Teachers' commitments, or what is often called fidelity in teaching, are of obvious importance in early childhood settings. Nonetheless, fidelity in teaching young children remains an undertheorized concept. Instead of appreciating the philosophical and socio-political complexities of practice, examinations of fidelity in teaching young children…

In the last decade, demands for greater order and the defense of traditional moral values have grown in Brazil within the scope of what authors have been calling the new Brazilian conservatism. Conservative and neoliberal leaders and religious groups stand out, acting on different fronts in politics and social relations, including education.…

This paper examines contemporary challenges for education and democracy in Brazil. In the past decade, conservative forces headed by the Escola sem Partido (ESP) movement have led a scaremongering campaign against teachers and public education, with Paulo Freire's critical educational philosophies as their main enemy. This study investigates the…

This article reports findings from a small-scale qualitative study conducted in partnership with a group of secondary school English Language teachers in China. The study explored the teachers' perspectives of the role of teacher autonomy in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Using semi-structured interviews, nine teachers from three…

In 2020, the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) within the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education published "What Works Best: 2020 Update (WWB2020)." Drawing on Michael Apple's "simple questions" as a theoretical lens, this paper analyses the first two "Themes, Practices, or Strategies" (TPS)…

Teacher agency is an important topic in educational research, but its theoretical observations have not filtered down into practical Vietnamese teaching contexts. The action research project described here showcases a training-based intervention for teacher educators in various disciplines at eight universities in Vietnam. The intervention aimed…

The proposed Curriculum for Wales 2022 presents a bold new vision for curriculum, teaching and learning. Together with its focus on four key purposes, it affords substantially more flexibility and autonomy to teachers and schools, positions learners as central to curriculum decision making, promotes active forms of pedagogy and…

Children's well-being has received extensive research attention and has a central role in early childhood policy and curricular guidelines. However, the well-being of early childhood educators has received fragmentary research attention and is unacknowledged in policy and curricular documents. Given the seemingly self-evident links between…

Teachers' professional lives and their role in change efforts have always been central to the Journal of Educational Change. Articles have addressed teachers' motivation for and commitment to reform, their belief systems, their professionalism, their networks, and their professional development, among other topics. Unequivocally, teachers are…

Using assessment to inform teaching and to measure learning outcomes is of critical importance in higher education. However, many tertiary educators are not sufficiently knowledgeable or prepared to do this confidently. This paper suggests that tertiary educators could be given tools and encouraged to exert agency in their own assessment literacy…

In this article, we consider Western Standard Music Notation (WSMN) as a normative communication system that, through representing certain cultural frameworks, may pose obstacles to musical learning, particularly in general music education. To focus this examination, we discuss different critical aspects of what we call the "notation…

This article studies differences in teachers' and teacher specialists' perspectives of a newly introduced teacher specialist role in Norway. It is known that the emergence of specialised teachers challenges the egalitarian norms of the profession. However, there is a lack of insight into teachers' perspectives of these roles and the nuances of…

In the Netherlands, academically oriented programmes for primary teacher education have recently been established. The aim of this study is to provide insight in the extent to which graduates from these academically oriented programmes are involved in different forms of inquiry-based working and which factors promote or hinder this involvement.…

This study drew on qualitative research and focused on the exercise of agency among the novice English teachers in the Iranian context. Fifteen novice English teachers who have been teaching English in private language institutes in Baneh, Iran were invited through snowball sampling. The analyses of semi-structured and focus group interviews, from…

Teacher Empowerment (TE) is not a broadly investigated idea in Educational studies, therefore, this concept is still under examination and indefinable as ever. It is a vibrant component of effective management in universities. The current research is an endeavor to examine the Teacher Empowerment as perceived by the teachers working in…