Action competence has been a key concept in educational circles in Denmark since the 1980s. This paper explores the relationship between the action competence approach and recent discourses of education for sustainable development (ESD), competence and quality criteria. First we argue that action competence is an educational ideal, referring to…

This article defines how the message systems of international schools and the mechanisms of learning and control can be located in a trajectory from colonialism to global civil society. A discussion of Bernstein's message systems introduces how practice in international schools can be defined. The practice of international schools is framed…

An academic advisor who has built a one-on-one relationship with a student over an extended period is in an ideal position to become a partner in helping shape the advisee's academic experience. In this article, the author discusses using the guiding principles of the Learning Partnerships Model (LPM) to reshape academic advising. The three…

In this essay, Simon Marginson focuses on self-determining academic freedom in universities, and especially the conditions and drivers of the radical-creative imagination that is manifest in sudden intellectual breaks in knowledge. Marginson's objective is to establish foundations in political philosophy for a sociological study of the effects of…

The current development approaches for e-learning systems fail to explain in a clear and consistent way the pedagogical principles that support them. Moreover, decisions with regard to the structuration of each component proposed by these approaches are mainly taken by the designer/developer. As a result, the ensuing e-learning systems reflect…

Background/Context: In recent decades, professional historians have made considerable efforts to reestablish influence over the teaching of history in American schools. This movement has rested upon a generally accepted historical narrative based on four assertions; first, that during the 1900s and 1910s, professional historians dominated the…

Physical education teacher education (PETE) faculty and physical education specialists have oversimplified and, consequently, made false some of the collective beliefs in their field. This article compares the "many faces of PETE" that are becoming more apparent in today's PETE programs and considers whether physical education teacher education…

It is often argued that neuroscience can be expected to provide insights of significance for education. Advocates of this view are sometimes committed to "brainism", the view (a) that an individual's mental life is constituted by states, events and processes in her brain, and (b) that psychological attributes may legitimately be ascribed to the…

This article examines how discussions around the new interdisciplinary research area combining neuroscience and education have brought into sharp relief differences in the philosophies of learning in these two areas. It considers the difficulties faced by those working at the interface between these two areas and, in particular, it focuses on the…

Science education controversies typically prove more intractable than those in scientific research because they involve a wider range of considerations (e.g., epistemic, social, ethical, political, and religious). How can educators acknowledge central issues in a controversy (such as evolution)? How can such problems be addressed in a way that is…

This paper explores the use of design patterns and anti-patterns in teaching human-computer interaction principles. Patterns are increasingly popular and are seen as an efficient knowledge transfer mechanism in many fields, including software development in the field of software engineering, and more recently in the field of human-computer…

In this essay, David Labaree examines the paradox of educationalization in the American context. He argues that, like most modern Western societies, the United States has displayed a strong tendency over the years for educationalizing social problems, even though schools have repeatedly proven that they are an ineffective mechanism for solving…

This paper examines the meta-theoretical status, basic determinants, interests, conditions and directives of theory development in contemporary intercultural education (IE). It identifies functions and main objectives of IE at the macro-, mezzo- and micro-levels of society, interdisciplinary approaches associated with the discipline, as well as…

This article analyses the role of educational opportunity in a time of globalisation, a new economy and life in a multicultural society, and gives an epistemological and semantic account of the concept "intercultural education", distinguishing it from multicultural and transcultural education. Starting with a historic overview of various…

This article presents a design methodology for matching learning tasks with learning technologies. First a working definition of "affordances" is provided based on the need to describe the action potentials of the technologies (utility). Categories of affordances are then proposed to provide a framework for analysis. Following this, a…