This paper explores the pedagogical and political significance of love in times of global affliction, marked by war, inequality, ecological devastation, and enduring colonial legacies. Bringing Hannah Arendt's conception of antipolitical love into dialogue with decolonial understandings of love as an insurgent and world-making force, the paper examines how contrasting visions of love illuminate different risks and possibilities for education. Arendt's scepticism cautions against the sentimentalisation of politics and highlights the need for plurality and responsibility, while decolonial thinkers reframe love as a praxis of refusal, repair, and solidarity. The paper argues that holding these perspectives in tension enriches pedagogical openings to confront the affective legacies of coloniality and to cultivate love as a critical, ethical, and transformative orientation towards the world. The paper concludes by proposing pedagogies of decolonial love as practices of collective care, resistance, and world-making.
Higher education governance has increasingly been examined through critical spatial theories that emphasise how spatiality is politically produced by and for the exercise of power. Drawing on Foucault's concept of governmentality, this paper analyses how space and geographic entities are constituted through the policy, and rendered as specific sites through which political effects are embodied. Taiwan's Higher Education Sprout Project provides an illustrative case: introduced in 2017, it aimed to address the overemphasis on global rankings arising from earlier funding schemes by requiring universities to collaborate with local communities to address real-world problems. Methodologically, the paper employs policy network ethnography to trace how 'local communities' were produced - not as pre-given entities surrounding universities, but through discourses of social responsibility and policy instruments. The analysis reveals that while universities have been redirected from global ranking pursuits towards local engagement, this shift does not constitute a simple reversal. Instead, it represents a reconfiguration of neoliberal governing power across sites, embedding market-driven rationalities within localised practices. By adopting a critical spatial perspective, the paper contributes to scholarship on the spatial dimensions of higher education governance, showing how place operates as a governing category that both disciplines universities while enabling them to govern themselves.
Most scholarly inquiries into education and identity take place through descriptive psychological or sociological studies or normative research rooted in various approaches to critical social theory. This article supplements this educational research by presenting an inquiry into identity through an ethical lens and what subject matter teachers need to know to aid students in their identity conceptualisation. Based on a phenomenological inquiry into the wisdom of practice of 20 exemplary teachers of Israel education, a discipline in which educators seek to cultivate the development of students' ethical identity through subject matter learning, this study presents a theory of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for ethical identity education grounded in qualitative evidence. This paper contends that educators should embrace a Pedagogy of Difference as an alternative to a Pedagogy of the Oppressed towards the mission of cultivating human agency and argues for advancing teacher knowledge of identity development that empowers students to conceive their own authentic visions of the good life.
Education and training (E&T) for the climate is gaining prominence in educational discourse. However, there is a danger that approaches focus on individual responsibility and changing the behaviours of learners rather than critically understanding and changing the system-level drivers of the climate crisis. Picking up litter is much more likely to be discussed than extractive economics. Therefore, we argue that the purpose of E&T for the climate should be radically rethought, empowering learners to become agents of system-level economic change, placing the prosperity of people and planet at its core. Here, we present a theoretical, normatively driven vision for E&T's role in economic transformation, drawing critically on our previous research to argue for narrative and 'narrative skills' as central to this change. Humans are inherently narrative beings, and narrative enables us to make sense of the world around us and craft new futures as a collective endeavour. Narratives are drivers of social change and have underpinned key economic transformations over the last three centuries. We build on these ideas and draw together philosophical, sociological, and economic accounts of narrative to argue that E&T for the climate is enhanced through deeper engagement with narrative.
Interwoven crises of climate change, inequality and biodiversity loss threaten to throw increasingly wide shadows of doubt, despair and hopelessness as societies grapple with how to address these key challenges. Teaching and learning on climate change against this background requires sensitivity to this context and calls for pedagogies of hope. In this paper, I aim to offer provocation and encouragement to educators by exploring what this means by examining and synthesising the literature on three interconnected threads. First, I argue that fostering communities that are both critical and creative is vital for enabling students to engage generatively with climate change. Second, I reflect on interdisciplinarity as a necessary but deeply challenging component of climate education and caution against the risks of interdisciplinary 'overreach' that can leave students uninterested and teachers feeling powerless. Finally, I foreground relational pedagogies which put relationships and community at the heart of teaching, and centre issues of trust, reciprocity, and respect, while also making space for doubt, confusion and anxiety. Overall, I posit that building communities of hope is the central role of climate educators. Not, that hope is enough by itself, but hope is necessary; without hope the struggle for sustainability will be feeble and fragile.
School education in India is guided by a national curriculum framework, which is generally adopted or adapted by different stakeholders. The National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023 (NCF-SE 2023) brought out in accordance with the National Education Policy 2020 under the direction of the Ministry of Education, Government of India, strongly advocates for climate change education by listing the associated competencies to be developed in students. Keeping in view the role of teachers as facilitators for any classroom transaction, and that the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process depends on their expertise, it is imperative to understand the perspectives of teachers, based on which strategies can be adopted on how the climate change curriculum can be effectively taught. This study presents the perspectives of teachers teaching at the middle and secondary stage of school education in different parts of India. The findings cover teachers' beliefs about climate change, awareness about the curricular goals for environmental education with respect to NCF-SE 2023, confidence and preparedness to teach climate change, and requirements for effective teaching, which reveal the critical and urgent need for professional development.
This article addresses the rhetorical dimensions of the language of children and young people around trees and climate change. Via an analysis of statements and stories by children, made in educational settings, the complex constellation of experience, meaning, scientific understanding, mythical imagination and the affective dimensions of fear and hope, that structures children's environmental awareness, is brought out. In particular, the mythical use to which scientific ideas and terms are put is discussed. In order to foster agency and empowerment with respect to climate futures, environmental education should not only rely on the epistemic regime of scientific thinking but should also adopt a critical rhetorical perspective.
This paper explores the spatial dimensions of classroom observations as tools of educational governance. Focusing on interview data from teachers and education inspection policy in the English Further Education sector, we use Foucault's concept of heterotopia to critically discuss the fundamental challenges of current quality assurance practices. We specifically identify three functions of heterotopia (what Foucault refers to as their 'illusory', 'compensatory' and 'mirror' functions) to discuss how the much-documented performativity of classroom spaces is itself illusory. While performative classrooms are undoubtedly fabricated spaces, we argue that current quality assurance frameworks actually misrecognise the ontological nature of classrooms by treating them as 'compensatory' rather than 'illusory' heterotopia. On this view, observed classroom spaces distribute wider logics of illusion and reality by 'mirroring' both the constructed order of educational space and its enactment in classroom contexts.
There exists no reliable empirical research on anti-colonial critiques of religion education (RE) in Africa South of the Sahara (ASoS); therefore, this article uses the African Anti-colonial Analytical Framework (AAcAF) as a novel theoretical lens in critiquing neo-colonial embeddedness in the RE of ASoS. It exposes how colonial epistemologies continue to malign non-normative and diverse ways of knowing and further explains why this problem has persisted in RE despite its provision existing in a post-colonial educational environment. The article calls for epistemic equality in dealing with the complexities of religious diversity in RE aligned with democratic principles governing the political state in post-independent Africa. To counteract the colonial status quo, the article presents anti-colonial strategies that can turn decolonial rhetoric into anti-colonial praxis in the RE of ASoS.
There is a concern across higher education that educational outcomes vary across a range of student factors. More research is needed, particularly at postgraduate level, to better understand the key effects of various factors on student outcomes .Underpinned by Astin's input-environment-outcome conceptual model for assessment, this paper uses student data (n > 6,000) over recent years from a single UK higher education institution and multilevel ordinal logistic regression to model key influences on the likelihood of particular postgraduate taught (PGT) outcomes (in three categories: pass/merit/distinction). Predictors include undergraduate attainment, and a range of candidate characteristics such as student ethnicity, sex, age, department, undergraduate performance. We find that there is a strong relationship between undergraduate and postgraduate outcomes, and that department and student ethnicity are relatively small but important factors influencing the likelihood of particular PGT outcomes. The key finding is that important gaps in PGT outcomes remain when a range of factors are included in the analysis - conceptually in both 'inputs' and 'environment' as per Astin. Institutions need to carefully take account of these patterns of attainment when developing policy to enhance equality in PGT education. This research can help inform more focused policies aimed at closing attainment 'gaps' over time.
This paper describes the theoretical principles underpinning the pedagogical affordances of experiential learning through digital games, such as Minecraft, in order to engage primary school children in climate change challenges. It discusses the instructional value of an online interactive game for exploring possible climate change scenarios based on real-world data. The paper describes the instructional design of a series of school-based workshops, targeting students' understanding of complex environmental systems and the interconnectedness of human actions and climate outcomes. The proposed design defines the expected learning outcomes of a game-based learning approach to sustainability, including problem-solving, collaboration, and climate literacy, as well as climate action skills. Participatory approaches through iterative cycles of collaboration and feedback were used in the co-construction of the instructional design. Stakeholders included children, teachers and teacher educators who collaborated with the research team of interdisciplinary voices relevant to climate change education, such as educationalists, environmental scientists, computer scientists, architects and urban planners. The instructional design aims to highlight novel ways of utilising digital technologies to foster local, actionable, tangible and engaging actions among children. In doing so, it provides a blueprint for educators interested in engaged digital pedagogies for teaching and learning about climate change.
Many models describing the choice and engagement with Pro-Environmental Behaviour (PEB) lean heavily on Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) and Place Attachment (PA) as essential components and are designed for adults. The few child-based models often overlook other key components. This study learns from 9 to 10 year-old children living in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, that there is place- and age-based uniqueness of LEK, PA, and PEB, and also that environmental emotions and agency to engage in experiential learning are mediators of LEK, PA, and PEB. Gal & aacute;pagos, an Ecuadorian National Park and UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site, is a small equatorial archipelago, where the human population is recently established and thus not Indigenous to the islands, and whose ecosystems are facing increasing climate impacts. We adopt the framework of childism to centre children's experiences and thoughts. Children exemplified robust and locationally unique LEK, PA, and PEB, but additionally shared environmental emotions and agency to engage in abundant environmental experiences which connected and mediated LEK, PA, and PEB. This case study provides support for children's role in local conservation to support climate action in other young global communities.
This essay focuses on two teachers in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Demons. The essay examines the teachers' different assumptions about human beings' ability to know the world in full and with certainty. Gary Saul Morson's idea of the confrontation in Russian literature of wonder and certainty is used to examine the teachers' different assumptions about the reach of human knowledge. Demons, on this reading, shows how a teacher who teaches under the assumption that human beings can map the world with certainty offers students a limited view of life and leaves students vulnerable to the demons of a range of perilous beliefs. A teacher who teaches in light of truths that transcend human understanding, in contrast, invites students to look upon the world in wonder and to forgive and ask forgiveness for our limited knowledge. Beyond showing some of the problems with and alternatives to a philosophy of education popular in nineteenth-century Russia, the essay concludes, Demons can inform the efforts of teachers and policymakers today who want to make education more intellectually adventurous and morally serious.
The Covid-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions to higher education and labour markets. This study examines full-time master's students in the UK during 2020/21, the first cohort to both begin and complete their degrees amid the pandemic. Using administrative data and the Graduate Outcomes survey from the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency, this article examines whether the 2020/21 cohort exhibited different behaviours around the choice of professional subjects, how this was reflected in subsequent employment and wage outcomes, and in graduates' perceptions of their degree's necessity for their job. The findings show increased enrolment in both professional and non-professional subjects during 2020/21. These graduates were more likely to be employed and have higher wages, with greatest gains observed among the non-managerial and professional socioeconomic backgrounds and professional subject graduates (particularly women). Despite these advantageous employment outcomes, the 2020/21 cohort was less likely to report that their degree level and/or subject was a formal requirement for their job. This suggests potential overqualification or misalignment between educational qualifications and job roles, which may have been exacerbated by the economic conditions of the pandemic. These findings offer early insights into the pandemic's possible impact on postgraduate education and early career outcomes and uniquely explore the perceived necessity of postgraduate degrees.
As the climate crisis worsens, climate change education (CCE) in schools faces growing pressure to become more rigorous, justice-oriented and holistic. Simultaneously, students and youth are increasingly involved in climate litigation, bringing suits against governments and corporations to compel enhanced mitigation and adaptation efforts. Recognising these parallel developments, this article explores the potential contributions of climate litigation to CCE in schools. To demonstrate such contributions, we apply Hargis and McKenzie's CCE learning dimensions framework from 2020 to three case studies of youth-led climate litigation: Mathur v Ontario, Sharma & Others v Minister for the Environment and Students for Climate Solutions Inc v Minister of Energy and Resources. We then discuss the interactions between climate litigation and CCE more broadly, highlighting the pedagogical benefits and issues associated with incorporating climate litigation into CCE. Finally, to support effective use of climate litigation in CCE in the classroom, we propose a 'mock trial' activity and outline areas for future research.
This paper provides the first large-scale quantitative evaluation of England's Gifted and Talented (GT) programme, which aimed to support high-potential students in state schools between 1999 and 2010. Using administrative data linking students' school records with higher education and labour market outcomes, we investigate who was selected for the GT programme and whether participation was associated with improved educational and economic trajectories. We find that students from more advantaged socio-economic backgrounds were significantly more likely to be identified as GT, even after accounting for prior academic achievement. Participation in the GT programme is positively associated with attainment at age 16 and with university outcomes, including entry to selective institutions. However, these benefits were largely concentrated among already advantaged students. The association between GT participation and labour market outcomes at age 24 or 25 is only weak. While the GT programme aimed to raise aspirations and opportunities for all, the evidence suggests that it may have inadvertently reinforced existing inequalities. Our findings highlight the importance of targeted support and rigorous evaluation to ensure that initiatives designed to nurture talent promote both academic excellence and social mobility.
Cost-sharing in higher education (HE), which shifts financial costs from the government to individuals, has been increasing worldwide. However, how individuals manage this growing financial burden requires closer examination. This study investigates how students in Japan - where cost-sharing has progressed significantly - navigate HE decisions, including institutional choice, student loans, and part-time work. Using a longitudinal survey that followed junior high school students and their mothers through HE, this study found that family support and part-time work were critical for maintaining student life across socioeconomic backgrounds. It also reveals that individuals adopted diverse strategies to manage their financial costs, with gender and socioeconomic backgrounds influencing these approaches. Female students and those from families with limited resources are more likely to adopt cost-saving and income-augmenting strategies, implying that parental ability and willingness to pay constrained choices and experiences. While these individualised strategies helped some students access HE, they also led to unequal experiences and uncertain outcomes for those with fewer resources. These findings highlight the need for policies that reduce tuition fees and expand public financial support.
