Background: To help equip students with 21st century competencies, one popular strategy adopted by governments and schools worldwide is to move from less formal to more engaging school environments through School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD). In Singapore, the governmental call to "Teach Less and Learn More" has galvanised SBCD in…

This article explores the understood purposes of refugee education at global, national, and school levels. To do so, we focus on a radical shift in global policy to integrate refugees into national education systems and the processes of vernacularization accompanying its widespread implementation. We use a comparative case study approach; our…

Background: In the history of early childhood education (ECE), language is viewed as key in teaching and learning. Children in the ECE are mostly confined to verbal communication which, to a certain extent, restricts their imagination and inventive ability. Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy, initiated the…

Mathematical reasoning and tools are intrinsic to science, yet the close and dependent relationship science has to mathematics is not reflected in either school education or science education research. This paper asks what the barriers are to a mutually beneficial relationship between the two disciplines. A two-phase qualitative interview study…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore sense-making of early childhood (EC) leaders in EC services rated as exceeding/excellent in Australian accreditation. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretivist ontology and social constructivist epistemology informs the study. The conceptual framework uses the concept of sense-making to explore…

Different religions are treated in different ways in Norwegian sixth form textbooks. We carried out an exhaustive content analysis of the chapters devoted to individual religions in textbooks for the Religion and Ethics course currently available in Norway, using rigorous indicators to code each word, image and question according to whether they…

Purpose: The paper provides an overview of the current state of school social science education in Ukraine, whose development is considered in the context of its internal and external challenges. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis of the regulatory documents, school social science curriculum and course syllabi as well as publications and…

This article explores the language learning experiences of four recently arrived adolescent plurilingual immigrant students who participated in additional structured linguistic support (SLS) in lower secondary education. The SLS was targeted at creating scaffolding for students who were learning both the language of schooling and the…

It's been 20 years since the last 'National Debate' on education led to the launch of Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence with the four capacities in 2004. The curriculum was conceived to 'fully prepare today's children for adult life in the 21st century' (Scottish Executive, 2004, p. 3). These four capacities articulated the aspirational purpose…

Indonesia is now considered as a lower-middle-income country (The World Bank 2014) with decades of sustained economic growth. Recent forecasts predict that by 2050 it will be the fourth largest economy in the world (PWC 2015). Indonesia is well endowed with tropical rainforests, coral reefs, and other priority ecological systems, but there is…

This paper builds upon the evolving methodological perspective of a rural standpoint (Roberts, 2014b), and its related method of strategic eclecticism (Roberts & Green, 2013), to re-analyse existing data behind a previously published paper by Drummond, Halsey and van Breda (2012). It does this through an examination of the role of the rural in…

From a cognitivist theory stance, domain-specific subject knowledge is necessary for deep learning and cognitive advance. What opportunities for deep learning and cognitive advance are provided in geography classrooms? This analysis of teaching in geography classrooms is framed by the concepts of deep learning, pedagogic discourse, and a…

The development of English language learning in any country is interdependent with its socio-cultural experiences. Learning is determined by the social, historical, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of its context. This study aims to explore the socio-cultural challenges of teaching English in a remote area. It was conducted in Pemana…

This paper examines how a new policy was enacted by teachers with different working conditions in Indonesia. The concept of curriculum enactment and an elaborated theoretical perspective for understanding teachers' professional judgement are presented to reveal whether teachers from different school sectors encounter dilemmas in curriculum reform…

This article presents analyses of curricula in religious education (RE) for public schools in Austria, Scotland, and Sweden. A curricula is the plan that outlines the goals, content and outcomes in education. A critical discourse analysis approach (CDA) is used to explore how each national RE curricula constructs (a) the aims, status and purpose…