The French Saint-Joseph school in Jaffa is one of the few educational institutions in Israel that have survived, since 1882, three political regimes without relinquishing pedagogical or managerial autonomy. This article examines the emergence of "circumstantial multiculturalism" in the midst of radical political changes in a…

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were several women in Italy, who gave pedagogy a new impulse. Among those women, two educationalists, Maria Montessori and Giuseppina Pizzigoni introduced new visions of the school by designing strategies that overcame the barriers to education. The first, with the structuring of a method, arose in Rome…

Educational pioneers believed that the early childhood curriculum was inappropriate for most of the children. It needed to be modified to meet each child's maturing needs, abilities, and interests. The pioneers advocated that education should be more hands-on and assist children to function successfully in society. They recommended the initiation…

This paper focuses on the "Junkyard" ("chatzar grutaot")--a unique educational environment and practice developed in kindergartens on the Israeli kibbutz in the 1940s and 1950s, and still in wide use today in kibbutz kindergartens. The Junkyard, consisting of artefacts of the adult world that are no longer in use, is an…

As noted by many historians, the modern tale of American education is one of a pendulum swinging between concerns about excellence and those about equity. In many matters of policy and practice, excellence and equity are in tension, if not actual conflict. It can be assumed that progressives will always take the "equity" side. So if…

As South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, changes in the political landscape, as well as educational agendas and discourse on both a national and international level, shaped successive waves of curriculum reform over a relatively short period of time. Using South Africa as a germane example of how curriculum and pedagogy can…

This completely updated edition of "The Almanac of American Education" helps users understand and compare the quality of education at the national, state, and county levels. Compiled from official U.S. government sources, this book contains historical and current data, insightful analysis, and useful graphs that provide compelling…

This paper argues that play should be central to children's lives throughout early childhood, including their time in school. First, it charts the history of early childhood education in Scotland through four stages: (1) pioneer of kindergarten; (2) early adopter of formal education; (3) promise of a recalibration through Curriculum for…

In 2018, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) added to their PISA regime the assessment of "global competence". Given this novel, data-driven approach to governing the internationalisation of K-12 education, this study compares this recent intervention to a longer-standing mode of governing for the pedagogical…

Vojvodina is one of the most ethnically diverse regions in Europe where, according to the latest census in 2011, Hungarians are the largest non-Serb national minority group. In recent decades, this northern province of Serbia has faced continuous depopulation, forcing schools and nurseries to face an uncertain future. We argue that despite the…

In the United States, presidential election cycles tend to bring with them a spate of proposals for how the federal government can address adequacy and equity issues in K-16 education. The overall cost, complex web of independent funding mechanisms in play, and the lack of appetite for giving up more local (or state) control tends to temper those…

This article focuses on the application of "Savage Inequalities"-based analyses of data from the state of Idaho with a focus on equitable rural school funding. While Kozol's famous 1991 book-length work examining school inequalities was focused on urban centers and completed several decades ago, this article offers an updated examination…

The hierarchical human-centric paradigm has been criticized by various movements of posthuman philosophy because this paradigm forgets and dismisses nonhuman beings and entities: animals, nature, objects, and technology. When I developed a course called 'Education and Adaptations of Animal Studies' for university students in 2015, I learned two…

At MERGA, I presented a paper entitled "Mathematics in the Pre-School," which was a summary of tentative ventures into this emerging field. The role of the prior-to-school years in children's mathematics learning was not yet under serious consideration but an understanding of the importance of play in children's experiences was building.…

Regulation of time is an important structuring tool of everyday practices in kindergarten. Despite the fundamental importance, investigation of temporal patterns have been underestimated in early childhood education research. The purpose of this article is to illuminate how ideas of childhood and children's cultural formation are embedded in the…