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The concept of 'pedagogic voice' emphasises the capacity of children to express their views on matters related to teaching, learning and curriculum. 'Pedagogic voice' aligns with children's rights to be listened to and the extent to which their views are fully considered and acted upon. Combined, these rights based approaches positively shape children's learning experiences. This paper draws on quantitative and qualitative data from the longitudinal mixed methods cohort study Children's School Lives to explore children's voice. Grounded in the sociology of pedagogic voice literature and building upon research on children's participatory rights, the paper explores children's experiences of being heard and actively participating in decision-making processes in diverse primary school settings in Ireland. It analyses children's voice by looking at their capacity to influence their own learning, contrasting their experiences and perspectives, to those of their teachers. Findings illustrate the interplay between children's and teachers' narratives regarding children's voice and their pedagogical encounters to explore the impact on teaching and learning processes, highlighting structural challenges to the realisation of children's voice in primary classrooms in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a growing new materialism paradigm and research on multimodality, there is an increasing attention on the role of material objects in science teaching and learning. However, there is currently no available framework, coding scheme, or method of inquiry to specifically analyze the use of material objects in science meaning-making. This paper presents and discusses two analytical frameworks developed to examine teachers' and students' interaction with material objects during classroom discourse. The first analytical framework was theoretically informed by multimodal interaction analysis (MIA), focusing on humans' situated interaction using embodied and disembodied modes located in the material world. The second framework was informed by social semiotics multimodal analysis (SSMA), focusing on material interaction as a semiotic mode with unique affordances for sign-makers to make meaning alongside other semiotic modes (e.g. speech, gesture). Both frameworks are used to analyze two vignettes of classroom discourse generated from video data to illustrate their applications, coding procedures, and interpretative potential. The MIA-informed framework highlighted the dynamic and reciprocal relations between students' experiences and the transformation of materials, while the SSMA-informed framework highlighted the subtle meanings constructed with the unique affordances of the material mode. The affordances and limitations of the two frameworks are discussed, along with their compatibility and complementary relations. This work contributes to the emerging field of materiality in science education research and provides a foundation for future studies on the analysis of material interaction in science meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging digital technologies offer a transformative potential to redefine learning tasks and many examples of this potential are now available. The scaling of the innovative pedagogies emerging from the research into widespread and sustainable practice, however, remains problematic. This paper addresses the issue of scaling by using Design Based Research (DBR), also known as Educational Design Research, within teacher professional development to reposition teachers' thinking about the place of digital tools in their teaching. Using a project seeking to support the use of new digital technologies to develop children's spatial reasoning as a 'worked example', this paper highlights how the bringing together of the knowledge of educational research and knowledge of teaching practice in DBR can provide a catalyst for epistemic change. The paper will argue that DBR positions the knowledge and practice objects of both research and teaching as 'epistemic' or 'not yet known' objects and, therefore, the legitimate focus of experimentation and reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on how social group work is integral to teaching and learning about critical reflection on practice (CRoP), on three different levels. The paper provides an overview of the theory and practice of CRoP, followed by a description of group work in two MSW CRoP course sections at a school of social work in Ontario, Canada. The paper describes the process of integrating CRoP into practicum integration seminar groups to sustain skills in critical reflection, as well as our own group process in our small faculty research and teaching group. By integrating group work and critical reflection literature and by focusing on the development of critical acceptance and mutual aid, this paper will outline benefits, challenges, and opportunities related to the use of groups in facilitating the CRoP process, along with next steps and further discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advancing equity is a major challenge facing education systems globally. This creates an imperative for researchers to work with policymakers and practitioners to affect change. There have been many attempts to do this using various forms of action-oriented research and a considerable body of knowledge exists about their strengths and limitations. The paper describes the development of a methodological approach, Design-Based Equity Research (DBER), which draws on these existing traditions but is also distinct in its explicit consideration of values. It is marked out by a process of knowledge generation, in which researcher and practitioner knowledge meet, in context, to produce new knowledge about ways in which broad values of equity might be better realized in future practice. The paper explains how the approach was developed, conceptually and empirically, through a series of studies carried out over the last twenty years. It concludes that the process has the potential to generate two important types of knowledge: substantive knowledge about how equity can be realized in practice, and processual knowledge about the DBER process itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to extend discussion on teachers' leadership within International Baccalaureate schools in Poland. Background for the discussions on leadership in Polish context of education is the term Homo Sovieticus [in English: Soviet Man], a notion associated with sarcastic and critical reference to an average conformist person living in the Soviet Union or in other countries of the Eastern Bloc in Europe, a spineless person who lacks any 'bottom up' initiative. In the paper, it is claimed that teachers' limited leadership in a centrally steered system of teacher training in Poland, demonstrates features of leadership developed according to the Homo Sovieticus model of the citizen. Strong emphasis onto leadership within international culture do not let Homo Sovieticus features and behaviors to develop. In this understanding, international schools with strong emphasis on leadership in Polish post-soviet educational landscape creates path of evolution from stereotypical perception of teachers as passive 'Homo Sovieticus' to leader within school curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have shown how school professionals deal with large quantities of student test data and accountability policies in different ways. However, the subtle ways in which school leaders and teachers use their time, their power and their talk when dealing with external policy demands in daily practice is understudied. Using data from interviews with formal school leaders and video observations of leadership teams and teaching teams, this paper investigates how school leaders and teachers deal with external testing policy demands in a fairly new policy context of national testing in Norway. The study aims to explore micro-political aspects of the issue, by applying a theoretical framework on leadership, micro-policy actors and ideas about time. The paper contributes to the field of education policy and reform by introducing the role that time plays in micro-politics in general and how time issues contribute to the shaping of stakeholders' understanding of and relationship to external policy demands. Findings surrounding middle leaders as crucial in the micro-policy construction of time and space, suggesting a need for research aimed at understanding school leaders' and teachers' sharing experiences of time and the care for the collective self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)'s emergence is viewed as a disruptive technological advancement that has been beneficial for most educational purposes but also coupled with emerging challenges and potentially destabilizing effects. Given the unprecedented onset and surge in interests, education stakeholders are often pressured to adopt such emergent technologies with little space and time to seek better understanding and to attain literacy. This paper brings together existing contributions to identify a list of five common themes (5Ts) and various uses of generative AI for improving students learning and future education research. The challenges and opportunities from the use of generative AI in education were also explored, and as part of a rethink of how stakeholders can continue to be relevant in a dynamic learning environment with emerging technologies, three "R" guidelines (3Rs) are also proposed to aid educators and students to stay ahead of the curve in addressing challenges and embracing opportunities arising from the use of generative AI for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, there are expectations internationally that schools will use research to inform their improvement initiatives. Within this context, this paper brings together findings from two large-scale Australian studies – the Monash Q Project and the University of Newcastle's Quality Teaching Rounds Project – to explore educators' patterns of engagement with research. The combination of these studies provides data from a larger and more diverse sample (n = 774) than other recent Australian studies, and integrates insights from direct and indirect approaches to investigating educators' research engagement. The analysis highlights several common themes associated with educators' research use including: the perceived credibility of different sources; the relevance and usability of research; and affordances of access to research and time to use it well in practice. Newer and more nuanced insights include: the interrelationships between collaborative and directed research use; the need for research to be convenient in terms of access and usability; the role of trusted colleagues in helping to bridge gaps between research and practice; and educators' distrust of research itself. The paper argues that these insights provide important cues as to how systems and school leaders can help educators to increase and improve their use of research in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers what it could mean to say that epistemologies and methodologies are racially just or unjust. It has been argued that this has nothing to do with whether an individual researcher is racist: he or she could be anti-racist but still use an epistemology that is racially biased. To explore this issue, some pioneering research by Allison Davis, an influential African-American scholar in the 1940s and 1950s, is examined. This research dealt with the effects of social class cultures on academic achievement in the United States. While Davis was well-known at the time, his work in this field is now largely forgotten. Two senses of 'racially-just' are examined in this paper, relating: to the intrinsic character or origin of epistemologies and methodologies; or to the implications for and likely consequences of their use. Davis's investigations employed methods and assumptions that are rejected by many educational researchers today. I will address the question of whether these can be criticised as racially unjust; and, if so, on what basis. This evaluation will lead to a consideration of the broader question of the terms in which it is appropriate to assess educational research, and in particular the epistemologies and methodologies on which it depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative Critical Race Theory (QuantCrit) is a burgeoning field of study seeking to challenge and improve the use of statistical data in social research. It pulls lessons and insights from Critical Race Theory and applies them to understanding social challenges. In this paper, we aim to improve the quality of quantitative research produced by showing examples of how pioneers in this field are effectively enacting QuantCrit. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to include all empirical education studies published since 2010 through 2022. Twenty-seven studies fit the criteria. Our data shows there is room for innovation, experimentation, and exploration. However, the study highlights exemplars of authors who embody QuantCrit principles through their professional and personal positionality statements, cognizance of community, robust racial/ethnic categories, intentionality on not centering whiteness, use of atypical methods, new measurement tools centering Black and Brown students, and innovative interpretations of findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that the paradigm of relationality, engaged methodologically, can be the basis of praxis that purposefully moves away from business-oriented notions of "best practices" and toward education research that meets the needs of Indigenous and Black communities currently designing futures within settler colonial states during climate catastrophe. In so doing, the paper considers what a critical Indigenous research paradigm requires of researchers, what a critical Black epistemology requires, and what we can learn by bringing the two together in a relational approach to qualitative research. Relationality is defined and placed in historical context. The author's positionality is engaged by exploring his relationship to relationality through examination of the confluence of Black and Indigenous epistemologies in the United States. Through auto-reflection on a qualitative study of land-based education, this paper analyzes research "openings" as an example of relational methodology praxis. The paper offers a critical analysis of specific, detailed methodological actions undertaken to practice relationality in order to create cracks in existing educational research methodologies through which relationality can take root. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student democratic participation in schools is often limited to involvement in school councils with associated dangers of tokenism and speaking for others. There is limited space for students to have a voice in what is learned due to mandated state curricula and scepticism about student capacity, even though consultation with students about matters that affect them is a legally binding obligation under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These challenges have resulted in limited research on operationalising substantive student voice. Student agency remains feasible within the boundaries of the formal curriculum, but with significant limitations on decision-making. This paper conceptualises the relationship between student voice and agency, mediated by forms of curricular engagement. We posit that ideological dimensions of engagement and associated student positionality exert a dominant influence on voice and agency. Furthermore, we examine the potential for more authentic approaches to voice and agency to dynamically alter student engagement. Empirically, we draw on work on curriculum negotiation and integration to consider the operationalisation of student voice as the fundamental driver of curriculum, with authentic engagement and agency as emergent properties. Practical considerations for incorporating such approaches in state curricula are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present moment is beset by many complex challenges. Young people face living with the consequences of decisions being made largely without their consent or involvement. Centering youth voices may be part of the solution. But we need to go beyond liberal, individualist and rights-based models that pay insufficient attention to the enabling conditions of meaningful voice, to temporalities, or to schooling as institution and process. Seeking alternative conceptualizations of voice, this paper draws on Annemarie Mol's work on the 'logic of care' in relation to health services. She describes this as a ceaseless, ongoing, mutual process of attunement to the unpredictable nature of human existence, implicating a range of actors, technologies, resources, materials, meanings, and affects. This description better captures aspects of good – responsive – educational practice. It also resonates with recent feminist scholarship on the posthuman, new materialist and affective dimensions of everyday life and education. This can support innovative work related to youth voice, as exemplified by a research project aiming to 'attune, animate and amplify' what matters to young people in learning about sexuality. Such reconceptualizations may help us meet the challenges we face, not only in schools but those of life on a finite planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student voice has held a prominent place in the tradition of progressive and democratic schools and classrooms around the world. Once engaged it offers a chance to develop and use crucial skills for democratic living and to shape meaningful contexts for learning as students bring their own personal questions, cultural experiences, resources, and prior skills to curriculum planning and school policy. At the same time, engaging student voice raises concerns about curriculum design, teacher and student roles, student expectations, and school politics, as well as the need for scaffolding and support for both teachers and students. This paper outlines the rationale for student voice, a framework to consider options for teacher and student voice in curriculum planning, and a number of examples of student voice in curriculum planning, school policy, classroom organisation, and school culture drawn from the author's long involvement with student voice projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, music education policy is deeply rooted in neoliberal ideologies, shaping classroom practice and assessments. This paper presents findings from a four-year funded longitudinal project exploring the impact of musical partnerships on young people at risk of educational exclusion. Through a posthuman lens, the researchers made a methodological shift, acknowledging the agency of non-human elements and physical spaces in musical interactions. Posthumanism offered alternative insights, challenging traditional notions of music education practice and extended human-centric perspectives and school assessment metrics. It expanded our understanding of what it means to be a musician and pedagogue. This paper proposes that posthumanism can challenge existing notions of music education practice while simultaneously moving the discussion of important matters in music education research into new areas of thinking, doing, and being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review aimed to provide an overview of teacher professional development programmes for teacher training carried out in Latin America, considering the critical characteristics for PD reported in the literature. The 34 studies were analysed based on six critical features that were identified as being important in order to achieve a positive impact on the practice of teachers. The analysis allowed us to identify the presence of the following critical features: (i) duration; (ii) content focus; (iii) active learning; (iv) programme type; (v) collaborative participation; and (vi) coherence in the professional development programmes studied. The characteristic of collaborative participation is expressed in the opposite way to what is reported as effective in the literature. While the five critical features are not explicitly mentioned by the most studies analysed, a tendency to consider these features in the design of PD programmes was identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are one potential strategy to support educational transformation or improvement, and this focus inherently requires new ways of working for both practitioners and researchers. This paper seeks to understand how RPP engagement within an EdD program supported the development of practitioner-scholars through a case study of the Multnomah County Partnership for Education Research (MCPER). The study describes the perceptions of 67 practitioner-scholars from eight different doctoral cohorts and how the RPP impacted them in terms of building capacity, serving the local community, and enhancing their identity as a researcher: 89% of respondents reported learning valuable information, 79% described how the information learned was relevant to their professional lives, and 87% said completing the report developed their identity as a researcher. The practitioner-scholars also largely noted that completing a report improved their capacity to conduct data analysis (86% agreed), write a program evaluation report (84% agreed), and write a literature review (80% agreed). In terms of how participating in the RPP helped the practitioner-scholars, qualitative coding revealed participating in the project was a "real-world," "boots on the ground" process that involved "serving the greater good" and built their confidence as a researcher. Engagement with the Multnomah County Partnership for Education Research (MCPER) is one strategy to support practitioners to develop these practitioner-scholar capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates reading philosophy and using its concepts in educational and social science research. The lengthy engagement with the various concepts and conceptual orders of poststructuralism required for post qualitative inquiry exceeds the scope of reading required for a conventional literature review at the beginning of a typical empirical research project. Reading that spans many years of an academic career does not serve the epistemological project of stabilizing what is known through recognition, representation, and summary but attends to an ontological project of re-orienting thought through experimentation, invention, and creation to enable what does not yet exist but might. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confronted by myriad interconnected societal challenges, this paper asks: what kind of pedagogy does justice to the experience and challenge of living in a complex world? Departing from a critical reading of a preparative-logic to education, this paper emphasises students' entangledness: more-or-less consciously, students are uniquely shaped-by and shapers-of complex societal challenges in a here-and-now sense. Utilising this premise, the paper develops a set of pedagogical perspectives that might inspire and help teachers to design their own responses to particular complex societal challenges in their unique teaching contexts. Drawing on emerging outcomes from a narrative diffractive inquiry with 12 teachers as co-researchers and engaging with complexity thinking, six perspectives are presented and discussed: entanglement-orientedness, entanglement-awareness, hopeful action, inquiry within complex societal challenges, practicing perceptiveness, and practicing integrity. Together, these perspectives offer a heuristic for embracing complexity in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional ethnography (IE), a term coined by sociologist Dorothy Smith, explores the nuances of institutions and their complex relationships in sociology. IE is an approach to studying and analysing social organization, and it provides a more holistic understanding of 'invisible' relationships that govern institutions and how those relationships interact with each other. Health sciences researchers in patient care, patient experience, and allied health professionals have recently become more interested in the use of this methodology and how to incorporate it into their research. However, in health professions education (HPE) there is little use of IE. We hypothesize this may be because of limited practical knowledge of this methodology. This paper serves as an introduction to the use of IE in HPE, describing the differences between IE and traditional ethnographies, recognizing the common pitfalls when utilising IE, and incorporating texts into IE. While ethnographies may be daunting to researchers less familiar with these approaches, the tips in this paper will provide an introduction and help educators and researchers successfully navigate the use of IE in health profession scholarship and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed account of the development of an instrument to investigate the emerging concept of presence in teaching (PiT) on a larger scale, explaining how the transition from data and findings from qualitative studies to a survey instrument was accomplished. In order to ensure relevance for teachers, the instrument needed to do justice to the unique and varied character of the qualitative data and be closely related to educational practice. Therefore, we adopted an interpretivist approach and a procedure involving different types of interactions: between outsiders (researchers, experts) and the instrument, between insiders (teachers) and the instrument, and between outsiders and insiders. Often, instruments are developed from an outsider perspective, in which respondents serve as informants for the researchers. Our development process occurred in a dialectical relationship between the 'scientific' concept and the 'everyday' concept (in the intuitive understanding of teachers) of PiT, which allowed us to capture PiT within a survey by means of narrative vignettes using the language and classroom practices of teachers. Reflections on the quality criteria and methods used, the challenges encountered and solutions found, may serve educational researchers planning to investigate emerging concepts such as PiT on a large scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of a Critical Race Feminista praxis-oriented methodological framework in development called FilmCrit, and a critical race method expanded into filmic form called Cinematic Critical Race Counterstorytelling. Critical Race Feminisita Praxis informs this work by drawing on a Critical Race Theory in Education framework and Chicana Feminist theories and epistemologies. In discussing two FilmCrit studies, a qualitative documentary study, No Somos Famosos (We Are Not Famous), and my dissertation study, From the Classroom to the Screen: Experiences of Women of Color MFA Film Students, I detail the theoretical, methodological, and analytical development, as well as the scholarly significance, of FilmCrit and (auto)biographical and composite Cinematic Critical Race Counterstorytelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends Critical Race Feminista Methodological (CRFM) approaches by contending that convivencias− the coexistence necessary for creating relationships in the field − are an integral part of engaging research collaborators within educational historical research. Drawing on oral histories with Chicana/o librarians, personal collections, and archival sources, I outline the convivencias I shared with librarians that span across spatial and temporal dimensions. These interactions were centered on recollecting, remembering, and learning about the activism within Latina/o/x chidlren's literture and librarianship's history. Convivencias across space were possible through diverse interactions, such as in-person meetings, phone conversations, video conferences, and emails. Convivencias across time are represented by the continuity of sustained efforts to advance social justice in librarianship across multiple decades. The conceptualization of convivencias across space and time emerged as a CRFM tool that aims to center seldomly documented narratives of activism essential for fostering connections, cultivating community memories, and nuancing historical educational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, research comparing education systems across countries and jurisdictions is valuable and can elicit nuanced insights into how particular systems operate. This paper's interest lies in considering the scope and content of research comparing education systems across the four UK nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). This study sought to determine the coverage of UK cross-national comparative education research ('home international' research) between 2000 and 2022. We chose this time period as 1999 marks the devolution of education policy to each UK nation. We aimed to investigate what educational issues had been discussed in the literature and identify any gaps in the content covered by the research. An exploratory, high-level review of 'home international' education research was conducted, based on the review of abstracts. We searched several research databases using a variety of keyword combinations to identify relevant literature published since 2000. Our search identified 53 studies that met our selection criteria. Using a meta-synthesis approach, we coded the content of each abstract to build a picture of the range and thematic coverage of research involving comparisons between at least two of the four UK nations. The analysis of abstracts identified that, over the last two decades, UK 'home international' research has tended to include comparisons of all four nations, coverage of multiple educational phases and a focus on national education policy reviews. Furthermore, we pinpointed a number of gaps in coverage that might not have been anticipated (e.g. relatively little cross-national research focusing on assessment). This high-level review uncovers the landscape of recent 'home international' research, allowing us to view issues that are driving the cross-national research agenda in the UK and recognise implications relevant to education systems that may resonate with jurisdictions beyond these four UK nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In recent years, Game-Based Learning (GBL) has been widely adopted in various educational settings. This paper aims to review empirical studies that adopt GBL in the field of AI education and explore its future research perspectives. After a systematic keyword search in the online database and a snowballing approach, a total of 125 empirical papers with 133 studies were targeted as samples. Results indicated that the games in AI education are mainly fell into five categories: Puzzle games are the most used in the curriculum (27.07%), followed by Reasoning strategy games (23.31%), Robot games (18.05%), Role-playing games (9.02%) and Simulation games (6.77%). Among them, 22.39% of games were with real characters, 11.94% were with virtual characters and 64.18% were with no characters. Besides, games were used in three main forms in AI education: games as teaching tools (78.95%), games as student works (12.03%), and games as a competing mechanism (9.02%). Researchers mainly paid attention to the effect of GBL on students' Opinions and Attitude (52.96%) and Learning achievement (24.04%), while the other three categories such as Skills and ability, Interaction, and Cognition were not extensively measured. The cross-sectional analysis, research gaps, and potential directions for future research were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'governance' is one of the most widely applied concepts in education policy and research. Yet its meaning has changed over space and time both analytically and normatively. This history is a complicated one marked by both shifts and continuations in the politics of language and the development of unique intellectual histories and conceptual and empirical turns in the field of education. In this paper we systematically delineate the different meanings ascribed to governance within education with a focus on its polyvalence as a political project, empirical object and research analytic. Specifically, we highlight the various complementarities and tensions flowing from this rich and evolving language. We conclude by calling for more education researchers to reflect on this complicated history and attendant language as part of their framings and interpretations of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to define and describe the 'Telos' or purpose of special education. We argue that special education has three main (tripartite) functions: (a) research, (b) a distinct system, and (c) special instruction. The overall Telos of special education is to provide an educational service to better serve students whose disabilities adversely affect their learning. Despite this overall Telos of special education, we see a more specific Telos for each function. In particular, the Telos of special education research should be based on the search for truth, whereas the Telos of the special education system focuses on promoting equality of opportunity, equity, and social justice. Last, the Telos of special education instruction is to optimize learning through specialized, individualized, and effective instruction, which is essential to achieve the overall Telos of special education. Current challenges to all three parts of special education's telos are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experience of three mentors working with a group of 12 practitioner action researchers; practitioners who were recipients of an Action Research Grant (ARG) in a programme initiated and managed by the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS). The EIS is a trade union, which represents over 80% of Scotland's teaching professionals. The paper draws on these experiences, the views of participants and the research literature, to illustrate how action research, particularly that which is mentored by experienced colleagues, can empower teachers and enhance their practice to make positive difference to their learners and beyond and so becomes participatory action research (PAR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recognition of the benefits that can be achieved through the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and, more broadly, Open Educational Practices (OEP), there has been little research on the competences that are needed to enable educators to utilise such practices. To contribute to closing this gap, this paper presents a framework of the competences that educators in higher education should develop in order to effectively engage in OEP. The framework development was based on an in-depth analysis of a set of existing successful open teaching practices, which allowed to identify the underlying competences needed to engage in each one of them. The competence framework consists of one transversal attitude (that of being open to constructively engaging in OEP) and two competence categories (those relating to OER and those relating to open pedagogies). These two categories include a total of eight competences, described in detail through the corresponding knowledge and skills. The paper closes with a reflection on how to facilitate the attainment of these competences, that could become a key part of existing capacity building actions for educators at all levels, and suggests some directions for possible future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, there has been growing concern about teacher preparation at university and the link to educational quality. As a result, higher education institutions have designed programmes to help faculty teachers further their development in their professional careers. However, the literature pinpoints a lack of empirical evidence on professional development (PD) policies at university level due to the limited tradition of research and evaluation at this educational stage. The aim of this research is to provide an overview of the actions and programmes for the professional learning of new academics at university institutions. To this end, we conducted a systematic review of the international literature, based on 262 papers from three international databases, of which a total of 18 were analysed in depth. This study examines the types of programme, content and learning outcomes. The findings show that most programmes deploy mentoring versus other modalities, although duration and content are heterogeneous. In addition, mentor selection and training is revealed as a key element for programme success. Finally, we present a number of lessons learned that may be useful for university induction programme design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early career teachers (ECTs) are potential resources for educational innovation and development in schools. Innovative professional potential (IPP) emerges in interaction between ECTs and their school ecology. Using semi-structured timeline interviews, we explored 105 IPP experiences of 19 ECTs in the Netherlands, aiming to understand when and how IPP emerges in the school, and to obtain a first grasp of how it can be stimulated. We categorised typification, location and professional interests and explored interaction processes with persons and affordances in the school ecology. Findings showed that ECTs initiate and perform innovative tasks and activities mainly at school or subject department levels. These tasks and activities are mostly social in nature or focused on educational development, while including a wide range of professional interests. Rather than one specific interaction with a person or an affordance, accumulations of restricting and stimulating interactions appear important for how IPP emerges. This paper concludes that it is crucial to consider ECTs capable of exercising the full range of teaching activities from the start of their career, and to share responsibilities among professionals in the school during ECTs' induction. These practices can help to increase educational quality and prevent teacher attrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores K-12 interdisciplinary learning in the humanities (IL-Humanities), an area that, until now, has seen limited research focus compared to its STEM counterparts. We asked: (1) What are the outcomes of IL-Humanities in terms of interdisciplinary competences? (2) How do learners in these environments engage in cross-disciplinary knowledge building and transdisciplinary identity work? We assessed the efficacy of IL-Humanities across ten Israeli middle schools through a pre-post intervention/comparison design, utilizing the novel Interdisciplinary Competences Assessment (ICA). Qualitative insights into the learning processes within classrooms were derived using discourse analysis methods. Students' interdisciplinary competences were found to increase following the IL-Humanities interventions. Qualitative analyses offered "thick descriptions" of the process: Students leveraged cross-disciplinary transfer of knowledge to deepen their understanding of complex phenomena and used personal narratives to engage in identity work. This study enhances interdisciplinary education research by: (1) providing and operationalizing a model of interdisciplinary competences as an assessment tool; (2) demonstrating the effectiveness of IL-Humanities environments in developing these competences; and (3) advancing our understanding of learners' engagement with cross-disciplinary knowledge building and transdisciplinary identity work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AV1 robotic device has a growing evidence base, both internationally and in the UK, for supporting pupils with physical/emotional health needs. The device allows pupils to access their school lessons remotely through telepresence technology. Previous papers have highlighted the growing relevance to the education field, although, to date, there is no published UK academic research. In consideration of this, the purpose of the present paper was to explore the views of school staff who have trialled the AV1 device in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were held with 10 staff members from different school settings before data were analysed thematically. Key themes related to potential for impact, opportunities/challenges, and wider socio-economic considerations. Implications are considered in relation to (1) future research and professional practice, and (2) the introduction of a proposed implementation framework to support practitioners when trialling the AV1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research suggests that school leaders' instructional leadership can make a difference in improving student achievement. We explored this issue in a mixed-method study that sought to verify whether or not, from participants' perspectives, school principals enact this type of leadership and whether or not they feel that it affects student outcomes. The research included a sample of top-level school leaders in a Portuguese region. We analyzed the data with descriptive statistics and content analysis techniques. Participants reported that most of principals' leadership practices did not focus on student learning, but rather on school administration and management. Many respondents felt that it was not their job to lead in several instruction-related areas. Furthermore, respondents regarded the impact of most of principals' instructional leadership practices on student achievement as weak. The paper discusses possible reasons for these findings, including the contextualized nature of the exercise of principal leadership roles, and suggests future avenues for research on this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased need for effective school leadership development, especially in rural and high-needs schools, has led to an increase in research-practice partnerships between districts and universities. Yet, there is a need for systematic analysis of the outcomes of such partnerships. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of a leadership development initiative on 16 school leaders and eight leadership coaches and their leadership and leadership coaching practices. The initiative, the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), was created through a research-practice partnership between a consortium of 12 predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts and two universities to meet the districts' leadership development needs. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of rural school districts partnering with other districts and universities to provide cross-district leadership development through facilitated professional communities and job-embedded coaching to develop rural school leaders and coaches able to lead continuous school improvement efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I draw from an in-school music research-creation project to consider the complex, racist-ableist politics of failure in the early childhood classroom. I theorise failure as it unfolds through anxiety, which I conceptualise as an affect of failure, to discuss both the perverse possibilities and perilous precarities of (neuro)queer failure. I examine two samples from an in-school research-creation project, which fail in generative yet risky ways: (1) a vocal improvisation by "Kwodwo," whereupon I consider failure as mobilised through the racist-ableist politics of neurotypicality, disproportionality in special education, and refusal; and (2) research-creation's transdisciplinary courting of failure through my "critical use" of electrodermal activity. Drawing from these two samples, I suggest that, in considering this special issue's call for "bad research," educational researchers must not only attend to those failures that sit within the successful confines of what is defensible in the academy (i.e. failure without failing), but also to the intersecting ethico-political complexity of failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many empirical studies about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum present problems for students to solve. This paper draws upon the data collected from the enactment of an integrated STEM curriculum to discuss problems as constitutive of problem spaces where four Grade 5 Singapore students engage with the materialities and relationships to generate solutions from these spaces. The study seeks to address the nature of the problem spaces in STEM inquiry. Derived from the emergent coding of 12 hours of lesson videos, the findings illuminated that problem spaces emerged from familiar and dissimilar contexts in the curriculum. These problem spaces embodied epistemic infrastructures and epistemic emotions within which students exercised agency to collaborate productively and learn. Implications for STEM curriculum making that foregrounded epistemic considerations, rather than outcome-based learning, were discussed. This paper helps to further the field of curriculum studies in STEM education by contributing to the theorization of STEM curriculum by applying a process lens to deepen understanding of problems as problem spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational researchers continue to polarize into 'qualitative' and 'quantitative' camps, with these terms often functioning as global identity markers, rather than as styles of research that are available to anyone. Many scholars have lamented the drawbacks of researchers being siloed into opposing, apparently incommensurable research paradigms, and have advocated for more inclusive and mixed-methods approaches. However, mixed methods research is not necessarily a good fit for every researcher, research study or research question. In this theoretical paper, I argue that the distinctions commonly made between qualitative and quantitative research are fundamentally incoherent and that the challenges researchers face across both styles of research are essentially analogous. I present methodological pragmatism as an accessible and convenient, compatibilist framework for making research design choices which cut across qualitative-quantitative divides. I propose that the exploratory-(dis)confirmatory distinction is of considerably more practical relevance to educational researchers than qualitative-quantitative ones, and I outline how methodological pragmatism, while consistent with a degree of methodological specialism, recognizes the availability of all research methods for all researchers. Methodological pragmatism liberates researchers in education to conduct the most rigorous research possible by drawing on any methods from any tradition that will further their research goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although concepts such as research without borders have become more commonplace in recent decades, few studies have investigated the capabilities that global researchers require to cross both cultural and disciplinary borders. This paper explores global capabilities along with strategies and spaces that may facilitate academic researchers' acquisition and development of global research competence. The study's dataset comprises responses of 26 participants across 15 countries – all of whom are members of a specific comparative education society – who contributed their views via e-questionnaire. Findings indicate that research capacity building is a dynamic process and global competence calls for complex skills and conscious attitudes. Commitment to expand scientific curiosity beyond one's own culture and academic discipline appears to be a main criterion in achieving global competence. Results of this study are not meant to be prescriptive but rather exploratory and informative for a broad group of academic stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by posthuman, feminist materialist theory-doings in educational research, this paper maps moments in a post-qualitative research project that set out to explore what else relationships and sexuality education might become with ‘art-as-way’ (Manning 2020) in a shaky yet conducive policy context where ‘what matters’ must not be assumed in advance but co-constructed with children and young people. Progressively supported by an artist-in-residence teacher assistant, composer and filmmaker, we open up what unfolds when a diverse group of 11 young people (age 13–14) creatively unbox and make ‘what matters’ to them in an art classroom. We conceptualize what came to matter as ‘dartaphacts’ (arts-activist objects) and follow these other-worldly posthuman pARTicipants as they connect, grow, and become ‘more-than’. We speculate, that in conducive, con-sense-ual environments, the affective power of dartaphacts can unbox a living curriculum for a Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) to come, in all its Majestic Insecurity, Untitled, Freedoms, Feathers, Bruised Hearts, Consent-quakes, eQuality Vibrations and Wiggly Woos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformation, learning and research come together in educational action research. Change Laboratories (CLs) are a distinctive approach to action research grounded in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). CLs seek to go beyond technical change, oriented instead to systemic and ideologically driven transformation. However, there have been few reviews of CL research, none focused on education. This paper reports a review of 55 studies using CLs or sibling approaches involving schools. It finds that CLs have been applied to diverse problems including pedagogical practice development, initial teacher education and collaboration across school boundaries. Wider issues of equity, inclusion and justice are present but not ubiquitous in this work. Theoretical references focus on expansive learning, activity systems and double stimulation, with growing use of wider concepts from within and beyond CHAT, including Southern and Indigenous epistemologies. Critical reflection of these findings informs seven fronts for future development in CLs to strengthen their contribution to educational action research: participation, beyond-technical change, enduring change, epistemic justice, addressing grand challenges, resistance, and reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores scholarly literature published since the 1960s that examines peoples' cognitive and perceptual understanding of map projections. Map projections present challenges to virtually everyone who uses them. Some of the challenges include selecting a projection, specifying projection parameters, and understanding distortion patterns. Broadly speaking, cartographic inquiry has addressed many topics in cognition and perception; yet, research focused on projections remains scarce. We surveyed the body of research studies incorporating projections or a projection-related topic (e.g. distortion) as a variable in the experimental design. Topics included asking participants to estimate areas, conceptualize travel paths, or identify preferred graticule aesthetics. Despite the conclusions reported by these studies, we noted three general concerns that may diminish the accuracy of results from research in this area. First, projection-specific terminology or properties critical to the studies and analysis that may be misunderstood by researchers and/or participants. Second, study participants were largely homogenous. Third, most of the studies were not designed for replication or reproducibility. Given our critique, we offer six suggestions for those who are interested in new cognitive and perceptual projection research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of, Jane's, Soundwaves Early Childhood Music lead, and Karen's, Early Childhood Studies lecturer, inquiry is to encourage new insights into how multiple relationalities and learning play out, throughout Soundwaves, an early childhood music education (ECME) programme. We work with Barad's diffractive methodology to shape our auto-ethnography. With pens, sparkly bits, ribbons, glue and paper, we map the Soundwaves narrative. Caring ethics, for the human and more-than-human, runs throughout our research practices. (Re)turning, the data, posthuman and critical new materialist theory, the Soundwaves narrative is (re)told. Concerns the neo-liberal narrative had played us, were replaced, when noticing the gap between our organisations offered reassuring insights. In this gap, resisting the neo-liberal narrative, is 'fleetingness', which welcomes experimentation and play to learning opportunities and our collaboration. These insights are useful to those who wish to maintain the visibility of ECME and resist creating instrumentalised learning experiences, whilst growing the ECME workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although encompassing a variety of research approaches, qualitative research in music education shares the assumption that reality is socially constructed; it takes this construction to be based on the specific perspective of the individual human; and it considers epistemology and ontology to be different fields of study. The posthuman theory of agential realism, on the other hand, argues that the world is becoming through intra-actions; it decentres the individual humanist subject; and it studies onto-epistemology – practices of knowing-in-being. Considering these fundamental differences, the quality criteria of qualitative research are not applicable to posthuman music education research. Nevertheless, posthuman research is concerned with the ethics of research and how to response-ably and ethically take part in the world's becoming. Thus, the emerging field of posthuman music education research must develop other ways of evaluating research beyond the quality criteria found in qualitative methodologies. This paper argues that diffraction – both as a physical and musical phenomenon and as a philosophical concept – might be a fruitful approach. By reading quality criteria diffractively through the agential realist concept of response-ability, it poses critical and creative questions, moving us towards evaluating the quality of posthuman music education research on its own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evidence-based decision-making movement often assumes that once evidence is available (e.g., via the What Works Clearinghouse), decision-makers will integrate it into their practice. Research-practice partnership studies have shown this is not always true. In this paper, we argue that instead of assuming research will be useful and used, we should directly study strategies for disseminating evidence and mobilizing knowledge. We present a framework for organizing knowledge mobilization research into three facets: (1) examining norms embedded in evidence we communicate, (2) descriptively understanding how decision-makers reason about this evidence as well as their varied decision-making needs, and (3) prescriptively developing and evaluating communication strategies that facilitate better use of evidence by decision-makers. We delineate this three-faceted framework—normative, descriptive, prescriptive—and demonstrate how it considers the perspectives and priorities of both researchers and decision-makers. Focusing on a case study—of how statistical evidence is conveyed by clearinghouses—we point to existing evidence in education and other fields such as data visualization and cognitive psychology that should inform our communication practices and identify areas where further knowledge mobilization research is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]