Teachers in Japan earn tenure on their first day of employment--not after two years of experience based on evaluations of teaching performance or student test scores. This is almost too good to be true. If tenure is so easy to attain, how do the Japanese make sure their teachers, especially novice teachers hired with little teaching experience,…

The Indonesian model of inclusive society "masyarakat madani" is arguably based on a one-view perspective of Islamic intellectuals. Although it was intended to embrace the whole of society in general, its implications might not reach and permeate the entire society. The unique features of Indonesian society have, to a certain degree,…

The past century has yielded a plethora of advancements in the science of learning, from expansions in the theoretical frames that undergird education research to cultural and contextual considerations in educational practice. The overarching purpose of this chapter is to explore and document the growth and development of the science of learning…

In this paper, we consider the relationship between the human and disability; with specific focus on the lives of disabled children and young people. We begin with an analysis of the close relationship between "the disabled" and "the freak". We demonstrate that the historical markings of disability as object of curiosity and…

While previous researchers investigating the competitive environment at the highest levels of academic scholarship (e.g., Deresiewicz, 2014; Pope, 2001) have concluded that students buckle under an unbearable amount of stress as a result of over-achievement and narrow conceptions of success, they have left the construct of "success"…

This case is based on our cross-cultural study of Israeli middle-class mothers' engagement in their children's education. The mothers in our study belong to three social-cultural groups: Palestinian Israeli, Russian immigrants, and Israeli-born Jewish. These three groups participate today in the Israeli middle class, albeit with different…

This qualitative study examined what female principals in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two historically male-dominated cultures who are actively implementing reforms to provide women with more leadership opportunities, reported as typical elements of their daily work. The study also examined the challenges that these female principals reported in their…

Although in many educational contexts textbooks serve as the backbone of teaching, providing practical guides for teachers as well as useful references for learning progress, they could also serve as a site of struggle for many competing discourses. ELT textbooks bear particular relevance here, as they place English at the center of prominence…

This study examined variables in three domains (personal, parent support, and peer support) for their relationships with the resilience of academically gifted students in the Chinese cultural and educational environment. The participants were 484 academically gifted students in two highly competitive secondary schools (so-called "key"…

The basic aspects of emotional comprehension seem to be acquired around the age of 5. However, it is not clear whether children's emotion knowledge is based on facial expression, organized in scripts, or determined by sociocultural context. This study aims to shed some light on these subjects by assessing knowledge of basic emotions in 4- and…

With a growing culture of accountability and institutional "managerialism" at universities and other higher education institutions, graduate employability and actual employment outcomes have become key indicators for higher education success. Research on graduate outcomes has gained significant currency among national governments,…

The promotion of students' engagement with school is an internationally acknowledged challenge in education. There is a need to examine the structure of the concept of student engagement and to discover the best practices for fostering it across societies. That is why the cross-cultural invariance testing of students' engagement measures is highly…

While research has shown that video can be an effective tool in the professional learning of teachers in industrialized countries, it is unknown whether this is also true for other countries with distinctive cultural, political, and historical contexts, such as Cambodia. This paper presents results from a study which examined the effectiveness of…

In this retelling, the student offered his best impression of an African American woman from the South, oblivious to the treacherous historical ground upon which he danced. This student meant no harm. But his anecdote, and the manner in which he delivered it, provide windows onto the racial, historical, and sectional imaginaries of the white…

This ethnographically informed study explored how 32 former participants in the Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) Program in rural Uganda used learning from the program in their daily lives, the perceived outcomes of applying the practices learned in the program, and the meanings that literacy held for participants. Learning domains included…