Research on institutional habitus often treats it as a stable legacy of past practices, with limited attention being paid to how everyday school decisions can reshape it over time. This study advances Bourdieusian institutional theory by theorising the recursive relationship between institutional habitus and practice, focusing on how between-class ability grouping (BCAG) both reflects and transforms schools' institutional logics. Drawing upon a multiple-case study of four Czech lower-secondary schools, we analyse how BCAG reshapes educational status, organisational practices, and expressive order, generating shifts that reinforce stratification and produce organisational inertia. Our findings reveal that BCAG evolved from a remedial intervention into a largely implicit strategy for attracting middle-class families, recruiting preferred teachers, and redefining success - changes enabled by state schools' unequal access to capital within a competitive early-tracking system. We argue that institutional habitus is not merely inherited but continuously reconfigured through everyday practices and field position. By situating this analysis within the stratified and under-resourced Czech school system, this study highlights how routine grouping practices can rapidly embed institutional inequality.
This mixed-method study delves into learners' perceptions of the effectiveness of their teachers' teaching behaviour and the benefits and challenges experienced during team teaching in primary educational settings. Analysing survey data from 428 learners and data from 15 focus groups, overall results indicate that the dimensions of 'learning climate' and 'clear instruction' are most frequently observed in classroom practices by learners. Furthermore, learners perceive 'learning gains' and 'increased support' as most beneficial. However, confusion does arise, and large class sizes are a disruptive factor that leads to more noise. Multilevel analysis further reveals that learners who are taught in team teaching within a single class reported significantly higher scores on the dimensions of teaching behaviour and 'increased support'.
Drawing on two pieces of research, this paper focuses on the impact of marketisation on Widening Participation (WP) outreach activities amid indications of a narrowing of participation and in the wake of a tightening Higher Education (HE) funding environment. Within a field of competitive marketisation in HE, we problematise WP outreach interventions and the extent to which aims related to social justice are in tension with institutional responses to the HE market. Across two studies in the West Midlands, interviews and focus groups were carried out with school and college students, staff delivering WP programmes, post-1992 undergraduate students and alumni from under-represented backgrounds. Exploring the data using Bourdieusian theory and complementary theoretical concepts, we theorise how within an increasingly marketised HE, WP interventions risk becoming for universities a self-interested 'bums on seats' exercise. While these activities may fulfil the meritocratic premise of increasing social mobility for individual students they may ultimately work against an altruistic ideal of social justice. This raises urgent questions about the purposes of HE and of post-1992 universities in particular in relation to social and economic inequality: necessitating authentic and honest relations with students about the HE market.
Practical experiences during teacher education significantly impact student teachers' well-being, yet little is known about the specific incidents that trigger changes. Drawing on data from student teachers in Germany, this study examined 567 critical incidents reported by 146 participants over six weeks of their 15-week practicum to understand how these moments shape well-being. The findings reveal that positive experiences were more frequent and had a strong influence on student teachers' emotional and professional development. Moments of student praise, faculty inclusion, and classroom success fostered joy, pride, and a sense of accomplishment. Successfully managing classrooms, engaging students, and overcoming challenges further strengthened their confidence and professional identity. In contrast, negative experiences, though less common, had a detrimental impact on well-being. Student teachers reported frustration and self-doubt arising from isolation, lack of mentor support, dismissive parents, and classroom difficulties. These moments undermined their confidence and sense of preparedness for teaching. The findings highlight that, as student teachers adjust to the realities of teaching, the situations they typically encounter have significant power in shaping their well-being. These moments represent critical points of reflection, where student teachers assess their ability to meet the demands of the role, which impacts their job-related well-being.
Consulting linguistic sources is not a compulsory part of grammar curricula in the Netherlands. This is a missed opportunity, because these sources not only show the prescriptive language rules, but also describe other variations in the linguistic reality. These variations are expected to stimulate students to evaluate language from different perspectives. This article presents two studies that explored how pre-university students (11th grade) reason with linguistic sources. In an exploratory study, students (N = 41; M age 16.2 years) were presented with authentic linguistic sources. The results show that these sources do not spontaneously elicit reflective thinking. Students consult sources in an authoritative or convergent way to find the right answer. Fragments coded as divergent reasoning primarily revealed confusion and did not stimulate exploring multiple perspectives. In a subsequent experimental study, we examined what kind of scaffolding is needed for students (N = 120; M age 16.2 years) to become more proficient in reflective thinking about conflicting linguistic sources. Results show that strategic scaffolding supports students to integrate linguistic reasoning when substantiating a position on a language issue. In addition, meta-strategic scaffolding leads to decreases in authoritative reasoning. This study shows that scaffolding students' (meta-)strategic reasoning germinates reflective thinking about language.
School performance data (from central tests) possess substantial potential for informed school development. However, interpreting this data is not inherently straightforward for school leaders. This study employs a Delphi research method involving 18 stakeholders to explore how norm-referenced comparisons of school performance data can support the sensemaking process for school development. Our findings reveal opportunities and pitfalls in presenting norm-referenced school performance data. Participants find that using detailed and broad indicators, along with long-term trends, make norm-referenced school performance data meaningful. Moreover, comparisons with comparable schools enhance the perceived validity of these comparisons. Additionally, this study discusses contextualising school performance data with and without statistical adjustment as techniques to generate meaningful and perceived-as-valid norm-referenced comparisons of school performance data. Given that norm-referenced school performance data become relevant if they are meaningful and perceived as valid, our findings prompt a discussion on theoretical insights and policy implications.
Eye-tracking technology was employed to examine how varying levels of media multitasking behaviours influence students' visual attention and learning performance in online education. Students' eye movements were tracked and recorded while they simultaneously engaged in online platforms and media activities in an English vocabulary course. Based on the media multitasking index, 46 participants were categorised into high or low media multitasking groups. The study compared key eye movement measures: latency of first fixation, duration of first fixation, total fixation duration, and fixation count across different regions of interest. Results revealed that students from the two groups showed different fixation sequences in visual attention. The main screen content attracted the attention of both groups first, and students spent more time focusing on this content while learning. Analytical results showed that the low-level group's learning performance significantly exceeded that of the high-level group in the subsequent English vocabulary test. The study provides eye-tracking evidence that students engaging in high media multitasking struggle to focus on instructional content, emphasising the need for strategies that effectively manage multitasking. There is also a critical need to teach students how to manage media distractions so as to enhance their academic performance in online learning.
The intercultural training of education professionals faces the challenge of responding to cultural diversity from more equitable models. This means decolonising professionals' view and practices towards cultural identity, educational contexts and the mechanisms that reproduce and legitimise social exclusion. The objective of this study is to analyse an intercultural pre-service training course to identify the decolonial elements at play throughout the education postgraduate students' autoethnographic narratives; to understand their perception of critical autoethnography as a training tool and draw implications to improve intercultural training. The methodology is based on the case study of a Master's course at Universitat Jaume I, Spain, in which autoethnographies are used to account for the performative process of becoming an education professional from a critical intercultural approach. Sixty-four postgraduate students participated in the study, which analysed the autoethnographies of the last five years, triangulating with class diaries, observations, and participants' feedback on the results. The findings show how postgraduate students rethink cultural identity from culturality, become aware of institutional racism and connect self-knowledge with social transformation, as critical citizens. The implications of autoethnography as a methodology for intercultural training focus on resistance to change and the generation of training spaces for thinking, creating and participating.
This mixed-methods study investigates fee-based private tutoring, known as shadow education, among Grade 11 students in rural Kazakhstan, focusing on participation patterns, perceived effectiveness, and implications for equitable access to higher education. Guided by Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological systems theory, the study employs a convergent design integrating quantitative survey data from 740 students with qualitative insights from eight semi-structured group interviews, each conducted with six students from a different school. Findings reveal that 41.35% of students engaged in fee-based tutoring despite economic constraints, primarily to prepare for the Unified National Testing (UNT). Small-group, face-to-face tutoring predominated, although online tutoring was increasingly used to overcome geographical barriers. Regression analyses show that perceived effectiveness varied by gender, tutoring format, and family support, with female students reporting higher academic confidence and exam readiness. However, tutoring was also associated with financial strain and emotional stress for students from lower-income households, raising concerns about educational equity and well-being. The study underscores the need for regulatory frameworks to ensure quality and protect students and targeted state-supported tutoring initiatives to bridge rural-urban divides. Findings contribute to global debates on shadow education and call for further research into its long-term psychological and structural implications in under-resourced contexts.0
In response to the growing importance of educating student teachers with research competencies, political decisions have been made in Flanders as well to integrate research in academic teacher education programmes. From now on, teacher education students in Flanders who are attending a university-based academic teacher education programme are required to write an educational research-based master's thesis. However, little is known about how student teachers perceive the added value of an educational research-based thesis as one specific research component within their teacher education, and how this contributes to student teachers' learning, professional development, research competencies, and satisfaction with educational research. Based on Astin's (1993) Input-Environment-Output-model, this paper identifies important individual and contextual variables that may influence students' development of their research competencies, as well as their experiences and satisfaction with conducting educational research and writing the educational research-based thesis. Using survey data from 198 Flemish student teachers enrolled in the Master of Teaching programme, the hierarchical linear regression analysis highlights the key role of an appropriate infrastructure, intellectually motivating teacher education programmes, good supervision, and a balanced workload in the development of research competencies when writing an educational research-based thesis. Implications for further research, practice, and policy are discussed.
Lesson Study (LS), a collaborative and inquiry-based teacher professional development model, has received increased attention in recent decades. It involves teachers in small groups planning lessons, teaching them and then reflecting on them. While evidence exists on teachers' satisfaction with participating in LS, evidence on the impact of LS on student learning outcomes is still scarce. This study examines (a) the impact of teachers' participation in LS on students' mathematical reasoning and (b) the impact of different types of support offered to the teachers. Secondary mathematics teachers (n = 132) in Belgium, Cyprus, and Greece were randomly split into three groups. Two experimental groups conducted LS, planning and reflecting on six lessons during the school year. They differed in terms of the type of support that they received in the LS meetings: the Facilitator guided teachers through the LS process and the Advisor also offered advice on teaching mathematical reasoning. Teachers in the control group did not conduct LS. Tests measuring mathematical reasoning were administered to students from two classes of each teacher at the beginning and end of the year. Multilevel analyses revealed that students in the Advisor group had better results. Implications for research, policy and practice are discussed.
Creativity has become a key discourse of the 21st century. Because of this, developing a measure of young people's creative capacity was embedded within PISA 2022. The OECD's approach to creativity is framed within its 'third-phase' of policy-making. This differs from previous economist understandings through the recognition of imagination; a re-engagement with foundational knowledge; and a melding of neo-vocationalist and humanist ideologies. Using mixed methods - qualitative documentary analysis of planning documents and quantitative analysis of data from the PISA Test - this paper argues that the attempt to bring creativity within the purview of PISA measurement is conceptually and methodologically problematic. The paper's documentary analysis illustrates that its 'third phase' framework is conceptually inconsistent and that its creative thinking measurement is theoretically permissive and, consequently, methodologically fragile. The paper demonstrates how this theoretical inconsistency is reflected in the measurement tools and the data from the PISA Test. Consequently, the paper argues that the data has limited explanatory power and utility for policy-makers and educators. We conclude that attempts to develop an international measure using a composite creativity metric is theoretically incoherent and methodologically unrealisable and that the OECD's creative thinking measure could be counterproductive for the promotion and fostering of creativity within education.
In recent years, the internationalisation of higher education in non-Anglophone contexts has become intertwined with the Englishisation of higher education. English Medium Instruction (EMI) has experienced a dramatic boom, with China and Japan at the forefront of this change. There is widespread speculation about the growth in EMI and the reasons why students enrol in such programmes, yet research is lacking with key stakeholders. Using questionnaires with students (n = 702) and staff (n = 28), interviews with students (n = 29) and staff (n = 28), and 10 focus groups (students and staff), we respond to the need for research examining stakeholders' perceptions on the key driving forces behind and students' motivations for enrolling in, EMI programmes. Our 'bottom-up' exploration of the ideological underpinnings of EMI growth not only reveals a multitude of explanatory factors but also illuminates discrepancies between the perceptions of students and instructors. These findings aim to inform EMI policy implementation and programme development and delivery as well as student recruitment and retention. The paper also assists EMI developers in understanding both the needs and motivations of students, as well as the concerns of staff.
Teacher-student relationship quality has been found to be important for a range of educational outcomes. It appears to be associated with student socioeconomic background, but little is known about the processes driving socioeconomic inequalities in teacher-student relationships. In this paper we draw on cultural reproduction theory to suggest three mechanisms linking student socioeconomic background with teacher-student relationship quality: student behaviour; parental interest and involvement; and student unpreparedness for school. We use data from Cohort '08 of Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) on 5-year-old children to assess socioeconomic inequalities in teacher-student conflict and closeness, and the extent to which these can be explained by the three mechanisms. As expected, we find that children with parents from the working class and with no jobs have less close and more conflictual relationships with their teachers than students whose parents are from the managerial and professional classes. All three mechanisms appear to be contributing to these inequalities with student behaviour having the relatively smallest mediating effect and only parental interest (rather than involvement) being relevant. Our findings suggest ways of mitigating inequalities in teacher-student relationships and, hence, closing social gaps in early school outcomes.
This study aimed to utilise psychological network analysis to investigate the inter-structural network of school principal well-being and age differences concerning network estimation, centrality indices, network stability, and network comparison. The sample includes 1274 principals from China. The findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic network and the impact of age on principal well-being at both general well-being dimensions and the specific item level. It is noted that spiritual well-being, which exhibits the highest value in relation to various centrality measures, underscores the significance of personal fulfilment and a sense of purpose in principals' lives. The age analysis indicated that emotional well-being could be particularly beneficial for younger principals, while addressing spiritual well-being may be more crucial for mid-aged and mature principals. For senior principals, the emphasis on social well-being might be significant. This research augments both theoretical and practical understanding of principal well-being through the exploration of interactions among various dimensions and items, thereby contributing to the advancement of knowledge production and intervention tactics in the field.
Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is increasingly emphasised in education, yet the dialogic nature of collaboration, viewed through a Bakhtinian perspective, remains under-theorised. This article introduces the concept of Dialogic Collaborative Problem Solving (DCPS) as a theoretical framework that applies Bakhtinian dialogism to the context of CPS. DCPS highlights how dialogic interaction-characterised by open exchange of ideas, mutual respect, and a shared dialogic space among learners - can enhance CPS processes and outcomes. We define DCPS and emphasise the dialogic stance as the foundation for its three prerequisites: commensurability, open-mindedness, and equality of voices. We further propose a hierarchy of dialogic engagement to assess the quality of collaborative dialogue. The framework bridges theory and practice: it informs empirical research on classroom dialogue in group problem-solving and offers guidance for educators to foster more productive, dialogic interactions in CPS tasks. An illustrative scenario of three students working together is woven through the paper to demonstrate how the DCPS framework can be used to analyse and improve real-life collaborative dialogues.
Research on digital personalised learning (DPL) alongside classroom teaching is limited in low- and middle-income countries. This study investigates, for the first time, a DPL programme aligned with national curricula and teaching practices. A randomised trial evaluated the impact of 'classroom-integrated' DPL on pre-primary literacy and numeracy in Kenya, involving 1955 learners aged 4 to 6 across 291 government schools. Learners engaged with DPL via a smartphone. DPL personalised the sequence of digital learning units based on learners' device usage and teachers' progression through digitised structured pedagogy lesson plans, while teachers could use their judgement to align DPL with teaching. Numeracy and literacy were assessed over 13 months. The findings show an effect of 0.534 SD from baseline to endline, with similar numeracy (0.450 SD) and literacy (0.449 SD) impacts. The intervention was effective for boys and girls and across class sizes, and there was no clear differential impact for low- or high-achieving learners. However, a reduction in the extent of effectiveness after midline suggests potential exhaustion of appropriate DPL content, indicating a need to consider the suitability of content and the optimum duration for implementation. This research significantly enhances the critical understanding of DPL when integrated with a standardised curriculum and classroom practice.
