Implementing global citizenship education policy: The bargaining process of NGOs in some European Countries

This research looked at the growing space that Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is gaining in educational policy worldwide, and at the role Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) played in GCE agenda setting and policy implementation. Based on a comparative policy analysis carried out in 10 European countries, the political agency of NGOs was explored, underlining opportunities, tensions, and challenges, especially in their contribution to national strategies to integrate GCE into national educational systems.

Perceptions about Teaching in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience of Secondary Education in Chile

<p style="text-align: justify;">The following article is a qualitative study that analyses the perception of parents and high school students regarding teaching in times of Coronavirus disease COVID-19, with the idea of recognizing the facilitators and barriers for the teaching-learning process in the pandemic. The above, in the understanding that due to the sudden appearance of SARS-CoV-2, educational systems around the world had to adapt to virtual teaching, as a result of the confinement to which the population has been subjected during the year 2020 and a good part of the year 2021. The research is based on the interpretative-comprehensive paradigm, with a qualitative methodology, which considered the realization of four focus groups with students and four focus groups with secondary school parents, from two public high schools located in the province of Talca, Maule region, Chile. The findings of the study are related to the adverse effects of the pandemic on student learning, as a result of connectivity difficulties, and the emotional impact on the quality of life of young people and their families. On the other hand, learning at home is related to limited pedagogical strategies and evaluative aspects that do not allow verifying the real learning of the students.</p>

Rethinking Mindfulness in Education within Two Frameworks: Articulating the “Threefold Model of Mindful Wisdom” with the “Theory of Mental Interference”

The existent trend of implementing mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) into public education came along with an increasing scientific record regarding the definitional construct of mindfulness, effects of various mindfulness-based interventions and their basic mechanisms. In terms of the rising definitional discourse in the interdisciplinary field of mindfulness, the “threefold model of mindful wisdom” (TMMW) was proposed. In the present paper’s quest of rethinking mindfulness in education, the relevance of the TMMW for didactics in modern Western educational systems (with special interest on the region of Germany) is examined, affirmed in several points and—with the aid of the “Theory of Mental Interference” (TMI)—methodically linked to individual learners’ needs. The TMI has been developed at the University of Hamburg since 1984 by Wagner and colleagues. This is compatible with the TMMW with regard to the concept of self and basic psychological mechanisms of “mindful exercises”. Its basic approach conceives the epistemic level of cognitive processes (1) to be unbiased by affect and (2) to be different from a level of mental interference, which in case of an arising default habitually interferes with the cognitive processes. Implications for further research, for modern educational systems and for MBPs in education are discussed.

Facebook as Data: A Primer for Educational Technology Researchers Using Public Internet Data Mining Methods

Digital trace data has helped us understand teaching and learning on social media sites other than Facebook. Moreover, while we know a few things about the educational uses of Facebook, that knowledge has been limited because Facebook has not—until recently—been open to researchers. This paper introduces how Facebook can serve as a data source for educational technology researchers. It provides a walkthrough, from developing research questions and identifying public pages of interest, considering ethics, accessing and downloading historical data through the CrowdTangle platform, and analyzing that data. An example list of pages is provided with code for the open-source statistical software to analyze the data. Future directions for the use of Facebook for research on teaching, learning, and educational systems and their intersection with educational technologies are discussed.

Exploring students’ procedural flexibility in three countries

Background In this cross-national study, Spanish, Finnish, and Swedish middle and high school students’ procedural flexibility was examined, with the specific intent of determining whether and how students’ equation-solving accuracy and flexibility varied by country, age, and/or academic track. The 791 student participants were asked to solve twelve linear equations, provide multiple strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy from among their own strategies. Results Our results indicate that knowledge and use of the standard algorithm for solving linear equations is quite widespread across students in all three countries, but that there exists substantial within-country variation as well as between-country variation in students’ reliance on standard vs. situationally appropriate strategies. In addition, we found correlations between equation-solving accuracy and students’ flexibility in all three countries but to different degrees. Conclusions Although it is increasingly recognized as an important construct of interest, there are many aspects of mathematical flexibility that are not well-understood. Particularly lacking in the literature on flexibility are studies that explore similarities and differences in students’ repertoire of strategies for solving algebra problems across countries with different educational systems and curricula. This study yielded important insights about flexibility and can push the field to explore the extent that within- and between-country differences in flexibility can be linked to differences in countries’ educational systems, teaching practices, and/or cultural norms around mathematics teaching and learning.

Publicwashing in Education: Definition, Motives, and Manifestations

This essay coins and conceptualizes the term “publicwashing.” In educational systems and organizations, publicwashing is a symbolic communication that emphasizes organizational publicness for the purpose of a superficial repair of reputation. The essay defines publicwashing and describes its motives and manifestations. Additionally, it illustrates publicwashing by discussing the concept in the context of the U.S. charter school reform. Adopting the lens of symbolic communication in the charter school case illustrates how the discrepancy between the “public” label and private characteristics of charter schools is managed through public relations. Future studies of publicwashing in education can further apply the symbolic communication approach to various cases, contexts, and deceptive strategies.

Improving Education for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Chinese Technical Universities: A Quest for Building a Sustainable Framework

The global economic trends and the winds of technological change have elevated the status of integration between industry and education for innovation and entrepreneurship to that of being a national strategic priority of China. However, for a long time prior to that, the many differences between the industrial and educational systems have caused a rift between education for innovation and entrepreneurship and professional education, a profound disconnection between professional education and the local industries, and the subsequent disinterest of entrepreneurial mentors. In this paper, we analyze the status of education for innovation and entrepreneurship in Chinese technical universities. It is pointed out that technical universities should deepen the integration between the industry and education for innovation and entrepreneurship in order to mitigate the imbalance between the supply side of the higher education talent training and the demand side of industrial development. It is also argued that technical universities should change their talent training paradigm, which includes a makeover of the organizational structure and of the curricular system, as well as make amends in the innovation ecosystem with respect to the organization of incubation platforms and of teacher–student teams, in order to promote national and regional economic development, as well as social progress. A method to evaluate the performance of the education for innovation and entrepreneurship in Chinese technical universities, based on specific performance indicators including patents filled, publications, awards in competitions, and acquired funding and on certain non-specific ones including organizational arrangements and satisfaction rates, is presented and then applied to the specific case of the Changzhou Institute of Technology.

The Impact of Education on Youth Employability: The Case of Selected Southeastern European Countries

This paper focuses on the processes of school-to-work transitions in a selected group of countries from South-eastern Europe (SEE), namely: Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; Montenegro; North Macedonia; Serbia; and, Slovenia. Each of these countries display the same roots of development in their educational systems: however, due to their transition and integration processes within the European Union, they implemented different concepts of reforms within their educational systems. In addition, the challenges of youth employability are a common problem for each of the selected countries, and the effectiveness of the processes of school-to-work-transition varies across the countries. By using panel data and multiple linear regression models, this paper estimates the impact of different educational levels on youth employability and changes in the rates of NEET population (aged 15–24) in the selected group of countries over the period 2009 to 2019. The results suggest that the impact of the attained level of education has an ambiguous effect on the rates of youth employment; moreover, the relationship with changes in NEET rates are statistically significant and negative in most of the selected group of countries.

Extent of implementation of service-learning in five Jesuit Universities in the Philippines

Service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Philippine Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are making attempts to integrate service-learning in their educational systems. In this current qualitative study, the mechanism of service learning in 5 Jesuit higher education institutions located in different regions in the Philippines was described. Furco’s Self-Assessment Rubric for institutionalization of service learning as a framework was used as the evaluation tool. Results revealed that even if the institutions studied were all Jesuit universities, each one exhibited unique experiences and different levels of implementation of service learning. They also vary in the mechanism or approach of implementation. What was evident among the five Jesuit higher education institutions is their shared commitment towards service and social justice as part of their mission and identity. The difference in the level of implementation among the five HEIs depends on the longevity of the service learning in the institution, the number of programs that utilize service learning as a pedagogy, sustained commitment and persistence of the administrators, faculty and staff.

The Degree of Application of Educational Administrative Accountability by the Principals of Special Education Centers and its Relationship to Some Variables from Teachers’ Perspective

This study aimed to define the degree of application of educational administrative accountability by the principals of special education centers and its relationship to some variables from the teachers' perspective in Amman. The descriptive-analytical approach was adopted. The study sample consisted of (85) male and female teachers, who were chosen randomly. A measure of administrative accountability in educational systems was developed consisting of four areas namely, students, teachers, goals, innovation, and creativity. Findings revealed that the degree of application of educational administrative accountability by the principals of special education centers came to a medium degree and in all its fields, and there were no differences in the degree of application of educational administrative accountability by the principal of special education centers attributed to the variables of gender and educational level. Received: 23 September 2021 / Accepted: 15 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022