Student performance in general subjects such as language and mathematical skills is poor in secondary vocational education. A professional culture of teaching--including recruitment of well qualified teachers, effective teacher collaboration and effective teaching practice--could be the key to success. To what extent is there a professional…

This extended literature review explores four broad themes concerning mathematics education, the first of which is on how U.S. school-aged children have been performing in mathematics at the national and international levels. Findings demonstrated that at the national level, their performance has been stagnant for many decades for high school…

GeoCapabilities offers an approach for unlocking powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) for children. In phase three of the project, we are exploring how far GeoCapabilities 'works' for teachers serving communities in challenging socio-economic circumstances. We connect GeoCapabilities to social justice in education, theoretically. Then, using the…

Despite its non-elitist goals, there is growing concern over the potentially elitist nature of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) programmes in English. Previous European studies have reported more advantaged pupils' profiles in these programmes compared to regular programmes. It is unclear from the literature however which pupils…

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) programmes are increasingly popular throughout Europe, but are sometimes accused of inducing a selection bias in the pupil population, both through selection mechanisms of the schools themselves and self-selection of the pupils (and/or their parents). As a result, the outcomes of the CLIL approach…

To improve the teaching and learning materials for a curriculum it is important to incorporate the findings from educational research. In light of this, we present creative exercises and experiments to elicit, confront and resolve misconceptions in geometrical optics. Since ray diagrams can be both the cause and the solution for many…

The present study is embedded in the contextual approach of acculturation research. It examines teachers' attitudes and behaviors, teachers' expectations as well as their teaching practices as risk and resource factors in minority students' school adjustment. The study applies the method of content analysis and uses a deductively developed and…

The unprecedented shift to remote schooling introduced in many countries in the spring of 2020 as one of the preventive measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 gave us the opportunity not only to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of remote schooling, but also to reflect on how education is being provided in general. We interviewed in total…

This article reflects on the place of RE in a pillarised education context, taking into account the fact of religious diversity and pluralisation among the school population on the one hand, and the freedom of religion and education of faith-based schools on the other. Particular attention will be given to Belgium and the Netherlands, which do not…

This report focuses on the structure of mainstream education in European countries from preprimary to tertiary level for the 2017/18 school and academic year. Forty-three education systems are included covering 38 countries participating in the EU's Erasmus+ programme (28 Member States, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, the former…

This article presents the epistemological paradigm in which Philosophy for Children (P4C) is embedded and the personal epistemological positions that are promoted by P4C, in order to address the concern that P4C might induce relativism in pupils. On the basis of theoretical considerations and empirical results, it is shown that P4C does not…

This study sought to explore the ideological and implementational spaces for mainstreaming multilingual pedagogies (MPs) in initial teacher education (ITE) policies and curricula across the European Union. The concept of linguistically sensitive teaching (LST) was used as a lens to examine inclusive, equity-centred MPs in ITE. A multi-sited…

The effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) in terms of increasing students' educational attainments has been extensively studied for higher education students and in nonexperimental settings. This paper tests the effectiveness of PBL as an alternative instruction method in secondary education. In a controlled experiment at the class level,…

Background: The dynamic model of educational effectiveness (DMEE) is a comprehensive theoretical framework including factors that are important for school learning, based on consistent findings within educational effectiveness research. Purpose: This study investigates the impact of teacher and school factors of DMEE on mathematics and science…

The paper presents the results of an international research on a comparative assessment of the current status of computer science education at the secondary level (ISCED 3A) in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Belgium. Evaluation was carried out based on 14 specific factors gauging the students' point of view. The authors present qualitative…