This paper explores how digital competence and digital technology are addressed in Norwegian early childhood teacher education (ECTE). The aim is to provide a national overview of the ECTE institutions' programme and relevant course plans to identify how the preservice teachers are being prepared for their future professional life as digitally…

Background: Many studies have been done in the past to compare country-specific curricula to international standards. However, there is an apparent lack of literature that focusses on evaluating the alignment of country-specific early grade mathematics curriculum to the Global Proficiency Framework (GPF) for mathematics. Aim: This study aims to…

Music is ever-present in early childhood but does not feature strongly in the national curriculum framework -- The Early Years Learning Framework in Australia or in the intentional practice of educators in early childhood education and care settings. This is mainly due to a lack of knowledge and confidence or self-efficacy to engage musically with…

Reform in higher education is on the agenda worldwide, and there is increasing political interest in the content of study programmes. This article looks at the policy process leading to the new national curriculum regulation (NCR) for kindergarten teacher education (KTE) in Norway in 2012. The following questions derived from Kingdon's Multiple…

There is an identifiable gap between Australian government policy aspiration and curriculum guidance found in the content of the renewed Australian Curriculum (2018) that has been designed to support the cross-curriculum priority (CCP) of "Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia." We have employed an inductive, interpretative research…

The introduction of the Australian Curriculum in 2011 and 2012 brought with it a variety of responses, from consternation from some states less willing to give up their autonomous curriculum positioning through to significant optimism from educators and academics about the opportunities and benefits afforded by such a national curriculum…

Education policy seeks to define the purpose of schooling and design the educational sphere according to authorities' objectives and people's needs. Governments set policies and principles to reach their intended goals in education, preserving people's values and culture. Many countries provide learning foreign languages in their curriculum to…

In this article, we present the results of a study about the perceptions of students studying for a degree in primary education about their music-teaching knowledge and their training needs in that area. The study was carried out in three public universities in Galicia (Spain). Using a quantitative methodological approach, a questionnaire was used…

At a few universities in Sweden students can chose a preschool teacher education programme with a music profile. At one of these universities, a study was undertaken that aimed to explore student teachers' understanding of self as musician, their future professional role as a preschool teacher and how the education equips for that. Sixteen…

In several European countries, teacher education is regulated by national plans that emphasise pedagogy as the central subject. Pedagogy shall include research-based knowledge, as well as having a strong connection between theory and practice. We have interviewed teacher educators about what they emphasise about theoretical and practical issues in…

This article examines the special nature of "Te Whariki," Aotearoa New Zealand's early childhood national curriculum, as a dynamic social, cultural document through an exploration of two art-inspired imaginary case studies. Thinking with "Te Whariki" retains the potential to ignite thinking post-developmentally about art,…

A Chinese and a Swedish preschool teacher education programme were examined in search for commonalities and differences of the curriculum decision-making considerations involved in the respective programme revision process. Findings include: (1) the two programmes have shifted orientations and become similar, yet there was no fundamental…

The national bicultural early childhood curriculum in New Zealand, Te Whariki, and the Graduating Teacher Standards require that graduating teachers are competent in Maori language as well as English, and have an understanding of aspects of Maori knowledge. However, research shows that teachers are not yet proficient in the skills needed to…

The newly created Conservative Education Reform Network (CERN) at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) invited a group of conservative education thinkers to sketch policy proposals that they would like to see in a new education agenda. The only requirement was that they offer suggestions that would complement the traditional conservative…

Education is of relevance to everyone but it involves a specialized vocabulary and terminology which may be opaque or unfamiliar to those new to the field. This UK-focused Dictionary of Education provides clear and concise definitions for over 1,100 terms, from A* to zero tolerance, that anyone studying education or working in the field is likely…