Teacher education regulation in India is generally perceived as an apolitical technical domain that operates on a set of given norms. In principle the regulatory instruments are believed to be pursuing the goals of professionalizing and enhancing quality in teacher education, which have been longstanding issues in the country. Given this perception, teacher education regulations (and policy) remain much understudied by educationists and social scientists. However, an analysis of the developments and debates in the regulatory policy points otherwise. A critical analysis of the successive national regulatory frameworks and norms which consists of tracking changes and reforming ideas highlights that policy and regulatory decision making in teacher education is highly contested, with different coalitions of scholars and practitioners claiming stakes in the domain. These contestations are inherently connected with the tensions that underlie or constitute the “discipline” of education. These contestations and dynamics allude to various issues of which at least three need much greater attention. The first among these concerns is the centralization of regulatory powers and standardized regulatory norms for different kinds of institutions in teacher education, which makes it difficult to allow for diversity in the domain. The second issue concerns limited autonomy of university departments of education and of location of teacher education in the university space that has its own regulatory frameworks. The third issue is the lack of dialogue between research, policy, and practice in teacher education that makes it more challenging to arrive at “generally-agreed-upon” rational bases for regulating or policy thinking for quality in teacher education. These issues have been persistent in the grammar of the regulatory instruments and illustrate the peculiar challenges of imagining and implementing “reform” in a praxis-based nationally regulated domain.
Article
Policy and Regulatory Reforms in Teacher Education in India
Gunjan Sharma
Article
Professional Political and Contextual Considerations of Policy Borrowing
Adam E. Nir
We live in a globalized world characterized by rapid changes. These circumstances force public educational systems to innovate and introduce new policies that may potentially enhance the quality of their educational processes and outcomes and increase the relevance of educational services that schools provide to their communities.
The complexity of educational policy setting and the constant flow of ideas and information coming from all around the world increase the attractiveness of policy plans that have been proved successful elsewhere. The tendency to learn from the positive experiences of others and use successful educational policies created in one national context in another is termed educational policy borrowing. The cross-national transfer of educational best practices which has become prevalent allows local policymakers a better understanding of their own systems of education. It may also raise the quality of educational policies and encourage the application of specific practices and ideas in local educational contexts.
Article
Practice Architectures
Christine Edwards-Groves and Peter Grootenboer
The theory of practice architectures has been emerging in common parlance in qualitative research investigating the nature and conduct of education (and other) practices since it was first introduced in 2008. The theory was developed to capitalize on “the practice turn” in social life and organizational activity. Since its inception, the theory of practice architectures has become an influential and widely utilized theory, among the broad family of practice theories focused on the social, cultural, and material world. The theory has been taken up in many countries and in many fields—including education, health, agriculture, environmental science, and business—legitimizing it as a robust way to conceptualize the sociality, situatedness, and happeningness of practices associated with participating in the social world.
As a basic premise, the theory of practice architectures attests that in everyday life- and system-worlds, practices are existentially dynamic, socially constituted, intersubjective activities that are always influenced by practice architectures. Practice architectures are the enabling and constraining conditions that influence what happens among interlocutors as they encounter one another in practices. Understanding practices means attending to ways the intricately interconnected and simultaneously produced sayings, doings, and relatings “hang together” in a project through individual (or subjective) and intersubjective achievements. It is in intersubjective spaces where
• what people can say and think (sayings), in the semantic space shared among interlocutors, is made possible (or difficult or impossible) by the cultural–discursive arrangements found in or brought to a site—that is, by the content and form of shared (or not shared) language and specialist discourses used;
• what people can do (doings), in the physical space-time shared with other embodied beings, is made possible (or not) by the material–economic arrangements—that is, by actions, activities, and work done amid the objects that exist in the site; and
• how people can relate to others and the world (relatings), in the social space shared with other social–political beings, is made possible (or not) by the social–political arrangements—that is, by the relationships of power, agency, and solidarity.
Establishing a deep sense of site is critical for understanding the nature and particularity of practices and practice architectures that shape how education is experienced (produced and reproduced) in the site. The site ontological schematic counters oversimplified or ambiguous perspectives by orienting to the complex linguistic, cultural, interactive, material, temporal, social, and relational constitution of practices as they happen in the local site. By establishing more nuanced site-based understandings, detailed descriptions, and critical explanations about the conditions that prefigure (although do not predetermine) the conduct of practices, transformations to those practices are possible. Consequently, the theory of practice architectures has been described as a transformative resource—because to change education, one must change the practice architectures that enable and constrain its practices. Broadly speaking, therefore, the theory of practice architectures is an integrated theoretical (way of considering), analytical (way of examining), linguistic (way of describing), and transformative (way of changing) resource or frame for studying practices.
Article
Practice, Policy and Change in the School Education of Roma in Cyprus
Loizos Symeou
Roma and Travelers are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the European Union and have been subjected to racism for centuries. In Cyprus, a country with a very small Roma population, Roma issues -due to historical and political reasons- and particularly issues relating to the education of Roma have not been adequately addressed in the policy agenda and have not been researched sufficiently. Lacking knowledge on how to access social services funds, medical treatment provisions, education, and work, Roma are largely ignored, avoided, and kept on the margins of the local society; they are victims of prejudice and suffer from low educational achievement. Although school enrollment, attendance, and completion among Roma in Cyprus have increased at all school levels since 2010, the rate of early school-leaving among Roma in Cyprus remains high and only a few Roma attend secondary education, while even fewer complete compulsory lower secondary education at the age of 15. In addition, attendance and completion of upper secondary education among Roma of Cyprus remains extremely low, whereas university education has not yet been achieved by any Roma in Cyprus. As in other parts of Europe, Roma social and financial conditions appear to be directly linked to Roma children’s school attendance and the discouragement of Roma children viewing school as a priority. Although education in Cyprus is a key policy area with the highest number of interventions and evaluations since 2010, the number of measures does not necessarily reflect the ambition or the effectiveness of efforts. Cyprus, therefore, needs to incorporate Roma inclusion in accountable ways in its mainstream actions and measures in order to compensate for the disadvantages faced by Roma and to promote equality by combining its mainstream measures with specific Roma-targeted measures. Such measures should not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, but should recognize that among the major factors contributing to Roma children’s school disengagement is the distance and inconsistency between the Roma family and the local community environment on the one hand, and the school environment and its workings on the other. The policy of Roma integration thus needs to shift to a policy of inclusion by addressing exclusion and the major issues of antigypsyism, discrimination, and racism. In being accountable, these policies need to set benchmarks to be reached, reported, monitored, and evaluated by a single local agency or institution to be able to coordinate the actions of various ministries. The success of such an agency or institution will largely depend on the establishment of a system of consultation with Roma, who are currently absent from relevant decision-making actions and synergies.
Article
Preparation of German Special Educators for the 21st Century
Rolf Werning and Myriam Hummel
The implementation of inclusive education in school systems creates new working conditions for all professionals. As a consequence, roles and responsibilities need to be redefined between general education teachers and special educators, and teacher education must be reformed to prepare professionals for the working environment they face in the 21st century. Three theoretical approaches guide the current discourse on teacher education. The competence theory approach focuses on the identification and acquisition of specific competencies. The structural theory approach stresses the importance of dealing with uncertainties and antinomies in the teaching profession. The professional biographical approach highlights the ongoing process of individual professionalization and includes biographical research. Taking the changing working environment into account, a three-pillar model is suggested for teacher education of future primary and secondary teachers, primary and secondary teachers with a focus on special education, and special educators as external support for schools.
Article
Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Rural Schools
Amy Price Azano, Jayne Downey, and Devon Brenner
Preparing pre-service teachers for rural schools has been a challenge in the field of education for more than a century, and issues specific to the rural teacher workforce remain a persistent and salient challenge in the United States and globally. This task is complex and multifaceted, conflated with a wide range of contextual variations in salaries, community amenities, geographic or professional distances, technology access, health disparities, and poverty rates. Additionally, institutions of higher education have wavered in their interest in and commitment to rural teacher education, though there is a growing awareness of the need to attend to the experiences of students in rural communities and the educators who teach them. The literature and research on rural teacher preparation has typically been organized around the three challenges of preparation (post-secondary education), recruitment (youth aspirations to teach, would-be career changers interested in teaching, and division-level efforts to staff schools with effective teachers), and retention (providing pre-service and new teachers with learning experiences and support that increase the likelihood of remaining in the profession in rural schools).
Literature on rural teacher preparation and evidence related to “preparation, recruitment, and retention” can be repositioned to offer new insights focused on solutions. Three focus areas—Curriculum, Context, and Conveyance—serve to answer the question: What makes a teacher preparation program rural? Curriculum serves as a core component for preparing rural teachers. A rural curriculum for a teacher education program includes introducing students to content and experiences, including field experiences, that have been designed to support their professional and personal success in rural schools and communities. Context is understanding the strengths and assets of the rural places, communities, and cultures in which pre-service teachers are preparing to live, learn, and teach. Context allows us to consider the unique environments in which rural teachers live and work. Conveyance is the means by which potential teachers have access to teacher preparation programs, that is, how programs are delivered and structured to provide access to potential teachers in rural communities (online, in person, alternative and traditional programs, etc.). A focus on Curriculum, Context, and Conveyance allows school leaders and education researchers to resist deficit ideologies and to consider how rural communities are asset-rich environments, ultimately increasing resources that prepare teachers for, and build from the strengths of, rural communities.
Article
Preparing Teachers for Collaborative Classrooms
David Duran and Ester Miquel
Many educational reforms highlight the need for collaboration, understood not only as a competence to be learned but also as a way of learning and teaching. Two types of collaboration can be found in classrooms: peer collaboration and teacher collaboration. The first focuses on how the teacher restructures interactions between pupils organized in pairs or groups. This permits cooperative learning practices, either by peer tutoring or through systems of cooperative learning. By implementing peer collaboration, the teacher is able to develop a new and transformative role which facilitates functions such as continuous assessment or immediate personalized attention, which are more difficult to carry out in environments where a traditional teaching approach is used. However, both the organization of the classroom for peer collaboration and this new teaching role require teacher training. Experiential learning is a key aspect of the training.
Different levels of teacher collaboration exist, but the most complete is co-teaching: two teachers planning, implementing, and assessing the same lesson for a group of students. Co–teaching allows teachers to attend to the individual needs of their students; that is why it is such an important tool in inclusive education. Furthermore, it is a learning tool for teachers. Co-teachers can foster mutual observation, reflection, and planning of innovative practices, making working together a form of professional development. However, to ensure that pupils receive better attention and that teachers learn from each other, there has to be teacher training, and again, it must be addressed from an experimental perspective.
Article
Principals’ and School Leaders’ Roles in Inclusive Education
Barbara Pazey and Bertina Combes
The United States and other developed countries have acknowledged and supported the rights of students with disabilities to receive an appropriate education for decades. The role of the principal and school leader in overseeing educational programs and ensuring these entitlements become a reality for students with disabilities has taken center stage. Discussions related to principals and school leaders fulfilling the roles of leader and manager on behalf of students with disabilities linked the complementary disciplines of general and special education leadership. The leadership approach they adopted led to debates surrounding the concept of inclusion and the provision of an inclusive education on behalf of students with disabilities.
Current definitions of inclusive education are typically linked to concepts of equity, social justice, and recognition of the student’s civil right to be granted full membership in all aspects of the educational enterprise. The processes involved in creating an inclusive school environment require principals and school leaders to examine the values and beliefs that influence their own thinking and behaviors before they can communicate a vision of inclusion. Principals and school leaders must be willing to act in concert with others to create the type of school culture that unanimously and positively responds to difference so every student can achieve full membership and feel welcomed and valued.
Article
Problem-Based Learning
Sofie M. M. Loyens, Lisette Wijnia, Ivette Van der Sluijs - Duker, and Remy M. J. P. Rikers
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered instructional method, with roots in constructivist theory of learning. Since its origin at McMaster University in Canada, PBL has been implemented in numerous programs across many domains and many educational levels worldwide. In PBL, small groups of 10–12 students learn in the context of meaningful problems that describe observable phenomena or events. The PBL process consists of three phases. The first is the initial discussion phase in which the problem at hand is discussed, based on prior knowledge. This initial phase leads to the formulation of learning issues (i.e., questions) that students will answer during the next phase, the self-study phase. Here, they independently select and study a variety of literature resources. During the third and final phase, the reporting phase, students share their findings with each other and critically evaluate the answers to the learning issues. A tutor guides the first and third phase of the process. PBL is based on principles from cognitive and educational psychology that have demonstrated their capacity to foster learning. More specifically, four principles are incorporated in the PBL process: (a) connection to prior knowledge, (b) collaborative learning among students, but also among teachers, (c) gradual development of autonomy, and (d) a focus on the application and transfer of knowledge. Research on the effects of PBL in terms of knowledge acquisition shows that students in traditional, direct instruction curricula tend to perform better on assessments of basic science knowledge. However, differences between PBL students and students in direct instruction classrooms on knowledge tests tend to diminish over time. There is, however, a lack of controlled experiments in this line of PBL research. Directions for future research should focus on combining the best of both direct and student-centered instruction, explore the possibilities of hybrid forms, and investigate how the alignment of scale and didactics of an instructional method could be optimized.
Article
Profiles of Maladministration in Higher Education
Autumn Tooms Cyprès
Maladministration is the performance of leadership relative to the considerable mismanagement of official functions centering on conduct described as incompetent, but not illegal. Understandings of maladministration in the literature are extended through portraits of everyday acts of maladministration within university schools and colleges of education. These are meant to complement the existing research on various psychologies of dysfunctional leadership through the specific lens of day-to-day leadership actions. In this article, an examination of organizational symptoms of maladministration is offered along with its overall impact on organizational culture. For purposes of this article, maladministration is defined as the performance of leaders relative to the considerable mismanagement of official functions that centers on conduct described as incompetent, but not illegal. Specific portraits intended to deconstruct maladministrators in their everyday efforts are described. Then, concluding thoughts outline a set of diagnostic tools and advice for those looking to navigate their careers around and even transcend leaders who are guilty of maladminstrative practice.
Like the disciplines of medicine and the law, leadership is a professional endeavor built on translating bodies of research, professional skill sets, and dispositions into daily practice. As with other professions, the struggle to define the difference between appropriate practice and substandard work is challenging. Arguably, more attention in the literature has been given to examining the hallmarks of skilled leadership rather than the contours of malpractice. A term used in various global contexts to reference the failed execution of leadership responsibilities is maladministration. For purposes of this discussion, maladministration is defined as the performance of leaders relative to the considerable mismanagement of official functions that centers on conduct described as incompetent, but not illegal. This article extends understandings of maladministration by presenting portraits of everyday maladministration within university schools and colleges of education. Understandings of maladministration in the literature are extended through portraits of everyday acts of maladministration within university schools and colleges of education. These are meant to complement the existing research on various psychologies of dysfunctional leadership through the specific lens of day-to-day leadership actions. This article begins with an examination of organizational symptoms of maladministration along with its overall impact on organizational culture. Next, specific portraits intended to deconstruct maladministrators in their everyday efforts are outlined. The concluding discussion outlines a set of diagnostic tools and advice for those looking to navigate their careers around and even transcend leaders who are guilty of maladminstrative practice.
Article
Psychoeducation
Jacqueline A. Brown, Samantha Russell, Emily Hattouni, and Ashlyn Kincaid
Providing psychoeducation to teachers, families, and other school staff is pivotal to best support students within the school setting. Psychoeducation is generally known as the information and resources provided to school staff, families, and students by mental health professionals to better educate them about the student’s emotions, behaviors, and achievement. Within the school setting, the school (or educational) psychologist often takes on this role when working with students and their families. School/educational psychologists are typically the most knowledgeable about psychological practices, theories, and foundations, and also have expertise in special education services, learning barriers, behavioral and mental health interventions, academic learning, and family–school collaboration, along with consultation and assessment practices. Consequently, these professionals are in a good position to effectively provide psychoeducation to a wide range of individuals.
There are various methods of psychoeducation that can be used, such as disseminating resources and reading materials to teachers and families, meeting individually with families or teachers to provide detailed information about what the student is experiencing, and conducting psychoeducational groups with children and/or their caregivers on a variety of topics related to the child’s academic, behavior, or social-emotional well-being. When examining these methods, it is also important to understand how psychoeducation can be used for a wide range of educational practices that promote student well-being. These include using psychoeducation to increase academic achievement, for the prevention of problem behavior, to increase social-emotional well-being, promote educational practices, and provide professional development for school staff, and to inform educational policies. These psychoeducation practices have been widely used globally to better assist student functioning. Although psychoeducation is a widespread practice, there are still different views on how it should be delivered and questions that have arisen from the research.
Article
Psychological Well-Being and Resilience
Shelva Paulse Hurley
Resilience is the ability to adapt and thrive despite facing adversity. There are various ontological approaches to conceptualizing resilience, including the pathological perspective, defining it in terms of protective factors, and exploring the impact of intervention in the manifestation of resilience. The pathological perspective defines resilience in terms of risk factors located at the individual level. A second area of research on resilience defines it in terms of protective factors that may contribute to its manifestation. The final area of research takes into account not only individual-level risk or protective factors, but also accounts for structural influence in an assessment of resilience. As an example of the interaction between individual and structural factors, Caleon and King proposed the concept of Subjective School Resilience. This perspective on resilience suggests it is a malleable construct and influenced by factors relating to both intra- and interpersonal processes.
Article
Quality and Evaluation in Finnish Schools
Jaakko Kauko, Janne Varjo, and Hannele Pitkänen
The quality of education has been a central matter of global debate in the new millennium. The global trend supports test-based accountability models and increasing national data collection as techniques for supporting and increasing quality in education. In contrast, a central feature of the Finnish education system runs counter to the global trend: it does not have strong top-down quality control mechanisms. Historical development of the Finnish model has a strong continuity, which has stood up against the global quality and evaluation policy flows. The evolution of the Finnish “model” dates back centuries. The foundations of the Finnish quality system can be traced to participation in international comparative learning studies developing national capacity, the inspection of folk education supporting the tradition of nationally coordinated external evaluation, and the local supervision of folk schools through school boards emphasizing local provision and the quality control of evaluation. These developments culminated during the 1990s with the radical deregulation and decentralization of education governance. The current model is partly unarticulated. However, it is clearly distinguishable: in comprehensive schools (primary and lower secondary), ensuring quality is entrusted to education providers and schools. They are expected to conduct self-evaluation regularly. There are no national standardized tests, and sample-based testing for development purposes forms the core of evaluation data. Only the main evaluation results are published, making school rankings impossible. Yet there is a large variation in how the quality of education is approached and evaluated in Finland’s more than 300 municipalities. Significantly, the central government has no direct means to control the quality of local education. Its impact is indirect through aims to foster and promote the quality evaluation culture in schools and municipalities. Furthermore, international cooperation and participation in international large-scale assessments have been unable to politicize the national education development discourse. This somewhat uncoordinated yet economical and teacher-friendly quality system raises interesting questions for further research: is this only a Finnish peculiarity developed in a specific historical context, or does it make possible critical theoretical and societal conclusions that question the dominant global test-based quality trends? The buffering of international accountability-based testing and swimming against the global quality evaluation flow is built on (a) the compartmentalization of international tests; (b) the fact that national coordination began to see a deregulated system as a necessity and virtue, and was long fragmented in different evaluation functions; and (c) the important role the local level has played historically in upholding and evaluating the quality of education.
Article
Questioning Nature and Environmental Ethics in Schools
Jorge Moreira, Fátima Alves, and Ana Mendonça
Contemporary sciences and societies are facing several problems when analyzing the relationship between the natural and social dimensions of the world as reflected in the field of education. A serious effort must be urgently made to identify and tackle environmental problems in order to understand the world in which we live, in ways that are beneficial to present and future life on Earth. In this context, it is fundamental to create a new social order in a way that thinking “out of the box” can emerge with other orders closer to the diversity of life that coexist on the planet. Consequently, the awareness of the complexity and multidimensionality of our world requires the building of new forms of reflexivity and the development of critical thinking, reversing the still predominant characteristics of modern societies such as compartmentalization of knowledge, unhealthy competition, profit-seeking motivations, the exploitation of nature, and excessive individualist and anthropocentric approaches. In this regard, educational institutions play a relevant role in shaping future human actions to be more ethically harmonic (both environmentally and socially) as they are sites of knowledge production and sharing.
Hence, it is crucial to rethink the entire educational paradigm and learning system (objectives, curricula, pedagogical strategies, instruments, competencies, school management framework, and even school buildings), because schools often function as “islands,” isolating students from nature, the community, and the “real world,” not preparing them to be well-informed and conscious citizens nor for the challenges that lie ahead. Some theoretical and practical alternatives are needed since schools actually embody the paradoxes and dilemmas of the current societal malaise but have not yet been able to deal with them or to provide adequate effective responses.
Article
Race and Queerness in the U.S. Schooling System
Ryan Schey
Despite the ubiquity of categories of race, sexuality, and gender in K–12 schools in the United States, there is limited research documenting how these categories influence the experiences of students, reflecting constraints on knowledge production, particularly with respect to queer of Color theories in education. Within the research that exists, scholars have used varying paradigms of difference, some of which erase and others of which recognize and theorize the relationships between race and queerness. Many studies have described intersecting structures of domination in U.S. schools and the lack of attention to intersectionality in school-based supports for queer youth. Fewer studies document examples of student resistance and activism, suggesting needs for future theorizing, research, and practice.
Although the bodies of students, educators, staff, and family members in K–12 schools have been and continue to be understood through categories of race, sexuality, and gender, there is limited empirical research discussing the ways that race and queerness are co-constitutive of people’s experiences in the U.S. schooling system. In part, scholarly knowledge production has been constrained because of schools’ hostility to queer research and critical projects more generally, with queer research, and especially queer of Color research, often producing oppositional knowledge in tension with schools as state-sanctioned institutions. When research has been conducted about race and queerness in U.S. schools, scholars have used three main paradigms to conceptualize, or problematically erase, the relationship between race and queerness: discrete, additive, and intersectional perspectives. Discreteness suggests that race and queerness are separate, disconnected identities. The other two perspectives recognize interrelationships. An additive perspective suggests that identities are a sum of parts, whereas an intersectional perspective suggests identities as co-constitutive and resulting in unique, qualitatively different experiences. Research attending to the relationships of race and queerness has revealed that U.S. schools are unwelcoming if not outright hostile to queer youth, resulting in negative consequences such as lowered academic achievement and poorer psychological well-being. The particular experiences of and reactions to such marginalization vary with respect to intersections of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and social class. Although school-based supports such as supportive educators, inclusive curriculum and policies, and extracurricular clubs are beneficial, too frequently these supports lack attention to intersections of race and queerness, limiting their beneficial impact. These tensions show the need for intersectional coalition building approaches to a key element of anti-racist queer educational activism. Importantly, queer youth enact resistance and activism in schools in ways that are individualized and collective. Some resistance has been school-sanctioned (such as writing) and other instances beyond what schools sanction (such as violence). Collective forms were most common as queer youth of Color often drew on embodied and community knowledges to advocate for themselves and peers. In the absence of broader support, queer youth often used privilege, such as whiteness, as protection and thus reified oppressive values and practices. Future educational research needs to focus further on the intersections of race and queerness to help inform educational theories and practices to help queer youth, both white and of Color, learn and flourish in U.S. schools.
Article
Reforming Approaches to Persistent Bullying in Schools
Deborah M. Green, Barbara A. Spears, and Deborah A. Price
Bullying remains a global issue, and persistent bullying among students in schools has become of increasing interest and concern. Extensive research has provided insights into the developmental trajectories of those who bully; however, less is understood about why they either continue to engage in bullying behavior or desist over time. Persistent bullies, those who seem to continue or increase their bullying behaviors over time, not only negatively impact individuals and communities both during their schooling and long after graduation but also experience negative life outcomes as a result of their behavior.
It is therefore important to understand what contributes to, supports, or motivates their ongoing bullying behavior: especially when interventions and preventative approaches employed by schools to reduce bullying, have to date, been found not to be universally successful. This is particularly important, as interventions and approaches to reduce bullying behavior, have until the early 21st century been largely measured against and are relevant to Olweus’s traditional bullying definition, which references power imbalances, repetition, and intent to harm and rests largely within the developmental psychology domain. In the early 21st century, debates to contemporize the definition, however, involve contributions from other paradigms designed to bring a more holistic, nuanced understanding of the whole socio-educational context of bullying. This may eventually bring different insights to the issue of persistent bullying, as it would include, for example, an understanding of the broader notions of societal power, individual agency, privilege, and bias-based bullying, potentially resulting in better preventative and intervention outcomes to address bullying more generally, and persistent bullying specifically.
Whereas school reform often refers to the process of making changes in educational policy or practice, usually in response to concerns about student academic achievement, behavioral issues such as bullying, which impact wellbeing, engagement, and, ultimately, achievement, also require similar “reforms” to policy and practice. Significantly, such reforms demand evidence to ensure there are no unintended or iatrogenic consequences, such as, for example, the escalation or continuation of bullying behaviors.
Reforming approaches to understanding, preventing, and effectively intervening with those who persist in bullying others, a unique subset who seem resistant or immune to bullying prevention and intervention approaches used in the early 21st century, are therefore necessary and timely given the extant knowledge about bullying and victimization derived from the past 30-plus years of research.
Knowing more about those who appear immune to intervention and prevention approaches used in the early 21st century, their lived experiences, the contexts that may serve to support and maintain their behaviors, and the community’s view of them, is imperative if approaches are to be reformed in response which subsequently bring about change in schools to reduce bullying.
Reforming approaches at the whole-school level are considered, which simultaneously employ a multi-tiered system of behavioral support within the school setting for all students: where specific supports are targeted and enacted for those who persist in bullying, alongside strategies for those victimized, in a climate where all bullying is universally rejected. This approach sits alongside the notion of a whole education approach recommended by the UNESCO scientific committee on school violence. This recognizes that a wider community approach is needed, which acknowledges the interconnectedness of the school, the community, and the technological, educational, and societal systems.
Article
Regionalization of Higher Education in Asia
Roger Y. Chao Jr.
Regionalization of higher education in Asia is a multidisciplinary project that complements the ongoing Association of Southeast Asian Nations–centered regionalism that is prevalent in the Asian region. It is part of the ongoing global regionalism and regionalization of higher education projects and is significantly influenced by European higher education developments, especially the Bologna Process and the establishment of the European Higher Education Area. It is anchored on the discourse of higher education for sustainable economic, social, and cultural development and on regional integration projects, and it is built on existing (and changing) Asian regional frameworks.
Regionalization of higher education in Asia is a complex project given its multiple stakeholders, frameworks, and power asymmetries within the region and the various regional and international organizations that influence global and regional higher education developments not limited to Asia. This complexity is further enhanced by the diversity of cultures, religion, socioeconomic development, politics, colonial heritage, and the systems and development of Asian higher education.
Regionalization of higher education projects, not limited to Asia, can be adequately presented using functional, operational, and political approaches. Furthermore, the contribution of mobility and mutual recognition, which are core components of regionalization of higher education, to sustainable Asian regional integration should also be considered. Despite its development during the past decade, regionalization of Asian higher education faces significant challenges related to, but not limited to, quality assurance, mutual recognition, relevance and governance of higher education programs/systems, international relations, and even access and mobility opportunities to higher education.
Article
School Based Pre-Service (Initial) Teacher Training Programs in the USA and the UK
Margaret Solomon
This article is about School-Based Initial Teacher Training (SBITT) programs practiced in the USA and the UK. The article briefly discusses how US teacher-training programs began in 1839, as Normal School in New England. They then later became university based traditional teacher-training programs across the country. Then it shows how a gradual change in teacher training came into the U.S. in the 1980s with the introduction of school-based teacher training as an alternative route. Although most teachers in the U.S are still trained in colleges and universities, the paper shows that many states still pursue alternative routes to teacher credentialing and focus on school-based training
The next part is a brief narration of the history of school-based teacher training in the UK, which began in the early 19th century. In the later part of 1800s, teacher training was favored at universities in the UK and more colleges were opened to facilitate training teachers at higher education institutions (HEI). In the late 1900s, there was an emergence of School-Based Initial Teacher Training (SBITT) programs developed as a result of a shortage of trained teachers. Finally, a variety of different SBITT programs became the most prominent method of initial teacher training. In 2017–2018, 53% of teachers favored a school-based teacher training program, while 47% preferred a university-based teacher training program
Article
School Boards
Michael Ford
School boards are a fixture of America’s public education system. The vast majority of public school students obtain an education overseen by one of over 13,000 locally elected school boards. Yet scholars and advocates continue to debate the legitimacy, efficacy, and even need for school boards. Supporters argue that school boards are bastions of local control designed to represent citizen values. Critics dismiss school boards as under qualified, overly political, and generally not up to the task of improving student outcomes. Key areas of school board research include board zones of discretion, superintendent relations, the link between school board governance and outcomes, and role of special interest groups in board elections. All of these research areas relate to the larger question of whether school boards are the appropriate model for the oversight of public education.
Article
School Boards and Their Role in the Governance of Education
Jacqueline Baxter
School governors play an important part in the democratic governance of education in a number of countries and forming a middle tier of accountability between state and schools. They carry out their role in a voluntary capacity. School governors are drawn from a range of backgrounds, including parents, school teachers, local politicians, business people, and professional groupings. They have a variety of responsibilities, depending on the country in which they are based. Their responsibilities can include, among others: developing a strategy for the school, monitoring the school budget, setting disciplinary strategy, setting school fees. Some members of the school board are elected, while others are co-opted or serve in an ex officio function—for example, head teachers. Political, social, and economic changes—based largely on shifts to the political economy of capitalism facilitated via organizations such as The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since the late 1970s—have resulted in changes across education systems, leading to the globalization, privatization, and deregulation of public policy as a whole, and have affected the role and competencies of school governors. This is particularly the case in England and South Africa.
