Qualifications frameworks are tools for describing qualifications of an education or training system by classifying them into levels. Each level provides a clear description of what the holder of a qualification knows, understands and is able to do. They are important tools for making qualifications transparent and comprehensible, within and…

This paper reports on the findings from a multi-site case study conducted in Australia, Finland and Jamaica which explored the conditions that enabled and constrained the autonomy of school principals. Systematic data collection was carried out in the form of interviews of school principals and the data was analysed using a qualitative approach.…

Government regulations require businesses to improve their processes and products/services in a green and sustainable manner. For being environmentally friendly, businesses should invest more on eco-innovation practices. Firms eco-innovate to promote eco-efficiency and sustainability. This paper evaluates the eco-innovation performance of…

Employing Jurgen Habermas's notions of communicative and strategic action (1984), this paper draws on case studies of principals' decision making practices in three sites of Finland, Australia and Jamaica. The research examined principals' understandings of educational autonomy as a part of their practices of decision making. The paper argues that…

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is an essential component of learning in and for the workplace, and a key building block of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO's) "Key Features of Learning Cities." TVET provides pathways to employment, particularly for young people, and…

Benefits of the study-abroad (SA) experience have been reported in many studies. However, most prior studies on EFL students' SA experiences track students in relatively short ESL programs during school vacation months. In addition, EFL learners' SA experiences in non-English-speaking countries, where English is not the L1, remain underexplored.…

To obtain a better understanding of country-specific policies, a country-specific literature review was undertaken. The search entailed key-terms focusing on relevance and the three higher education relevance dimensions. The main outcomes of the country-specific literature review are discussed in this chapter. We do so by analysing the typically…

Ongoing global issues relating to the decline of the popularity of institutional religions, the rise of numbers of non-religious persons, and new models of spirituality in superdiverse societies have resulted in the need to reconceptualise religious diversity as worldviews diversity, and to critically examine increasing calls for the provision of…

Language educators in Australia and Finland are expected to foster intercultural understanding within foreign language education. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study focusing on theoretical and practical intercultural understanding in secondary school language education. The data for this study includes lesson observations…

In this paper, we develop an information distortion model (IDM) of social class differences in self-beliefs and values. The IDM combines psychological biases on frame-of-reference effects with sociological foci on ability stratification. This combination is hypothesized to lead to working-class children having more positive math self-beliefs and…

This comparative analysis investigates the influence of neo-liberal and inclusive discourses in "special" education policy-making in New South Wales, Scotland, Finland and Malaysia. The centrality of competition, selectivity and accountability in the discourses used in New South Wales and Malaysia suggests a system preference for…

Assessment in music is of considerable importance in the context of higher music education, with major projects focusing on assessment principles and practices in a number of locations, including the European community and Australia. This instrumental case study explores assessment practices in two higher music education contexts, namely within…

Mentoring is a practice widely utilised to support new teachers. However, in locally formed systems, the practice of mentoring is conditioned by traditions and arrangements specific to the site. To understand "good" mentoring, these local arrangements cannot be ignored. In this article, the theory of practice architectures is employed to…

International businesses face a difficult task when trying to decide where to place or expand a business that could be located anywhere in the world. Each country is a complex system of human capabilities, technical systems, [infrastructure bases, laws, cultures and economic systems. How can a company know which country is best for it today, and…

This review examines the kinds of relationship between research and practice that have been envisaged in programmes designed to provide opportunities for beginning teachers to engage in "research-informed clinical practice". Although the terminology varies, scope for inclusion is defined by an intention to facilitate and deepen the…