This paper proposes a theoretical model to explain trainee withdrawal and persistence within higher education (HE) based initial teacher training (ITT). Within ITT, attrition and persistence are under-researched and under-theorised, thus providing the rationale for this study. Within HE more broadly, a number of models have been proposed, most…

Participatory research with young people has enjoyed a decade of sustained development including the development of a range of embodied and visual methodologies. Much of this has been in the service of a participatory citizenship agenda, as articulated in the Every Child Matters agenda in England, in the work of the UK's Children's Commissioners…

The main idea behind this essay is to reflect on different styles of academic writing by giving an account of a single article published in an established international journal. A threefold analysis was performed measuring the distribution of personal pronouns with animate v. inanimate reference, descriptive v. classifying adjectives, and active…

In a seminal article, Philip Alperson (1991) first argued that a proper philosophy of music and music education should account for all musical "praxis." Nonetheless, his introduction of the concept of praxis into the philosophical discourse of music education seems to occasion either a yawn or hostility, despite having a much longer and more solid…

Much reference has been made to Paul Ernest's "philosophy of mathematics education" to legitimise a strong fallibilist trend in mathematics education. This article presents the argument that: (1) This philosophy makes unwarranted assumptions that have been taken as "given". For example, that "absolutist" or "Platonist" views of mathematics…

Teachers are encouraged to critically evaluate their philosophy of teaching and to help students recognize and examine their implicit ideas about education as well. This critical evaluation entails examining assumptions about teaching and learning, investigating the implications that follow from those assumptions, and considering alternative ideas…

This study focuses on a large set of rehabilitation services used between 2004 and 2005 in one hospital district area in Finland. The rehabilitation system consists of several subsystems. This complex system is suggested to produce arbitrary rehabilitation services. Despite the criticisms against the system during decades, no attempts have been…

This paper addresses the subject of textual creativity by drawing on work done in classical literary theory and criticism, specifically new criticism, structuralism and early poststructuralism. The question of how readers and writers engage creatively with the text is closely related to educational concerns, though they are often thought of as…

Petty bourgeois and angry youth are two large sets of contemporary Chinese youth. There is no doubt that most contemporary youth do not belong to either of these two sets. However, these two large sets are indeed very fashionable at this time, and it is easy to simply distinguish between them by means of two terms: the label "shuai dai"…

In addition to its beginnings within legal scholarship, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is intimately aligned with the long tradition of African American social critique, which sought to interrogate the intractable nature of racism and White supremacy. Within this intellectual tradition, the works of W.E.B. Du Bois are of critical significance. Du…

This paper engages in a critical discussion of the key features delineated by the other authors in this Special Issue thus serving as an end-piece for the issue. In particular it touches on three significant concepts. Firstly, it reinforces the importance of context, particularly cultural context in the conduct of research in Confucian cultural…

The start of the Education for All (EFA) movement ushered in a new era in education, an era linked to research on issues such as "global governance" or the "world institutionalization of education". This global governance not only affects the way in which educational systems are influenced, it also involves how we view and…

Dewey's aesthetics, expressed primarily in "Experience and Nature" and "Art as Experience", reorients aesthetics from art objects to aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience is marked by continuity, especially the continuity between means and ends. In what follows, I will briefly outline Dewey's aesthetics with an eye toward the role of social…

This response to Jesse Bazzul and Heather Sykes' paper, "The secret identity of a biology textbook: straight and naturally sexed," explores their critiques of textbooks and curricula that authoritatively present scientific accounts of the natural world without engaging students in critical thinking. It proposes that we need to go beyond such…

This study focused on understanding the impact of incorporating digital reader response into a middle school literature class. Through interviews and the use of artifacts, a classroom teacher documented how altering the way students wrote about their readings shaped the quality and quantity of their writing. Outcomes reveal that blogging during…