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Colleges are important providers of vocational education and training and in some countries they are the major provider. Although the international literature on colleges has grown considerably in the past two decades, it still consists primarily of qualitative descriptions of college sectors in different countries. Quantitative studies of differences in the activity mix of colleges in different countries could improve knowledge of international variation in the roles of colleges and provide a stronger foundation for study of the sources and consequences of variation in college roles. After reviewing different methodological frameworks for comparative analysis of college activity, the research reported here employs one of these frameworks to analyse differences in the activity mix of colleges in five countries. In addition to finding some noteworthy differences among the five countries, the paper also identified several problems of comparability of college data from different countries. The paper concludes that the development of internationally comparable data on colleges would require leadership by international organisations and agencies and is an undertaking well worth pursuing both for the benefits that it could bring to those whom colleges serve and for its contribution to the advancement of comparative study of vocational education and training.

Compare is a leading journal in the comparative and international education research field. To assess this journal's productivity and influence, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of 428 papers published in Compare between 2010 and 2019. The findings show that in the past decade, Compare experienced significant growth in the number of publications and citations. This growth primarily stemmed from England, which yielded over half of the top 20 most productive authors and institutions. Among the numerous research topics discussed in Compare, the disciplinary development of comparative and international education, the internationalisation of education, gender studies in education, and citizenship education were the most frequently addressed. A detailed analysis of these four topics reveals that despite having published many papers falling within the scope of international education, Compare is encouraged to publish more papers about this subfield in the post-COVID-19 era.

Governance and regulation of the use of live animals in research and teaching is examined in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, Japan and India. A comparison of the systems in different countries will enable the determination of best practice and fit-forpurpose regulation. The most comprehensive government regulation of animal welfare in institutions covers a broad range of animals and institutions are required to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, whose membership is specified in guidelines or regulations. The work of the Committees is rigorously overseen by government and facilities that use live animals are audited externally. All countries examined have legislation governing the use of live animals in research, although only Australia and Malaysia have a fully equivalent mandated oversight of teaching. Teaching that uses live animals is partly covered in the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Thailand This paper thus aims to review the regulation of animal use in different Asian jurisdictions in order to determine best practices that are appropriate to those settings. The most comprehensive oversight is provided in Australia and Malaysia that essentially use the same regulatory framework.

This paper examines responses to the trend for increasing participation in tertiary education, linking developments in higher education with those in apprenticeship systems, in Australia and the United Kingdom. In both sectors, expansion proceeded for several decades, but was robustly criticised in both countries. The expansion of access to these two forms of tertiary education, therefore, was contested and potentially precarious. The paper finds, through analysis of official data, that participation in higher education and in apprenticeship was actually almost static, or fell, in both countries in the 2010s. Yet criticism of expansion continued in media commentary during this decade. The paper both explains and takes issue with the arguments against expansion, which have been influential in both sectors. It discusses some ways forward to understand the phenomenon better, and also the need to address the problems caused by the restriction of opportunities. Comparative analysis between the two sectors has not previously been undertaken. It is argued in the paper that such analysis enriches the theoretical lenses through which expansion of access may be viewed, and that it may suggest avenues for future research, and perhaps, for advocacy.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the impact of differences in educational traditions on conventions of teaching and learning, and on the measurement of learning outcomes. These are critical issues within the context of business schools that are steeped in one dominant tradition but have a large population of international students previously educated in other traditions. The paper argues that international students face the challenge of satisfactorily demonstrating learning according to foreign conventions that are different from what they would have been accustomed to within the framework of their home educational tradition. Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on a bilingual literature review to capture differences in educational traditions between Australia and China. It then uses logistic regression to analyze the performance of 800 domestic and international Chinese students across a range of different assessment formats at a large Australian business school. Findings: The study finds statistically significant differences in the performance of these two student groups on different assessment types. It concludes that the conventions on approaches to the assessment of learning shaped by a specific educational tradition can hamper the effective demonstration of learning among students from other educational traditions. Originality/value: The paper focuses on issues related to the assessment of learning in multicultural higher education contexts, which has received less attention in the literature compared to issues on teaching approaches in multicultural contexts. The paper also highlights important implications on the validity of the measurement of learning outcomes and on the subsequent impact on graduate recruitment.

This paper draws from a cross-cultural study of young children's arts curricula. The initial phase of the original study consisted of a comparison of the intended arts curriculum for 5--6 year old children in China and Australia. This was followed by a survey in Beijing exploring 88 contemporary early childhood educators' beliefs about children's arts education. A case study of the enacted curriculum took place across three kindergartens in Beijing. The data was coded and analysed using grounded theory methodology. The research presented in this paper reported a diverse understanding of children's creativity among the participant EC educators; it revealed that a pedagogical dilemma of demonstration remains as a challenge to early childhood arts educators. This study provided qualitative descriptions and examples of Chinese Beijing children's arts education in this era of globalisation. Utilising Foucault's (1991. "Governmentality." In "The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality," edited by G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller, translated by R. Braidotti, 87-104. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf) theory of governmentality as a critical lens to view the issues in this field, the study broadened perspectives regarding the education philosophy and practices of early childhood arts curriculum, in particular, for the cultivation of young children's creativity.

This paper critically analyses 52 Australian and 68 Pakistani pre-service teachers' (PST) perceptions of professional standards for teachers enabling the comparison of teacher preparation in the two countries. A multivariate analysis of variance tested the hypothesis that an integrated standards-based teacher preparation program was more effective for professional skills and competencies development than a non-integrated one. While the Australian PSTs undertaking a standards-integrated curriculum reported significantly higher levels of professional preparation in ten areas of professional Standards, their Pakistani counterparts - who were not exposed to such curriculum - reported inadequate preparation. The findings have implications for teacher educators and policy makers involved in the development of pre-service teacher programs.

This paper presents a heuristic tool that can be used to analyse and reflect on the inclusion of digital competences in Health and Physical Education Teacher Education (HPETE) programs. The tool is used to identify and compare how HPETE programs in three Southern Hemisphere countries address digital competency as an aspect of learning to teach Health and Physical Education (HPE). The results reveal that the tool provides an effective way of analysing the development of digital technologies through HPETE. While these programs are concerned with the need for technology education, they do not rely on suggested international frameworks and have a different focus related to future teachers' digital competences. The lack of a systematic policy to improve digital skills in our data suggests that technology education has emerged from localised efforts. We suggest that our heuristic tool can support educators to refine the inclusion of digital competences in HPETE programs.

A significant distinguishing characteristic of the International Classroom Lexicon Project was the documentation of classroom pedagogical practices of mathematics teachers in the original languages of ten communities. These lexicons provide us with an opportunity to compare identified teacher practices within these communities. In this paper, we explore the challenges of conducting a cross-lexicon comparison to explore the possibility of moving towards an international lexicon by focusing on the Australian, Chilean, Czech and French lexicons. We focus on two clusters of terms, namely, those related to assessment and those related to mathematics. Inspired by theories and studies related to networking and boundary crossing, strategies were conceived and tested in order to accomplish the following objectives: to support a meticulous and comprehensive comparison of the lexical items; to classify the complexity of similarity of lexical items; and to reveal connections amongst the four lexicons in a bid towards developing an international lexicon. This analysis has the potential to contribute significantly to the study and promotion of mathematics teachers' reflective practice and highlights the cultural underpinning of the way classroom practices are perceived.

Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia are similar in many ways. Both were colonised by English-speaking British settlers, and English is a national language in each country. In recent years, both countries have become destinations for immigrants speaking languages other than English and international fee-paying students. Both have a chequered history of maintaining the languages of the tangata whenua (people of the land) or aboriginal people. However, their histories and educational systems diverge on educational programmes and practices supporting citizens and newcomers from non-English heritage cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The linguistic and cultural histories of these two countries have shaped educational policies and practices that, in turn, have impacted how teachers are prepared to teach in linguistically and culturally heterogeneous classrooms. This paper reviews approaches found to support emergent bilingual learners, and those that research suggests are culturally sustaining. It then compares educational documents from Australia and NZ against principles drawn from this literature. It asks whether supporting the needs of emergent bilingual learners in mainstream classes in these countries emerges as a cultural or linguistic issue.

The COVID-19 pandemic is intensifying existing problems of economic asymmetry, and other injustices, between and within countries and regions around the world. It is thus imperative that sociological studies of education document its socio-cultural implications in different locations and on different scales. It is equally imperative that such studies have a historical perspective that asks what pre-existing social problems have been intensified and how such intensification is happening. This paper responds to these imperatives through the deployment of conjunctural analysis and related crisis and articulation theory. We discuss the global COVID-19 conjuncture as it emerged in the first seven months of 2020 and show how it articulated with the preceding conjuncture. Subsequently, we focus on the issues associated with closing and reopening schools and show how they were intertwined with reconfigurations of the school/home/work nexus. We consider these reconfigurations in two very different locations, Australia and South Africa.

Purpose: Through description and consideration of 12 models developed as part of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), a new model of successful school leadership is developed. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is necessarily descriptive in nature. For the first time, 12 ISSPP models are described together, and these descriptions are then used inductively to create a new successful school leadership model. Findings: The open systems approach adopted depicts schools as a continuous cycle of input-transformation-output with feedback loops that inform each stage of the cycle. The inputs are the variables that lead to transformation. The transformation stage is the actions or processes that individuals, groups and organisations engage in because of the inputs, and these lead to a range of student and school outcomes. Feedback loops connect the stages, and the whole model is open to the influence of five contextual forces: economic, political, socio-cultural, technological and system, institutional and educational. Originality/value: Models are an important way to make sense of complex phenomena. A new model of successful school leadership, with an open systems approach, provides a different frame to consider the findings of the ISSPP and potentially allows the ISSPP research to inform practice and connect with other school leadership views in new ways.

VET (vocational education and training) is a highly complex, multidimensional worldwide phenomenon with diverse structures. Additionally, very different actors define the functions of a national (or even a regional) VET system. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the policy frameworks and current states of such systems. Therefore, we focus on selected VET systems in order to understand their specifics and thus, their market conditions. A qualitative approach is used to answer the research question regarding which conditions create or support market-based opportunities for the provision of commercial vocational training services. We find that the liberalism and deregulation of the VET sectors, as well as the marketisation of VET practices, lead to incentives to internationalise VET offers. Thinking in terms of skills, the kind of education system does not play a role. This is the case in liberal market-driven VET approaches (here, the UK, the USA and Australia) and is mirrored in the micro-analysis categories of curricula, learning location, content, and learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article unpacks the ideology of "cosmopolitan leadership," a leadership theory that has surfaced from a qualitative study that examines the comparative analysis of global citizenship education (GCE) in two primary schools: one international school in Singapore and an independent school in Australia. This article unpacks the idea of "cosmopolitan leadership" and the features of this distinctive form of leadership in institutionalizing GCE in the respective contexts and schools. School leaders in both contexts, took an active role in driving GCE in the school, through the introduction of the international curricular model and by keeping themselves abreast with global curriculum initiatives and through curriculum innovation. These curricula initiatives assisted in the take-up of GCE that enabled the schools to attain their vision of developing global citizens. These were aligned to the schools' as well as national policies and evidenced innovative approaches to address the complexity of contemporary diversity, as well as the demands of the global world. This response was situated in multiple influential contexts, which included the national contexts of the two schools, encompassing the nature and geopolitical positioning of each society, the provision of schooling, the nature of schools and the specific policies governing the two schools, and their market contexts, which have influenced their approaches towards GCE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]