Accountability in education was implemented to improve poor learning outcomes by documenting and monitoring learning achievement results. In this process, external standardized achievement tests have played a central role, being the mechanism most frequently used to measure learning outcomes. However, several decades after its initial…

This article explores how an environmental education policy text comes to be constituted by discursive strategies that reproduce or challenge particular ideologies of environmentalism in relation to education. Using a qualitative analysis of discourses in the National Policy of Environmental Education of Colombia (NPEEC), we examine how these can…

Using a critical approach, I discuss the socioeconomic power impact of capitalism, neoliberalism, and globalization in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Colombia, described as a symbolic annihilation process. I argue how these three constructs have influenced language policy-decisions making processes and classroom practices…

This article is a commentary on the seven articles in this special issue of EJTE on teacher quality from international perspectives. In the article, Marilyn Cochran-Smith points to differences as well as common themes and details across the articles in the issue. The article discusses the emergence of teacher quality as a global concern, including…

This article presents a reflection on the educational scenario that permeates the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) in its political, methodological, didactic, curricular and investigative dimensions. A description of the current English reading comprehension level in the national context is presented. On the other hand, from a…

English teachers' professional development responds to individual needs and societal discourses about teaching, learning, and language use. This paper reports the findings of a case study that explored the factors that increased or limited the active and committed participation of nine Colombian teachers of English in professional development…

This study used task-based group interviews with young adolescents in four countries to investigate their understanding of the causes of human rights violations, means for protecting human rights, and their own potential role in ensuring human rights. Although students recognized the role of personal and institutional factors in both violating and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of adaptive methods for junior researchers undertaking research in volatile and dangerous environments. Design/methodology/approach: Through the presentation of two case studies of the authors' own experiences in the field, the authors demonstrate the way the use of adaptive methods…

Within the spirit of conspiration, this article brings together contributions from participants of the PhD-led UCL Reading and React Group 'Colonialism(s), Neoliberalism(s) and Language Teaching and Learning', which ran in 2019/20. Weaving together various perspectives, the article centres on the dialogic nature of the decolonial enterprise and…

It is possible to track multiple state reforms to secondary education in terms of curricula and syllabus throughout the second half of the twentieth century in Colombia. Underlying each reform, one can identify a rationality that surpasses the logic of Education, and is rather intertwined with the political project and ideological requirements of…

We discuss the use of mixed methods research to further understanding of displaced Colombian gay and bisexual men and transwomen, a marginalized population at risk. Within the framework of communicative action, which calls for social change through egalitarian dialog, we describe how our multinational, interdisciplinary research team explored the…

Background. This project was motivated by the impressive growth that scholarly/scientific journals in Latin America have shown in recent decades. That advance is attributed to global, regional, and national pressures and trends, as well as a response to obstacles that scholars/researchers from the region face to be published in prestigious…

The "Plan Basico" for Colombian higher education, elaborated in the 1960s at the University of California under the sponsorship of the Agency for International Development, is criticized as nondemocratic and designed to serve the political and economic interests of the United States and the national elite rather than the Colombian people…

The paper explores processes of social movement learning within SINTRAEMCALI, a public service trade union in the South West of Colombia, which has successfully prevented a series of attempts by the national government to privatise public utilities. The paper develops the concept of "strategic learning" and applies it to an exploration…

This paper provides a study of the evolution of the accounting system in the country of Columbia, South America, in light of the conflict between cultural values, other environmental factors, and the financial information generated. The paper begins with an overview of Colombia's political history as well as its economic and social changes during…