Equal opportunities in the context of education can be interpreted as ensuring equitable access to certain kinds of education (e.g. an academic track) or as equal opportunities to lead a fulfilling life regardless of the educational route followed (e.g. vocational or academic). These interpretations are in tension: the former implies a hierarchy…

This study explores the silencing and voicing of sensitive topics in history education from a cross-national and multilevel perspective. In this mixed-method study, we undertook a quantitative analysis of a 'teaching sensitive issues' questionnaire and qualitative analyses of history curricula and teachers' verbal responses. The findings show that…

Calls for global citizenship education (GCE) in primary education have been making themselves heard in recent literature in different national and international contexts. Primary school teachers must be equipped with the necessary competencies required to carry out this broader task appropriately. This article seeks to understand how experienced…

We discuss oral history interviews with academics who laid the foundation of research and pedagogies in daycare for under three-year-olds in Europe and North and South America since the 1970s. Their work is clearly embedded in the social-political context of their country: the left-wing programmes for disadvantaged families in the U.S.A.;…

Schools are expected to pay attention to citizenship education, including for the global world. The concept global citizenship can get different meanings. In our theoretical orientation, we distinguish between three forms of modern global citizenship: Open global citizenship; Moral global citizenship; Social-political global citizenship. In an…

In line with fear of crime research, schools should be secure places where pupils feel safe in order to function well. Various types of risk and promotive variables at school and pupil level may differently influence a pupil's feelings of safety in school, the school surroundings, and at home. The aim is to elaborate and test a theoretical…

In 2005 the Dutch Minister of Education proposed making it compulsory for all schools in The Netherlands to stimulate active citizenship and social integration. Teachers must give these educational goals a tangible form in their practice. What are the teachers' views on citizenship education? Concepts of citizenship education and the teacher's…

To enable improvements in school health promotion, this paper examines associations between the number of health-promotion issues addressed by primary school teachers in the Netherlands and factors thought to influence this behavior. The main factors studied are context characteristics and constructs of attitude, social influence, self-efficacy…

Education is a dynamic cultural process to which individuals contribute their cultural identity and in which they enter into dialogue with each other. Each participant gives a personal meaning to the subject matter and to the interpersonal behavior norms. The question in this article is: what does education perceive of major cultural incidents in…

This paper presents a cognitive social-psychological theoretical framework on emotions, derived from Richard Lazarus, to understand how teachers' identity can be affected in a context of reforms. The emphasis of this approach is on the cognitive-affective processes of individual teachers, enabling us to gain a detailed understanding of what…