The authors explore children's symbolic play that involves themes of fear and darkness, and they investigate the nature of children's binary oppositions, particularly between self and other. Their account is based on a year-long qualitative study they conducted with seven children, four to ten years of age. They observed the children engage with…

A central aspect of inclusion is to grant all children opportunities to participate and gain from a fellowship in school. However, some categorised groups of children are more prone to segregation and exclusion than others. Drawing on philosopher Ian Hacking's theories of the interactive relationship between how categories influence the…

The article presents a qualitative study which explores Chinese school teachers' imaginaries of Chinese and other education systems. It also investigates how social media has shaped their imaginaries. By reference to the literature on imaginary, discourse, and media, the study views imaginary as an instantiation of a particular discourse or…

Novel computational representations, such as simulation models of complex systems and video games for scientific discovery (Foldit, EteRNA etc.), are dramatically changing the way discoveries emerge in science and engineering. The cognitive roles played by such computational representations in discovery are not well understood. We present a…

Authors and illustrators of children's literature bring to life characters and contexts that provide demonstrations of agency as well as resources upon which to build agency. Agency is considered here as making one's identity and perceptions visible and actively acknowledged by others to enhance and empower the personal, cultural, and social…

Enquiry learning and teaching about the nature of science (NoS) is a key element of science education. We have designed an experimental setting for students aged 12-14 years to exercise enquiry-learning skills and to introduce students to the NoS aspects of creativity and imagination. It also illustrates the impact of carbon dioxide on the growth…

Spatial design as a discipline relies on the psychological construct of space. In the light of shortcomings and challenges faced by traditional approaches to spatial design learning, this paper investigates the role and value of Virtual Reality (VR) as a pedagogic vehicle. Based on understandings informed by action-research using VR with learners…

Awareness of one's own strengths and weaknesses during visualisation is often initiated by the imagination -- the faculty for intuitively visualising and modelling an object. Towards exploring the role of metacognitive awareness and imagination in facilitating visualisation in solving a mathematics task, four secondary schools in the North West…

Emotional intelligence plays a great role in human adaptation to social environments. The individual level of emotional skills depends on one's genes, family environment, and socialisation, as well as personal experience and education. The purpose of the present study was to examine the educational influence of mental simulation in developing the…

This article examines the role of global representations in immigrant-background children's social imaginaries in primary schools in France and England. Increased globalisation, mobility and migration hold strong implications in terms of identity and belonging for children from immigrant backgrounds in schools in European countries, based on…

The goal of the action research project on visual culture is to contribute to the dialogue on the exploratory ecology vs commodity culture of the elementary school classroom. Exploratory culture, unlike commodity culture, applauds open-ended thinking, inchoate imaginings, and critical thinking with its attachment to divergent paths to resolving…

The creativity program, "imagination 'first': unleash the power of possibility," implemented in public primary and secondary schools in Northern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, deals with the power of imagination in unleashing creativity among gifted students and teachers. Following an in-depth literature review on creativity for…

In the face of transmission-oriented national curricula, this study explores possibilities for claiming space for imagination, as 'the most powerful and energetic of learning tools' (Egan 1986), in early childhood education in mainstream Kenyan schools. Drawing from Egan's work on imagination and Cummins' Nested Pedagogical Orientations framework,…

Teachers need creative strategies and techniques when teaching idioms in Setswana. However, they do not know what idioms are nor are they aware that through idioms cultural heritage can be preserved and that idioms can be taught as part of imaginative language, especially in Grade 3. As a result, teachers and learners in Grade 3 Setswana classes…

How can we explain children's understanding of the unseen world? Young children are generally able to distinguish between real unobservable entities and fantastical ones, but they attribute different characteristics to and show less confidence in their decisions about fantastical entities generally endorsed by adults, such as Santa Claus. One…