This article critically reflects on the participation of young children aged 3-4 years in an ongoing outdoor learning project started in 2004. The aims of the research are to investigate children's dispositions within the outdoor environment, to elicit children's perspectives of their outdoor experiences and to investigate the relationship between…

Dyads of siblings in which the younger sibling had an intellectual disability (ID, n = 25) were videotaped interacting. The ID group was compared with typically developing sibling dyads matched on mental age (n = 25) and chronological age (n = 25). We observed the mediation strategies, activation, and antimediation behaviors of older siblings and…

Recently, Qatar established educational reform in charter (independent) schools focusing on curriculum standards, student-centred teaching, standards-based assessment, English as the language of instruction, and extensive professional development. A primary area of emphasis was the creation of student-centred mathematics and science classrooms…

Students live and work in worlds where virtual communities, such as those created via social network sites (e.g. Facebook) may interplay with their formal learning, but scholars of design pedagogy know little about how these spaces can support design learning. In this study, we describe how a set of informal communications, encapsulated in five…

The Bologna Process is one of the most extensive examples of policy borrowing processes. Based on qualitative data, this article argues in favour of studying part of this process as "global smallness", centring on the organisational effects of the implementation of a globalised curriculum. Through Derrida's notion on hauntology,…

This paper explores ways in which examiners, supervisors and others interpret the concept of "originality" when evaluating candidates' achievements in the final Ph.D. examination. It is based on institutional responses to a question in a 2006 discussion paper on doctoral assessment about how universities define originality for the…

Early Childhood Education (ECE) is the education given in educational institutions to children prior to entering the primary schools. Recently, there have been heightening concerns raised by stakeholders concerning the quality of education in Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE). This paper assesses the level of implementation of ECE…

Close listening and observation of children as an alternative assessment is a powerful approach that can help balance an emphasis on standardized measurement. The tool of Reggio-inspired documentation is described for families with suggestions on how to advocate and support teachers who want to tell a story about children's learning that…

The press to integrate mathematics and science comes from researchers, business leaders, and educators, yet research that examines ways to support teachers in relating these disciplines is scant. Using research on science and mathematics professional development, we designed a professional development project to help elementary teachers improve…

This study explored the relation between classroom interactions and exclusionary school discipline practices within and across four classrooms in a disciplinary alternative school. Critical social practice theory and critical microethnographic methodology supported the examination, interpretation, and analysis of interactive power to illuminate…

The aim of this study was to explore physical education teacher education students' meaning-making of participating in lessons--in this case gymnastics and basketball--based on their aesthetic judgements, expressed in written stories. A transactional approach, drawing on the work of John Dewey, was used in the study and the empirical data was…

The accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union in 2004 was anticipated to be a "catalytic" factor in developments towards a solution of the Cyprus problem at the political level. Within education, it was also seen as an opportunity for addressing diversity in a historically ethnocentric educational system through the…

Purpose: Motivational processes can be set in motion when positive consequences of physical exercise are experienced. However, relationships between positive exercise experience and determinants of the motivational and the volitional phases of exercise change have attracted only sparse attention in research. Method: This research examines direct…

The aim of this article is to study teachers' attitudes toward assessment of students' learning and their assessment practices in Georgia's general educational institutions. Georgia is a country in the South Caucasus with a population of 4.5 million people, with 2300 general educational institutions and about 559,400 students. The research…

Edgar Allan Poe's standing as a literary figure, who drew on (and sometimes dabbled in) the scientific debates of his time, makes him an intriguing character for any exploration of the historical interrelationship between science, literature and philosophy. His sprawling "prose-poem" "Eureka" (1848), in particular, has…