Principals are increasingly expected to serve not only as instructional leaders but also as social justice leaders. This study examines the intersection of these two critical leadership roles by investigating how principals promote equity in student learning through the management of teaching practices within their schools. The participants in this qualitative study were 21 elementary school principals in Israel. Data were collected through semi-structured, one-on-one interviews and analysed using a structured three-stage process: sorting, coding and categorising. The analysis revealed that principals promoted equity in learning opportunities by managing teaching across four key domains: classroom practices; curriculum content; teaching resources; and instructional structures. Taken together, the findings suggest a conceptual model that illustrates how principals advance equity by strategically managing teaching practices within their schools.
This paper examines how secondary pupils' perceived academic control changes over the school year and how these beliefs relate to reading development. Using longitudinal survey data linked to STAR reading tests for 10,687 pupils in a large English multi-academy trust, the author analyses temporal patterns, demographic variation, associations with four-month reading progress, mediation by perceived academic responsibility and subgroup differences. Perceived academic control declines notably from autumn to spring, particularly in Year 7. Higher perceived control is linked to greater reading gains: pupils with strong control beliefs make roughly two months more progress than peers with low control. This association is unlikely to be fully attributable to unobserved confounding. Evidence of variation by year group, socioeconomic status or prior attainment is limited, and findings on academic responsibility as a mediator are inconclusive. Supporting pupils' sense of academic control may therefore promote reading development.
This study investigates fee-based private tutoring among Grade 12 students in rural Syria, a conflict-affected context where public schooling remains fragile. Guided by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, it examines patterns of participation, motivations and perceived effectiveness of tutoring, as well as their implications for equity in access to higher education. Survey data were collected from 889 students across six secondary schools in rural Aleppo. Findings show that 32.3% of students received tutoring, primarily in large-group formats at tutoring centres, with most attending three or more sessions per week. Students' motivations were predominantly academic, focusing on examination success and subject understanding, while parental and peer influence was limited. Regression analyses indicate that frequency of attendance was the strongest predictor of perceived effectiveness, alongside tutoring format, family study support and motivational factors. The study highlights the paradoxical role of private tutoring as a survival strategy and a mechanism reinforcing educational inequality in post-conflict Syria.
Continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) is key to educational quality and teacher retention, yet the remodelling of England's school system in recent years has shifted roles and responsibilities for this important work. This article reports on a recent investigation into the CPDL work of mathematics subject leaders in 19 primary schools in three locality case studies, drawing on analysis of 57 interviews and using Harris' four dimensions of teacher leadership. The parameters of their CPDL work, and the support that leaders receive to do it, varies by school type, but they are commonly considered as experts in, and brokers of, mathematics-subject and pedagogic knowledge in their schools. Relational and participative teacher leadership approaches were less common. The authors argue for stronger recognition of the growing responsibilities of primary mathematics subject leaders and improved training for the role, including access to stable subject leader networks and external sources of innovation.
Early childhood education is globally gender-segregated. In T & uuml;rkiye, 93.29% of teachers are female. This hermeneutic phenomenological study explores male practitioners' gendered experiences through semi-structured interviews with 17 participants (male teachers, male principals and female teachers) across 12 public schools in central Ankara. Findings are organised around three themes: Gendered Norms and Identity; Navigating a Feminised Profession; and Career Pathways. Across all participant groups, male teachers encounter persistent questioning of their legitimacy rooted in the assumption that caregiving is inherently feminine. In response, they conceal their professional identity and adopt rigid boundaries shaped by heightened surveillance of the male body. Career trajectories exhibit a paradoxical duality: institutional mechanisms accelerate men's movement into administration, yet a sector-specific barrier tied to early childhood education's devalued status limits broader mobility. The study introduces the gendered glass wall concept and concludes that the field must be disentangled from maternalism to foster inclusive pedagogical space.
On 8 December 2024, the end of Syria's 54-year-long dictatorship marked a historic political shift, placing education at the centre of reform debates. This paper provides a systematic review of empirical academic and grey literature published between 2011 and 2024 on the impact of the Syrian conflict on pre-university education. Drawing on 51 studies and reports in English and Arabic, the review synthesises findings across six interconnected themes: governance; curricula; attacks on education; teachers; educational quality; and dropout. The analysis demonstrates that conflict not only disrupted schooling but fundamentally reconfigured education governance, policy and implementation across fragmented territories. Interpreted through a cultural political economy framework, the findings reveal education as an arena of power in which competing authorities mobilised curricula and service delivery to assert legitimacy and shape social identities. The paper argues that sustainable reform requires addressing the structural political and economic dynamics embedded within the education system.
Developing inclusive schools requires continuous support for teachers as part of school improvement processes. Research highlights the importance of identifying factors that influence teachers' attitudes towards inclusion of all students. A case study approach was used, involving observation, teacher interviews and document analysis, to investigate the factors shaping teachers' hesitant attitudes towards inclusion within a Cypriot school, including insecurity, resistance to change and fear. The study identifies key challenges, including insufficient training for addressing diverse learning needs, the persistence of a charity-based model of disability and a culture of segregation. These factors are interpreted as contributing to experiences of professional insecurity among participating teachers, reflecting broader systemic and cultural conditions that shape inclusive practices and the experiences of students with disabilities in the examined school. The study emphasises the need to foster collaboration among educators and proposes school-level self-evaluation processes as practical tools to empower teachers in navigating mixed-ability classrooms.
Mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) envisions equitable education appreciating linguistic diversity and multilingualism. This paper explores how the local actors - local government, teachers and students - navigate linguistic diversity and multilingualism in Nepalese classrooms. Based on critical ethnography, the analysis of data derived from interviews, focus group discussions, reflective discussions and observation at a community-based school reveals: (1) education policies are hugely influenced by monolingual ideologies, even though they highlight MTB-MLE; (2) teachers are reluctant to use students' mother tongue as a resource since they are hugely predisposed to monolingual ideologies; and (3) a multilingual classroom becomes a complex site when teachers are not trained and prepared well for using linguistic diversity and multilingualism as learning resources. This research suggests that educational language policies should challenge monolingual ideologies, and promote MTB-MLE through teacher preparation, material development, and the use of linguistic diversity and multilingualism as 'resources' in the classroom.
Women dominate the teaching workforce; however, this numerical representation has not translated into equitable participation in principal leadership roles. Situated within gendered organisational structures, this study draws on role congruity theory to examine how organisational factors shape women's aspirations to the principal position. Focusing on women currently occupying middle-level leadership roles in schools, the study investigates the school-level organisational conditions that influence aspirations to principalship. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining a quantitative self-administered survey with semi-structured qualitative interviews. Data were analysed using descriptive and correlational statistics alongside thematic analysis. The findings reveal that entrenched patriarchal organisational practices cumulatively constrain women's access to leadership pathways, career progression and aspirations to principalship. These results highlight the need for targeted policy and practice reforms to disrupt gendered organisational barriers and to broaden and legitimise pathways to principalship for women.
This paper reports on a study that maps how teacher educators in Scotland are engaging with the ongoing global challenge of preparing classroom teachers to support diverse learner groups. Scotland's National Framework for Inclusion, a principled approach to inclusion supported by the General Teaching Council to ensure a consistent approach based on common values and national standards for teacher education and professional development, was interrogated using a tool developed by the Council of Europe to map teacher education practices. A collaborative seven-step process of data analysis led to the use of a metaphorical landscape to reveal how different providers are able to develop distinctive programmes while adhering to common values and national standards of inclusive education. The emergent landscape addresses a gap in the literature on teacher education that shows how a theoretical perspective on inclusion is embedded in teacher education and surfaces important insights for teacher education and professional learning.
What teachers do in their classrooms is underpinned by their personal and professional values: this is their teacher agency. Despite this, some suggest that novice teachers can struggle to teach in a way which reflects the values and beliefs which are important to them, hindering their teacher agency. This article is a hopeful one in that it argues that those at the start of their teaching careers can engage in small acts of resistance which can be identified as 'truth-telling'. By engaging in fearless speech, the novice teachers in this small-scale qualitative study demonstrated an ability to do what it was they thought they should be doing, to exert and develop their sense of teacher agency, despite the potential for risks to their reputations or positions within their schools. The article concludes by advocating for more truth-telling, especially for those working within current Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England.
Generative AI has become commonplace in higher education around the world. However, as AI's capabilities rapidly expand, humanities educators continue to grapple with fundamental questions about academic integrity, the role of human teachers and the relevance of humanities education in the age of AI. Drawing on my teaching experience at a large US public research university, this paper argues that Reacting to the Past (RTTP), an active-learning pedagogy based on historical role-playing games, offers a meaningful response to AI-related challenges in teaching general education courses in the humanities and provides humanities educators with a viable 'third way' that neither completely rejects AI nor indiscriminately embraces technological advancement. Compared with traditional lecture-based approaches, RTTP provides three advantages: it creates an AI-resistant learning environment that emphasises real-time participatory activities; cultivates fundamental skills that AI cannot replicate; and transforms the classroom into an intellectual community that focuses on peer-to-peer and student-teacher interaction.
This qualitative study investigates teacher educators' (TEs) perceptions of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into pre-service teacher education programmes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In particular, this study explores the opportunities and challenges of AI integration in teacher education curricula, pedagogical implications, policy and ethical dimensions for future K-12 classrooms. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 TEs from various higher education institutions in the UAE. Thematic analysis revealed three core findings: insufficient AI awareness among teacher educators; profound ethical concerns, namely algorithmic bias, equity issues, academic integrity (especially with generative AI), risk of diminishing critical thinking and human connection; and the urgent need for robust, context-sensitive ethical frameworks and policy reforms in UAE teacher education. This study recommends revisiting institutional policies to ensure their alignment with the UAE's digital ambitions to empower ethically responsible future teachers in AI-augmented classrooms.
This article examines the hierarchical structure of scholarly journals of educational research while also questioning its necessity and fairness. It reviews multiple journal evaluation methods, including bibliometric analyses, reputation surveys, web-scraping techniques and national ranking systems. Findings reveal an ambiguous hierarchy, often favouring English-language and interdisciplinary journals in educational technology, science education and educational psychology. Although there are significant differences among the results of bibliometrics-based evaluation, as well as between bibliometrics-based evaluation and reputation-based evaluation, there is a relative degree of consistency among the results of reputation-based evaluation. While the study reveals the lack of a universally accepted evaluation framework, it emphasises that journal prestige should not overshadow research quality of the article themselves.
To gain a nuanced understanding of the induction phase experienced by newly qualified teachers (NQTs), this short-term longitudinal study followed 15 Norwegian secondary school teachers throughout their first year of teaching, a crucial period for strengthening their resilience through supportive environments. Each month, they communicated via email their work mastery on a scale from 1 to 10. At the end of the year, they were interviewed about their scale profiles. The NQTs' experiences of mastering their roles encompassed both highs and lows, influenced by a combination of external, personal and predominantly in-school factors. Based on the findings, the authors suggest implications for teacher education and employment conditions, along with recommendations for how to integrate new teachers into schools, emphasising the importance of addressing in-school challenges to foster a more sustainable teaching environment for NQTs.
In recent times, humans have abandoned aspects of the ancient wisdom that has sustained us for thousands of years. Frugality, a traditional virtue of the Chinese people, is a proactive choice grounded in moral reasoning. Frugality represents the unity of 'restraint in desire' and 'moderation in use'; both are best understood as lived expressions of phronesis (practical wisdom), a culturally embedded, teachable orientation that integrates ethical reasoning with context-sensitive judgement. In educating children, 'proactive frugality' manifests primarily as 'valuing objects', demonstrating distinct advantages in values education, moral habit formation, moral willpower training and ethical education. Passing on this educational wisdom can provide culturally rooted Chinese insights to address educational challenges arising from a consumer society. Given rapid increases in the demands that humans are placing on the natural world, a recovery of the practice of frugality would also help usher in a more sustainable society.
Effective school improvement requires enhancing the capacity to implement change and support development at a collective level. In this context, school self-evaluation processes have emerged as valuable tools for guiding and sustaining improvement efforts. This study investigates the impact of a school self-evaluation process on empowering educators to foster the development of an inclusive school culture as they address emerging challenges. Relying on a case study approach in the action-research framework, the authors examined the effectiveness of such processes in the Cypriot educational system, which is continually challenged in its efforts to implement inclusive education and is currently committed to addressing these obstacles. The main tool in this research was the Index for Inclusion, alongside the Themis Inclusion Tool. Both quantitative and qualitative data revealed significant impact, including enhanced perceptions of the school as a learning community, increased collaboration, contributions to teachers' professional development and improved levels of self-efficacy and collective efficacy.
