This response article written from "outside" the Swedish-Danish contexts of this special issue considers how we might highlight and make additional ecocentric meaning of some of the terms most frequently used in this collection. In the first instance my focus is on "meaning" but this is expanded to include other terms such as…

We test the hypothesis that academic entrepreneurship, resisted in the past by some as being in conflict with the long-standing Mertonian norms of open science and free enquiry, has now become widely accepted within the academy, or "taken for granted", as an institutional shift. Using responses to a series of attitudinal questions about academic…

In England there is a national survey of all students just before they graduate from bachelor's programmes called the National Student Survey (NSS). This produces a very influential ranking of all universities and colleges in England in terms of how the education they provide is perceived by their students. Top of this ranking every year is the…

This book brings together essays that explore Indigenous ways of knowing and that consider how such knowledge can inform educational practices and institutions. Indigenous Knowledge is resiliently local in character and thus poses a distinct contrast to the international, more impersonal system of knowledge prevalent in Western educational…

Since the early 1980s educators have argued that reflection is an essential dimension of good pedagogical practice. This discussion of my attempt to support a constructivist approach to learning for three different groups of learners illustrates one effort to engage in such reflection. I analyze several assignments I have designed for differently…

This paper is concerned with the human dimension of technology-enhanced learning; many suppositions are made about this but the amount of attention it has been given relative to that paid to technology is quite limited. It is argued that an aspect of the question that deserves more attention than it has received in the work on the application of…

A preoccupation with technology has helped bury the philosophical question: What is the point of education? I attempt to answer this question. Various answers to the question are surveyed and it is shown that they depend upon different conceptions of the self. For example, the devotional-self of the 12th century (which was about becoming master of…

Historians of comparative education have ordinarily viewed the development of that field as having progressed in stages, from impressionistic traveller tales to systematic investigations, with each stage eclipsing the previous one in rigour and acceptability. In this essay, I show that this common "Darwinian" view is simplistic and distorts the…

Recent research shows that research programmes (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) in education are not displaced (as suggested by Kuhn) but rather lead to integration. The objective of this study is to present a rationale for mixed methods (integrative) research programs based on contemporary philosophy of science (Lakatos, Giere, Cartwright,…

The study of capital in all of its forms has provided key insights into the system of education: its structure, its inequities, its values and its contributions. While the research is a key component to understanding educational opportunity and inequity, it does not advance from research to application. There is a general consensus that the…

This article begins by examining current crises facing historically marginalized youth, which necessitate more critical approaches to youth development and empirical investigations into the challenges that young people face. This requires not only listening to their voices, but actively engaging them in investigations of and interventions into…

John Radford's original article (Radford, 2008a) asked some hard questions about the content and purpose of a degree in psychology. The original article prompted a number of replies and a rejoinder from Radford (2008b). In the spirit of carrying on the discussion started by Radford and others, this article offers two personal perspectives on our…

This article examines the work of R. S. Peters on moral development and moral education, as represented in his papers collected under that name, pointing out that these writings have been relatively neglected. It approaches these writings through the lens of the "familiar story" that philosophical work on this topic switched during, roughly, the…

If people really want to make a difference in the lives of those living with war or poverty, globally, the single most important thing that they can do is to support education. This support is not limited to initiatives that promote education at the primary and secondary levels in developing countries, but is also directed at Canadian students of…

Throughout history various grand narratives have impacted on technology education. In the current post modern era of globalization, technology education continues to struggle for relevance and definition, and takes various forms in different countries, but none seem resoundingly successful. The current development of what some have termed a…