Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between prospective teachers' cultural profiles and service quality expectations in a pedagogical training program in Greece. Design/methodology/approach: Using the EppekQual scale and an alternative Hofstede's cultural scale, 113 prospective teachers in a Greek training program were…

The present research investigates the perceptions of kindergarten students, and pre-service teachers from the Early Childhood Education Department at the University of Athens, concerning the frequency of the Moon's appearance in the night sky. ?he sample consisted of 15 people from each population group. Semi-structured interviews were conducted…

This research focuses on the impact of language autobiographies in promoting multilingualism practices and fostering the cultivation of respect towards linguistic and cultural diversity at educational contexts. It aims at investigating how language autobiographies, as a reflective practice, promote the development of students' critical linguistic…

Early childhood inclusion for disabled children is a priority area as jointly stated by United Nations' and European Commission's policies. Educators have a crucial role in supporting all children's learning by working cooperatively with parents. However, their internalized ableist/disablist beliefs and misconceptions can inhibit the process of…

Today, many countries ensure that student teachers get into the real classrooms, practice in there, spend more time and translate theoretical knowledge into practice in schools during Initial Teacher Education. So that they can receive stronger support in the practicum process, and they can develop themselves. However, schools have been closed in…

Pretend play in early years is considered key to the development of both children's and pre-service teachers' skills. Teachers' involvement in pretend play might be an effective tool for supporting children's play skills and self-confidence, communication, cooperation and decision-making. Drawing on qualitative interviews with pre-service and…

The present study examines the effectiveness of cultural promenades as an interdisciplinary methodology to teaching social entrepreneurship to teacher-candidates, whose teaching specialty is economics, informatics or business administration. The methodology of the cultural promenade included field-research in Orchomenus in Boeotia, Greece…

Global competence is an increasingly important disposition for today's society. Prospective teachers will have to be able to teach effectively in multicultural classrooms as well as develop dispositions of global competence in their future students. This pilot study was aimed at investigating what aspects of global competence should be integrated…

This study explores the role of specific sustainability education pedagogies in developing preservice teachers' sustainability consciousness (SC). The participants were 77 Greek preservice teachers from a Department of Primary Education, organized into two cohorts (N[subscript 1]=30, N[subscript 2]=47), from two consecutive semesters. Data were…

As a nation strives to meet the challenges posed by globalization, which is an issue of the information economy, its strength relies heavily on its citizens' intellectual prowess and critical thinking skills. Thus, institutions of teacher education play a key role in producing teachers who will be able to meet the needs of the time, with empathy,…

The paper discusses alienation from the more-than-human world and the need for nature pedagogies through the experience of nature journaling in an environmental education course in higher education. Students at a University Department of Early Childhood Education in Greece engaged in nature journaling through an assignment that encouraged them to…

Online courses have become an increasingly attractive format for delivering teacher training. However, the low retention rates are a critical and still unsolved issue. This paper presents the results of a randomized controlled trial aimed at testing the impact of a personalized support model on teachers' retention in online training courses. The…

Only a limited number of research has examined preservice preschool teachers' attitudes toward and beliefs about teaching mathematics, likely because there are no instruments aimed at preschool settings that have appropriately established psychometric properties. In the current study, we addressed this deficit and aimed to adapt the Preschool…

The rich repertoire of online practices adopted by educators during the COVID-19 pandemic opened up new perspectives for educational research to consider e-learning post-pandemic. Focusing on teacher education, it is worth considering the practices adopted to inform the development of future curricula that cultivate teaching competencies for…

This paper presents the findings of a comparative study carried out in 2018, which aimed to explore and compare teacher educators' perceptions of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in Jamaica, Greece and Nigeria. This study endeavoured to add intercultural perspectives to the study of ITE and to underlie the idea that ITE has become…