This study focuses on pre-service teachers' views of the conditions that foster their participatory action research practices in secondary schools and on how these conditions can inform the development of a teacher education program for a participatory approach. By using the Theory of Practice Architectures as an analytical lens, eight cases of participatory action research projects were studied at two interrelated sites of pre-service teachers' learning: the teacher education institute and the internship school. Findings shed light on the conditions for fostering participatory action research practices in a teacher education context in terms of three kinds of arrangements, i.e. cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political. Based on the findings, a set of 17 principles for supporting participatory research practices is presented that can be used to assess the viability of preservice teachers' participatory action research within a teacher education program, and that also supports a well-aligned institute-school collaboration.

Participatory action research can prepare preservice teachers for collaborating with school students in research projects. In the current study, principles for pre-service teachers' participatory action research are examined based on teacher educators' views and actions while they implement participatory action research in a teacher education program. Across three dimensions (cultural-discursive, material-economic, social-political), the findings shed light on how student participation and participatory action research can be implemented in a teacher education program and how preservice teachers can be prepared for and supported in collaborating with their school students.

This paper analyses the nature and complexity that characterize the broader policy and political conditions of teachers' initial learning within and across three different national settings. Drawing upon the transnational notion of 'fast policy', we show how neoliberal policies and associated policy artefacts constitute specific, national initial teacher education policies in Norway, Australia and the Netherlands. At the same time, we also indicate how hegemonic ideas and ideals mutate as part of these policy mobilities, thereby problematizing performative policy discourses. We do so by identifying and reflecting on how the 'markers' of fast policy are developed and how they are simultaneously challenged by alternative more collective, context-responsive conceptions of professional learning. In this way, we indicate how even as neoliberal instantiations of fast policy mobility unfold within specific national contexts, more collective, context-relevant approaches to teachers' learning also exist, which can challenge performative policy conditions.

This study addresses the nature and level of school student participation at various stages of participatory action research conducted by pre-service teachers (PSTs). PSTs' research reports were analyzed by means of the SPinSTAR matrix, in which four levels of student participation were distinguished: Inform, Consult, Participate and Collaborate. Results show that student participation in PST research occurred mostly at the less intensive levels (Inform, Consult). Furthermore, they participated mostly in the preparatory stages of the research projects. However, most PSTs came to see their school students in a broader sense as worthwhile partners in an educational endeavor.

Teachers generally seem to have limited knowledge of, access to and interest in insights from academic educational research. A possible way to bridge the gap between research and practice might be research by teachers. This line of thinking has found its way to policy actions of the Dutch government, in which master programs for teachers are promoted. Yet evidence of positive effects of teacher research is minimal and somewhat ambiguous. The current study aims to answer the following research question: ‘How is teacher research evaluated with respect to the professional development of teachers and knowledge utilization in schools?’ First, a biographical study has been conducted with 36 teachers (primary education, secondary education and vocational education). Second, a Q-sort questionnaire was administered with a small group of teachers from each educational sector, which measures beliefs about teacher research as a professional development strategy. The preliminary conclusions indicate that a master program contributes to teachers’ professional development, among others, in terms of their ability to conduct teacher research. However, for knowledge utilization in schools to take place, teachers with a master degree are a helpful but not a sufficient condition.

The current presentation addresses characteristics of the TE program, PSTs learning outcomes, and enabling and constraining factors in the development and enactment of PAR. Research questions:What are the characteristics of a TE program aimed at preparing PSTs for conducting PAR with school students, and fostering school student participation in educational decision-making?What learning processes of PSTs towards school student participation are supported through the TE program?What factors enable or constrain attaining the goals of the PAR initiative?

It is commonly understood that teachers in secondary school should develop throughout their career in order to stay as an essential factor in student learning. Schools can offer opportunities to link teachers' professional learning to their school practice with a positive impact on teachers' motivation to learn and the effectiveness of their learning. In this field study, teachers, school leaders, policy-makers, educational consultants and educational scholars were asked for their perceptions of conditions for teacher learning in school and of interventions in school to enhance teacher professional learning. These conditions and interventions were understood as affordances in schools that enable and support teacher professional learning. The main affordance in school these stakeholders mentioned was an open, but critical way in which teachers share their practices, collaborate and reflect upon their teaching practice. Collaborative practices seem to stimulate many interventions of teacher professional learning in school. Two implications of this finding are discussed. First, we suggest that the maximum teaching time should be reduced, team teaching should be more implemented or classes should be scheduled in such a way that teachers can meet. Second, distributed leadership approaches match with our findings about the role of school leaders in teacher professional learning.

The quality of how technology is addressed in teacher education programmes is conditional for how student teachers apply technology in secondary schools after their graduation. Two technology-infused courses of one teacher education programme were evaluated. In line with studies on the development of pre-service teachers’ technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, two important enablers were distinguished: (1) teaching practice to enact what was learned in teacher education institution as well as to receive feedback from students on this enactment, and (2) modelling of teacher educators and teachers in school. Both enablers might require further development of knowledge and skills of both teacher educators and cooperating school teachers.

South Africa is one of the emerging market countries that have received a relatively large amount of foreign capital since the mid-2000s. In South Africa's case, these inflows were partly used to build the country's foreign exchange reserves, but more particularly to finance continued large current account deficits. During the course of the past two years, however, adverse domestic political developments, combined with the potential negative impacts of the unwinding of quantitative easing policies and the normalising of monetary policy in the United States on emerging markets in general, has raised the spectre of a sharp slowdown in foreign capital flows to South Africa and an associated reversal of the current deficit. This paper explores the potential impact of such a development on macroeconomic conditions in South Africa. The analysis consists of macroeconometric model-based alternative scenarios backed up by both the international evidence on the impact of such events and South Africa's own history.

Open online distance learning in higher education has quickly gained popularity, expanded, and evolved, with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as the most recent development. New web technologies allow for scalable ways to deliver video lecture content, implement social forums and track student progress in MOOCs. However, we remain limited in our ability to assess complex and open-ended student assignments. In this paper, we present a study on the quality of self- and peer assessments in MOOCs. In general, the quality of self- assessments and peer assessments was low to moderate, suggesting that both self- assessment and peer assessment should be used as assessment for learning instead of assessment of learning. Based on low correlations with final exam grades as well as with other assessment forms, we conclude that self- assessments might not be a valid way to assess students' performance in MOOCs. Yet the weekly quizzes and peer assessment significantly explained differences in students' final exam scores, with one of the weekly quizzes as the strongest predictor. Future research on MOOCs implies a reconceptualization of education variables, including the role of assessment of students' achievements.

Determine the optimal response of a small open economy's central bank to financial shocks that lead to increases in credit spreads. Increasing credit spreads reduce the efficacy of monetary policy when the central bank is reducing the policy rate to accommodate a lowering in economic activity.Used a DSGE model that incorporates heterogeneous households and financial intermediaries. Financial shocks leads to an increase in non-performing loans, which in turn causes the financial intermediary to increase the spread over the policy rate at which it is willing to lend.The central bank should reduce the policy rate in response to rising credit spreads, however this response is more muted when compared to a closed economy facing a similar shock.

This study examined technology in post-graduateteacher training programs in the Netherlands. A questionnaire was completed by111 teacher educators from 12 Dutch universities with a post-graduate teachertraining. The psychological Integrative Model of Behavior Prediction ofFishbein and Azjen was applied to explain differences between teacher educatorsin the use of both hardware and software in teacher education. In addition to teachereducators' gender, age and teaching experience, their positive attitudes towardtechnology in education were significantly related to the extent to which hardwarefacilities were used to support teacher training pedagogy. Perceived norm largelyexplained differences in the extent to which software applications were used. Soft-and hardware conditions and self-efficacy in technology did not add muchexplanatory power. Implications for technology use in post-graduate teachertraining are formulated.

Zorgen omtrent de onderbenutting van wetenschappelijk kennis voor de onderwijspraktijk zijn reeds jaren onderwerp van discussie rond de zogenaamde kloof tussen theorie en praktijk in de Onderwijswetenschappen. Het overbruggen van deze kloof wordt dikwijls gezocht in samenwerking tussen onderwijsgevenden en onderzoekers. Deze vormen van samenwerking houden in het onderzoek naar de onderwijspraktijk geheel of grotendeels de verantwoordelijkheid is van de onderzoekers; de docenten houden zich vooral bezig met het ontwerpen en geven van onderwijs dat wordt onderzocht. Daardoor lijken dergelijke samenwerkingsvormen vooral bedoeld om de praktijkrelevantie van onderzoek te verbeteren. Een manier om zowel praktijkrelevantie te vergroten als professionele ontwikkeling van docenten te stimuleren door docenten naar hun eigen onderwijspraktijk. In dit symposium worden drie benaderingen van docentonderzoek gepresenteerd.

In this paper we explore the concepts that form the framework for the different research projects that are reported in this special issue. All projects were part of the international Pedagogy, Education and Praxis research network. The main goal of this paper is to set the theoretical ‘mis-en-scène’ for the other papers in the issue. First, based on literature, we explore different meanings of concepts such as ‘Education for All’, ‘social justice’, ‘praxis’ and ‘pedagogy’. Secondly, we explain why we rely on these concepts and, finally, we investigate the consequences of these decisions for the profession, including professionals in schools as well as in universities.

This article explores the way student participation can be incorporated into educational practice, in particular in the form of the student participation process 'students as co-researchers'. It is argued that enabling student participation, in the sense that students are involved in decisions that affect them in their school lives, is valuable and should be pursued for various motives. One of these motives is a rights-based motive following from the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the declaration Education for All. Moreover, student and teacher learning are identified as other important motives for intensive student participation practices. An action research project in the Netherlands conducted by teams of teachers, students and museum educators serves to illustrate the student participation process and the strategy for teacher learning. First, the concept of student participation will be explored and related to teacher's professional development. Second, the characteristics and the intensity of the student participation in this case are described along six dimensions of participation. Next, the implications for the learning and professional development of teachers who participated in the Dutch project are explored. The four domains of the Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth serve as the structuring framework.