Teacher training for developing nation contexts is often conducted in short, intensive inside and outside-of-country programmes. Concerns have been raised in relation to the uncritical take-up of the western-centric material provided by these programmes, which are usually funded by national and international government organizations. This paper…

In this article, we show how discussions of creating high-impact learning experiences led to the Undergraduate Videogame Symposium, a public venue where students from all disciplines presented their disciplinary learning to a non-disciplinary audience. After providing an introduction to the learning principles emphasized by the Interdisciplinary…

This article presents findings from the global literacy project, Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling (MDST), which provides a means of nurturing and reflecting multiliteracies in practice. It recognises the power of storytelling and the space stories offer both for self-representation and for engaging with otherness. It draws…

This manuscript describes how innovative literacy practices such as multigenre writing and artifactual critical literacy have been used to tap into pre-service teachers' cultural identities while responding to literature. In the process of responding to literature, personal experience is crucial; therefore, in this study, I focused on the…

The project of social justice in education, or maybe any education, involves ideological shifts. These shifts include profound changes to the self. One way that ideological beliefs change is through a process of identification, which occurs on conscious and unconscious levels. As we build our identities through identification, the incorporation of…

This article is located at the crossroads between two distinctive human traits, empathy and rational thought, with narrative emerging as a particularly powerful means to enable young readers to bring them together. Specifically, we discuss the role that critical literary exegesis plays in the development of empathic consciousness in literary…

The Australian Curriculum has extensive references to literacy. It appears as not only a core strand within English, but also as a General Capability for the Curriculum as a whole. Such considerable focus leads to the question of what literacy actually means within such a context, and this paper aims to better understand the conceptualising of…

Teachers want to do their best for every child, but worry about causing offence and often shy away from troublesome issues. The classroom situations and strategies presented here will help teachers negotiate their way through complex situations and bring about constructive change. This book clarifies concepts and value differences and the subtle…

Educators have called for the integration of African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) into educational curricula particularly at the university level. However, little is known about the perspectives of university students regarding the role of AIK towards educational development. Thus, this study used survey and focus group discussions to examine the…

In today's media-laden environment, the ability to read text from a critical literacy perspective is imperative, particularly for librarians who influence children's reading choices and behaviors. This study examines the critical literacy performances of students in an online, asynchronous, graduate-level children's literature course using a…

As the tools and modes of literate practice continually emerge, so too must our critical approaches to understanding their expression. While media production has been praised for its potential to provide youth a voice to challenge dominant narratives, various questions remain as to what happens at the multimodal levels of composition in terms of…

Digital games are positioned in literacy research as integral to contemporary youth culture and their potential as a learning resource continues to be explored in current literature. This paper examines the use of "Minecraft" as a pedagogical tool to motivate girls' literacy practices within the secondary English classroom. The data…

As demographics change, our school populations are ever changing. Preservice teachers (PSTs) need to be aware of how to meet the needs of all of their future students. Teacher education programs have been charged with the duty of preparing these PSTs for the diverse school population they will encounter. This qualitative multiple case study…

Public education's distinctive and primary challenge is to ensure all children, across all communities, have access to the skills and knowledge required for their full participation in democratically regulated social, cultural, and vocational life. This is an aspiration increasingly difficult to realize under present-day conditions of austerity in…

In this paper, the author reviews "Sense & Sustainability: Educating for a Circular Economy," by Ken Webster and Craig Johnson. He reviews the core text that underpins the work of the education team at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/). He shows that while it is strong on some technical aspects of…