The author introduces the playful-tension model, a new theoretical concept, to harmonize the gap in play design between general play theory and its actual use in designing playthings. By synthesizing a broad selection of general play theory into a single theoretical concept, the playful-tension model accentuates the delicate interplay of what he…

This book examines the intersection between pedagogy and leadership in intersubjective spaces. The intention is to discover answers to the most important question of educational leadership theory for practice today: who leads learning? This book addresses current misconceptions about pedagogical leadership and pedagogy in schools today. It…

While some researchers argue that theories and abstract knowledge are unreliable bases for teachers' work, a wide range of research stresses the need to overcome the gap between theory and practice, or abstract academic knowledge and experience-based knowledge. Here, Silvia Edling maintains that it is relevant to ask why the relationship is…

Gamified Flipped Classrooms (GFC) are increasingly implemented in teaching and have become a trending research subject. Gamification and Flipped Classroom (FC) literature expresses a clear need for a theoretical foundation that positively affects motivation, behavioral change, and learning. However, this requires an overview of the current…

Ongoing debates in educational philosophy and theory question the relevance of critical theory and critical pedagogy to decolonization, given their foundations in Eurocentric traditions. While some scholars critique critical theory for its failure to engage with colonial histories, others caution against conflating decolonization with broader…

This paper poses the question 'What can we learn from the person-centred counselling literature which could be used by the action learning facilitator to help benefit the set?'. This question may be particularly important to facilitators seeking new ways to run their sets and to facilitators who would like to introduce a more humanistic and less…

This chapter argues that the accounting literature in general and the accounting education literature in particular has under-invested in theory. The few theories that we officially believe are in use but are used quite poorly. Many theories that could be used are not used at all despite the promise that they appear to hold. Accounting education…

Worldviews influence research--from design to interpretation and reporting. Historically, psychometrics has been predominantly situated within a positivist paradigm, while social research has often aligned with interpretivist or critical paradigms. However, emerging perspectives in the philosophy-of-science are challenging this rigid alignment,…

To design effective instruction, educators need to know "what" design strategies are generally effective and why these strategies work, based on the mechanisms through which they operate. Experimental comparison studies, which compare one instructional design against another, can generate much needed evidence in support of effective…

Item response theory (IRT) encompasses a broader class of measurement models than is commonly appreciated by practitioners in educational measurement. For measures of vocabulary and its development, we show how psychological theory might in certain instances support unipolar IRT modeling as a superior alternative to the more traditional bipolar…

Purpose: This study aims to present radical abolition studies, which encourages us to (re)member that the abolition of institutions and systems is incomplete without the abolition of their attendant epistemes of domination. The authors draw on the etymology of the word radical to encourage abolitionist praxis to grab systemic harm at its…

This article situates dance education leadership within the context of leadership and adult learning theories amid our current culture and policy wars. "Great man" heroic trait models are compared with collaborative skills-based approaches. The adaptive challenges we face require "soft" distributed leadership capacities.…

How can we provide a quality student experience, cultivate human connections, and create learning and working environments in which all members of an institution can thrive? The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how the Appreciative Education theory-to-practice framework can help guide institutions in becoming Appreciative Campuses by…

Bringing Edward Said's intellectual work into education comes with a certain irony. As early as his magnum opus, "Orientalism," Said already questioned the social function of intellectuals as experts, arguing that the project of orientalism could not have transpired without the 'expert' eyes of intellectuals who distorted the Orient…

This essay challenges the broad, ongoing neoliberal transformation of higher education as expressed in contemporary literacy pedagogies based in and around Learning Management Systems. Building on Chantal Mouffe's conception of agonistic democracy, we seek to model and encourage an alternative--a critical literacy that highlights competing…