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In this special issue, we explore the opportunities and challenges of using Generative AI (GenAI), in particular, text generators in higher education learning and teaching. As GenAI has become increasingly popular with many staff and students, this special issue provides an overview of the current state of the field and offers insights into future research. This introduction paper consists of four parts. It begins by providing an overview of AI and Generative AI, identifying the gap and framing the special issue relating to the gaps. The second part explores the opportunities and challenges of GenAI in higher education, as identified in the literature. The third part provides an overview of the papers included in the special issue. The final part is the self-reflection of the lead author. The special issue aims to serve as a valuable resource for higher education stakeholders, such as students, practitioners, researchers and managers. We hope this collection will help advance knowledge and future research, encourage innovation and inform evidence-based policy and practices in the field of Generative AI in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author conducted sampling and statistical analysis of papers on education policy research collected by the China National Knowledge Infrastructure in the period from the years 2004–2013. Under the current state of education policy research in China, the number of papers correlates positively with the year; the papers are concentrated in education journals; the researchers are primarily associated with institutions of higher education; and the studies cover a broad range of topics, while emphasizing the practice of education policy. The development trends of education policy research in China include a general rising trend for research on education policy; in the future, researchers from institutions of higher education will continue to be a dominant force in education policy research, and the authors’ regional distribution will continue to be imbalanced; education policy research will focus more on educational equity and improved quality, and studies of foreign education policies will continue to be a topic of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Programme for International Assessment (PISA) is an important cross-national study of 15-year olds academic achievement. Although it has traditionally been conducted using paper-and-pencil tests, the vast majority of countries will use computer-based assessment from 2015. In this paper, we consider how cross-country comparisons of children’s skills differ between paper and computer versions of the PISA mathematics test. Using data from PISA 2012, where more than 200,000 children from 32 economies completed both paper and computer versions of the mathematics assessment, we find important and interesting differences between the two sets of results. This includes a substantial drop of more than 50 PISA test points (half a standard deviation) in the average performance of children from Shanghai-China. Moreover, by considering children’s responses to particular test items, we show how differences are unlikely to be solely due to the interactive nature of certain computer test questions. The paper concludes with a discussion of what the findings imply for interpretation of PISA results in 2015 and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This dialogic composition captures the interconnected experiences of two racialized doctoral students co-teaching a critical social work practice course in a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) program parallel to undertaking a doctoral independent study on anti-racism and decolonizing curriculum and pedagogies. The undergraduate course sought to articulate the distinct desires of and connections between anti-racism and decolonization by drawing on pedagogies of discomfort and affect to support students in engaging difficult knowledges. This paper animates the layered entanglements of multiple actors: two doctoral students, a BSW student, and a faculty member. To capture these layered understandings and constitution of social work education through critical reflection on teaching practices, we weave together our various voices as a way of making visible the need for relationality within higher education. Through our experiences of holistic (un/re)learning, we reflect on tensions, resistance, and (im)possibilities that emerge when curriculum, pedagogies, and bodies collide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers aspects of local academic knowledge generation in Uzbekistan by focusing on the mentor – mentee relations and the 'ustoz' and 'shogird' mindset of supervisees concerning their mentors. By doing so, it analyses how these perceptions may represent the challenge in improving the research quality among young Uzbek faculty members. Drawing on a survey of young university teachers, this study argues that the obstacles are not just policy-related but also cognitive and culture-related. This study uses a Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) to identify metaphors associated with the apprenticeship in Uzbekistan and how these relate to images and expectations of supervisors among supervisees in contemporary Uzbekistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-Apartheid era South Africa's universities have faced serious questions about the quality of their student learning in the face of near impossible challenges. The University of Cape Town, widely seen as the country's leading higher education institution, has shown remarkable resilience, however, in the range of initiatives it has launched to support and enhance student learning. These initiatives, designed with a common purpose, are of course intended to work together so that their effects might be compounded and realized in enhanced student learning outcomes. Drawing substantially on the power of compounding (which is itself redolent of the claim made by complexity theory that relations and emergence are crucial concepts), complexity theory offers unique insights into how and why things change – and also into how and why things remain largely the same or inexorably grind towards failure. The networked initiatives undertaken by the University of Cape Town constitute a case of learning refurbishment that is also well explained and understood in terms of complexity theory. This paper draws on concepts from complexity theory both to understand how learning might be enhanced in higher education institutions in severely straitened circumstances and to offer insights for education leaders and policy-makers in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), specifically AI text generators (ChatGPT), on critical thinking skills in UK postgraduate business school students. Using Bloom's taxonomy as theoretical underpinning, we adopt a mixed-method research employing a sample of 107 participants to investigate both the influence and challenges of these technologies in higher education. Our findings reveal that the most significant improvements occurred at the lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy. We identify concerns relating to reliability, accuracy, and potential ethical implications of its application in higher education. The significance of this paper spans across, pedagogy, policy and practice, offering insights into the complex relationship between AI technologies and critical thinking skills. While highlighting the multifaceted aspects of the impact of AI in education, this article serves as a guide to educators and policymakers, stressing the importance of a comprehensive approach to fostering critical thinking and other transferable skills in the higher education landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment is an essential part of aphasia management. There are many tools available for aphasia assessment, but relatively scant attention has been paid to how speech pathologists carry out their assessment sessions, or how these sessions are experienced by people with aphasia and their families. The evidence that is available suggests that people with aphasia do not always understand the purposes of the assessments they undertake or receive much useful feedback on their performance. Connections between adult learning and aphasia therapy are being made more explicit, such as through the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia, but the potential for a relationship between adult learning and aphasia assessment has not yet been fully recognised. This paper aims to stimulate thinking to improve current aphasia assessment practices. It uses an adult learning lens and explores theoretical approaches underpinning assessment in adult education contexts. In this commentary paper, we summarise the current, dominant practices around aphasia assessment and then briefly review evidence-based recommended practice for assessment in higher and professional education. We explore useful parallels between the two fields and discuss how we might reassess assessment in aphasia rehabilitation. Aphasia assessments have greater potential to be therapeutic than we currently assume. Ideas from adult education are useful to challenge clinicians to reconsider aspects of their practice. Assessments can be a powerful motivator for learning and engagement in therapy. Through a greater focus on formative and sustainable assessment, and changed feedback practices, there are opportunities to capitalise more fully on the potential for learning during these sessions. Attention to the rich development of ideas about assessment in education is a useful way to challenge our assumptions and perhaps prepare our clients with aphasia for a more productive and sustainable learning journey to support their recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of the European Sectoral Social Dialogue in Education since its launch in 2010 and situates it within the context of European Union (EU) governance. The paper adopts a public policy perspective and Ashley Jochim and Peter May's framework for analysing boundary-spanning policy regimes. Based on critical discourse analysis of social dialogue documents and interviews, we argue that the European Sectoral Social Dialogue in Education, as a distinctive institution, has been profoundly shaped by EU's boundary-spanning policy regime of education and employment and at the same time has contributed to its reinforcement. In particular, we demonstrate that the sectoral social dialogue committee since its creation has been embedded in wider institutional arrangements, that it seeks to mobilise education employers and workers on a large scale across Europe, and that it aligns with central issue framings and ideas of EU's boundary-spanning policy regime of education and employment. Thereby, the paper contributes to understanding how institutions, by mobilising interests and channelling attention towards specific issues and ideas, play a central role in structuring and legitimising contemporary EU governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We utilized cross tabulation statistics, word frequency counts, and content analysis of research output to conduct a bibliometric study, and used CiteSpace software to depict a knowledge map for research on entrepreneurship education in China from 2004 to 2013. The study shows that, in this duration, the study of Chinese entrepreneurship education experienced a progression through three stages, an “exploratory stage of learning from foreign models,” a “developmental stage geared toward employment problems,” and a “transformative stage promoting cultivation of student abilities,” and featured three primary characteristics, “multidisciplinary fusion,” “imbalanced regional distribution,” and “policy orientation.” In the future, popular fields in the study of entrepreneurship education are to be concentrated in the three areas, namely “entrepreneurship education and talent cultivation,” “entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial environments,” and “entrepreneurship education and innovation education.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three decades ago, the term Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) entered educational discourse. However, it is important to note that the concept of 'ESD' did not emerge from scholarly debates on education, rather as a tool to carry forward the agenda of sustainable development. As a result, it has been conceptualized in many different ways. This article is an attempt to further the debate on ESD-conceptualization. The paper discusses connections between constructivism, transformative learning, and Erich Fromm's idea of 'to be' and argues that the focus of ESD needs to change from narrow behavioural outcomes to emancipating learners to ask critical questions, decide (without the influence of anonymous authority of capitalism) and engage in activities that allows them to develop an authentic relationship with their world. The article suggests that consistent opportunities (inside and outside the classroom) to reflect and question the 'having' mode and taking steps towards 'being' mode will address the problem of 'otherness' and contribute towards a more sustainable world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual and theoretical paper seeks to analyze the dynamics and consequences of psychologization and therapization, key mechanisms of the therapeutic turn in education. In particular, it focuses, on how the pathologization of social problems occasions individualization and the production of self-reliant and inward-looking subjects trained to maximize human capital according to the tenets of neoliberalism. Second, it explains the principles of a critical approach to education that is informed by the concept of intersectionality. It shows how this concept might be helpful in interrogating and addressing structurally embedded inequalities and injustices. Informed by the insights of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, this approach engenders a contextualized and nuanced analysis of social forces, social identities, and ideological instruments through which power and disadvantage are expressed and legitimized. To further illustrate its importance, insurgent citizenship education, a concept drawn from the experiences of a Philippine school for displaced indigenous groups will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incorporation of diaries and journals as learning and assessment vehicles into programmes of study within higher education has enabled the further growth of reflection, creative writing, critical thinking and meta-cognitive processes of students' learning. However, there is currently little research that aims to compare how different types of diary are used and for what specific learning and teaching purposes, so, with this in mind, a study was carried out to investigate digital diary use within a group of undergraduates, to some of whom the authors allocated Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), which they used to contribute to a blog (digital diaries), and to some of whom hard-backed format (paper diaries) were given. This paper is the first of two from this study. The findings indicated that whilst students found both forms of diary acceptable and convenient, differences emerged in the way that the diaries were being used on a day-to-day basis, both in the frequency of entry and in the length of entries made. Throughout the study, the digital diaries were used more frequently, although the entries were often brief and incomplete. Conversely, students completing the paper diaries made significantly fewer entries in total, but those that were made were longer and more discursive in nature. Further, it was found that the paper diaries possessed positive qualities related to handling and attractiveness that promoted more prolonged use, whilst the negative qualities of the digital diaries were linked to technical limitations. The implications of this work are considered in relation to more general notions of using dynamic devices to encourage students to engage in reflexive criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fair access and widening participation currently occupy a prominent position in the UK higher education agenda, but these terms remain ambiguous. In this paper we identify two prominent strands of policy in the government's approach to access and the widening of participation and contrast these with a third, more progressive perspective. The academic strand seeks to attract 'gifted and talented' young people into an unreformed higher education system. The second strand, which we term the utilitarian approach, posits a need for reform. However, this is undertaken largely to meet the requirements of employers and the economy. In contrast, a transformative approach values diversity and focuses on creating a system of higher education that does not place the burden of change upon potential entrants. This framework is used to explore some of the implications of the government's White Paper The future of higher education. First, the purpose of higher education is discussed, with particular reference to the distinction between economic and social objectives. Second, the government's view of the structure of the higher education sector is examined, by scrutinizing the notion of institutional differentiation and the role of the access regulator. We conclude that within a more differentiated higher education sector different aspects of the access discourse will become dominant in different types of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic positioned digital education in a new light. The need for educational institutions to develop strategies, standards and establish quality assurance across digital education became even more evident. This paper describes the four-step process of designing an interactive European Union (EU) Digital Education Quality Standard Framework and Companion Evaluation Toolkit to guide the design, delivery and evaluation of effective digital education. (1) A review of literature of existing digital education frameworks and models is presented. (2) Variables and sub-variables inherent in designing, delivering and evaluating effective digital education are identified. (3) Next the variables and sub-variables in the framework are defined. (4) The process of designing the interactive framework diagram is described with the companion evaluation toolkit outlined. The proposed framework is flexible and applicable to entities and audiences regardless of where they are in the online learning adoption process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the prosperity of nation states and the availability of skilled labour for the global economy, many countries have encouraged students with low socio-economic status (SES) and minorities to enrol in colleges and universities. In Israel, a significant effort was made starting in 1995 to create more colleges and to provide more access to higher education for students within the mentioned groups. Yet the question arises concerning what was achieved by this effort. This paper analyses the relationship between (i) wealth and higher education in population clusters, (ii) higher education and geographical areas, and (iii) higher education and ethnic subsets in Israel. The evidence indicates a strong correlation between the SES of a locality and the number of students per residents in that locality. This correlation, however, is affected by the existence of an affordable local college. After the correlations are presented and explained, recommendations for enabling low-SES students to be successful in higher education are explored, including developing a new curriculum for middle and secondary students, creating transitional 'discourse communities' for first-year college students from low-SES, and investing in local colleges in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While European governance of individual policy sectors has received considerable academic scrutiny, less attention has been paid to the development of intersectoral coordination. This paper charts the emergence of a supranational boundary-spanning policy regime (BSPR) in education and employment in Europe. By looking at issues, ideas, interests and institutions, we gain a deeper understanding of the conditions for the emergence and further institutionalisation of European intersectoral coordination in education and employment from the 1990s onwards. The study relies on semi-structured interviews with European policy-makers in education and employment and EU policy documents. We analyse how endogenous and exogenous factors frame (policy) issues that contribute to the emergence and further strengthening of intersectoral coordination, the extent to which ideas for European education and employment stress intersectoral policy designs, how interests support or hinder intersectoral work, and which institutions are developed with an intersectoral reasoning. We find that endogenous forces (rather than exogenous ones) played a significant role in the emergence of a European BSPR in education and employment. Structural aspects and policy instruments (institutions), alongside ideas and interests, then contribute to the institutionalisation of the European BSPR in education and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing times force us to rethink our academic policies in higher education institutions. Traditional narrow views on students coming to campuses might be problematic for full inclusion. In this paper, we present an innovative model for student inclusion with the goal of producing a new framework for practice in higher education. We suggest re-examining the interactions between student characteristics while taking them into account as a whole and adopting a new holistic view of their identity-derived needs. The New Multimodality Diversified Campus (NMDC) model takes into account multiculturism, multiple technological literacies, multiple identities, multilingualism, multiple religions, and multiple disabilities. This model, based on multiple pedagogies, multiple curricula, multiple evaluations and multiple policies, serves as a compass to reach our desired destination, which is a fully inclusive campus. We present new observations about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a guiding tool that can be used in higher education, contextualising it in the framework of our model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although critical thinking has been widely accepted as an educational goal for decades, clear evidence for the development of students' critical thinking is sparse. Critical thinking has been conceptualised as skill, knowledge, and disposition respectively in psychology, philosophy and critical theory, but which applies to education is unclear. In this paper, we argue that treating critical thinking as skill is most appropriate in education. However, there are still three competing theories of critical thinking as skill: as a single unitary skill, as a set of disparate sub-skills, and as a composite skill with several sub-skills. We evaluated the validity of these theories through conducting Rasch and correlation analyses on the results of 385 undergraduate students in Thailand on the Multi-Purpose Assessment of Critical Thinking (MPACT) test. The findings suggest that critical thinking is a composite skill with several sub-skills with implications for the teaching and testing of critical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the previous two decades, successive governments have attempted to attract students from diverse backgrounds as part of an overarching ambition to widen participation in Higher Education (HE). As part of those efforts, there has been a proliferation of Further Education Colleges (FECs) utilised to meet those ends. In 2021, approximately 10% of – or c.137,000 – Higher Education (HE) students were enrolled at FECs which represents an important research area under the broad umbrella of UK HE. Based on semi-structured interviews with prospective first year student-participants, this paper sought to examine the reasons behind students' decisions to study College Based Higher Education (CBHE) so as to better-understand and inform student recruitment, retention and success in this area. Twelve participants were selected from two FECs where those students were intent on studying for their HE. The findings revealed that students place substantial value in teaching standards and in the lecturers with whom they build relationships. These features are inextricably linked with broader feelings of community, belongingness and accessibility on the part of students which attracts them to study CBHE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social resilience can be defined as the individual's willingness to mobilise for the communal good, combined with the ability of societal institutions to both resist and adapt to changing conditions. Social resilience has become increasingly important as we respond to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic poses to education. As individuals, we are expected to act for the communal good by wearing masks, following social distancing and allowing contact tracing. At the institutional level, education providers have responded to the current situation to a great extent by rapidly moving education online. However, online education provision has connotations which threaten the quality of education provision for minorities (ethnic, religious, and others). This paper looks at potential scenarios of online education disadvantaging minorities and suggests principles which can guide socially resilient education transformation in response to crises like the global COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internationalisation of educational trajectories has emerged as a new form of cultural capital in education systems. Research suggests that the 'international capital' offered by language enrichment programs has become appropriated primarily by middle- and upper-class families investing in new forms of educational distinction. However, little is known about the appeal of international capital to different class fractions. In this paper, I draw on Bourdieu's theory of class and administrative data on French students and schools to examine the role of international certification in class practices of school choice. The analysis reveals that specific fractions of the upper-middle and upper classes are over-represented in schools offering international certificates. I use the findings to discuss the role of family resources and education system structures in the making of educational strategies. I conclude by highlighting the importance of empirically grounded analyses of the sociological significance and limits of international capital in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the question of how personal experiences of social work educators in the context of global and international social work influence their understanding of local social work and in consequence their teaching. The article seeks to answer this question with reference to six interviews with social work professors and educators from six countries on three continents. The research´s underlying hypothesis is that since it is their task to educate students of social work these professors are making a difference by positioning themselves in the debate about global and local social work. The interviews were conducted as problem-centered interviews (PCI) and were subjected to content analysis. The results show a clear connection between the personal international experiences of the participants and their teaching in local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education in Korea has recently undergone drastic changes introduced by internationalisation policies aimed at global competitiveness in the educational markets. While the widespread student mobility has been studied by numerous scholars, little attention has been paid to both international and local students' interpretations of the global culture created by the policy. In this paper, we explore the ways in which Korean and international students actively engage in interpreting the meanings of 'global' brand created by the institution. It draws upon ethnographic data collected at a Korean university where English has been adopted as an official language. Extending the discussions in recent semiotic studies of linguistic landscapes and place-making, we analysed the ways in which public signs on campus are represented and interpreted. While the institutional language policy is designed to utilise English as an emblem of 'global' brand, the stakeholders such as Korean and international students have contested ideologies about the role of English in creating the campus space as a place to which they belong. The findings of this paper suggest that linguistic landscape is an intertextual product, rather than a materiality that reflects fixed values of Korean and English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VET colleges in China are positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, absorbing the 'left-over' students with 'less desirable' academic records. VET students are stereotyped as 'stupid and lazy' youths suffering considerable prejudice in Chinese society. Drawing on Bourdieu's theoretical insights, this paper investigates the experiences of students in VET colleges and their teachers' perspectives on them. I explore how teachers' stereotyping habitus is practised in VET colleges and how it affects their students' learning experiences. The findings demonstrate that the teachers' pedagogic practices in class impose a designated cultural arbitrary via a hidden curriculum. The students adopted 'passing time' attitudes in class as a response to their teachers' 'misrecognition'. The paper examines how a system of unequal power relations in Chinese VET college is maintained and legitimised, which contributes to the 'transmission' and reproduction of the very culture that has shaped the standing of VET in Chinese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reads Marx's distinction between the method of inquiry and presentation as distinct and Marxist pedagogical logics that take the form of learning and studying. After articulating the differences and their current conceptualizations in educational theory, I turn to different interpretations of the Grundrisse and Capital. While I note the differences, I maintain these result from Marx's alternation between learning and studying, to the different weights Marx gives to both. Marx sought to understand, articulate, learn, and relay the precise logics of capital, of its contradictions, and of how the working class has and can seize on these contradictions to institute the revolutionary transition to communism. At the same time, he knew he couldn't do this because no one can fully delineate and learn about capitalism so long as it exists, as capital is by definition a dynamic social relation. I show how readings of both books are products and productive of Marx's own pedagogical constellation through their content and form of presentation. The argument is that this is a political and constellational pedagogy that's contingent and singular rather than resolvable and unifiable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people of mixed origin are gaining greater recognition in migration and integration studies. Increasing rates of intermarriage are leading to the growth of mixed populations, namely in educational settings. In this paper we discuss the social conditions and school experiences of students of mixed native-immigrant families in Portugal, comparing them with those of their peers. The analysis is based on a survey involving 1,194 9th-grade students. The results have revealed that mixed origin students outperform their peers in terms of average classifications and top grades, showing more positive conditions and experiences than either native students or those with migrant backgrounds. Results recommend taking a more cautious approach when mixing these youngsters into the broad category of children of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss core ideas arising from research undertaken in a Leverhulme Trust (IN2016-002) funded international network project. The project examined youth activism, engagement and the development of new civic learning spaces within and across six countries (Australia, Canada, England, Hungary, Lebanon and Singapore). Arising from interactions with activists and educators and by reviewing literature, we argue that four areas are important for assisting a critical analysis of the fundamental complexities that researchers, teachers, youth workers and youth themselves, are grappling with within and through their activism. These areas that address ways of characterising and developing the relationship between education and activism focus on: engagement with context; engagement with meaning; engagement with diversity; and engagement in reflexivity. We do not present these areas as a simplistic typology; each involves complexities that cannot be easily or readily resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how university staff in Denmark, Germany, and England perceived higher education (HE) policy as impacting the experience of being a student in their respective countries. While, in each nation, different policy mechanisms were identified as having triggered transformations in the experience of being a student, the transformations themselves were described in a strikingly similar manner across all three countries: staff stressed that students had become more instrumental in their approach to learning; that the student experience had become more circumscribed; and that students were under greater stress. We analyse how staff's narratives about the impact of policy on the experience of being a student were mediated by their own ideas about what constituted 'good education', which in turn were strongly rooted in national traditions. Furthermore, in each country, staff's assessment of the impact of specific policies on HE differed sharply from those of policy actors. Our findings contribute to the scholarship on the marketisation of HE, through drawing attention to how the rationality underpinning policy does not determine how it is engaged with by key stakeholders on the ground, and by demonstrating how the neoliberalisation of HE can unfold in different formats, some more explicit than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data from a qualitative study on the community engagement experience at the Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, to prepare students for social work practice. It focuses on how students and academics understand engagement, the values derived from the engagement experience and the particular activities that formed part of the engagement process. Data were collected using in-depth interviews with six academics and eleven students. Using a process of thematic analysis, the study found that service learning within the context of rural villages presented a rich opportunity to prepare students for social work practice and, more importantly, to facilitate the social justice mandate of the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in nationalist tendencies around the world after 2001 signifies changes in the concept of citizenship as reflected in the discourses of the parties coming to power. How does this translate into changes in education? In this article, I analyse the case of Poland. The research is focused on finding an answer to the following question: How does the postulate present in the programme discourse of the ruling, conservative party, of strengthening the national identity, translate into the changes in the school core curricula (CCs)? The applied method of analysis is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The approach by Ruth Wodak and Martin Reisigl was adopted. The application of discursive strategies in learning outcomes relating to national identity, social equality, and diversity in the old and in the new CCs, was investigated. The analyses demonstrated a significant discursive strengthening of the national identity on the one hand, and application of mitigation/exclusion strategies in relation to issues of social equality and diversity on the other. The analyses presented in this paper contribute to the discussion on the relationship between curriculum studies and educational politics by showing the influence of the dominant ideology of contemporary politics on the concept of citizenship in the national CCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the Chinese and English literature on the Chinese idea of tianxia (literally meaning all under heaven), with the objective of shedding new light on the discussion of the global in global higher education (studies). It argues that the tianxia idea embodies an approach to viewing the world that is fundamentally different from the dominant Euro-American worldviews, and contains unique merits in discussing global higher education phenomena. This approach highlights four elements in understanding the world: one-worldism (including the notion of thinking through the world and tianxia weigong, literally meaning all under heaven belongs to and is for all), he er butong (diversity in harmony), an emphasis on virtues, values, and norms in global governance, and an ecological imagining of the world. The implications of the four elements for global higher education are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual analysis is a commonplace technique in geography pedagogy yet it is rarely used in the Australian literary studies context. This article explores the potential for visual analysis to contribute to the shared understanding of a work of literature in a university classroom setting. The use of visual analysis geography can encourage students to read texts closely and map them spatially using pen and paper. It proposes that literary studies educators may turn to innovative methods derived from geography to engage students with literary works. This article discusses a visual analysis assignment which centres on Jennifer Down's Melbourne-based novel Our Magic Hour (2016) for a Literary Studies subject at RMIT University delivered predominantly face- to-face in 2018-2019 and then entirely online in 2020. I describe it as a "messy mapping" assignment which encourages students to acknowledge the limitations and erasures of positivist maps, while trying to capture relationships between emotion and place. I argue that "messy mapping" can activate the many connections and overlaps between texts and students' own personal worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents pedagogic experiment focused on teaching future geography teachers to work with story maps with the use of three applications (Knight Lab StoryMapJS, Esri ArcGIS StoryMaps, and Google Tour Builder). The experiment was carried out by questionnaire form at two Slovak universities. The respondents were students of the geography teacher training program, whose task was to select and learn one of the mentioned applications to create a story map. The statistical analysis of the research results confirmed that the choice of the application by the students was influenced by their previous experience with the applications; it was not difficult for students to develop a story map using the selected applications even though they did not have enough experience about the selected applications before the experiment; and students would make more use of story maps than other applications in their educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a qualitative research study conducted across urban and regional Australian universities. The aim of the project was to investigate the enablers and constraints faced by refugee background students transitioning from high school to university. A refugee is defined as a person who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence [UNHCR(2016). "Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2016." Accessed January 2019. ]. Studies on refugee background students in school contexts have been prolific but research of this population in higher education is still embryonic. This can be attributed to the fact that many refugee background students do not attain the necessary skills required for access to, and participation in, tertiary education in spite of their high aspirations for a university qualification. The paper will show, through the narratives of four refugee background university students that transition at university needs to be reconceptualised as holistic, extending beyond classroom walls and building on the resilience and assets they bring to learning. This is significant because it draws attention to the paradoxical relationship between the rights-based vision that many universities purport to have for their diverse student cohorts and the realities that refugee youth face at university on a daily basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers have long advocated for decolonizing geographic research and curriculum to produce forms of anti-oppressive knowledge and learning. While these calls have become more prominent in recent years, these conversations are rarely translated into a reflection on pedagogy and how we integrate anti-oppressive teaching in the classroom. This paper argues that introducing contemplative pedagogy into our classrooms presents one step toward teaching and producing anti-oppressive geographic knowledge. Anti-oppressive teaching and learning requires challenging oppressive forms of knowledge and asks that students and instructors develop self-reflexivity, reflect on their privilege, and learn to see the world through the experiences of others. Contemplative pedagogy helps both students and instructors engage more deeply with these challenging tasks by equipping students to reflect on their own experiences and positionalities and integrate contradictory and challenging viewpoints. I argue that by incorporating contemplative pedagogy and mindfulness into geography classrooms, both instructors and students will have a set of tools with which to transform the learning experience and provide students with the skills to productively engage in these difficult, but necessary, conversations around issues of privilege, colonialism, injustice, racism, and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa still faces inequalities with regard to access to higher education opportunities. Foregrounding student voices at one university, the paper compares how students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds make decisions about going to university. The focus is on those who have succeeded, but ideas can be extrapolated regarding those who do not make it. The argument draws on Amartya Sen's capability approach to explore individual stories and the interactions between agency and the intersectional conversion conditions of possibility which shape the capability for university access. Narrative interviews show how students are enabled or constrained in their educational decision-making in relation to selves, schooling, family and income. Some implications are suggested for enhancing access, while not making claims for South African higher education as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The campaign for women's access to higher education in Ireland in the late-nineteenth century was understated, characterised by committees, middle class concerns and wrangling over legislation. The earliest female university graduates in Ireland were demure, hardworking and performatively feminine. This paper examines how the campaign for women's higher education in Ireland, and the first female third level students in Ireland, responded to contemporary ideology regarding gender roles. It suggests that the first female university students in Ireland were engaged in a delicate balancing act, seeking access to previously forbidden male-dominated spaces, yet simultaneously attempting to preserve their femininity and respect decorum. This paper will also analyse the gender geography of third level institutions, and the way in which the separate spheres ideology was mapped onto universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for complementing, modifying and 'decolonising' the conceptualisation and implementation of Diversity Education (e.g. multicultural, intercultural, and/or social justice education) are currently being heard in the 'West'. This paper explores some of the characteristics and benefits of Chinese Minzu Education as a potential addition to the field. Our starting point is that Chinese education is often misrepresented and that knowledge about diversity in China (which includes, amongst others, minority groups and Han people), and especially about how people are educated for and through it, is scarce and negatively evaluated in the 'West'. Taking a university specialising in Minzu studies as a case study (which should not be generalized to other Minzu institutions), we problematise formal and informal aspects of Minzu education that could be inspiring to, e.g. interculturalists and multiculturalists in 'Western' education. Fieldwork notes, student interviews about Minzu education and models of Minzu Diversity Learning co-constructed by Minzu students, illustrate the characteristics of Minzu education in higher education. The paper ends on a call for exploring other 'unknown' perspectives on diversity in education emerging from the so-called peripheries of the 'West'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the influences of globalisation on Russian higher education in accounting. Drawing on interviews with academic staff and secondary data sources, the paper discusses the tensions between local and global influences in higher education. The paper argues that globalisation has an ideological impact on accounting educators in Russia and shapes the accounting education discourse. Global discourse is seen as exclusionary, value-laden, capitalistic, imperialistic and marketing-focused. These changes result in the marketisation of Russian universities and may eventually lead to decreased educational quality and value of the academic profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experience and impact of participation in afterschool oral improvisation workshops – bertso workshops – for young Basque speakers. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews among young people in the Northern Basque Country, the researcher, a practicing improviser, bertsolari, herself, argues that the bertso workshop is best understood as a community of practice wherein they create relationships of trust and empathy, take the floor in front of their peers and debate and think together, where individual's identities are constructed in mutual influence, and where linguistic identity is built in conjunction with youth identities. Hence, for these young people, the community of practice at the bertso workshop is a place in which to develop their youth identities in Basque and their Basque-speaker identities within youth culture. This case study also explores tensions that arise between the egalitarian ethos of the bertso workshop on the one hand, where all speakers are equal, and the entrenched language ideologies that, on the other, attribute greater authenticity to improvisers from Basque-speaking families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rubrics have been suggested as a means to foster students' evaluative judgement, the capacity to appraise their own work and that of others; however, empirical evidence of rubrics' effectiveness is still emerging. This paper contributes findings from a randomised controlled experiment on the effect of rubrics on evaluative judgement. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: a control group which evaluated peer-authored learning resources without the use of a rubric and an experiment group which carried out the evaluation using a three-item rubric based on (1) alignment with course content, (2) accuracy and (3) clarity. Both groups were asked to rate their confidence and provide comments to justify their scoring. The results showed a small effect size in increasing average agreement on the quality of learning resources in the experiment group. Analysis of comments reveals that criteria in and beyond the rubric guided participants' ratings of quality. The study provides evidence of the impact of rubrics on students' evaluative judgement and an example of how data-driven approaches and learning analytics can inform actionable design choices for embedding pedagogically supported strategies derived from the literature into actively operating educational technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employability has become one of the most important outcomes of higher education despite it being weakly conceptualised for the sector. The lack of an accepted conceptualisation to address students' and graduates' employability results in difficulties when comparing research findings and therefore in assessing quality in higher education provision. This paper addresses this gap in the conceptualisation of employability and adapts an established framework so that it aligns with the higher education sector. Employability is defined as 'the ability to find, keep and progress in graduate employment'. A holistic framework composed of four categories ('individual factors'; 'individual circumstances'; 'enabling support system'; 'labour market') is used to classify and measure employability. This allows for an understanding of how specific initiatives enhance the employability of students and graduates, and suggests ways to measure this impact. Also, the limitations of HEIs to impact students' employability are addressed using the framework. The examples of Germany and England show how differences in employability occur due to differences in the surrounding labour market. The paper concludes that in a complex and holistic discussion it is necessary to highlight the various indicators, including the labour market, which were used to report more nuanced aspects of employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional view since the early 2000s has been that participation in higher education (HE) is a risky pathway for disadvantaged young people in England; the social risk of entering an alien environment combines with the financial risk of rising costs and questionable long-term returns. This riskiness has been constructed as a major barrier to participation. However, national administrative data cast doubt on whether this analysis still holds true. Despite significant rises in tuition fees, the proportion of disadvantaged young people entering HE has continued to rise, with advantaged groups seemingly being more price-sensitive. Data from recent qualitative studies has also suggested that young people are now less attuned to risks. This paper considers whether circumstances in wider society have shifted perceptions of risk. The volatility resulting from the global financial crisis appears to have repositioned HE as a less risky option than early entry to the labour market, especially with more jobs becoming 'graduate', while the social risk has declined as HE has diversified. The paper draws on theoretical perspectives from Beck, Boudon, Simon and Kahneman to argue that many disadvantaged young people now view HE as a form of 'insurance' against an uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a research project which sought to find out about young people’s views on fairness in education in English schools. Fairness is an everyday term, which in policy hides multiple and contradictory positions across the political divide. In education, we find a policy context that focuses on distributional justice and equality of opportunity but also on principles of freedom and choice. This paper argues that engaging with how young people understand fairness contributes to models of social justice in education. Focus group data and written statements on fairness from approximately 80 young people aged 16-18 from five very different English schools were analysed. Students’ primary concerns, absent from educational policy, were the themes of relational justice and stakes fairness, which are eclipsed by current recourse to distributive justice and meritocratic ideals. We argue that a focus on the lived experience of fairness is therefore necessary to widen the discourse about what is fair in education and to reinvigorate public debate about the values on which our education system is based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social reproduction theory names at least two distinct traditions, one of which has a long history in educational research. Social reproduction theory in education emerged out of a concern with education's relationship to capitalist inequalities. By contrast, social reproduction feminism developed out of feminist interventions regarding the role of women's unpaid care-work in the reproduction of capitalism. In this paper, we suggest that the renewed energy surrounding social reproduction feminism provides an opportunity to revisit social reproduction theorizing in education. We review the fields' histories and ready the ground for an integrated framework. At the heart of this integration is a feminist analysis of reproductive labor in its contradictory relationship to capitalism. Expanding the analysis from the reproduction of capitalist relations to the reproduction of life under capitalism, this approach avoids the pitfalls of determinism and attends to students' participation and teachers' work in the contested labor of social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature suggests that state–market relations in Asian transnational education appear as a hybrid of economic socialism and economic liberalism as well as of supra-territoriality and sovereignty. Such a notion of hybrid focuses on how Asian states manage the struggles over the meaning and value of higher education, thereby addressing various ways in which states participate in neoliberal globalisation. This paper argues that Asian states' higher education policy choices are restricted by local politics and the resulting policy agendas. This argument explains the paradoxical situation that Malaysia continuously encounters when developing its regulatory regime to govern transnational education. The argument also illuminates the recalibrations that appeared in the transnational education policies of Singapore and Hong Kong. The paradox and recalibrations reveal how a political perspective on transnational education is important to understand Asian states' responses to globalisation in higher education regardless of the nature of their regulatory regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I reflect on the current state of critical internationalization studies, an area of study that problematizes the overwhelmingly positive and depoliticized approaches to internationalization in higher education. I note that, despite growing interest in this approach, there is a risk that critiques will circularly result in more of the same if we do not attend to the full complexity, uncertainty, and complicity involved in transforming internationalization. In an effort to continue this work, and clarify the distinctions between different approaches to critical internationalization studies, I offer two social cartographies: one of different theories of change in relation to internationalization, and one of different layers of intervention. Finally, I ask what kind of internationalization might be adequate for responding to today's many global challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an international drive to ensure social work students are research-minded. However, little is known about their experiences of undertaking independent research and even less is known about whether and how they go on to apply research skills in practice. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study which investigated the experiences of 22 postgraduate students who were studying at a university in the North East of England. Students' written critical reflections and data from semi-structured interviews which were undertaken with four of the 22 students six to twelve months after graduation were analysed thematically. Participants experienced positive and negative emotions during their research journeys. They recounted powerful learning experiences and reported that they had been able to transfer some of their learning into practice. However, they also identified that newly qualified social workers face significant constraints to research-mindedness within the practice environment. The findings confirm the importance of providing students with experiential learning opportunities to allow them to produce as well as consume research. However, in order to fully bridge the research-practice gap there may be a need to facilitate new partnerships between higher education providers and local employers with a view to strengthening research capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the independence of Ghana in 1957 to the ouster of the socialist President Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 more than 600 Ghanaians studied at universities and professional-technical schools in the Soviet Union. For both Ghana and the USSR these students were expected to become the socialist-minded elite that would build up postcolonial Ghana and reinforce the country's relations with the socialist camp. This paper retraces the history of this student migration which, by that time, was the biggest one from a postcolonial African country to the Soviet Union. It surveys the premises, visions, and policies of the Soviet–Ghanaian cooperation, and investigates the students' aspirations, before shedding light on their disappointing experiences and subsequent mobilisations in several cities around the USSR. This disillusionment, however, soon gave place to another one. With the ouster of Nkrumah, students studying in the Eastern Bloc came under attack. Back in Ghana, they were depicted as second-class specialists and often saw their ambitions shattered. Under those circumstances, Nkrumah's students sought support from the Soviet Union and mobilised to defend their degrees and professional rights. In some respects, the post-1966 disillusionment rekindled their relationship with the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]