During the 2024-2025 school year, the state of South Dakota will implement a curriculum inspired by the conservative Hillsdale College model. South Dakota teachers will need to expand their content coverage without the benefit of additional instructional time; find ways to teach young students content that is developmentally inappropriate; base…

Despite significant evidence worldwide that parents support school-based delivery of relationships and sexuality education (RSE), Australian data has generally lacked larger, nationally representative samples. Furthermore, misguided perceptions of parental attitudes are known to impact delivery. In response, online survey data were collected from…

A substantial amount of media comparison research has been conducted in the last decade to investigate whether students learn Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) content better in immersive virtual reality (IVR) or more traditional learning environments. However, a thorough review of the design and implementation of…

Ever since the 1970s, politicised debates have raged over the teaching of history, dubbed the 'history wars'. These debates continue to impact primary and secondary teachers' choices of history curriculum foci to this day. This research aimed to discover history teachers' understanding of how to develop diversity within their history curricula and…

Some state legislatures have introduced a rash of bills designed to control how K-12 teachers discuss so-called 'divisive issues,' such as racism, sexism, and privilege. This legislation has prompted substantial news coverage on the impact of these laws. Sidelined in this discourse are the perspectives of teachers. This mixed methods study seeks…

Even though religious schools are common in Australia, many government schools provide religious instruction (RI) classes. Religious instruction involves students being segregated into faith based groups so as to receive instruction in the beliefs and practices of "one" religion. This practice also occurs in many other countries. In…

While most parents support their adolescents receiving school-based sex education, there is variability in which sex education topics receive the most support from parents. Conservative political orientation and greater religiosity have been independently associated with parents' lack of support for school-based sex education; however, no studies…

Too often, students sit compliantly in class and are not engaged in the learning. Acclaimed speaker and author Aaron Hansen uses compelling stories and a step-by-step framework to help educators become hero makers. These powerful classroom mentors empower students to break free of their self-limiting stories and fixed mindsets and experience a new…

Differentiation is recommended as the best teaching strategy to nurture gifted and talented (GT) students. While numerous studies have explored teachers' perceptions of differentiating instruction for GT students in Western countries, the body of literature on this phenomenon remains small in non-Western contexts. This study attempted to…

Although teachers make frequent decisions about whether and how to address difficult topics, they typically do so with minimal support. This article reports a case study of an inquiry community of 20 educators who engaged in practitioner inquiry as professional learning for addressing the difficult topics that they teach within their curricula or…

Given the prevalence of sexual assault and intimate partner violence in adolescence and young adulthood, it is critical to understand how content on these topics is integrated into school-based sex education as a potential intervention point. However, little research has evaluated how formal sex education on sexual assault and intimate partner…

Racism remains endemic and pervasive throughout the United States, its institutions, structures, and systems. And yet, efforts to build racial literacy have been widely absent in K-12 educational institutions. Research exploring the racial pedagogical decision making of teachers is essential for disrupting systemic educational inequalities brought…

Researchers and educators have increasingly recognized the importance of classroom discussions about race and racism--"race talk"--for student development, yet teachers often face significant psychological barriers to engaging students in race talk. This research draws on two large samples of U.S. K-12 teachers to examine how teachers'…

Menstrual health literacy has a direct impact on young peoples' quality of life, health, academic and professional performance. In Australia, the key learning area of Health and Physical Education [HPE] provides opportunities for students to develop menstrual health literacy. This paper reports on the findings of a survey of 5007 young Australian…

This paper examines data from a statewide survey of K-12 social studies teachers in one midwestern state regarding their perceptions on the ways in which they integrate issues of race and justice into their classes, or their reasons for not doing so in their role as Instructional Gatekeeper.