Popular wisdom has it that collaboration is "the new black" in the arts and arts education. Collaboration is viewed as the basis for the making of new and novel artefacts in contemporary cultures, while also being repeatedly used as a catchword in the development of curriculum. Yet, collaboration as praxis entails complex and…

In the context of public and policy concerns about human induced climate change, it is striking that dominant models and histories of English teaching marginalise the environmental significance of English as a school subject (Matthewman, 2010). This is in spite of a growing body of ecocritical work within English and cultural studies which has…

The school population in England is linguistically diverse; according to official data, over one million pupils do not speak English as their first language. All teachers are expected to support English as an additional language (EAL) development as part of their professional responsibility. At the same time, there has been little specific…

This article examines the current debate on the politics of history education reforms and the new history textbooks for secondary schools in the Russian Federation. Recent reforms in history education, standards and prescribed history textbooks by the Ministry of Education and Science demonstrate a pronounced ideological shift in the national…

In late 2011, the author was approached by Garry Collins, the president of ETAQ, to deliver a keynote for ETAQ for their first meeting in March 2012. The reflections presented in this article have been drawn from the transcript of that presentation. The reflections focus mainly on implementing the Australian curriculum--English. (Contains 1 note.)

In this article it is argued that the development of young people's skills in using spoken language should be given more time and attention in the school curriculum. The author discusses the importance of the effective use of spoken language in educational and work settings, considers what research has told us about the factors that make group…

This article examines the cultural construction of the school in Turkey in relation to the construction of Turkish nation-ness. By looking at how the modern school was fit together with a network of interrelated discourses available in early twentieth-century Turkey, the article investigates the ways in which the school became an object of thought…

Debates about the meanings of inclusive education are long-lasting, and the imperative to include disabled students in mainstream schools is currently under threat by the UK government's educational policies. This paper draws on critiques from inclusive education and critical pedagogy literature, as well as on findings from field research in a…

Well before the examinations grade crisis of 2012, Michael Gove had set out clear intentions for reforming public examinations. Though he claimed to be improving examinations and assessment by replicating practices that took place in high-performing countries and thus improving the ability of the UK economy to "compete", this…

In this article, the authors interrogate the use of "belonging" in "Belonging, Being and Becoming: the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia" (EYLF), Australia's first national curriculum for early childhood education and care settings and, from the authors' interrogation, possibilities are offered for thinking about and…

Since the 1990s, Chile has participated in all major international large-scale assessment studies (ILSAs) of the IEA and OECD, as well as the regional ones conducted by UNESCO in Latin America, after it had been involved in the very first international Science Study in 1970-1971. This article examines the various ways in which these studies have…

No Child Left Behind radically shifted the balance of power in American education policy-making from the states to the federal government, not because a new consensus had emerged to make such a shift, but because both Democrats and Republicans were angry with the nation's teachers, holding them responsible for a massive increase in the costs of…

While there is little political opposition towards sex education as such in Norway, recent attempts at reforming the subject reveal underlying heteronormative presumptions that seem resistant to reform. While a focus on homosexuality is included in the national curriculum at all levels of compulsory education, the sexual practices involved in…

This article discusses values education in schools and offers pre-service teachers with an insight as to why values education should be incorporated in classroom teaching. The list of current values in the Australian Curriculum and the importance of values education are discussed. Suggestions are made on how to improve values education, with a…

In this opinion piece, the author writes that England is now well on the way to having the most totalitarian as well as one of the most inefficiently managed schools system in Europe. He states that in the much maligned 1960s, people came from all over the world to learn from what was being achieved in the best of England's publicly-funded, local…