Pedagogical challenges faced by elementary school teachers remain a critical issue in classroom instruction. Teachers are expected to implement student-centered learning while addressing diverse student characteristics, increasing curriculum demands, limited instructional resources, and various classroom constraints. This study aims to understand and describe the pedagogical challenges experienced by elementary school teachers in classroom instruction through a qualitative library research approach. Data were collected from peer-reviewed journal articles published within the last five years and relevant academic books published within the last ten years. The selected literature was analyzed thematically to identify recurring patterns and key issues related to pedagogical practices. The findings indicate that major challenges include classroom management difficulties, the implementation of differentiated instruction, curriculum adaptation, technology integration, and limited opportunities for professional development. These challenges reveal a persistent gap between pedagogical theories and classroom realities. The study concludes that addressing pedagogical challenges requires not only teacher competence but also strong institutional support, flexible curriculum implementation, and continuous professional development.

• Through the voices of children and adults ( N = 40), this paper aims to explore this unique University- school –community, context-informed model. This paper will focus on: • Exploring the contribution of the model to nurturing intercultural understanding and respect, building an inclusive community of concern, to researching sustainable education within specific contexts. • Demonstrate alternative ways for creating knowledge and challenging power relations by involving children from a very young age and their teachers, in knowledge production, conflict resolution, conducting research and confronting university authorities in the fight for their rights. • Describe the relevance of the context-informed model for university-school partnerships to support local and indigenous contexts while creating a community of concern. • The findings highlight three central themes: (1) participants' views on the concept of a community of concern, (2) the negotiation of power relations, conflict and diversity, and (3) participants' perspectives on the partnership between the kindergarten and the university. This paper examines the relationship between the The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the "Diversity Kindergarten", a kindergarten located on its campus. It explores how collaboration between these two institutions influences their practices and creates shared spaces for innovation, inclusion and mutual growth. Using qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups and participatory approaches, the study captures the voices of 40 participants, children, parents, kindergarten staff, students and university staff. The findings highlight three central themes: (1) participants’ views on the concept of a community of concern, (2) the negotiation of power relations, conflict and diversity, and (3) participants’ perspectives on the partnership between the kindergarten and the university. These thematic insights were accompanied by tangible outcomes, such as policy changes that recognised children as community members; intercultural practices, including celebrating different holidays, fostering inclusion and mutual learning; and ongoing dialogue between the kindergarten and the university that reshaped attitudes toward diversity and collaboration. The findings also reveal that the context-informed model (Roer-Strier and Nadan, 2020), which focuses on understanding the contexts affecting community life, particularly among marginalised populations, serves as a framework for supporting local and indigenous contexts while building a community of concern. While the collaboration highlights significant opportunities for innovation and inclusion, it also reveals challenges such as cultural differences and unequal power dynamics. This study provides valuable insights into the potential of university–school–community partnerships to promote sustainable, inclusive and transformative educational experiences.

• Teachers seemed to have a limited understanding of implementing inclusive education and pedagogy. • Cultural strategies and contextual teaching materials facilitated literacy acquisition. • Teachers’ contextual inclusive pedagogy supports literacy learning for all. • Teachers’ professional development programs are needed when implementing inclusive pedagogy. Teachers as key actors play key role in implementing inclusive education in early childhood education. This study examines pre-primary teachers’ understanding of inclusive education and pedagogy and its implementation for literacy acquisition in diverse classrooms. Thirty teachers from 16 pre-primary schools in Tanzania were interviewed, and the data were analysed using content analysis and inductive reasoning. The study revealed that teachers had varied understandings of inclusive education and pedagogy for literacy acquisition. Some viewed inclusive education as education for all without segregation, and inclusive pedagogy (IP) as a set of strategies to support inclusion by addressing students’ diverse learning needs. Others were unfamiliar with these concepts and lacked standardized strategies for identifying learners’ needs. In implementing inclusive pedagogy, teachers emphasized the use of teaching materials and environments, differentiation and individual support, lesson assessment and feedback, collaborative and participatory learning, and emotional pedagogical love as inclusive strategies for teaching literacy to diverse learners. This work calls for professional development programmes on inclusive pedagogy for pre-primary teachers and the provision of proper teaching and assistive resources for learners with diverse literacy needs. Furthermore, structured inclusive pedagogy frameworks and practical guidelines should be integrated into teachers’ education curricula and pre-primary education policies to create a more inclusive early childhood education for literacy acquisition.

• Ethical awareness in research with children in China is neither derived from normative frameworks nor fully capturable by procedural adaptation. • Ethical awareness emerges through moments of dissonance, affective hesitation and relational complexity. • Rather than focusing on compliance or certainty, this paper advocates for an understanding of ethics as situated awareness, a mode of engagement shaped by moral ambiguity, affective entanglements and structural constraint. This paper explores how researchers working with children in China navigate ethical challenges in the contexts of limited institutional guidance and the tension between global ethical principles and local moral expectations. Drawing on dialogic focus groups with 30 Chinese participants who have experience doing research with children, we conceptualise ethics not as compliance with rules but as an interplay of ethical awareness and practice shaped by affective, relational, and institutional conditions. Ethical awareness is theorised as a situated and relational capacity to recognise and respond to morally important moments under uncertainty. It develops through hesitation, discomfort and negotiation, particularly within ethical double binds between procedural frameworks and relational obligations. Rather than advancing a culturalist model, our paper offers a practice-based perspective that foregrounds ambiguity, moral complexity and the emotional labour of ethical decision-making. We argue for moving beyond universalist paradigms towards dialogic and context-sensitive approaches to research ethics. The paper concludes with implications for researchers, ethics committees and institutions seeking to foster reflexive and decolonising practices in cross-cultural qualitative inquiry.

How can university-school partnerships be navigated through students on an M level programme globally? In this paper, we discuss the purposes of University-School partnerships and the challenges of managing these when there is no formal arrangement to establish these partnerships. The Postgraduate Certificate in Education international (PGCEi) attracts students who are employed at various educational establishments globally and want to develop their understanding of educational concepts and theories. We explore the challenges of supporting their PGCEi journeys when there is no formal University-School partnership in place, and evaluate the role of PGCEi tutors as they progress through the course. PGCEi tutors play a critical role in navigating the space between the student and the School’s expectations. We question the students on the purposes of teaching in international schools and challenge them to consider how knowledge and power are connected as part of a decolonial approach to learning and teaching. The process is grounded in the concept of epistemic dependence in which PGCEi students and tutors can co-create a space to develop a decolonial approach as part of a broader focus on social and global justice.

Publicly funded private schooling is a common feature of many education systems, yet its implications for educational equity and effectiveness remain contested. While private schools often exhibit higher student achievement, the sources of this advantage are not well understood. In particular, differences in student composition—especially in terms of socioeconomic status (SES)—are likely to play a key role. This paper examines how school-level SES composition contributes to achievement differences between public and private schools. Using propensity score matching (PSM) on data from 22,441 French ninth-grade students, we find that private school students outperform their public school peers in mathematics and French, with especially large effects for low-SES students, an underrepresented group in private schools. While school composition explains only part of these effects, it accounts for a substantial share of the performance gap among high-SES students, rendering the adjusted effect statistically indistinguishable from zero. These findings highlight which students benefit most from private schooling and point to the need for further research into the mechanisms underlying performance differences across school sectors. • Private school students score higher than public peers in mathematics and French. • The achievement gap is largest among students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. • School composition fully explains the private school advantage among high-SES students. • For low-SES students, private schooling has positive effects beyond peer composition. • Findings highlight equity challenges in access to publicly funded private schools.