No matter what the national context, the question of how to understand the impact of government programmes, particularly in terms of value for money, has emerged as a complex problem to be solved by social scientific management. This article engages with these trends in two ways. It focuses on the UK to understand how these tools and technologies…

In this response to Molly Ware's review of our 2013 book, "John Dewey and Education Outdoors," we extend her suggestion that complexity be regarded as an important, generative force in education reform. Drawing on Dewey's 1933 "Utopian Schools" speech, we discuss the "level deeper" that Dewey sought as he…

Using participatory action research (PAR), this paper explores the ethical practice of students engaged in practitioner research in a higher education context. Using narrative enquiry, the paper explores the participants' experiences of practitioner research, including ethical dilemmas that resulted from a conflict of values between the…

In this article, Nancy Barile, an urban high school teacher, questions whether "grit" can solve all students' problems. She states that when she first began teaching 20 years ago, she realized almost immediately that, as an urban school teacher, she needed to encourage grit in her students. She told "gritty" anecdotes of…

This article briefly reviews the evolving role of major institutions thought to form, reproduce and transform individual as well as collective identities and values, with an emphasis on the impact of state vs market forces via educational systems. This is accompanied by a discussion of various pressures against the state to exert social control on…

The activity described in this paper was developed in response to the experience of teaching a large lecture introduction course to freshman and sophomore undergraduates called "The Rhetorical Tradition." This course covers, roughly, the last 2500 years of rhetoric. One of the issues faced in this course is that students struggle to…

Some debate exists about the degree to which one should merge one's identities, particularly those with important normative content, with one's teaching practices. This issue becomes particularly important for those with a religious identity who purposefully merge their identity with classroom practices. This article examines the qualitative…

The aim of this article is to offer some reflections on the relationship between meanings of equity at the national level and those working with these questions in local schools. We argue that meanings of equity at the national level are in strong contrast to the range complexity identified in local schools. The article draws from case study…

Using data from a 2010 survey of academic chairs, this study reports on academic department chairs' recommended time allocations to new assistant professors. I contend that personal values about research and teaching influence the department chair's recommendations along with organizational characteristics. Multi-level modeling indicates that…

This article offers a perspective from early childhood care and education in Aotearoa New Zealand. It draws from the data of four recent studies to demonstrate pedagogical practices informed by Indigenous (Maori) perspectives. Maori values, such as "manaakitanga" (caring, hospitality, generosity) and "whanaungatanga"…

The authors quantify and unpack the prevalence and effects of bullying on children and adolescents before prescribing provisos for schools to consider when planning preventive and responsive approaches to bullying.

Character education is currently an international issue and schools are deeply involved in its dissemination. In Indonesia, teachers have been introduced to various methods and techniques of how to integrate character values with subject-matter content during teaching-learning processes. Since teaching character values together with subject matter…

In this article, I offer a critical enquiry into the landscape of European and international policy approaches and strategies towards young children, their families and communities in a rapidly changing global context. Early childhood has attracted unprecedented attention among policy makers and international bodies in the last two decades. The…

Education needs to prepare students to have understanding of themselves, of their relationships to others, to have an ability to make good moral and other judgements and to act on these. If education has a role to play in the alleviation of the crises facing the world, then there is some urgency in reflecting on what kind of education is needed in…

Unlike past research which has mainly examined whole school or whole department professional learning communities, this study focused on factors related to effective collaborative practices within teacher learning teams. Our main objective was to ascertain the roles of team value orientations (collectivism and power distance) and team collegiality…