In responding to John Raven's critique of the current situation in education and the role of evidence-based interventions, there are a number of observations that Steve Higgins makes, but he starts by supporting Raven's key argument about the damage that high stakes accountability has done to the system of teaching and assessment in schools. This…

With the increasing number of schools implementing garden-based learning, there is a need to consider pedagogies that enhance students' learning in a garden context. At present, there is little research available and the purpose and methods of implementing these programmes are greatly varied. To meet this need, this article introduces a new…

Slovenia, like many other countries when it comes to questions of quality in education, follows the trends set up by transnational agencies and professional associations. These trends rather emphasise important issues not to be missed or forgotten when specific national approaches or models are being developed. In this context, this chapter will…

Alex Ford and Richard Kennett both welcome the renewed emphasis on knowledge within recent curriculum reforms in England, but are concerned about some of the ways in which the principle of a 'knowledge-rich' curriculum has been interpreted and transformed into particular pedagogical prescriptions. In this article they explain their reasons for…

Scotland and South Korea are experiencing novel challenges in educating for and about migrant populations. Through a critical discourse analysis of these nations' national curricula, we consider the guidance educators are offered in teaching about issues related to migration in increasingly diverse classrooms. Framed by theories of critical global…

Through Preschool and Foundation Level, children are confident in their knowledge about rocks. Five- to six-year-olds have firm ideas on what they consider rocks are and where they might be found (Preston, 2018). With the exception of children who are avid rock collectors, such knowledge usually comprises general, inconsistent ideas formed from…

In April 2015, the "Early Years Inspection Handbook" instructed inspectors to make a judgement on the effectiveness of leadership and management to actively promote British values in the settings. This contribution discusses the paradoxical position of fundamental British values within the cultures of education underpinning the…

Like many other countries the curriculum components and goals of technology education in Malta have experienced evolutionary changes. Changes in Malta occurred at a fast rate but were not always perceived to be in step with international trends, debates and research about technology curricula. This document analyses the text in Maltese National…

In this essay, I discuss Allan Luke's influence on my own critical digital literacy research, beginning with the influence of his monograph "The Social Construction of Literacy in the Primary School" (1994/2018b) and continuing to the present day. I address some of his most admirable qualities: his way of talking about theory and…

This article aims to identify and compare the characteristics of human agency in liberal and Islamic religious education, comparing Iran as a religious context influenced by Islamic state ideology with Finland as a liberal context and a secular state ideology. This comparison will be accomplished by document analysis of the national curricula for…

Despite the increasing popularity of studies on teachers' national curriculum adaptations, there is no comparative study elucidating teachers' adaptations in centralized and decentralized educational contexts through sense-making theory lenses. This paper presents a comparative case study of Turkish and Swedish senior classroom teachers'…

International comparative curriculum research is becoming more important in a globalised world. However, up-to-date comparative studies of international foreign language education policies are still rare. This study compares current modern foreign language curricula in England with that in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany at Key…

This article presents a historical and contemporary account of Lithuania's national public education assessment system and its transformation since the country's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. We explore how the external examination system has developed in relation to ongoing curriculum reforms over the last 30 years,…

This study describes the development of a climate change SSIBL-STEAM program that was aligned to the Grade 6 elementary school national curriculum using the ADDIE model for design. The efficacy of the climate change SSIBL-STEAM program was investigated by measuring the impact of the program on cultivating elementary students' personalities…

Purpose: The new Finnish National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (2018) strongly highlights pedagogical knowledge and practice, demanding teachers to develop their pedagogical thinking, evaluation, judgment, and operating culture. Since ethics is viewed as vital characteristics of the teaching profession, our objective is…