sheets and can be played in both online and in-person classes of small…