National School System Research Articles

Quality Competency of Teachers in the Developing Quality Culture in Public Secondary Schools in a Developing Country

Quality culture has been mentioned as a tool to help improve quality standards and promote the development of educational institutions. Recently, quality culture has begun to be recognized as an interesting research trend in Vietnam, mainly focusing on higher education. Several studies have applied models/types of building and developing quality culture to educational activities and institutions, but not in the national school system. The purpose of this study is to understand the quality capacity of administrators and teachers of public secondary schools in the Southeast region, of Vietnam through the aspect of quality awareness during education. General education implements educational quality accreditation activities. The research uses quantitative research methods combined with qualitative research methods. The survey sample was conveniently selected randomly, information was collected by questionnaire with 749 managers and 3831 teachers, and by interviews with 22 managers and 40 teachers. Quantitative data were calculated by Cronbach's Alpha to eliminate inappropriate variables. Descriptive statistics calculate percentages, mean values, and standard deviations, and inferential statistics test differences using ANOVA and t-test with 2 independent samples. Data analysis results show differences in quality awareness between the three provinces and between managers and teachers, and the results also show that managers and teachers do not have positive views. teacher on educational quality accreditation activities in secondary schools through two contents "Education quality accreditation takes time and resources" and "Education quality accreditation increases achievement problems in education”. Therefore, the study recommends that leaders at all levels research and promulgate quality policies and create conditions for secondary schools to develop quality; Secondary schools build a set of tools and principles for forming and developing a quality culture to improve quality capacity and develop internal quality resources.

Aprendizaje activo en enseñanza media: creencias docentes que facilitan y obstaculizan su aplicación

The health crisis has accentuated the teaching-learning challenges in the national school system, highlighting the urgency of improving educational quality. To achieve this, it is essential to improve pedagogical practices in classrooms, moving from conventional methods to student-centered strategies. This allows active and conscious participation in their challenges and achievements, adapting to current needs. This research analyzes the beliefs of secondary school teachers in Chile through a multiple case study in three high schools in the Metropolitan Region. The opportunities and difficulties linked to active learning in high schools that apply a teacher professional development program were explored. The results reveal that teachers incorporate their beliefs about active learning, considering factors such as the diversity of students, the development of skills such as inquiry and reflection, and the challenges that come with the transition from a traditional to an active approach. These findings indicate that teachers are willing to adopt active learning, demonstrating a commitment to improvement, which increases the challenge for the educational system to provide the necessary tools to make this possible.

Adjustment and adaptation: English curriculum development in pesantren

As the religious institution which focuses on religious teaching, however Pesantren began to incorporate English Language Teaching (ELT) in its curricula by doing some adjustments in line with the Pesantren context. This paper aims to examine English curriculum development at Pesantren Darussalam Blokagung Banyuwangi both in formal and informal institutions inside Pesantren. The incorporation of English Language Teaching (ELT) and the authority of the Pesantren leader in modifying the English curriculum according to the Pesantren context are discussed. The research is a qualitative research approach by employing a case study methodology. The data is collected through in- depth interviews of six participants, observations and documentation. The study reveals two curriculum facets: formal and informal. The formal curriculum aligns with the national school system, while the informal one encompasses English courses progressing from basic to advanced levels, an English language dormitory, and extracurriculars like news reading, storytelling, debate, and public speaking. The research concludes that Pesantren Darussalam effectively integrates English education to complement formal schooling. Yet, to enhance students' English skills and local awareness, ELT materials are needed to be tailored to the Pesantren context. This approach underscores the institution's adaptability and commitment to holistic education.

How educators navigate language ideology and pedagogy in refugee education

ABSTRACT There are over 30 million people living as refugees today, nearly half of whom are under 18. For most young people fleeing conflict and persecution, their only option is to pursue education in already-stretched national school systems in host countries neighboring those they have left, often in unfamiliar languages. Despite the pressing issue of refugee education globally, there is little research about the educational inclusion of refugees in the Global South, not least related to language. This study begins to address this gap. Through a comparative case study, I draw on school-wide and classroom observations and interviews with educators across three schools in Kampala, Uganda to understand how educators navigate the linguistic inclusion of refugees at school. I find that, in the absence of guidance or training, school leaders draw on their ideological beliefs about multilingualism and migration to determine how to approach linguistic diversity at school. In turn, classroom teachers navigate constrained implementation spaces, balancing policies that require a dominant language as the language of instruction with multilingual realities in classrooms.

Best Practices in STEM Education for Preschool Children: A Case Study in Malaysia

Previous research has demonstrated that since 1967, the Malaysian government has set a target percentage rate of 60:40 for student involvement in the science stream compared to literature. This ratio policy has been followed throughout the national school system ever since. However, such a ratio appears to be impossible to maintain year after year. Therefore, the empowerment of science education needs to be explored from an earlier. This study was conducted to (i) explore best practices in Early Science in relation to the implementation of STEM activity in preschool; (ii) explore best practices in Early Mathematics in relation to the implementation of STEM activity in preschool; (iii) explore technology-assisted teaching tools in relation to the implementation of STEM activity in preschool; and (iv) explore engineering activity in relation to the implementation of STEM activity in preschool. This qualitative study employed a case study approach, with data triangulation based on interviews, observations, and document analysis serving as the exploratory method. This study was conducted independently in three Malaysian preschools in Perak and Selangor respectively, with four teachers and 39 children participating as study participants. ATLAS.ti version 8 software was used to generate, arrange, and organise the themes from the three research instruments described utilizing descriptive analysis with the flow of coding processes. The results show that there are nine STEM education best practices, with play-based learning being identified by participants the most frequently. Thus, this study's most significant contribution is the potential to bridge the gap between the Ministry of Education Malaysia's goals to advance STEM education globally, starting in the early years.

Googlization(s) of education: intermediary work brokering platform dependence in three national school systems

ABSTRACT The ‘googlization’ of education is emblematic of the growing power of private tech companies in schools across the globe, challenging education as a public good. While critical scholarship has started unpacking the ideological, pedagogical and economical logics underpinning Google’s digital infrastructure in schools, we have little insight into how googlization unfolds in education systems across the world. This article addresses this by examining the googlization of education across three countries – The US, Australia, and The Netherlands – focusing on the work by new and established intermediary actors which mediate platform power between private tech companies and public education systems. Our findings highlight five different types of intermediary work that broker dependence on Google in schools. The paper concludes by outlining how education researchers and institutions might reclaim public education by intervening in the googlization of education.

The pattern of socio-economic segregation between schools in England 1989 to 2021: The pupil premium, Universal Credit, and Covid-19 eras

This paper presents an analysis of the extent to which poor pupils in England are clustered in schools with others like them. It is based on a segregation index of pupils eligible for free school meals for every year for which official national data is available. The trend over time has been published before up to 2019, and this paper extends the analysis to 2021, covering both the Covid-19 era so far and the beginning of transitional arrangements for Universal Credit, which have led to a substantial increase in the number of pupils eligible for free school meals. Results show that the segregation of poor pupils between secondary schools has continued to decline annually – a decline that started with the onset of Pupil Premium funding. This decline in segregation has not occurred for other possible indicators of disadvantage, such as pupils having a special educational need or disability, which are not addressed by Pupil Premium funding. Clustering disadvantaged pupils together in parts of a national school system has been linked to worse pupil outcomes overall, lower aspirations, less ethnic cohesion, and reduced trust in society by students. So, this ongoing reduction is encouraging, and is likely to lead to a lower poverty attainment gap in academic outcomes. However, the reduction in 2020 and 2021 is “false” to some extent, based mostly on a sudden increase in the number of pupils officially classed as poor, rather than an improvement in their distribution or evenness. It is, therefore, important to retain Pupil Premium funding or something like it for the time being to see what happens to the attainment gap. And the apparent success of this funding scheme could have implications for school systems worldwide that value fairness in the provision of national opportunities for education.

Creating Educational Borderlands: Civic Learning in a Syrian School in Lebanon

Abstract Limitations on membership and participation in host societies sharply constrain refugee young people’s civic development. Especially when refugees attend national schools, they find themselves submerged in civic learning that does not include them or represent their experiences and realities. To explore possibilities for civic learning among refugees, we examine the education created by a Syrian community inside the structures of a Lebanese private school in Beirut. We conceive of this school as a ‘borderlands’ and find that it supports civic membership and participation in three ways: through adaptations to the Lebanese structures, curricula, and languages of schooling; through pedagogies focused on pragmatism; and through opening limited spaces for students to practice civic skills. We argue that the borderlands space created by this school holds lessons for both refugee and national teachers and school systems seeking to foster civic learning among refugees.

Analysis of Intercultural Education Policies in Italy and Spain: A Comparative Perspective

This article focuses on the evolution of intercultural education in the educational policies of Italy and Spain. The evolution of school regulations and educational practices in both countries presents similar characteristics, including the shift from the paradigm of integration to that of inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds. At the same time, historical and political differences between the two countries have led to the implementation of very different practices, which it is interesting to compare, with a particular interest in those processes of hidden exclusion that are still present in the two educational systems, despite the progress of official regulations. We will present the critical points and strengths of both countries’ systems, identifying, on the one hand, the inclusion factors (development of inclusive practices, development of resources and programmes for foreign students) and, on the other hand, the exclusion practices that persist despite legislation (school segregation and school concentration). In the conclusions, we will suggest possible strategies to contribute to the development of intra-European measures and policies to foster the reception of people with a migrant background in national school systems.

Religious Education in the Early Years: An Irish Perspective

Ireland’s education system at primary level is renowned for its lack of diversity, with most schools falling under the patronage of the Catholic Church. This homogeneity of school type is problematic from a number of perspectives, not least the changed demographics in terms of religious affiliation in Ireland. There is a desire for change by all; however, the pace of change is slow. Whilst the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) determines the curriculum for all subject areas in primary schools, this body has no remit over the subject of religious education (RE). The responsibility for the provision of RE has rested with the patrons of schools since the inception of the national school system. This review focuses on the provision of early years’ Catholic RE in schools and pre-schools in the Republic of Ireland. In recent years, the importance afforded to the subject of RE and its status in schools has been eroded. The impact on early childhood religious education of this diminution is outlined. The review also addresses the training and support of teachers to work in the Catholic school sector and concurs with other writers in the field that current programmes of preparation require reform.

Transborder Literacies of (In)Visibility

Drawing from an ethnography with mixed-status families residing in Mexico, we examine what we term transborder literacies of (in)visibility, or diasporic people's innovative interactions around texts that prepare them to move across incompatible mononational institutions divided by borders. Through close attention to the literacy practices families engaged in as they applied for their children's U.S. passports from Mexico, we demonstrate how these literacies were not just about expanding authentic ways of reading and writing to include both U.S. and Mexican ways, but instead required unique transborder literacies across mutually unintelligible, racializing mononational systems so that children could (re)access their rights on both sides of the border. We argue that recognizing families’ complex transborder literacy practices of (in)visibility could offer a novel anti-oppressive lens to transform how educators make sense of the complexity of immigrant families’ literacies, movements, and educational supports across borders and national schooling systems.

Soviet Policy in the Field of Education in the 20s of the XX Century on the Territory of the North Caucasus

The subject of the article is Soviet educational policy in the 1920s. The methodological basis of the research is the principle of historicism. The Bolsheviks considered one of their most important tasks in the region to be the formation of secular education and the enlightenment of the population. Many peoples of the North Caucasus did not have a written language, there were few literate people. There was a priority of Islamic education over secular education in the region. There were Tibetan schools attached to every mosque, and there were few secular schools. In the 1920s, the peoples who did not have a written tradition received writing, schools were opened, teachers were trained, the education system was formed in their native languages. In Dagestan, the issue of language was the most acute and therefore a project was being implemented there, according to which the national school system was formed in three languages: native, Turkic (Kumyk) and Russian. But the project was not very successful and was soon curtailed. The authorities of the republics of the North Caucasus placed special emphasis on the elimination of illiteracy of the population and the education of women. The article emphasizes that all these measures in a fairly short period of time contributed to the strengthening of the position of secular Soviet education in this region of Russia and the displacement of religious education from its socio-cultural space, reducing distrust of the new government and the formation of Soviet identity.

Curriculum policy, teaching, and knowledge orientations

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore the implications of a standards-based curriculum for what constitutes knowledge in different teaching contexts. The research question is as follows: How is the logic of uniformity within curriculum standards recontextualised into actual teaching in different school environments, here focusing on the concepts of the knowledge underpinning the teaching? Many national school systems have adapted to the current accountability movement. The accountability movement is characterised by seemingly simple and reasonable logic that defines objectives to specify what schooling should result in for learners, evaluates the result and then uses the result to improve the schooling process. In reality, however, the recontextualisation of the subject curriculum to teaching practice is a complex process. This article draws on interviews with two teachers focusing on eight recently completed lessons. The analysis reveals two approaches to curricula—integrated and performance—underpinned by two different views of knowledge: transactional realism and social realism. Although the key aim for teaching based on transactional realism is ‘coordinating the students’ interest in’ the curriculum and teaching content, the key aim for teaching based on social realism is ‘giving the students access to’ specialised knowledge.

Combining capacity for instructional leadership with individual core practices in the Norwegian policy context

This study explores how Norwegian school leaders develop their capacity for instructional leadership, a leadership style that is strongly related to school effectiveness and school improvement across a range of national school systems. The concept captures important aspects of Norwegian school leaders’ task preferences. To gain further insight into the process of developing the capacity for instructional leadership, this study links instructional leadership to school leaders’ core practices. The multidimensional concept of core practices views school leaders as goal oriented and actively involved in teachers’ collaboration and professional development, observation, and supervision. Moreover, the concept covers school leaders’ efforts to redesign and improve their schools’ instructional programs. In this study, school leaders assessed instructional leadership related to three distinctive core practices: observation and supervision, collaborative learning engagement, and time allocation for data use. Multiple regression analyses were conducted, and overall, the regression model, with all the predictors included as a set, was significant. 28.5% of the variance in school leader's capacity for instructional leadership is explained by the three distinct factors. The results indicate that when school leaders adapt core practices of leadership to their work context, their capacity as instructional leaders increases. The findings and implications will be discussed.

Editorial: The diversification of the teaching profession in Europe and beyond. Ambivalences of recognition in the context of (forced) migration

The topic of teacher diversification relating to migration has come to the fore in recent years in many European countries and beyond. This Special Issue focuses on the ambivalent structures of recognition in national school systems regarding the situation of international teachers on the one side, as well as teachers with a family migration history on the other. Addressing these teachers’ experiences of migration discourses and structural barriers in the respective societies, without framing them as ‘the other’ teachers, is central to the intertwining of the teaching profession and migration. First, the topic of teacher diversification is introduced as a policy issue on a European level as well as on a national level in European countries. Second, recognition as an ambivalent theoretical concept is presented. Third, we use this perspective to point out dimensions of ambivalence of recognition for migrant teachers that become visible in the research presented in this Special Issue from Australia, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland: formal (non-)recognition of professional certificates and experiences of international teachers, social recognition and misrecognition as well as recognition as a (powerful) practice of subject constitution in the context of migration research.

Were there national school systems in the nineteenth century? The construction of a regionalised primary school system in Sweden

ABSTRACT The nation-state remains fundamental to our understanding of nineteenth-century schooling, which is commonly referred to in terms of national school systems or national education systems. While nineteenth-century school systems were often national in scope and promoted with the purpose of creating nationally minded citizens, this article examines whether such systems were national in the sense of being designed to impose national uniformity and standardisation on schools, teachers and pupils. Based on an investigation of public regulations of primary schooling in Sweden 1842–1920, this article shows that the Swedish school system promoted regional variation by officially sanctioning a wide range of school types, including ambulatory schools, junior schools and minor primary schools. As a result, this case study encourages considerate use of the term primary schooling and raises questions as to whether nineteenth-century school systems are, in this respect, more aptly described as regionalised rather than national.

Does school socioeconomic composition matter more in some countries than others, and if so, why?

ABSTRACT International research has consistently found that the socioeconomic segregation of schools may worsen inequalities in schooling outcomes through the socioeconomic compositional effect. This study examines whether the socioeconomic compositional effect varies between developed countries and potential mechanisms by which national schooling systems moderate its effect. The results suggest that the socioeconomic compositional effect does vary between developed countries and that national differences in its size were partially explained by policies of tracking age and the proportion of students that attend public schools. We conclude schooling systems in developed countries would require substantial reform to reduce the detrimental effects of school composition on disadvantaged students.

Strategy and tactics of current professional education: axiological approach

This paper links with the relevance of the authors’ longitudinal research intended to meet the pedagogue and student interests, possibilities, and their motives for recurrent education based on personalized training strategy and tactics in the frameworks of current university education and additional professional programs of the In-Service. The research aims to provide some of the prospects on creating axiological priorities of professional education spaces in line with innovative approaches to teaching and learning the ways of interpretation of database on the «difficult» issues of Russian History and Culture, and on fostering dominant values into a personality space of a learner within the frames and architectonics of the humanitarian environment of modern scientific and methodological support of Russian education. Methodology and materials of the research based on the main concepts of acculturation of the educational environment, harmonious interaction of both educators and learners, historical memo, national and language consciousness, are focused on transforming the socio-cultural atmosphere of the country where the dominant values of national and cultural identity have sharply worsened over the past twenty years. The findings concern the axiological model of «management techniques» on the solution of «difficult» questions of Russian culture and national public school system of education.

Translating Race on the French Stage

Translating Race on the French Stage

The four pillars: the architecture of the government school in Australia 1835-1885

ABSTRACT The government school has held an integral part in the Australian idea of progressive society, a locus of community definition and pride that is the backbone of social infrastructure. Yet, it took decades from the establishment of the Australian British colonies from 1788 to establish a system of general education. The Australian school had modest beginnings, founded on the Irish National School system in the 1840s. This paper examines the architecture of Australian government schools between 1835–1885, charting the evolution of their design including the use and development of common plans, the influence of rules and regulations, and their position in a civil society.