Conference Agenda

ERC Opening Ceremony

This Emerging Researchers' Conference (ERC) interactive session will encourage participants to reflect on their diversity, positionality, and on their role as learners, educators and/ or researchers. In line with the ECER 2023 conference theme, this session will bring together three researchers with diverse areas of interest and expertise.

Prof. Bonnie Slade’s input will reflect her interdisciplinary research which draws on adult education, migration studies, women’s studies and arts-informed research traditions. Dr. George Head will focus on ethical considerations and dilemmas that may arise during the research process, particularly when researching ‘difficult’ subjects. Dr. Ines Alves will engage with the concepts of equity, diversity, and inclusion and how these can be challenging when diversity poses challenges to our educational and research systems, and when homogeneity can often still be considered the ‘desirable norm’.

In this interactive session we aim to create a friendly environment that values diversity and which invites participants to share their thoughts and questions with the speakers and other researchers.

Introduction

Participative equity in higher education has largely been framed as equality regimes to address some of the consequences of massification (Trow, 1973), high participation (Marginson, 2016) and the neoliberalisation (Rizvi and Lingard, 2011) of higher education (HE). It has become even more critical in pluralistic and postcolonial states like Nigeria, where the need to forge an inclusive community through higher education remains a cardinal function of the universities (Lebeau, 2008). This changing nature of the ‘missions’ of the university has challenged how higher education institutions respond to diversity initiatives and their investment in maintaining or altering institutional cultures (Aguirre, 2020, Ahmed, 2012). With little focus on students' agency, institutional perspectives on why institutions change (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991, Thornton et al., 2012) and become what academics or leaders make of them (Chaffee and Tierney, 1988, Tierney and Lanford, 2018) abound in the literature on the sociology of HEIs. However, students’ demand for the dissociation of the university from its colonial (Bhambra et al., 2018) and capitalist relics (Santos, 2018) to an inclusive and liberating pedagogical space has called for the need to understand students’ agency or roles in institutional transformation. This explains why the post-Salamanca education debates on the meanings of inclusion, who is to be included, into what and how inclusion should be done (e.g. Ainscow et al., 2006, Ainscow et al., 2019) have shown why policies on inclusion and equity in HE must be approached as a holistic policy process; that addresses asymmetrical power relations of access, participation and outcome of underrepresented and underserved communities such as students with disabilities (SWDs), women, forced migrants, persons of colour and young people from low-income families. Inclusive education policy and corpus of work on how education systems can become inclusive, have been critiqued as a ‘neo-colonial project’ (Walton, 2018 p.34 ) developed in the rich countries of the Global North. This has thus given rise to a “second generation of inclusive education countries in the global South” (Artiles et al., 2011) uncritically adopting the theoretical and empirical understanding of disability and inclusive practices developed from the centre.

To interrogate knowledge on the experience of students with disabilities in higher education and practices of inclusive education more broadly, this study explored how the practices of inclusion and participation of students with disabilities in universities are organised. This study’s novel approach situates the analysis of textual and structural relations or the “untidy policy moments” (Svarícek and Pol, 2011) of disability inclusion practice in the HE system of Nigeria within the “colonial matrix of power” (Quijano, 2007) shaping global education agenda. It seeks to explain the everyday experience of students with disabilities by taking a critical perspective on how complex intersections of poverty, gender, religious and cultural beliefs at the local continue to shape the meanings of disability and the practices of inclusive education.

Inclusive education refers to a system where students with disabilities are valued and active participants in regular classrooms in their neighbourhood schools (Porter & Towell, 2017). In 1994, the Salamanca Statement reaffirmed a global and united commitment to making education more inclusive for students with disabilities (UNESCO, 1994). In the decades that followed the Salamanca Statement, much cross country research has been done in the field of inclusive education, creating opportunities for countries to learn from one another. There is overwhelming evidence that including students with disabilities in the regular classrooms has social and academic advantages for students with and without disabilities (Hehir et al., 2016), yet teachers continue to report significant barriers to effectively implementing inclusive education (Sokal & Katz, 2015). For example, teachers commonly perceive a lack of resources and report feeling like their training did not provide them with the skills needed for inclusion (McCrimmon, 2015; Sharma et al., 2007; Sokal & Katz, 2015). Ensuring that teachers are prepared to work effectively in inclusive classrooms and schools is thus an essential focus of research today.

Sharma (2018) proposed the 3H framework as a way to support the development of inclusive teachers. His framework posits that development must target three key areas: (1) knowledge of inclusive practices, (2) beliefs that support inclusion, and (3) skills and confidence to implement inclusive practices. This paper focuses on the development of beliefs that support inclusion. Beliefs are known to influence the way people perceive their world and subsequently guide behaviours and action (Fives & Buehl, 2012; Funkhouserk, 2017). Not surprisingly, research has found that teachers’ beliefs influence their instruction in inclusive classrooms (Jordan, 2018a; Jordan, 2018b). Specific beliefs about the teacher’s role in the classroom, the goal of teaching and learning, and the nature of ability influence the quality of inclusive practices. These beliefs are captured in a 20-item self-report measure called the Beliefs about Learning and Teaching Questionnaire (Glenn, 2018).

Teachers with inclusive scores on the Beliefs about Learning and Teaching Questionnaire tend to use more cognitively engaging instruction (e.g., back-and-forth question and answer periods) and scaffolding with individual students and small groups. They are also more likely to take responsibility for meeting the learning needs of students with disabilities. Teachers with low inclusive scores tends to spend less time engaging their students in academic talk and more time managing behaviours and clarifying routines and instructions. These teachers are more likely to place the responsibility of educating students with disabilities with special education teachers (Glenn, 2018; Jordan, 2018a; Jordan, 2018b).

A recent analysis of Beliefs about Learning and Teaching Questionnaire data from 396 Canadian beginning teachers revealed three distinct trajectories for the development of beliefs from the time pre-service teachers were in their education program through to the early years of their careers. Most notably, one fifth of the sample became less inclusive in their beliefs after graduating from their education program (Specht, Delorey & Puka, 2022). Past research has identified broad experiences that contribute to the development of beliefs; however, there is a gap in our understanding of how these experiences influence beliefs at different stages of teacher development. The present study aims to contribute novel information to further the field’s understanding of how various experiences influence the development of beliefs from initial teacher education through the first two years of teaching.

Legislative texts and recommendations are representing both legally fixed rights and duties and an overview of the changes in mindset and the terminology of concepts (Bowen, 2009; Prøitz, 2015). School leaders are obliged to follow the law and justify their decisions based on the Education Act (Møller & Skedsmo, 2013). These documents serve furthermore “as reference points for government discourse and are viewed as important sources for analyzing dominant trends and shifts in discursive patterns” (Stenersen & Prøitz, 2022, p. 198). One of these shifts is the powerful movement towards an inclusive school for all. However, the “fuzzy concept of inclusion” has to be included and transferred into practice in different historically developed education systems. Stakeholders of these systems have to interpret the regulations which led to many variations not just internationally, but also in a national frame (Badstieber & Moldenhauer, 2016). Findings have shown that especially school principals play a significant role in the implementation of reforms in general (Abrahamsen & Aas, 2019; Moos et al., 2016) but it is just assumed that they are important actors in the context of inclusive schooling (Badstieber, 2021). This is in conformity with a foregone study, where preliminary results are indicating clearly formulated task allocations for school authorities, while school leaders’ tasks are formulated more accurate just after the year 2001 (Dahle, 2023). Their tasks are furthermore influenced by accountability (Brauckmann & Schwarz, 2012; Moos et al., 2016). However, how these policies are admitted by school principals over time is still a blind spot. On that account, the study asks: How is the discourse of school principals’ leadership autonomy discussed in school leaders’ professional journals in Germany and Norway, regarding the implementation of inclusion policies since 1994?

Leadership autonomy is thereby understood as decision-making, control, and associated responsibilities (Wermke et al., 2022). A study has furthermore shown that a certain amount of autonomy in education is needed to quickly react to different educational needs: “Professionals in public education need a certain scope of action to formulate their decisions in interactions on the reactions of students in their educational day-to-day life” (Wermke et al., 2022, p. 5). Combining these aspects of leadership autonomy with the results of a foregone study about school leaders’ task allocations mentioned in policy documents (Dahle, 2023) will present the groundwork for the discourse analyzed in this study.

The fact of inclusion and its implementation is especially significant for this analysis. Inclusion shall improve the well-being of all people, which is associated with many risks and potential errors on the part of school principals. Taking risks, making mistakes and dealing with the results are topics crucial for the analysis of leadership autonomy (Wermke & Forsberg, 2017).

Since 92 countries agreed on a school for all children during an UNESCO-conference in Salamanca, the year 1994 is chosen as a starting point for the analysis. The conference led to extensive changes not just in schools in general but also in leadership autonomy.

Germany and Norway are interesting to compare due to many similarities in later education reforms with significant impact on educational leadership. However, these reforms are embedded in different educational traditions. Both countries differ in their education system, a bureaucratized tracked in Germany and a comprehensive approach in Norway but resemble each other in their method of system regulation (Wermke & Prøitz, 2021). Comparing these two countries with their different educational traditions, similarities in later education reforms, and an almost contrary approach to inclusive education will lead to a more nuanced picture about leadership autonomy from a comparative perspective.

Order and disorder have both been essential concepts of schooling throughout history (e.g. Biesta, 2021; Lanas & Brunila, 2019, Price, 2011). Order remains an underlying objective in both formal and informal schooling practices: students are arranged and expected to behave orderly, schooldays and facilities of school create particular order, the aim of schooling is to create some order in the society. Order is visible through acts, national and transnational documents, rooted practices (such as waiting for a turn, queuing and following a class schedule) and architectural solutions of physical school building.

In this paper, I focus on my PhD study’s first research question, how order and disorder are understood in school institutions. I approach order and disorder as counterparts that together exist in the everyday practices of schooling and education. I understand practices to be built on institutional, political, physical but also cultural and social conventions rooted in schooling (e.g. Biesta, 2021; Petersen & Millei, 2016). Everyday life of a school composes of informal and formal school culture where different power relations and ways of knowing are constructed. In formal school, knowledge is percieved to be teacher-led, based on guidelines (national curriculum, law, international guidelines) and often more restrained than the intense and fast-paced nature of informal schools (Lanas & Brunila, 2019; McLaren, 1993). The formal side of school culture and pedagogical thinking have been studied extensively in the educational sciences, yet there is a gap in the international and Finnish research literature on the informal side of school and its social orders in educational context (e.g. Kiilakoski & Lanas, 2022; Juva, 2019; Paju, 2011). To address this gap, I will focus on both the formal and informal side of primary school in analysing the existing ethnographic data.

In educational practices and implementations, there is a significant interest on developing models, interventions and programs (e.g. Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development register) on how to dismantle the so-called problem behaviour of students. To continue, these interventions are used to create and maintain a particular type of order in classrooms as well as in individual students (see for example Mertanen, Vainio, Brunila, 2021; Petersen & Millei, 2016). Yet, analyses on disorder have remained ambiguous. Hence, since the dominant discourse and gaze on disorder are mainly focused on how to diminish disorder instead of conceptualising what it comprehends, it is relevant to view the counterarguments and ask for a wider perspective on order and disorder (see for example Lanas & Brunila, 2019; MacLure, Jones, Holmes & McRae, 2011). As students, teachers and other everyday actors of school do not exist in a vacuum but are surrounded by school institutions and society that also create the idea of order and disorder (Dewey, 1957).

By looking at disorder in school institutions and society, we can see hierarchical power relations that stem from the idea of ideal order of schooling and education (Foucault, 1984). This is important because only after acknowledging schooling practices to be entangled in and stemming from surrounding society, it becomes possible to challenge the individual-oriented idea of order and rethink it as something wider (see for example Mertanen et al. 2021; Wright & McLeod, 2015).

In Portugal, as in other European countries, the universalisation of the right to education through equal opportunities of access to public school did not guarantee, however, effective equality of opportunities for success and school became, for a large part of the students, mainly from disadvantaged groups, a challenge to their right to education.

In the ‘60s, Bourdieu and Passeron (1970), draw attention to the importance of social class in education. The cultural (capital) differences between the students from the dominant classes and the ones from the working classes are the main drivers for the school’s failure of the latter and, in this sense, for cultural and social reproduction. Even nowadays, social class is a factor of social and educational inequalities both in Portugal and at a European level (Abrantes, 2022; Costa & Mauritti, 2018; Melo & Lopes, 2021; Ball, 2019; Reay, 2021).

The debate on students´ social and cultural diversities and how the school should relate to them has been a central concern in the pursuit of the democratisation of the education system and to assure student´s right to education. The school has been trying to accommodate these social and cultural diversities through the diversification in policies and practices: different educational routes, autonomy and curricular flexibility, tutorial support, and many others.

One important topic in several national and European policy documents is the broadening of higher education to other publics, namely VET graduates that are mostly from the working classes. Since 2020, there are special calls for their admission to higher education[1].

In Portugal, the number of graduates from scientific-humanistic courses (“regular school”) going to higher education is around 85%. However, although in 2021 vocational courses represented the largest educational and training offer in secondary education[2], only around 38% of graduates from vocational courses go to higher education[3], and this proportion is even more reduced when we refer to the graduates from apprenticeship courses. Hence, the VET students that go to higher education are sociological and statistical exceptions.

Attuned to this, our study is about working-class students, specifically graduates from vocational courses (VC) and apprenticeship courses (AC), who perform academic success pathways. Our main research question is: which dimensions and factors contribute to an academic success pathway of VET graduates who are attending or have attended higher education? However, to achieve academic success, these young people had to overcome numerous inequalities and barriers.

Considering studies and policy documents on the theme and the analysis of 8 in-depth interviews with VET graduates, in this presentation, we find it relevant to reflect on how these subjects live and narrate their school pathways in relation to two specific diversities:

i) social class, i.e., their experience as working-class students: e.g. which meanings do they assign to school? Which institutional, situational, and dispositional barriers do they face and must overcome? (Ekstrom, 1979)

ii) attending vocational education and training, an alternative educational route in upper secondary education, less prestigious academically and socially

Underpinned on Bourdieu´s concepts of class, "habitus" and "cultural capital" (1964, 1970, 1999, 2003), Ekstrom “barriers to education” (1979) and Fraser´s concept of “social justice” (2002, 2006), we aim to comprehend if and how these two specific diversities have influenced students´ right to education and social justice.

[1] . See Decree Law nº 11/2020 (https://dre.pt/dre/en/detail/decree-law/11-2020-131016733) and https://www.poch.portugal2020.pt/pt-pt/Noticias/Paginas/noticia.aspx?nid=1152&ano=2017&pag=2&nr=9

[2] . See https://www.cnedu.pt/pt/noticias/cne/1874-estado-da-educacao-2021

[3] . See https://www.dgeec.mec.pt/np4/47/%7B$clientServletPath%7D/?newsId=256&fileName=DGEEC_Estudantes_a_saida_do_secundario_2.pdf

While higher education has expanded, concerns have been raised regarding grade inflation, suggesting that higher education qualifications have been devalued in the labor market (Xing et al., 2021). Even if disadvantaged students manage to obtain these credentials, it may not necessarily contribute to their social mobility in the labor market (Wu et al., 2020), potentially exacerbating inequalities (Mok & Wu, 2016). Similar concerns have been raised in the UK, where graduates from selective institutions tend to experience significantly higher educational returns (Britton et al., 2016). Widening participation in education can create an "opportunity trap," leading to an oversupply of graduates and consequently decreased salaries for all except the elite (Budd, 2017). Consequently, social mobility may depend less on academic qualifications and more on elite social skills and family resources, highlighting the need for additional support for disadvantaged students when competing in the labor market.

This study will utilize Bourdieu's theory, including the concepts of capital, habitus, and field, to shed light on this phenomenon of social reproduction. Within the realm of research on the graduate labor market, these concepts allow for a comprehensive understanding of the enduring impact of social backgrounds in a changing graduate labor market. Different social groups acquire distinct manners and consumption habits based on their economic and socio-educational environments (Ingram, 2014). Disadvantaged students often lack the linguistic habits and skills that are considered "desirable" or "normal" for their more advantaged peers (Wilkin & Burke, 2013). By examining capital, it becomes evident that individuals from disadvantaged family backgrounds often struggle to accumulate the same levels of economic, cultural, and social capital as their privileged counterparts, even if they experience upward social mobility (Friedman, 2016). The literature consistently highlights the importance of resources, such as financial support and informal assistance from family, in helping graduates succeed in their careers. Those lacking these resources may encounter greater obstacles in their career paths. Habitus, in turn, aids in understanding the underlying reasons for this phenomenon. The differing outcomes in the labor market among students from diverse social backgrounds can be attributed to their class-based habitus and the levels and types of capital possessed by both the students and their families, resulting in distinct modal pathways for each social class.

Empirical studies conducted in both the UK and China highlight inequalities in graduate employment and career trajectories. UK economists have found differences in graduates' earnings based on family backgrounds (Britton et al., 2019; Dearden et al., 2021), while sociologists indicate that individuals from more advantaged backgrounds have higher chances of entering professional positions and experiencing greater earnings growth as they age, owing to their enriched capital and resources (Friedman et al., 2015). In the Chinese context, differences in graduates' career plans in the labor market have been linked to their rural/urban household registration (Niu et al., 2020), parental occupation (Li et al., 2012), and parental involvement (Liu, 2021).

While existing research examines the influence of family backgrounds on graduates' career trajectories and employment, it is evident that parental influence and involvement play a significant role in students' education and employment. However, there is a lack of understanding and perspectives from parents on how they transmit their resources to their children to alleviate uncertainties and insecurities in their career paths and help them achieve their goals. This study aims to address this research gap by focusing on the qualitative socio-economic causes and effects of family backgrounds. It explores how graduates from different social groups and their families plan their career trajectories to achieve upward social mobility or maintain their social status.

Language is both a medium to reach subject-specific learning goals and it is also a learning goal within the subject itself. Learners need to use language to participate in school communication, to understand relevant content or to work on given tasks. Thus, they are required to learn school- and subject-specific language to participate in institutionalized learning environments. The dual role that language plays in subject learning might pose challenges for all learners. However, emerging multilingual learners (EML), whose skills in everyday and academic language are yet to develop, are likely to encounter even greater difficulties (Warren & Miller, 2015). Regarding these impediments in linguistically diverse settings, teachers face the need to respond to learners´ challenges or learning needs.

Although there is a growing body of research on language-inclusive approaches in multilingual mathematics lessons, most of these studies focus on the design-level of teaching (Götze & Baiker, 2021; Prediger, 2019; Wilkinson, 2018). This means that during lesson planning teachers identify language elements, which might impede learners´ understanding of the subject, and seek for ways to make them comprehensible for learners. However, little is known about how teachers adapt language requirements during classroom interaction, when learners cannot comply with linguistic expectations or when teachers realize a language learning opportunity and use it. Erath et al. (2021) differentiate between design level and teaching practices level for instruction that creates language learning opportunities in mathematics in multilingual contexts. What we know about language adaptations on the teaching practices level mainly comes from two areas: 1- studies conducted by Heller and Morek (Morek & Heller, 2020; Quasthoff et al., 2022), which mainly focus on fostering discursive skills such as arguing and explaining 2- scaffolding approaches (Gibbons, 2015).

This study investigates micro-interactional adaptations on the teaching practices level with a specific focus on so-called divergences in interaction. Throughout this paper, the term microinteractional adaptations will refer to teachers´ spontaneous adjustments in the learning environment in order to help learners meet linguistic demands in content or to challenge them by increasing the demands. The definition of a divergence is twofold in this study: first, divergences are defined as discrepancies between learners´ actions and teacher´s expectations. Second, they are defined as teachers´ actions which deviate from their initial aim and evolve into a new learning goal. In this regard, divergences can be initiated by learners as well as teachers. The reason why the study focuses on divergences is that teachers´ practices to resolve divergences enable researchers “to decipher certain implicit norms that unfold in the teacher’s and the students’ joint actions” (Ligozat et al., 2018). Although the main research interest is on teachers´ language-related adaptations in classroom interaction, the study takes a holistic approach and investigate learner´s actions and the evolvement of the content as well. Gruson and Sensevy (2013) state that in order to understand teachers´ actions, learners´ actions and “knowledge structure and function” need to be taken into account. Another reason for adopting a holistic approach is the assumption that language adaptations in subject teaching might not necessarily appear in the form of explicit language feedbacks but instead in actions through little changes with respect to the arrangement of tasks or classroom interaction (e.g giving the right to speak to another student). The following research questions will guide the study:

1)What kinds of divergences can be observed in classroom communication in the moments of new knowledge construction by learners and teacher?

2a) Which micro-interactional adaptations do teachers make to navigate learners towards the learning goal in the case of divergences?

2b) To what extent do these practices foster language-inclusiveness?

The concept of quality burst into the school world in the 1990s with the continuously interlinked ideas of innovation and educational and didactic improvement. From then on, schools have increasingly felt invested by an urgent and pervasive demand for quality: an articulated demand, coming in different tones from the various components of the school system. We could call it a cultural challenge involving not only those who are directly part of the school world but the entire community. This is especially so if we understand knowledge and learning as indispensable prerequisites for living in post-modern society. This process culminated in the 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015) and its Goal 4 which requires us to look at the future of schools from the perspective of ensuring quality, inclusive and equitable education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. This objective encourages us to look at the future of the school in a transformative and concrete perspective.

Therefore, in asking ourselves how we can achieve a school that is both of quality and constantly growing and improving, we consider it essential to take a step back and start from the data that shows what today's school is like. The picture is as clear as it is dramatic. Among the many, the most critical data: according to data provided by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2021), in the world, there are still more than 63 million children under the age of 11 who do not attend school. According to the UNICEF report (2021), this number has risen to 168 million during the year in which the pandemic peaked.

Aware of this, we must turn our gaze to the construction of a vision of tomorrow's school that can consider the fundamental elements on which today's school rests, including its cracks, even the ones from the post-pandemic era that has overturned not only its ways of doing things but also its very objectives.

The main objective of this research is to identify perspectives and guidelines for action to reform Italian school policies.

The research has involved a three-stage design currently underway.

In the first phase, four participant case studies were carried out involving children, teachers, school leaders, and families from four primary schools around the world. The four schools are based in Italy, the Russian Federation, Ghana, and Sierra Leone. These countries were chosen considering the socio-economic level (according to data provided by the World Bank, 2021) and the percentage of investment of public expenditure - concerning GDP - in primary education.

On the basis of the dimensions that will emerge from the analysis of the data collected in the first phase, steps two and three of the research will be carried out.

Phase two of the research will consist of administering a questionnaire aiming at investigating the opinions on school quality of Italian primary school teachers and school managers.

Finally, during phase three, we will compare the results obtained in the previous step of the research with Sustainable Development Goal 4 of Agenda 2030. We consider it possible to expand the meanings emerging from the objective and sub-objectives of Goal 4, which have been summarized in an outline drawn up by the authors. The data is currently being analyzed with Atlas.ti and will lead to constructing reasoning on the possible theories that the school of tomorrow is called upon to follow to improve in quality, in line with Goal 4 of Agenda 2030.

With the growing importance of digital technologies in learning and teaching environments, various new actors have emerged in the governance of education. While the involvement of big tech corporations and affiliated philanthropies has been raising issues for critical examination for many years now (Selwyn 2014, Cuban 2003), there is a growing field of research that is concerned with the role of “intermediaries” and “boundary brokers” that operate in-between different professional, disciplinary or sectoral systems (Williamson & Hogan 2020). These actors range from policy innovation labs (Williamson 2015) to data mediators (Hartong 2016). They engage in the formulation, dissemination and enactment of (digital) education policies and are consequently considered to be crucial nodes in increasingly networked governance landscapes (Caves & Oswald-Egg 2021).

However, many of the actors that mediate in and between ed-tech networks and discourses are still to be researched in-depth. In particular, little is known about the intermediary role of IT-service and consulting providers and their work as ed-tech consultants for schools and administrations – despite their growing presence in ed-tech procurement and implementation processes (Förschler 2021). Consultants in education systems have been examined as political advisors (Gunter 2017), participants in school improvement processes (Goecke 2018) or well-connected drivers of reform discourses (Player-Koro and Beach 2017), and accordingly, have mostly been analyzed as linking elements between politics and pedagogy. While these studies highlight that consultants are to be understood as “knowledge actors”, who “variously generate, identify, carry and deploy saleable beliefs, ideas, debates and solutions that can be packaged and repackaged” (Gunter 2017: 338), the specific context of IT-related consultancy and technological expertise, however, has only played a minor role.

In order to get a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how technologies are mediated to schools via consultancy, this research project aims to approach IT-service and consulting businesses in the context of their coordinative work between political, pedagogical and technological spheres. Drawing on Bernstein’s notion of “recontextualization” (Bernstein 2000), the work of ed-tech consultants is examined as a relational process of moving and selecting knowledge from one context to another, or more specifically, as a practice of translating policies and technological rationales into something that practitioners can “enact” (Singh et al. 2013). Ed-tech consulting businesses, in this view, are not merely neutral linking elements that lubricate ed-tech related processes, but active agents in the construction of new pedagogical practices and values. Hence, the intermediary position of ed-tech consultants is to be considered as a critical junction that enables them to “structure the potential field of the actions of others” (Foucault 2007: 97), and thus, potentially exert power.

The local focus of this study, namely the German education system, provides a vivid example in which IT-service and consulting companies – driven by recent “school digitalization” reforms in Germany – are increasingly offering schools highly demanded amalgamations of interdisciplinary expertise (Petry et al. 2021). The companies offer comprehensive ed-tech implementation packages that reach from the (pre-)selection of products, integration of hard- and software to pedagogical frameworks (“media concepts”) and professional development (Rednet 2023). These “ed-tech implementation knowledges”, their production and transmission as well as the norms and values attached to it, are to be disentangled in the context of this investigation.

The development of creative skills (UNESCO, 2006) appears to be one of the most urgent challenges in today's complex (Morin, 2017) and 'fluid' (Bauman, 2007) society, characterized by uncertainty and instability.

The concept of creativity has multiple definitions: it is a performative skill, a transformative process (Edwards, Grandini & Forman, 2017; Munari, 2017; Rodari, 2010), an improvisational attitude (Zorzi, 2020), a generative capacity (Tiozzo Brasiola, 2020), a political condition and a dimension of complex thinking (Lipman, 2005). Moreover, creativity is a higher psychic function present in all human beings since childhood (Vygotsky, 2010) and a process historically and culturally mediated. Creativity is a necessary educational condition to imagine otherness, to think in terms of differences, and to welcome the thought of the other (Santi, 2006a) to nurture open and democratic societies. Hence, schools are in charge of cultivating it, so that it becomes a different opportunity to relate with others and with the world.

There are many documents and researches that emphasize the importance of creative education at school and in educational contexts (e.g., NACCCE, 1999; WHO, 1997; European Parliament, 2006, 2018). These documents consider creativity as one of the ten life skills, underlying all the key citizenship competencies. Moreover, it is to be understood as a democratic capacity that can be realized in all fields of human activity and all people.

Hence, the importance of the role of teachers and the learning environment in fostering and supporting each child's creative potential is critical (RIF, 2015). In the Italian context, the documents in which we misrepresent these principles are the Elementary School Programmes (1985), the National Curriculum guidelines (2012, 2018), and, more recently, Legislative Decree No. 60/2017.

From these principles, multiple pedagogical perspectives have emerged. Among them, this research aims to embrace an artistic and philosophical horizon.

One of these is the philosophical research community. It is considered by Lipman (1988, 2005) to be the cradle of the development of creative thinking, understood as one of the three components of complex thinking. According to the author, creativity is the transformation of what is given into something radically different, thus emphasizing the generative value of creativity itself. The development of complex thinking in children finds expression in Philosophy for Children (P4C), an educational practice characterized by the dialogic-argumentative method and the didactic model of the research community (Santi, 2005). In the literature, there are many researches aimed at investigating creative thinking through P4C (De Puig, 2003; Sátiro, 2006, 2019; Santi, 2007), but no studies highlighting the possible link between generativity and creative thinking in the perspective of complex thinking. Therefore, mobilizing generativity as an interpretative model to read an empirical investigation of creativity promoted through P4C can open a new pedagogical and didactic view of what has already been explored. The research aspires to give a generative reading of creativity, as an object of teaching, by investigating the horizon of generative didactics of creativity through PhilosophArt.

PhilosophArt is an educational-didactic practice that aims to generate creativity through art and dialogue in the community, taking into account the complexity of thought. It combines the dialogical-discursive method and the research community of P4C with the realization of community works of art through graphic signs (Kandinsky, 1968, 2005). P4C develops creative, critical, and free minds in community members so that they can live in a complex and democratic society open to difference. At the same time, artistic semiotics (Peirce, 1980) refers to the trivalence of the sign and to the possibility that the same sign can contain different meanings.

The concept of heteronormativity describes patterns of perception, thoughts and actions based on the assumption of a binary gender system (Degele, 2005). In this context, the two biologically and socially compatible sexes (male and female) relate their sexuality and attraction to each other (Pöge et al., 2020). This assumption of heterosexual gender dichotomy permeates and creates hierarchical relationships in many social and cultural spheres and determines the everyday life of individuals: those who do not conform to heteronormativity are marginalized and discriminated against (Hartmann et al., 2017). Thus, many LGBTIQ+ individuals still experience that their non-heteronormative ways of life are positioned in the socially deviant (Oldemeier, 2017). The acronym LGBTIQ+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer, and other self-designations beyond the heterosexual and two-gendered norm. According to research, approximately 5-15% of the population is LGBTIQ+ (Dalia Reseach, 2016).

For LGBTIQ+ youth, in addition to age-typical challenges, deviation from heteronormativity poses further challenges (Gaupp & Krell, 2020). This includes becoming aware of their own sexual orientation and/or gender identity, coming out, and dealing with homo-, bi- and transnegativity in school (Gaupp & Krell, 2020; Krell & Oldemeier, 2015). LGBTIQ+ youth at school report experiences of victimization, a lack of supportive school staff and LGBTIQ+ inclusive teaching as well as LGBTIQ+ exclusive infrastructure (Krell & Oldemeier, 2015).

These research findings can be located within the multidimensional construct of school climate under the dimensions of (1) perceived safety, (2) teaching and learning, (3) social relationships, and (4) the institutional environment (Thapa et al., 2013). These four dimensions encompass the characteristics of the school environment that influence students behavioral, cognitive, and psychological development (Thapa et al., 2013).

Negative school experiences, in relation to the National School Climate Council's concept of school climate (National School Climate Council, 2007), can inhibit the psychological well-being of LGBTIQ+ students. For example, qualitative research indicates that LGBTIQ+ students attribute their psychological distress to perceived discrimination and exclusion at school (Watzlawik et al., 2017). Further research from Anglo-Saxon countries indicates a higher prevalence of suicidality, depression, and anxiety disorders compared to non-LGBTIQ+ youth (Russell & Fish, 2016).

In addition, it could be suggested that LGBTIQ+ students have lower levels of student well-being than non-LGBTIQ+ students (Krell & Oldemeier, 2015). Student well-being is defined by Hascher (2004) as the prevalence of positive emotions and cognitions toward school, school members, and the school environment. Experiences of victimization and exclusion on the part of classmates and teachers, as well as structural discrimination based on LGBTIQ+ identity, could thus reinforce negative emotions and cognitions toward school.

To date, the authors are not aware of any study linking school climate to psychological distress and student well-being. A theoretical foundation for this relationship can be provided by an adapted version of Meyer's (2003) minority stress model. The model conceptualizes the influence of external and internal minority stress factors such as LGBTIQ+ specific harassment or internalized stigma on the well-being of LGBTIQ+ individuals with resilience factors moderating and mediating this relationship.

Accordingly, this study aims to answer the following questions:

• How do LGBTIQ+ students in Switzerland perceive their student well-being and psychological distress?
• How do LGBTIQ+ students in Switzerland perceive their school climate?
• After accounting for control variables, how are LGBTIQ+ specific school climate factors related to participants' student well-being and psychological distress?

For over 4 decades, Life Skills have been explored as a means of preventing health-compromising behaviour, especially with adolescents (Botvin, 1985). In 1993, WHO proposed its own definition of Life Skills as “the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviours that enable individuals to effectively deal with demands and challenges of everyday life” (WHO, 1994).

In the literature, Life Skills are described as a set of “personal and cognitive skills” which derives from “cognitive-behavioural techniques” to develop self-esteem and social skills, resist persuasion, and cope with anxiety (Botvin, 1985). The development of Life Skills in schools is also identified as a lever for promoting pupils’ health and well-being as a health-protection factor (Simar et al., 2020), as a means of preventing risk behaviour (Botvin, 2000; Botvin & Griffin, 2004, 2007), mental health problems (Department of mental health social change and mental health cluster, 1999), as well as violent and risky sexual behaviour (Mangrulkar et al., 2001). Furthermore, the development of Life Skills fosters sociability, positive social interactions, cognitive development, as well as academic and professional achievements (Lamboy et al., 2021). Finally, Life Skills programmes and interventions are more efficient when founded on research, conducted by adults with strong life skills and through regular exposure (Lamboy et al., 2021).

In France, they were developed from the end of the 1990s (Darlington & Masson, 2020) when the notion of competence was integrated into the French education curriculum. Initially known as “compétences émotionnelles et relationnelles” (i.e. emotional and relational skills) (Lamboy et al., 2021), the term “compétences psychosociales” (i.e. “life skills” in French) was truly adopted in 2016 with the introduction of the Parcours Éducatif de Santé (an educational pathway for pupils, focused on the development of various skills towards individual and collective health) (Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, 2017; Lamboy et al., 2021). Recently the “Vademecum de l'École Promotrice de Santé” (Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, 2020) has set out an important framework for the integration of Health Promotion in schools, with a particular focus on the development of pupils’ Life Skills to reinforce positive health behaviours and develop skills useful to the future adults whom pupils will become.

Thus, Life Skills appear to be fundamental. However, in both French and English, different terms are used as synonyms to refer to Life Skills: a semantic clarification is therefore necessary. Moreover, in French, the term adopted in translation of the expression "Life skills" proposed by the WHO in 1993 seems to operate a semantic shift by becoming "compétences psychosociales” (which can be translated as "psychosocial competences"). This illustrates the fact that the notion of “Life Skills” remains rather vague; a global perspective on the terms used and their definitions seems to be required (Simar et al., 2020), in both languages. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze the terms and definitions used in French and English to discuss Life Skills, to reach a consensual definition.

‘’Like gender, sexuality is a political category. It is integrated into systems of power that encourage and reward some individuals and activities while oppressing and punishing others“ (Rubin, 2003, p. 73 translated by author).

Sexual and gender diversity receive more and more attention in western societies. While homosexuality was long frowned upon and prohibited (Rubin, 2003), the European Union has been speaking out against discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation since the early 2000s in Article 21 of its Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU, 2000). But it should not go unmentioned that violence against queer people is still a reality and is practiced in many countries (ILGA-Europe, 2020). Moreover, queer issues have also gained prominence in state educational institutions. In 2010, the Council of Europe called on its member states to take measures in working against sexual discrimination in schools. Also, objective information on gender identity and sexual orientation should be implemented in curricula and teaching materials (Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, 2010).

Considering the school habitat more precisely, it becomes clear that there is a broad consensus on schools being institutions which are shaped by heteronormativity (Ferfolja & Hopkins, 2013; Hartmann, 2012; Klenk, 2023; Llewellyn & Reynolds, 2021) and that sexual minorities experience discrimination (Schmidt, 2014). Furthermore, queer-hostile insults are an everyday occurrence in schools (Abreu et al., 2021). Consequently, Ferfolja and Hopkins (2013) conclude that sexual and gender diversity is marginalized and silenced in schools.

While academic publications on queer adolescents and young adults have been published in the recent years and more literature on teaching implications can be found on this matter (e. g. Hartmann & Busche, 2018) , the perspective of queer teachers remains largely unconsidered (Llewellyn & Reynolds, 2021).

Internationally, few studies which focus on queer teachers can be found (e.g. Bower-Phipps, 2020; Llewellyn & Reynolds, 2021). With regard to Germany, the study „LGBTIQ* teachers in Germany“ by the Anti-Discrimination Agency (2017) offers information on the topic and focuses primarily on queer teachers' experiences with discrimination and the handling of their sexual orientation and gender identity from a predominantly quantitative perspective. The results are ambivalent, since some teachers are open about their queer identity, others however, are closed out of fear of discrimination.

There is also the possibility of linking queerness to school culture (for example to the school culture theory of Helsper (2008)). From a queer perspective, one could ask how the school cultural order of meaning reacts to queer lifestyles or orientations and whether queer persons with their habitus are able to connect to the individual school culture or remain marginalized.

Following on from this desideratum, the aim of the dissertation is to take a deeper perspective by the use of qualitative analysis. The overarching question of the project is:

What experiences do queer teachers have in a heteronormative work environment in light of their (professional) biography?

Following subquestions are:

Q1. Where and how does sexual orientation or queer gender identity become relevant in the school context?

Q2. From the respondents' point of view, how does the school deal with sexual and gender diversity?

Q3. What is the influence of the individual school culture?

Q4. To what extent are (professional) biographical experiences perceived as a resource or an obstacle?

The major aspiration of this study is to explore the epistemological implications for educational change in the digital era. This theoretical positioning paper focuses on the case of translator education and the onset of machine translation (MT) which has a major impact on translator competence acquisition. Various studies have been carried out exploring different MT-related aspects, such as the assesment of automated translation quality, the development of translators‘ post-editing competence and technological skills. In addition, the European Masters in Translation (EMT) – a partnership network of the European Commission and higher education institutions – launched the Translator Competence Framework in 2022. This framework is considered to be fully in line with the EU priorities for higher education and has become one of the leading reference standards for educating translators throughout the EU and beyond (EMT Translator Competence Framework (2022)). Hence, attempts to redefine translator competencies in the digital age are obvious and well-supported.

On the other hand, little has been said about the position that MT has undertaken within translator educators‘ views towards knowledge and knowledge acquisition. Are translator educators epistemologically and theoretically equipped to keep up with the new reality of uncertainty that this technological advancement is bringing along? The major aim of this study, therefore, is to outline novel epistemological and theoretical approaches that could possibly enable translator educators to address this paradigmal shift and foster educational change.

The breakthrough of AI-based technologies and task automation has fostered a paradigmal shift in a variety of fields ranging from as far as medical sciences and economics to cognitive sciences and humanities. Among the latter, translation studies have become a preeminent example of task automation as MT, particularly neural MT which has been dominating the industry for the last five years, is significantly altering the nature of translation processes and translators’ tasks. Not only does it raise concerns regarding the future of translation as a profession, but it also plays a pivotal role in the entire concept of translator competence (Pym (2011), TAUS (2017), Munoz (2017), Risku (2020)). Two decades ago, Pym (2003) pointed out that the main tasks of translation had included communication between people and not machines; however, today this divide is no longer so clear. Translation as a form of human-computer interaction (O’Brien (2012)) urges translator educators to fundamentally reconsider their study programmes (Orlando (2016), Kenny (2020), Gonzáles-Davies (2017)). Nonetheless, translation theorists and practitioners are not always open to the epistemological aspect of translator education and often stick to the linear-transmissionist ways of teaching. Given the context of the MT dominance and the paradigmal shift it has fostered, translator education should open up to novel epistemological and theoretical approaches that embrace this new reality.

In most other European countries, educational expansion has taken place over the past decades. Yet, inequalities in pathways to higher education remain (Marginson, 2016). This is the case in the Netherlands as well – students’ social background still influences the travelled pathways to higher education. Students whose parents did not go to higher education, disabled students or students with a bicultural background are less likely to enter higher education right after secondary education (Van den Broek et al., 2022). Rather, they more often follow a so-called "indirect" route to higher education, using alternative pathways to reach their aspirations.

In the Dutch stratified educational system, students’ educational track placement in secondary education is crucial. The pre-academic tracks give direct access to higher education, whereas vocational secondary education tracks prepare students for post-secondary vocational education. Students from less privileged backgrounds are more frequently selected into these vocational secondary education tracks in their transition from primary to secondary education, independent of students’ performance (Kloosterman et al., 2009). Therefore, they more frequently have to “stack” diplomas before gaining access to higher education (Visser et al., 2022), by gaining multiple diplomas in secondary education or moving from post-secondary vocational to post-secondary academic education. These pathways are longer, and students in these pathways more often drop-out or face obstacles - having to traverse multiple transitions. Even when these students are part of the pre-academic tracks in secondary education, they are more likely to self-select on their path to higher education (Vietze et al., 2022). This means they decide not to go for the highest level of higher education, even though they are qualified to do so. The differences in travelled pathways to higher education are not the result from differences in educational performance, and are considered unjust from a meritocratic point of view. .

The Dutch educational system does not put up additional barriers for students from various social backgrounds, and is supposed to provide equal pathways to higher education. The educational system and the barriers that are part of it – for example, the entry requirements to post-secondary education – are similar for all students. To find out why students who face the same formal conditions in reality differ in their pathways to higher education, this study aims to uncover students’ perceptions of the path to higher education. Students from various social backgrounds might differ in their perceptions of the opportunities and obstacles on the path to higher education (Merton, 1995). Students from less privileged backgrounds could anticipate or experience different obstacles (Voigt, 2007), or see different opportunities as (un)available to them (Schoon & Lyons-Amos, 2016). Identifying students’ perceptions, and possible differences in them, could help us improve our knowledge as to why some students within the same opportunity structure nonetheless differ in their pathways to higher education (Whitty et al., 2015). The aim of this study therefore is to find out what students’ perceptions of the opportunities and obstacles on the path to higher education are, and whether these perceptions differ between students from various social backgrounds.

Sexual violence and harassment are widely recognised as globally significant and widespread human rights problems. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, 35% of women worldwide report having experienced either physical or sexual violence by a partner or sexual violence by a friend, family member, acquaintance, or stranger. Studies around the world estimate that between 14 and 25% of adult women have been raped during their lifetime (Levinson, 1989; Koss, Heise, Russo, 1994; McCloskey, Williams, Larsen, 2005). Sexual violence is an umbrella term covering a range of unwanted and unwelcome sexual behaviours that violate a person’s basic safety and dignity, values, and autonomy. The consequences of sexual violence range from individual and interpersonal to societal factors. Sexual violence is a problem deeply rooted in social, cultural, and religious norms. It should also be regarded as a public health problem, it means that it is the responsibility of the community of educational institutions to prevent it. In addition, furthermore, sources of knowledge concerning such a vast topic as sexuality should be reliable and correct because a person’s sexual identity is built on these foundations.

This Ph.D. project will examinate women's knowledge and attitudes toward the broader issue of sexual violence. The study will assess the relationship between knowledge and attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics (age, place of residence, marital status, level of education, and professed faith). In the designed research, I would like to explore women’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviours related to the acceptance of modern myths about sexual aggression, norms and beliefs about the use of violence. Introduced into the scientific discourse, the concept of the ‘rape myths’, was intended to identify, clarify, and explore false beliefs about rape and the victim’s reactions to rape. These beliefs were intended to emphasise sexual aggression and sexual violence committed against women. Rape myths – which contain elements of blaming the victim, absolving the perpetrator, and minimizing or rationalising sexual violence - perpetrate sexual violence against women (Payne et al. 1994).

In addition, with the help of expert interviews, the study will also explore the possibilities of effective preventive, educational, and support interventions in the area in question. Investigating the knowledge and attitudes of the women's community and the possibilities for preventive, educational, and support interventions in the area of sexual violence is of the utmost importance for the implementation of appropriate measures to prevent sexual violence, which is helpful in many undertakings ( e.g., development of specialist training, preparation of training programs on sexual and anti-violence education addressed to a wide and diverse group of recipients, promotion of educational, prophylactic and assistance actions, establishing rules of conduct towards victims-survivors of sexual violence, creation of appropriate intervention classes for perpetrators of sexual crimes).

In the conceptualization of the research project, three main research problems were identified.

The quantitative research posed two main problems:

1. What is the level of women's knowledge and their attitude concerning sexual violence?
2. What are the possible preventive, educational, and assistance interventions related to sexual violence?

Substituted one main question for the qualitative research:

1. What are women's views on sexual violence and the possibilities of preventive, educational, and supportive interventions?

Across Europe many education systems struggle with continuous and strong performance inequalities between students with and without a migration background (Hadjar and Gross, 2016). Despite many often well-meant (top-down) policy actions to tackle these inequalities the latter seem quite persistent. What remains particularly puzzling in this regard is that ethnic minority students are generally highly motivated to perform well in education, yet their educational outcomes remain, on average, low. This is also known as the achievement-motivation paradox (Hadjar & Scharf, 2019; Mickelson, 1990; Salikutluk, 2016). Much time and effort have been spent researching this paradox and the causes of these inequalities, focusing on theories around the reproduction of inequality, capital theory and deficit thinking theory (Agirdag, 2020; Dewitt & Van Petegem, 2001; Triventi et al., 2022). Yet, this research has mostly focused on mainstream education institutions, examining, among other things, the role of the curriculum (Civitillo et al., 2017; Clycq, 2017; Van Praag et al., 2016), teacher-student relations (Charki et al., 2022; Nouwen & Clycq, 2019) and teaching practices (Agirdag et al., 2014; Pulinx et al., 2017). The role and the agency of the ethnic-cultural minoritized communities to overcome themselves the inequalities they are most affected by has been mostly overlooked. In addition, research in education initiatives beyond the boundaries of the mainstream institutions which produce or reproduce these existing inequalities has been limited until now, and the resources present in these alternative forms of education which exist next to the mainstream schools are thus missed. My PhD project shifts this focus and aims to study in what ways bottom-up initiatives, taken by ethnic minority communities themselves, can reverse educational inequalities. These community based educational spaces (CBES) are educational initiatives set up by ethnic minorities, often to supplement mainstream education. It touches upon the idea that learning through public education is insufficient to ‘succeed’ and become adequately qualified in the knowledge society and that there are resources present in ethnic minority communities that mainstream education is not aware of or is unable to tap into. By establishing CBES these resources can become ‘unlocked’ and applicable to support the achievement of educational goals. However, even though CBES have been around for years the current state of the art does not reveal if these CBES indeed support minority youth in increasing their educational success in (mainstream) education.

This research aims to move beyond gaps in the current state of the art by linking theories on community-based educational spaces (CBES) with impact and evaluation research through the concepts of capital and resources. This will enrich and strengthen our understanding of the reasons why CBES are established, which types can be discerned and what their impact is on the performances, well-being and identity construction of youngsters. This leads to the following objective this project aims to examine: to understand the mechanisms underlying the impact of CBES by studying the ways resources become unlocked and applied by stakeholders in their interactions in CBES and mainstream public schools. Hence, the research question for this part of my doctoral thesis is: how do stakeholders experience their role in CBES, what interactions take place, and how do pupils use the resources made available in CBES?

Talented students succeed if they are given the training they need, and this is only possible when efficient talent management is developed in the school environment. We need to be able to build "fast lanes for fast vehicles" in schools just as we have "slower routes" for some students. This study explored the relationship between the attitudes of a group of teachers (n = 92) towards specific forms of talent promotion and the teaching practices they use in the classroom.The purpose of the research was to identify the attitudes of a group of teachers/principals towards gifted and able students and the specific forms of talent promotion at the school institution level. We examined a link established between attitudes toward the programs for talented students and the use of differentiated practices in classrooms. Teachers' attitudes toward talented students vary greatly; some refuse to identify them, while others overestimate a student who excels in a particular domain of knowledge for his general abilities. Attitudes are decisive in the development of differentiated educational practices. We consider it necessary to know the factors that influence the attitudes of teaching staff to be able to act in this sense. Some teachers' attitudes are formed more through interactions with gifted students, others through training in the field of psychopedagogy of excellence. Regardless of how teachers have developed certain attitudes towards giftedness, they must show a better understanding of the characteristics and needs of gifted and able students so that they can facilitate the identification and provision of specific forms of promotion and development of talents in schools. Teachers must feel competent in implementing these differentiated practices for gifted students, trained in giftedness issues, and supported in terms of the management of the school institution.

In the context of equalizing educational opportunities for all pupils, the concept of common or inclusive education has emerged more clearly in recent years (Kasíková & Straková et al., 2011). Schools accept all children, regardless of physical, intellectual, linguistic, economic and other conditions and prerequisites. The Ministry of Education in its Strategy of the Education Policy of the Czech Republic until 2030 + emphasizes the solution of this situation by using didactic procedures of internal differentiation in the teaching process. Therefore, the main aim of the poster is to present didactic variations of differentiation of teaching tasks with regard to their operational structure in relation to the individual needs and interests of pupils.

Czech research characterizes internal differentiation as dividing pupils in a heterogeneous classroom into smaller homogeneous groups, e.g. according to the level of reading skills (Tieso, 2003, p. 31; Najvarová 2008, p.7-21). The English equivalent is within-class (ability) grouping (Hornby & Witte, 2014, pp. 90-91). Some research studies document that students from different groups do not receive the same learning opportunities. Pupils from a stronger group learn more than pupils from a weaker group (Gamoran, 1995; Hornby, 2014; Oakes, 1986), which may be due to teachers providing different instructional stimuli to pupils (Kasíková & Straková et al, 2011). This is because pupils with better learning outcomes enrich each other, whereas pupils from weaker groups are deprived of this benefit (Dar & Resh, 1986). In international research, the assignment of differentiated tasks in lessons has been shown to serve the purpose of harnessing the potential of each pupil and improving the quality of the educational process of large heterogeneous collectives (Cox, 2008; Doubet & Hocket, 2017; Tomlinson, 2005).

Teachers can differentiate instruction in terms of content, time, methods, and organization (Kratochvílová & Havel, 2011). (Cedrychová, et al., 1992) further add that effective differentiation requires different variations of learning tasks. They should appropriately match the learner's specifics or particular groups of learners (Cedrychová, et al., 1992, p. 46). Holoušová (2002) characterizes learning tasks as a wide range of all learning creative tasks during a teaching unit.

In the Czech research field, there is an absence of research devoted to the differentiation of assignments. Therefore, the poster describes the use of pedagogical means of differentiation of the content of the curriculum, differentiation of the difficulty of the curriculum, differentiation of the scope of the curriculum and differentiation of the temporal aspect of the assigned curriculum through a learning task. The poster further analyses the differentiation of the operational, motivational and evaluative aspects of the learning task in relation to the individual needs of the learners. It analyzes the composition of the assignment differentiating the difficulty of the learning task using Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Needs (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001).

The optics of the poster's focus is the differentiation of the learning task respecting the ividual peculiarities of the pupils, in the profiling subjects, Czech language and mathematics. It analyses the learning task as an important means of differentiating the pace of learning for pupils with specific learning disabilities. Pedagogical means of differentiating the content of the curriculum for pupils of foreign origin and differentiation in terms of difficulty for pupils with mild intellectual disabilities, but also for gifted pupils. The poster highlights the advantages of natural differentiation (Roubíček, Hošpesová, et al.; 2010). The innovative natural differentiation is that all children in a heterogeneous group receive the same tasks, but the tasks have an interesting potential – they hide different levels of difficulty. This creates a stimulating environment that promotes pupils' interest and motivation in solving the learning task.

Investigating Saudi Secondary School teachers’ use of social media for continuing professional development

Research Questions:

1. To what extent and in what ways do the participants use social media to assist their CPD?

2. What differences do the participants report between the use of social media for CPD and traditional CPD?

3. What aspects of CPD do the participants find benefit most from the use of social media?

4. What do the participants identify as the advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of social media for CPD?

Introduction

In Saudi Arabia, teachers' professional development is an area that has received a lot of attention from the government because the government has invested heavily in strategies for achieving a high level of quality in the education sector (Qablan, et al., 2015; Almazroa, 2013). The new curriculum adopted in Saudi Arabia focuses on a learner-centred approach with an emphasis on the constructive learning and teaching trends that promote inquiry among the learners. However, as indicated in Almazroa and Al-Shamrani (2015), a significant proportion of Saudi teachers still base their pedagogical approaches on the traditional models that do not align to the objectives of constructive teaching and learning pedagogies (Aljaber, 2018). This issue is critical and has played a major role in reducing the applicability of educational reforms. Professional teacher development is essential in Saudi Arabia as a strategy for supporting the new curriculum and the key elements of the education system in the country.

Theoretical Framework

Social media is widely used in different fields of life, including the field of education. Therefore, the literature review intended to start in a broader context and then narrows down to find out how social media is utilized for educational purposes, especially by Saudi Secondary School teachers for CPD.

Research such as Mallia (2014) indicates that integrating social media into the course of studies can enhance their potential as learning tools (Mansour et al., 2014). The views on the educational potential and benefits of social media are not uniform. For example, in Roblyer et al., (2010) focusing on social media use in a higher education context, it was found that students were more likely to appreciate the potential of social media in learning than their teachers. In the study, they concluded that for the highest benefits to be achieved for all stakeholders, the teachers and students needed to align their attitudes towards technology use in teaching and learning. These considerations are necessary in designing and supporting teaching interventions that are effective in meeting the needs of the students (Osborne & Connelly, 2015).

The challenges to professional development are highlighted in the literature review to indicate why there is a need to identify alternative strategies such as social media that can be used to enhance professional development.

Personal and Professional learning networks
A personal learning network is a resource using social media and technology, anywhere you want to gather, connect, work together, and build contacts with peers. Worldwide, participating educators can send requests and exchange resources. It can be looked at gathering of resources (such as training materials, notes of training and experience, etc) by adults and the effective ways of using and implications (Neubauer et al., 2013).

The key aspect of the approach is that it empowers the teachers to feel in charge of their professional development. Social network sites such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ have the benefit of enabling users to set up PLNs by playing a major role in enabling teachers to develop new networks that are cyber-enabled (Joosten, 2012).

Attendance at large-scale events is considered a crucial element on the way to an academic career. However, many studies point out how conferences can also be experienced as exclusive or even exclusionary events, lacking diversity because of financial, physical, social as well as health-related barriers and accessibility issues. The challenges for early career researchers to perform the ideal of visibility and extraversion are increasingly pointed out in the field of Critical Event Studies (Henderson, 2015; Walters, 2018) and in recent literature on ableism in academia (Brown, 2021) which provide in-depth and embodied insights into the stress related to cognitive and sensory overload (Farahar & Foster, 2021).

This poster contribution offers an opportunity to establish dialogue around a diversity issue which some ECRs may only encounter silently: how can large-scale conferences be reimagined as opportunities to embrace rather than mask neurodiversity? Affective academic hospitalities can be nurtured to increase the presence of safe spaces. Events are then witnessed as enabling rather than overwhelming. Initiatives such as temporary conference silent rooms have gained in importance in recent years.

My suggestion is to open a shepherd's hut as a 'conference fringe', an additional space during the first two conference days (ERC) in order to reflect collectively and visibly about the needs of neurodivergent researchers and highlight the deeply relational possibilities of embracing neurodiversity in academia. This proposal comes out of my own PhD research, during which I was given the chance to find my own conferencing language as a multisensory form of public engagement. From 2019 until 2022, I was encouraged to install a mobile shepherd’s hut at Scottish conferences to invite into informal daydreaming sessions around the wood fire stove, reconnecting to Gàidhlig traditions of storytelling. This ‘conference fringe’ allowed to reduce the sensory overwhelm experienced at academic meetings, a conference fatigue that exponentially increases with the scale of the event. It allowed to concretely see the potential of outdoor hospitality hubs as a way of connecting through introvert conviviality. There is a possibility to balance the 'visibility lottery' of academia with the need to rest and to digest. More and more people expressed support for a long-term outdoor conference hide-out, an unexpected outcome of a largely improvised tour (Hanser, 2021).

I would like to propose the use of the shepherd’s hut as an opportunity for the co-creating of hospitalities, informed by the distinct relationality of neurodiversity. This means that I would release an open invitation to ECRs across Scotland to become involved, to discuss the possible location of the shepherd’s hut hospitality hub during the conference and to develop a temporal system for participatory co-hosting (e.g. ‘hut hospitality attendances’ during coffee breaks or after keynotes).This proposal can build new connections between ECRs based on the valorisation of neurodiversity and could lead to further ECR-led experimentations with other networks across Europe. Many ideas have emerged since the start of the conference fringe tour (an example in continental Europe: www.tinycampusontour.eu). Hospitality hubs can enrich potentially anonymous conference experiences by expanding the range of designs and proposed sites for networking differently between the many delegates of a large-scale gathering.

Inspired by the Foucault’s observation that ‘People know what they do, they frequently know why they do what they do, but what they don’t know is what what they do does’ (Foucault, cited in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983, p. 187), I am seeking to understand better what is happening in English schools in respect of a group classified as ‘disadvantaged’, with a focus specifically on teachers’ responses to these individuals.

The research questions for my PhD study are: How is ‘disadvantage’ understood by teachers in secondary schools? How is this understanding reflected in their response to ‘disadvantaged’ students? And what are the effects of this understanding on the teachers and the way in which the school operates?

The word ‘disadvantaged’ is used in English schools to describe those students eligible for free school meals (and thus the payment of additional money in the form of ‘Pupil Premium’ to their schools) because of low family income (2015). However, in common usage, the word also carries with it a range of associations and judgements linked particularly to issues of social class, ethnicity, and conceptualisations of good parenting. Whilst the government investment into the Pupil Premium has established this group of students as a priority focus for schools’ external accountability, the gap in attainment between these students and their peers has persisted (Education Policy Institute, 2020).

Much of the existing research in the area has focused on identifying deficits that the students categorised as disadvantaged present in the school setting, and on assessing the effectiveness of a range of interventions to address these issues. My study, however, informed initially by Bourdieu’s ideas of ‘reproduction’ (1990), turns the focus back on the practices of schooling, and seeks to discover, through empirical enquiry, how teachers understand the ‘disadvantage’ of their students within their school setting, and how this construction of ‘disadvantage’ shapes their response to their students. Foucault’s conceptualisation of power relations and subjectivity (Ball, 2013) are used to inform my understanding of the way in which things come to be the way that they are within the institutions of schooling. I am also using the insights of other poststructural theorists to explore the ethical struggles of teachers who find themselves trying to ‘do the right thing’ in response to the perceived needs of their students, often caught in seemingly impossible places of tension and dilemma, subject to conflicting forces. The ethical responses of teachers are being considered using Derrida’s concept of the aporia, ‘the contradictory double imperatives’ (Allan, 2008), that can be identified as embedded in school practices, alongside Levinas’s concern to ‘see the face of the other’ (Edgoose, 2001) as a framework of ethical responsibility.

Whilst the data were gathered in English schools, the problematisation of the term ‘disadvantaged’ in the study encompasses a broad range of intersecting issues of diversity relevant across international contexts, including social class, ethnicity, cultural capital, and the ways in which the process of schooling positions students, teachers and parents as subjects.

Higher education has acquired a priority in the national policy agendas with its integration into the innovation system by showing certain capacity and capability and claims for impacts on economy and society (Hazelkorn & Gibson, 2019). Accordingly, it is claimed that entrepreneurial university has become a pathway that most of the universities have entered in the discourse of knowledge economy and society (Aarrevaara et al., 2021) and universities are expected to bring a transparent mission and vision forward over this pathway (Secundo et al., 2016). The main rationale of this study refers to the need of understanding the empirical and political implications of the evolving entrepreneurial university model on the economic and social bases. This argument also touches upon the shift towards the engaged university model by keeping the public good as a wider discourse defining the role and responsibilities attached to higher education.

This doctoral thesis, which is designed to be a comparative multiple case study, aims to reveal how regionally engaged universities formulate their missions and revise their actual strategies within the entrepreneurial paradigm. As the British and German higher education systems are regarded to be receptive to innovation and entrepreneurial paradigm on the European level (Etzkowitz et al., 2000), the design is based on the comparison of strategies of two entrepreneurial university contexts from these systems with the lens of neo-institutionalism.

This study perceives entrepreneurial university as a key actor to accomplish national and regional development policy agendas (Pugh et al, 2018). In this agenda, the third mission refers to the innovation-related activities pursued for regional development. Accordingly, third mission policy on the national and regional levels has the direct power to steer university engagement practices. For example, on the European policy level, regional development is incentivized through the funding programmes of the EU Europe 2020 agenda and smart specialization strategies (Trippl et al., 2015). Despite the policy emphasis, universities’ approaches to engage in local/regional development vary in terms of social and economic engagement modes. Keeping these variations in mind, the diversity among engagement practices and the different configurations of entrepreneurial university context in the European context are linked to the differences in policy paradigms, higher education traditions and institutional contexts (Kalar and Antoncic, 2015; Trippl et al., 2015).

Constructed with multi-level qualitative research design across cross-nationally selected universities, this study adopts the lens of neo-institutional theory to advance knowledge regarding the institutional reproduction or transformation in entrepreneurial university concept. Neo-institutional theory will be used as a framework for the analysis of not only differences but also similarities in a cross-national design and denote sociological viewpoint to comparison by displaying isomorphic and culturally shaped transformations across institutions (Wiseman, 2014; 2021). As observed in the literature, the institutional theory has been adopted in relation to the entrepreneurial university for the understanding of the interaction between the micro (individual level) and the meso (institutional level) (Abreu et al., 2016). For this study, the same levels are essential as organisational culture and norms shape everyone involved within the organisation. In line with these core ideas, the research questions below are aimed to be answered.

1. How have the third mission strategies been addressed in the German and UK higher education contexts through national and regional policy levels?

1.1. How are the institutional strategies regarding entrepreneurialism and engagement contextualised within regionally engaged universities?

2. How are institutional strategies enacted by the internal stakeholders in regionally engaged universities?

2.1. What roles do the university actors take for the social and economic development of their regions?

2.2. Which modes of engagement are pursued in both university contexts?

The link between democracy and education runs through most historical and philosophical accounts of democracy (Sant, 2019, p. 657). Yet, the democratic role of education is often contested (Ávalos & Razquin, 2017; Edling & Simmie, 2020). International schools traditionally build on an 'international ethos' of valuing diversity, international mindedness, critical thinking, and educating global citizens, but these values are often in tension with neoliberal discourses and a predominantly western viewpoint (Cambridge and Thompson 2004; Dvir, Shields, and Yemini 2018, Gardner-McTaggart 2021). However, in order to participate effectively in democratic life in the 21st century, intercultural sensitivities and being able to identify with a global community are essential (Matthews and Sidhu 2005).

The study is based on in-depth interviews with ten student teachers in three different universities in Europe. The participants in this study have chosen to prepare for a teaching career in international schools or other international contexts, and attend teacher education programmes to that aim. 'International' teacher education programmes are rooted in the idea that teaching in international contexts requires a different perspective and other competences than that provided by national teacher education (Levy & Fox, 2016; van Werven, 2016). Through interviews with student teachers preparing to teach in international schools, this study addresses the following research question: what are student teachers in international programmes' perceptions, understandings and practices when it comes to democracy and diversity in education?

Democratic education is a large and long-standing field of educational scholarship, going back to Dewey (1916). Democracy itself is a highly contested concept, leading to different versions of democratic education with differing aims and practices (Sant, 2019). The concepts of international mindedness, global citizenship education, and intercultural education are also contested, may be overlapping, and have a plurality of meanings (Barratt Hacking et al., 2016; Bourn, 2015; Pashby et al., 2020). Studies have investigated the various ways teachers can develop global competences (Parkhouse et al., 2016; Savva, 2017), as well as student teachers’ and teacher educators’ perspectives on democratic and culturally responsive education in national contexts (Kasa, n.d; Pareja de Vicente, n.d.; Stacy, n.d.; Simms, n.d.; Kirkwood, 2001; Gaudelli, 2010; Burner & Biseth, 2016). However, teacher education tends to get less scholarly attention than other educational stages, and international education is also underresearched (Bunnell, 2016).

This paper takes as a starting point a critical pedagogy lens and a ‘thick’ concept of democracy (Gandin & Apple, 2002). This entails a broad view of what may constitute democratic education, which includes e.g. ideas of global as well as local active citizenship, intercultural communication and approaches to diversity in international classrooms. A critical lens allows for investigating structures that reproduce inequality and injustice, and how they might be transformed. Through a critical lens, education can be seen as maintaining inequality and dominant ideologies, but also as a path to breaking free from patterns of oppression (Freire, 2014; Kincheloe, 2012; Apple, 2004; Carr, 2008).

Topic: An in-depth investigation into first year undergraduate students’ social and personal-emotional adjustment to the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

Introduction:

The transition to university expose students to a range of changes whereby students have varying experiences adjusting to university life (Crede & Niehorster 2012). Collie, Holliman, & Martin (2017) noted that understanding adjustment to university required a comprehensive range of factors to understand the phenomenon. Baker and Siryk (1989), as cited in Lenz (2014) identified four distinct dimensions of adjustment: academic adjustment, social adjustment, personal–emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment. The current study is focused on exploring the dimensions of students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life, since: they are underexplored dimensions, particularly the Caribbean region; to provide an understanding of how these dimensions impact students adjustment to university, and as a corollary their achievement, could help universities provide more inclusive approaches, strategies, support and practices that cater to diversity in education. From an international stance, there is scant research attention focusing on specific dimensions of adjustment. Additionally, much consideration is given to international student’s adjustment to university so there is a gap related to national students’ adjustment. Therefore, this study can be adapted for the international context.

The purpose of the study is to understand first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine (UWISTA). Further, to assess the effects of the support UWISTA offer to assist students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life. Therefore, attention can be drawn to the gaps at UWISTA which may hinder students’ ability to adjust to university and impede students from being successful. Using this evidence to inform policy, UWISTA can promote equity and social justice in education by taking into consideration students’ social and psychological needs to provide the necessary support and mediate some of the challenges students encounter.

Research Questions:

1. What are the issues first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life at UWISTA?
2. In what ways do social and personal-emotional issues of first year undergraduate students affect their ability to adjust to university life at UWISTA?
3. What type of social and personal-emotional support is provided by the UWISTA to help first year undergraduate students adjust to university life at UWISTA?
4. To what extent does the support UWISTA offer assist first year undergraduate students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life?

Theoretical Framework

The model for analysing human adaptation to transition (Schlossberg, 1981) provides the theoretical understanding of individuals’ capacity to cope with changes. It outlined the key factors affecting individuals’ adjustment stemming from the transition to a new context. These factors refer to the characteristics of the transition, pre and post-transition environment and characteristics of the individual experiencing the transition. Further, the transition process relies on a range of coping skills to assist in adjustment including four sets of factors: situation, self, support and strategies (Anderson, Goodman and Schlossberg, 2012). Developing on this idea, the characteristic of the transition provides the basis for understanding undergraduate students’ perception of the transition to the university environment (situation). Moreover, pre and post-transition environment relates to social factors affecting the transition such as support from family, peers and the institution. Finally, the characteristic of the individual aligns with the psychological factors affecting adjustment to university (self). This theory examines the factors for understanding individuals’ adjustment to new situations and accounts for both psychological and social influences. In essence, Schlossberg’s theory of transition has provided the necessary theoretical framework to explain the association between psychosocial factors and social and personal-emotional adjustment to university.

World Heritage Site (WHS) is a meaningful place with outstanding universal values that all humans share (Jokilehto, 2008; Labadi, 2013). It is created by and contributes to individuals’ world views. Therefore, it should provide equal opportunity for everyone to learn from and contribute. However, there remains a gap in heritage education to cater for the need of multicultural individuals, especially since the nature of heritage education is to engage participants in the process of heritage-making (Harrison, 2012; Waterton and Watson, 2013; Smith, 2015).

On the one hand, influence from authorised heritage discourse makes the education content focus on materiality, static past, and an expert perspective but overlooks the intangible meanings, dynamic interaction, and personal feelings (Harrison, 2012; Labadi, 2013). Second, WHS reinforces nationalism in most counties under the political system (Winter, 2015; Ray, 2020). Lastly, the rise of tourism directs heritage education to please the mainstreaming market (Smith, 2015). To sum up, the influence of monumentalism, nationalism, and commercialism limit the development of multicultural education in WHS.

On the other hand, Even though the right to participate in cultural life is one of the fundamental human rights (UNESCO, 2019), and the engagement of the community has gradually gained notice in the last two decades (UNESCO, 2007), there remains to be a gap regarding refugee integration in heritage education. Refugees is one of the most vulnerable multicultural groups (UNHCR, 2007). Compared with others, including immigrants, sojourners, ethnic minorities, and indigenous people, their traumatic experiences, involuntary and unsettled conditions and cultural capital loss make them multiple challenges to participate in and enjoy the cultural events.

Therefore, to achieve the goal to engage refugees in heritage-making process, this research examines the underlying mechanism of heritage education while developing curriculums that cater to refugees’ needs through the lens of world view theory (Kearney, 1984), the dynamic World View Model demonstrates the process of shaping and shifting world view and the interrelationship between individuals and the environment, providing a holistic explanation of the interrelationship between visitors and the sites, which could be the backbone of developing the multicultural education model. Understanding and interpreting world heritage comes from individuals’ sensations and imaginative projection. World view plays a substantial role in engaging cultural events. Individual interpretations yield the meanings of heritages and meaning interpretation results from the dynamic shifting process of world views. Only by fulfilling the needs of meaning-making can heritage education integrate multicultural individuals.

The research employs action research as the approach. It recruits “New Scots (The Scottish Government, 2017)”, who are refugees and asylum seekers living in Scotland, as participants and initiates co- creation workshops as the intervention in The Hunterian, one of the preservation institutions. This study explores a world-view-oriented education model developed via action research at Antonine Wall. It identifies the challenges of WHS education from theoretical and practical perspectives; and designs an alternative education plan as an intervention. Then the workshop takes place in the Hunterian through the participation of New Scots (refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland). The action is evaluated by the degree that participants make meanings of the WHS. It expects to enhance the inclusion of WHS, ensuring the cultural rights of refugees, and pave the way for the future research on multicultural education.

Introduction, research question, and theoretical framework

To meet the future needs for educated teachers it is essential that newly qualified teachers (NQTs) start and remain in their profession. Since 2017 teacher education in Norway for primary and secondary school has been reformed to a master’s degree, and NQTs graduate with both a specialization in three to four subjects, and a research and development competence (R&D). This change has created both an opportunity and a need to analyze how to support, apply and develop NQTs competence as they transition from students to working life. All the Nordic countries—including Estonia and except for Denmark—offer a five-year master’s level teacher education, consequently, the ambitions and results of this paper reach beyond the borders of Norway.

Regarding support of NQTs, a lack of mentoring is highlighted as a reason why teachers leave their profession (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011), and Thomas et al. (2019) argue that “high quality” collegial support is necessary for both job satisfaction and motivation to teach. In turn, three key factors have been described as necessary to support NQTs: skilled and educated mentors, a variety of learning activities, and contextual factors like professional development, collaboration, and teacher education (Helleve & Ulvik, 2019; Schaefer et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2008). Mentoring is however a contested concept, and Kemmis et al. (2014) outline three main archetypes of mentoring: as supervision, as support, and as collaborative self-development. However, empirical research indicates that induction practices are unpredictable concerning what kind of support and collaboration NQTs can expect (Antonsen et al., 2022), which adds to the findings that there is no clear patterns in the organization and implementation of mentoring in Norway (Rambøll, 2021). These ambiguities indicate a need for clearer principles and guidelines for mentoring, similar to how Finland has embraced collaborative self-development through their practice of “Peer-Group Mentoring” (Pennanen et al., 2020; Tynjälä et al., 2021).

Considering the necessity of mentoring practices that supports, apply, and develops NQTs competence, this paper analyzes key documents regarding Norwegian national guidelines and principles for mentoring NQTs. These key documents provide insight into the political intentions for what kind of profession and practice a new teacher is envisioned to be inducted into, and what the mentoring process entails.

Therefore, this paper’s research question is: How do the documents that comprise the overarching national guidelines and principles for mentoring articulate that schools should support NQTs with a master’s degree?

To analyze the issues outlined above, I will apply the theory of practice architecture as an analytical lens (Mahon et al., 2017), which allows me to assess and understand social realities that are subject to a professional practice.

The theory of practice architecture describes that practices are social, situated and that they are shaped by arrangements (Mahon et al., 2017). There are three mutually influencing arrangements that exist simultaneously in a professional practice (Mahon et al., 2017, s. 9-10): Cultural-discursive arrangements, which describes the space for expressions in a practice (the prevalent language and discourses), which either constrain or enable what’s relevant or fitting to say (sayings). Material-economic arrangements that deal with the resources that shape practice by determining what, when, how, or by whom something is constrained or allowed to be done (doings). Finally, social-political arrangements, which shape how individuals within the practice relate to each other (familial and professional relationships, hierarchies, etc.) and non-human objects (rules, norms, etc.), which shape relationships in a practice.

Summarized, NQTs will encounter practice architectures which will define through their three arrangements which sayings, doings and relatings enable or constrain mentoring that support, apply and develop their subject-specialization and R&D-competence.

Educational quality largely depends on the availability of qualified teachers; consequently, teacher turnover is an important concern internationally (Hanushek et al., 2016). The induction phase – the transition from teacher education into the job – is particularly challenging and vulnerable for teacher attrition (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Kelchtermans, 2017). The case of Vietnam is no exception. In fact, certain distinctive features of the education system may further intensify this, such as existing rigid policies and malpractices in teacher recruitment (Tran & Huynh, 2019), as well as the fact that the Ministry of Education and Training has the ultimate control on “macro-level planning” (Le, 2015). However, empirical research on the issues of teacher induction and retention in Vietnam remains scarce (Tran, 2021). This project seeks to address the research gap by analyzing the experiences of Vietnamese early career teachers (ECTs), with a focus on Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teachers, as the outcome of the meaningful interactions between individual ECTs and the dynamic organizational contexts of the schools.

The project builds upon Kelchtermans’ research on teacher induction and ECTs’ needs for support, which calls for moving beyond the “deficit thinking” that depicts ECTs as “lacking essential professional competencies” and “formally qualified, but not yet fully capable” (Kelchtermans, 2019). In addition to the theoretical stance providing an alternative perspective on ECTs’ capabilities and potentials, this research explicitly includes the school’s geographical location as a relevant dimension in the working conditions of ECTs, thus further joining the growing volume of research on the impacts of schools’ physical locations on teacher education and professional development (see e.g. Roberts & Fuqua, 2021; White & Downey, 2021). The professional challenges for ECTs are not only related to the “what” and “how” questions, but are also influenced by the “where”. We will specifically study the impacts of starting one’s career in the remote, mountainous areas of Vietnam, where ongoing inequities in education, a serious shortage of qualified teachers, and a high rate of teacher attrition have been observed (Giacchino-Baker, 2007; World Bank, 2019). Similar to the situation in Australia (White & Kline, 2012) and European countries (Fargas-Marlet & Bagley, 2022), it is challenging to attract, recruit, and retain qualified teachers in understaffed rural, remote regions of Vietnam. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that once assigned to such areas teachers are seldomly permitted to transfer or relocate (Hamano, 2008).

This research, therefore, aims to explore and share the voices of ECTs in these demanding teaching conditions as compared to their counterparts in urban areas. Apart from the geographical perspective, the study’s theoretical framework builds on the concept of teachers’ personal interpretative framework (Kelchtermans, 2009), including their self-understanding and subjective educational theory underlying their professional judgement and agency, and the micro-political perspective (Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002). As such our study strives towards offering a holistic depiction of the fundamental factors within ECTs’ induction period, the interrelation of these factors, and the context of the school as an organization, with an emphasis on geographical diversity of the schools’ locations (and tentatively cultural and multi-lingual diversities from local ethnic minorities). These objectives lead to the following research questions in the context of Vietnam:

1. How do the experiences of early career TESOL teachers affect their professional self-understanding and subjective educational theory?
2. How do the micropolitics in the school as an organization affect early career TESOL teachers’ experiences?
3. In what way does the geographical location of the school affect early career TESOL teachers’ experiences?
4. What are the critical elements in early career TESOL teachers’ experiences of their induction phase that are to be acknowledged and included in the design for effective support programs?

This presentation reports on an ongoing cross-national PhD research project. The research used an exploratory mixed methods survey design to explore the opportunities for practice available to student teachers in English language pre-service teacher education programmes in Algeria, Finland, Ireland and Scotland. To this end, the study draws on Grossman et al.’s (2009) framework of pedagogies of practice. More specifically, it focuses on Grossman et al.’s ‘approximations of practice’. It also aims to explore how the teaching practice component of pre-service teacher education programmes is organised in the four countries and to identify student teachers’ and teacher educators’ attitudes towards the practice compoent. The present research was guided by three research questions:

• What are students teachers' and teacher educators’ attitudes towards different approximations of practice, and authentic practice, to facilitate student teacher’s professional development?’
• In what ways are teacher education programmes in Ireland, Finland, Scotland and Algeria framing the practice component of language teacher education?
• What possible learnings/adaptations can be made from Irish, Finish and Scottish’s English language teacher education to the Algerian teaching practice design?

The study explores eight approximations of practice: examining English language learners’ work; examining state, national or local curriculum; examining videos of classroom teaching; micro-teaching; roleplays; coached rehearsals; one-to-one simulations of practice and virtual simulations of practice. Based on an extended review of the literature on approximations of practice, these were the most commonly cited approximations of practice used across different contexts.

Research findings suggest that teacher quality is considered one of the main salient determiners of student success (Rivkin et al., 2005, p.449; Darling-Hammond, 2000, p.33) and the success of any educational system (Barber and Mourshed 2007, p.15). As a result, the content and curriculum of pre-service teacher education programmes in many countries are constantly being scrutinised to deliver competent graduates who are well capable of facing the realities of the twenty-first century classrooms.

The importance of practice has been widely acknowledged in teacher education literature. Research highlights that it is seen as hugely significant by student teachers, teacher educators and teachers as well as by policy makers (Tabachnick, and Zeichner 1984; Hall et al, 2018). This growing recognition of the importance of teaching practice has inspired many teacher education providers to revise their teacher preparation policies through extending teaching practice opportunities and strengthening theory-practice links (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017, p. 22). However, despite the wide agreement on the teaching practice effectiveness in developing classroom ready teachers (Batten et al. 1991), the teaching practice is not standardised, and the quality of student teachers’ experience during teaching practice can be effected by many factors (i.e. the length of the teaching practice, feedback, supervision …etc) (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Darling-Hammond et al. 2005). Some researchers also argue that not all student teachers’ experiences during school-based teaching practice are productive or positive (Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann 1985; and Turney et al. 1982).

The implementation of approximations of practice in teacher education programmes, or what Grossman et al. (2009) have defined as ‘opportunities for novices to engage in practices that are more or less proximal to the practice of a profession’ (p. 2058), has the potential of contributing to the development of student teachers (Grossman et al, 2009) hence advocating their incorporation in the teacher education curricula (Ghousseini & Herbst, 2016). However, there appears to be very scant literature on their implementation and benefits in English language teacher education and more specifically on student teachers’ and teacher educators’ attitudes towards them. This paper seeks to address this gap by reporting on the results of a cross-national research as part of an ongoing PhD project.

“Teacher identity” is a popular topic for discussion and reflection in teacher education programs. We ask pre-service teachers to consider pervasive cultural and personal images of teachers (as expert, caregiver, authoritarian, and so on) in order to accept or resist these images as they contribute to the construction of their own teacher identity. Discussed in theory and aspirational language, teacher identity appears to behave in a reasonably orderly fashion; however, once the novice teacher is introduced to the dynamic world of teaching, teacher identity can become an absolute mess to untangle. As an approach to research, posthumanism offers us a chance to see this mess as beautiful in its lively, evolving, and relational condition. This posthumanist project takes to heart that in order to understand concepts such as identity differently, we must also look differently. After Taylor (2018), who describes posthumanist research as “allowing oneself to be lured by curiosity, surprise, and wonder” (p. 377), I conduct a diffractive auto/ethnographic study to find out what happens if I take seriously the value of play in research, wondering what can be gained, in terms of understandings of teacher identities, through cartomancy (i.e., tarot readings) as a potential source of knowledge. This unconventional approach to research allows me to give generous attention to these teachers’ identities by acknowledging their connections to other selves, other humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans. Through this project, I find an expanded sense of self-perception and an increased recognition of a teacher’s multiple, connected, changing, and changeable identities.

Tarot cards, drawn from the deck and arranged on a table into spreads, are indeterminate, endlessly rearrangeable narratives (Tatham, 1986). When cards are shuffled and drawn during a tarot reading, a new story is formed—“And no reading can be final: the spread leads [the reader] to make one story today; tomorrow, [they] may return to it and craft a quite different story, the change a function of circumstances” (Tatham, 1986, p. 582). Tarot readers and querents (i.e., the person getting the reading) layer the archetypal images of the tarot cards upon their own identities and situations, focusing but not limiting the scope of self exploration. Tarot can provide a space that is both/neither inner or outer because of its semiotic significance: the cards are physical, material things outside of ourselves, yet they represent events, feelings and identities within us. As we conduct a reading, we are making and remaking the meaning of what was before, what no longer is, and what will be. Like Ellsworth (2005), I see the transitional spaces of research-creation events such as tarot readings as opportunities for “interactive openness” wherein “change itself can then be seen as something other than opposition” (p. 34). Research-creation events are opportunities to shape change.

In this manner, a deck of tarot cards operates as a narrative device (although not always a linear narrative) to make visible, even tangible, diffractive discourses surrounding a person’s identity and the intermingling of entities that makes our identities shift and grow. It might even fulfill—in an unexpected way—Zembylas’s (2005) call for “An approach that recognizes that discourses and performances are not absolutely determining” and that might “begin to provide teachers with spaces for reconstituting themselves and their relations with others” (p. 40). No tarot text is authoritative. This project hopes to give teachers the opportunity to participate in an intentional (re)design of their identities, more fully aware of the embodied and collaborative process that is always already occurring.

There has been a significant increase in interest around teacher identity within educational research and teacher education due, in part, to recognition of the fundamental role of the teacher in students’ learning and achievement and questions of how teacher identity links to performance and retention (Hong et al., 2016; Hsieh, 2015). Teachers’ professional identity is seen as shaped by their past experiences and as a key motivating and orienting factor in their actions and beliefs about practice (Hong et al., 2016). However, there is a continuing lack of clarity around what we mean by teacher identity (Solari and Ortega, 2022) and a lack of knowledge about the dynamics of identity construction within teacher education (Henry, 2019). Whilst prior research has focused on the connections between personal and professional identities and the context in which these identities are constructed, there has been little research exploring this diverse and dynamic interplay (Hsieh, 2015). This emerging doctoral study proposes a multidisciplinary theoretical framework and diverse conceptual approach to considering the dynamics and interplay of beliefs, identity, discourse, and experiences within teachers’ identity construction. Recognising that the landscapes of teachers’ professional identities are rich sites of negotiation in the complex process of “becoming someone who teaches” (Henry, 2019, p.269), this study seeks to apply a multidisciplinary dialogic lens to considering the challenges and tensions inherent in developing dialogic approaches to teaching practice.

In the context of dialogic education, attitudes and beliefs are seen as highly influential in the development of dialogic approaches yet understanding how personal and professional dialogic experiences relate to teachers’ professional identities, learning, and practice is a significantly under-researched area (Groschner et al., 2020). Prior research has predominantly focused on an interactional and pedagogical consideration of classroom dialogue; however, studies which have moved beyond this suggest that teachers’ dialogic stance, identity, sociocultural and socio-historical expectations of professional identity may offer insight for understanding why monologic patterns overwhelmingly persist within classrooms (Sherry et al., 2019). Recognising that the challenges for teachers of realising the benefits of a dialogic approach may be bound up in questions of identity, this study seeks to understand professional development related to dialogic practice as a sociocultural process (Hofmann, 2020) and how teachers’ own identities may act as enabling or restrictive forces in relation to dialogic classroom interactions (Sherry et al., 2019).

The proposed theoretical and conceptual framework reflects the multidisciplinary discourse that has shaped understandings of dialogue as pedagogy: the psychological principle of the intimate relationship between language and thought and the sociolinguistic focus on the “the kinds of language and language environments which classrooms actually provide” (Alexander, 2008, p.18). It draws on key theoretical influences, such as Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogism and discourse theory, that have been significant in the development of dialogic teaching practices and which centralise a socio-constructivist understanding of knowledge and learning (Alexander, 2008; Grimmett, 2016). This perspective suggests that classroom dialogic interactions are fundamentally linked with pupils’ and teachers’ identities; where dialogue mediates both the construction of self and wider culture of society (Alexander, 2008), and identity is socially co-constructed through classroom discourse which both shapes and is shaped by teachers’ personal and professional conceptions of self (Sherry et al., 2019).

After years of economic destruction caused by the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese government issued the Open Door policy in 1986, making education reform the national top priority. Literature suggests that teachers are central to education reform as their response to the reform shapes its implementation and consequences (Vongalis-Macrow, 2007; Robinson, 2012; Schmidt and Datnow, 2005; Swanepoel, 2008). Meanwhile, in the context of globalisation, Western education ideologies have once again made their way back to the education system (Trinh, 2018). The Vietnamese government has set goals of education reform as ‘Internationalisation’ and ‘Global standards’ (Moet.gov.vn), allowing and encouraging the establishment of foreign-invested schools or so-called international schools. Through these reform policies where globalisation acts as a driving force, education in Vietnam is formed through the Neocolonial process privileging rich families who can afford them. This has shifted the landscape of education in the country with a division between public (public schools) and private sectors (international schools). Nevertheless, little is known about how this division in the education system affects the teaching profession: their working conditions, the expectations various stakeholders have of them, and the nature of their work in these parallel systems. My study begins to address this gap in research by exploring teachers' perceptions of their agency in these parallel public and private education systems.

In order to do so, my thesis focuses on the following research questions:

• How do teachers in public schools and international schools enact their agency at all levels (classroom, school, community, and education system)?

• How do education reform policies as well as teachers’ personal and professional backgrounds and aspirations shape the agency enactment of teachers in public schools and international schools?

• How does the teachers’ agency enactment in both public schools and international schools influence the implementation of Education Reform?

This paper is inspired by the first chapter of my thesis which draws on the postcolonial theory (i.e, David, 2008; Crossley and Tikly, 2004; Rizvi, 2007) to provide the readers with the context of Vietnam education. This paper consists of two main parts: the context of education in Vietnam through a postcolonial lens and the context of public school teachers and international school teachers. By using thematic analysis of relevant studies as well as recent education reform policies, the paper argues that western influences are prevalent in the recent education reforms and as result in the education system. As such, Vietnam's education system has adopted Western education ideologies. Hence, this paper also argues that through the enactment of education reform policies where globalisation acts as a driving force, education in Vietnam is formed through the Neocolonial process privileging the postcolonial elites (defined here as the emerging middle class and upper-middle class). Consequently, literature tells us it has led to a distinction between public schools for the poor and international schools for those who can afford them (e.g, Wright, 2020; Bunnell, 2020; Kennedy and Power, 2010). Such division impacts the education system as a whole as well as everyone involved in it. Therefore, the second part of this paper provides the readers with the context of public school teachers and international school teachers in terms of policies, responsibilities, standards, workload, and payment.

A Ph.D. often requires several years to complete; throughout this time, students face both intellectual and emotional challenges. As many of the students experience enthusiasm in the process, others have negative feelings (Stubb et al., 2011). The extraordinarily competitive academic environment, stressful conditions (Mattijssen et al., 2021), lack of permanent contacts and research funding, and increasingly difficult working conditions (Olsthoorn et al., 2020) have negative effect on academic well-being and mental health. Thus doctoral students were seen as high-risk group for problems with their mental health and well-being that may affect the quality and quantity of the researcher’s output (Levecque et al., 2017).

Researcher Mental Health Observatory (ReMO) COST Action network (234 members representing 34 EU countries) is one of the first coordinated and evidence-based European initiatives addressing mental health and well-being issues in academia. In the public declaration called ReMO Manifesto, ReMO aims to develop strategies for researcher well-being and mental health which are prioritized by World Health Organisation (WHO), International Labour Organisation (ILO), and European Commission (EC) in the past decade. ReMO aims to promote and improve mental health and well-being of researchers through developing strategies for how Europa and national level organizations proposed frameworks for improving career development for doctoral and early career researchers in academia and beyond.

Thus, it is crucial to examine how and in what ways doctoral organizations such as Eurodoc and Vitae have been known to provide support for doctoral candidates and address well-being and mental health needs. Eurodoc, European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers is an international federation of 26 national associations of early career researchers (ECRs) from Europe. Eurodoc was established as a non-profit, global volunteer organization in 2005 based in Brussels after first being launched in 2002. Eurodoc interacts with all significant European stakeholders and plays important role to inform policy at the European level. Eurodoc (2018) proposed a transferable skills and competency framework that consist of nine competence categories for early career researchers to be used in doctoral training as follows: career development, cognitive, communication, digital, enterprise, interpersonal, mobility, research, teaching, and supervision. Besides, it conducts projects, and training activities for researchers, and creates a learning community among researchers.

Another important organization supporting the professional development of researchers is Vitae with over 50 years of experience. Vitae aims to empower doctoral researchers, provide professional and career development support for researchers, and inform policy related to researcher development. To achieve this, Researcher Development Framework (RDF), developed by Vitae with the help of the United Kingdom Higher Education sector and other stakeholders, provides a highly comprehensive approach to researcher development (2010). The RDF is a professional development framework for planning, promoting, and supporting the personal, professional, and career development of researchers in higher education. The RDF has four domains as follows: knowledge and intellectual abilities, personal effectiveness, research governance, organization, engagement, influence, and impact. Similar to Eurodoc, Vitae organizes events for researchers such as project meetings, conferences, training, and creating a learning community. Both of these organizations originally were focusing on developing academic skills and competencies, and only more recently they have expanded their focus to include the mental health and well-being of doctoral students.

In this context, the aim of this study is to compare and contrast the steps these two prominent organizations, which play a crucial role in doctoral researcher development, are taking related to the well-being and mental health of doctoral students that have a crucial role in doctoral researcher development. More specifically, the research question for this exploration is:

- How are doctoral researchers’ well-being and mental health needs being addressed by Eurodoc and Vitae?

The international higher education sector has developed growing interest in the concept of ‘sense of belonging’ for students over recent years. Understanding sense of belonging is about understanding how students come to feel connected with their peers, their place of study and their university community. This paper engages with the conversations happening across the United Kingdom, United States and Europe, about what sense of belonging is, how it can be fostered to improve students’ academic outcomes and experiences within their educational communities, and the key role of evaluation in making change for students.

Through insights from a literature review of international research and from primary research conducted in an English higher education institution, the paper aims to connect the worlds of research and evaluation to further knowledge of both sense of belonging research and a Theory of Change evaluation framework. The use of a case study will demonstrate how research-engaged evaluation methodologies can be used to assess the real-world application of research findings and their potential impact on students. Alongside the UK context of the case study, research and real-world findings from other contexts will be integrated e.g., student-led bonding and belonging activities in universities based in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

The research questions driving this work, and framing the structure of this proposed presentation, are:

• What is ‘sense of belonging’ in the higher education context and why does it matter?

• How can researchers and evaluators contribute to developing a sense of belonging and community for diverse student groups in universities across different geographical contexts?

• How can researchers and evaluators work together to improve outcomes for students in real-world applications of research?

These research questions align with the key purpose of this presentation: to articulate how research and evaluation can collaborate to establish, and ideally to improve, the impact on outcomes when planning and delivering interventions intended to facilitate a greater sense of belonging and community for students. The paper also investigates how university colleagues (including researchers, evaluators, and practitioners) can use existing research findings to inform how they facilitate diverse and inclusive communities and spaces for students. This objective will be met by sharing insights from key research on sense of belonging, including defining how ‘fit’ is influential for students’ belonging academically, socially and in the spaces which combine the academic and social.

These concepts of ‘fit’ come from the conceptual and theoretical frameworks underpinning the paper, which have been developed and challenged by the growing pool of literature on these topics. The conceptual frameworks for ‘sense of belonging’ span psychosocial, sociological, and educational theories; as my understandings have been influenced by multiple authors and ways of thinking, there is opportunity to share multiple theoretical perspectives within the paper. Crucially, I draw on the work of Lewis and Hodges (2014) who consider the two dimensions of “social fit” and “ability or academic fit” as the foundations of sense of belonging; this distinction acts as stimulus for the case study of encouraging greater student engagement in academic school-related societies.

Alongside the conceptual frameworks relating to sense of belonging and community, this paper is also informed by, and engaged with, the evaluative framework of Theory of Change. This approach is often used to evaluate community-based change interventions, aiming to make visible the complex interactions between actions and their outcomes. The paper will share insights on how a Theory of Change works and how it can be practically used in response to, and alongside, research and evidence in real-life application - in this case, in interventions aimed to facilitate university students’ sense of belonging to their academic school (/academic department).

The evolution of Irish Institutes of Technology (IoT) to Technology University (TU) status is near completion. These changes have resulted in a heightened need for the new TUs to continue to build on previous success in competing for research funding and attracting higher numbers of PhD students. Success of this nature depends, in part, on individuals identifying new sources of social, economic, and technological innovation. Building a research culture of interdisciplinarity (ID) will be a key aspect of achieving these milestones. At the centre of this move toward ID are the Principal Investigators (PIs), actors who find themselves responsible for delivering research projects; something which requires them to think and talk across disciplinary boundaries.

Until relatively recently, the use of the term ID has been inconsistent with respect to how and in what way it is defined. Therefore, conducting a review of the extant literature is helpful to explore different approaches and conceptualisations of ID and their historical emergence. Furthermore, conducting this review will identify the underlying theoretical positions as a first step towards the completion of a successful research study aimed at augmenting current knowledge on how to manage interdisciplinary research and development environments. Ultimately, better enabling PIs and their research teams to think and talk beyond their core discipline; to overcome the troublesome knowledge of disciplinary barriers; and to communicate across professional disciplinary boundaries.

The aim of this paper is to explore the historical emergence of interdisciplinarity and its main conceptualisations.

The following questions guide the literature review:

1. How is interdisciplinarity defined?
2. How has the concept of interdisciplinarity developed over time?
3. What are the key conceptualisations of interdisciplinarity within the literature?

Theoretical Framework:

The concept of ID has, over the last few decades, rapidly gained popularity within the research arena – including Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). It has impacted all areas of research, including practice, teaching, and policy. Proponents of ID posit arguments for why it is not only beneficial but necessary for tackling the large-scale challenges facing society. Examples of such support can be seen across the research landscape, from funding agencies introducing requirements for interdisciplinary collaboration in competitive calls (European Commission, 2018), to HEIs reducing the number of research centres so that researchers are coalesced into more interdisciplinary settings (EUA, 2021). Substantial innovation relies on the ability of research leaders to facilitate diversity and integration across disciplinary boundaries within their teams. (Gray, 2008).

Interdisciplinarity, although sometimes presented as being in a dichotomy with disciplinarity, fundamentally relies on an integration of different disciplines. Ways of thinking within individual disciplines have certain similarities (Donald, 2002; McCune & Hounsell, (2005): i) a deep engagement with the epistemology, ii) command of the vocabulary and theory of the field, that leads ultimately to iii) a different mindset or way of thinking and practising that is distinctive of the discipline. The differences between disciplines are often subtle and lie in the type of language used, the logical structure, preferred criteria for validating knowledge and most pronounced methods or modes of inquiry (Apostel, Berger, Briggs & Michauud, OECD, 1970; Dirkx, 1996; Becher & Trowler, 2001, Lave & Wenger, 1999). Donald’s working model of thinking processes across the disciplines reveals six thinking processes and behaviours that are coded across five methods of inquiry: hermeneutics, critical thinking, problem solving, scientific method and expertise (2002, pg24).

While universities are expected to enhance graduate employability, the role of different higher education features in this process has been overlooked due to an overreliance on employment-based measures. This holds even more in the context of European liberal arts education (LAE) and its distinctive features, the implications of which on student employability gains are still unknown. The resurgence of LAE in Europe has been taking place since the late 1990s, especially in the Netherlands, where ten university colleges have been established. Inspired by the American liberal arts model but maintaining its own specificities, Dutch university colleges are defined by several unique features that distinguish them from traditional bachelor’s programmes. Firstly, university colleges are broad, general academic programmes that are not professionally oriented. Furthermore, university colleges are distinguished by their self-tailored, interdisciplinary curricula that allow students to combine courses from a wide range of fields, a student-centred learning environment involving small-scale teaching and extensive student-faculty interactions, as well as selective admission policies. In contrast to this, traditional bachelor’s programmes in the Netherlands are typically more professionally focused and monodisciplinary, with a fixed curriculum structure, large-scale teaching, and non-selective admission.

Dutch university colleges have been lauded for their commitment to academic excellence, but also criticized for the alleged impracticality of their degrees. While the proponents of LAE stress its ability to provide an optimal response to the demands associated with the contemporary workplace, little is known as to how the distinctive characteristics of LAE programmes relate to enhancing student employability. The current paper addresses this research gap. Its main goal is twofold. Firstly, it seeks to propose an alternative, developmental approach to assessing the contribution of undergraduate programmes to fostering employability. Secondly, it aims to determine how a university college performs in this regard compared to a traditional bachelor’s programme in Law at the same university. It does so by applying the graduate capital model, a well-established employability framework proposed by Michael Tomlinson (2017), and using it to answer the following research question: How does employability develop in university college students during the course of their studies compared to their peers from a traditional programme?

Adjusting the graduate capital model to fit the study purpose, the paper focuses on six skills that enhance employability: creativity, lifelong learning, career decidedness, self-efficacy, resilience, and personal initiative. The framework adjustment has been guided by four main considerations, focusing on employability constituents which: (a) are malleable and can be developed within higher education, (b) fundamentally stem from the overall learning environment, (c) are expected to reflect the distinctive features of LAE, and (d) can be measured with adequate instruments. To measure employability growth, a cross-sectional pseudo-cohort research design is adopted, comparing first-, second-, and third-year student cohorts. The study employed a DiD approach, looking at the differences in the development students make within a programme.

The results show that attending an LAE undergraduate programme leads to visible progression in a range of career-relevant skills. This is especially the case with regard to creativity and personal initiative, in which second- and third-year LAE students both scored significantly higher than freshmen. As for career decidedness, self-efficacy, and resilience, significant gains were found for second-year LAE cohorts. Lifelong learning scores revealed no significant differences between the three study years. Compared to the traditional programme, the gains in creativity and personal initiative particularly stand out, reflecting the differences between interdisciplinary and monodisciplinary learning, and self-tailored and fixed curriculum structure. This refutes the stereotype that a liberal arts degree does not prepare students for the labour market and points to the relevance of programme-specific features for employability development in higher education.

The rapid growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) at the end of 1990s accelerated globalization of the world economy, and innovation has become more important for economic growth (European Commission, 2013), which emphasized developing “human capital” for the economy (Popkewitz, 2012) and led to digital transformation of businesses (DT). DT is not limited to cutting-edge technologies (Hess et al., 2016; Kane et al., 2015), and occasional digital updates (De la Boutetiere et al., 2018; Libert et al., 2016). It refers to gaining and utilizing 21^st century skills ( Voogt & Roblin 2010; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012), which are seen as skills of today’s workforce by many international organizations recently (Williamson, 2013; Aronowitz & Giroux, 1993). Broadly speaking, 21^st century skills can be grouped under “communication skills, collaborative skills, individual learning approaches, individual autonomy, ICT and digital literacy” as well as personal attributes and core knowledge areas such as literacy, numeracy and STEM associated fields of knowledge (Joynes et al., 2019). In developing 21^stcentury skills, ICTs are essential according to many commentators (Joynes et al., 2019) and acquiring 21^st century skills develops individuals’ capabilities holistically (UNESCO, 2015b). It is evident that 21^st century skills refer to ‘practical’ capabilities of individuals.

As the future of education is “a network-based distributed system of learning rather than a strictly routinized series of teaching tasks” (Davidson & Goldberg, 2009) and educational policies and reform ideas now routinely espouse “a science of future-building” (Gardner et al., 2009), technology-enhanced learning (TEL) comes to forefront. TEL requires decentralization of curriculum and experiential everyday knowledge so students actively prepare to deal with change (Williamson, 2013). Moreover, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have accelerated the process of TEL (Siemens, 2013).

It is now inevitable for higher education institutions (HEIs) to utilize TEL to help learners gain flexibility of the era (Wang et al., 2021; Benavides et al, 2020; Koehler et al., 2007) because universities are considered to raise qualified workforce which can answer to current needs of the sectors (Lauder & Mayhew, 2020; Kemp, 2016). However, graduates’ lack of experience in such skills are heavily criticized (Matsouka & Mihail, 2016; Pang et al, 2018; PIAAC, 2019). Moreover, universities and governments underline integrating work experience more broadly into academic programs more (Patrick et al., 2008; Leonard, 1999) because HE has been regarded as a personal investment for better work and life opportunities, so higher quality outcomes are expected of them (Devlin et al., 2008; Kirke et al., 2007). As Larkin and Hamilton suggested (2010), the transition from student to novice practitioner is necessitated and practice opportunities must help students to recognize the importance of fieldwork, the generic work attributes with the help of a tailored planning and delivery. On the other hand, Larkin and Watchorn (2012) clearly emphasized that there is an even pressing need for bridging practices of academia with the expectations of the workplace.

Systematic reviews conducted on TEL applied by HEIs reported success in equipping students with such practical skills; however, indicated a lack of direction; the facilitators and hinderers are not very well-understood, and a holistic approach towards TEL in HE is needed (Abedini et al., 2020; Benevides et al., 2020; Bernhard-Skala, 2019; Farias-Gaytan, 2022). This gap in the literature is aimed to be addressed by this study. To that aim, the following research question was formulated:

1. When and how can TEL satisfy the experience/practice needs of students at HEIs?

1.1. What approaches and methods of TEL are used by HEIs?

1.2. What facilitators and hinderers are experienced by HEIs during the process of TEL?

We live in the postdigital condition: Digitality and digital technologies, algorithms and algorithmic logics have become the background and starting point of our everyday actions, distinctions such as digital/analog or online/offline are becoming increasingly blurred (Jandrić et al. 2018). Technologies permeate almost all areas of life and thus also school and teaching. The concept of 'postdigitality' reminds us that it is not only the digital that needs to be considered when thinking about technology, especially in educational contexts (Fawns 2019). Interwoven social, economic, cultural, political, ethical, or ecological conditions, logics, and forms of organization are also inscribed in the technologies we use, and these conditions constitute our practices of use. Moreover, the concept of 'postdigitality' also reminds us that the conditions we live in today, are always noisy, messy and chaotic and we always have to deal with not knowing and understanding a lot (Macgilchrist 2021).

FabLabs/Making Spaces are open spaces, where making with a variety of analog and digital materials and technologies is central. Such labs can also function as (extracurricular) spaces of education (Schelhowe 2013). In my dissertation project, I co-design and observe educational activities for and with schools, a FabLab and a diverse student body. Participatory methods, involving close cooperation between research and practice, and an ethnographic sensibility is central to this. Drawing on research on postdigital education and educational making, the focus is on the following question: What happens in FabLabs as postdigital educational spaces - from the perspective of the different actors involved?

This study conceptualizes FabLabs as 'sociotechnical configurations' and 'postdigital educational contexts': They are understood as constituted by interwoven, social, political, cultural, economic, pedagogical, technical and algorithmic logics and forms of organization, material artifacts, architectures and individual competencies (Jasanoff 2016; Suchman 2007). From this perspective, educational processes are not shaped by individual or autonomous persons, but by sociotechnical configurations. When educational processes in labs are viewed through the 'post-digital lens', it opens the view to the interconnectedness of analog and digital action and social, technical, cultural, political, and ethical (messy!) structures and logics that also structure a lab.

In the first stage of research and analysis, 'failure' has emerged as a central phenomenon. 'Failure' is raised in the literature as central to (educational) making, but is mostly mentioned in terms of the successful design of a product or artifact, or in terms of a positive culture of mistakes and productivity, without being discussed or analyzed in more detail (Martin 2015): Productive failure in making appears as a quasi-natural path to success and learning, whereby I’d like to question this critically. If failure is discussed, then the focus is on failure as an individual and subjective process; overall, the subjective perspectives and individual experiences of the actors are in the foreground (Cross 2017), although isolated studies could also be identified that indicate that failure is much more complex (Maltese et al. 2018). But even in these studies, however, individual actors and actions are the primary focus (Simpson et al. 2018).

Following on from this, beyond the individual and drawing on the sociotechnical conceptualisation noted above, this dissertation will focus on 'failure' not only as an individual, but as a complex, sociotechnical phenomenon in a post-digital educational context: In response to the research question posed above one thing that happens in FabLabs is the unfolding of failure as a socio-technical phenomenon. The aim of the contribution is therefore, first, to reflect on my research process and methodological aspects such as opportunities and challenges of participatory collaboration with educational practice. Second, to present initial results on 'failure' in postdigital educational contexts, using the example of FabLab/Making.

Children are heavy adopters of social media, despite the terms of service being thirteen years of age (Ofcom, 2022). This occupancy within the digital space, is changing the experience of socialisation for children and young people (Ranzini and Hoek, 2017). Digital technology and social media add new dimensions that children must navigate, and consequently social media has altered the notions of space, community and identity and the relationships between them (Thomson et al., 2018). For tweens (8 – 12-year-olds) on the cusp of adolescence, the presentation of a ‘digital identity’ involves a self-curated digital content in the form of narrative, images, and photographs. Furthermore, online virtual communities have been created and within a social-technical context, children and digital technologies interact (MacDonald et al., 2022). In this research, the age group of 10 and 11 years old was specifically chosen, as arguably, it is when they are becoming more influenced by peer culture (Steinbekk et al., 2021) and making tentative steps around shaping their own identity that is separate from their family and immediate influences of the home environment (James and Prout, 2015). Moreover, it is also the age group that is most likely to experience having their own mobile phone for the first time (Pangrazio and Gaibisso, 2020).

It is apparent that much of the literature and research on children’s social media use, as well as in mainstream media, is often shown through a deterministic lens, with children being portrayed as having little or no agency. Therefore, children’s social media usage is often viewed and represented in problematic terms or from ‘adultist views’ (Phippen and Street, 2022, p.43) with grooming, catfishing, and predator behaviour invariably seen as a jeopardy of digital spaces and exploitation as a real possibility (Reeves and Crowther, 2019). Consequently, to challenge this deterministic outlook, a theoretical framework that positions children as the experts in their own lives (James and James, 2004) and as active participants, capable of decision-making (Dockett et al, 2012) was held central to this research. It is important not to report a homogenous experience of children’s social media use and recognise their subjectivity within their experience, just as real-life socialisation and identity portrayal would entail. Implementing a social constructivist perspective, thus, allows for a situatedness of their experiences through their own narrative.

The theoretical lens of Goffman’s (1959) Impression Management was employed to this research, with the assumption that individuals strive to control or guide the impression of how others perceive them with how they present their appearance, attitude and manner depending on the audience that they encounter. Through these social interactions with others as an audience could consequently be viewed as the building blocks of our identity formation and how our beliefs, values, subjectivities, and behaviours are shaped. Goffman’s (1971) dramaturgical approach utilises the metaphor of the stage to illustrate differences between situations where self-presentation is salient and those that are less pronounced. This distinction may not be as apparent on social media though as profile pages of social media networks are artefacts that exist to position the creator in relation to the reader/audience and this may be carefully curated. For tweens this may be even more problematic, as they tentatively explore their identity in digital spaces, with social media being viewed as an additional stage for their performances that has a more permanent nature than the visceral experiences of real life interaction (Zhao, 2005). The research questions focused on how children’s identities are shaped by their experiences of social media, with the influence of gendered stereotypes and the pressures of these digital spaces.

This presentation describes a descriptive study of literacy practices in Singapore and proposes utilising a similar model to examine and document the diverse ways families use and develop literacy in communities in international contexts. This would help educators align their own practices to meet their students’ varied ways of practicing literacy.

Literacy is most often understood to be a set of skills required for reading and writing (Keefe & Copeland, 2011). However, Knoblauch (1990) argued that literacy goes beyond reading and writing skills, and that defining it as such encodes sociocultural judgements. This is well demonstrated in Heath’s (1982) ethnographic study of the literacy practices of three communities– Middle-income white families, working-class white families, and working-class black families. Because the literacy practices of the working-class families differed from those in their mainstream schools, these children quickly fall behind in their grades with no way to keep up.

As such, Heath (1982) cautions against “a unilinear model of development in the acquisition of language structures” (p. 73) because when schools are not culturally responsive, they risk perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities. There are diverse ways of using and developing literacy, making it vital for educators to, firstly, understand the literacy practices of their communities and in their own sociocultural contexts, and, secondly, to align their own literacy practices with that of their communities’ to stem the reproduction of systemic disadvantages.

Singapore is perhaps best known worldwide for its economic prosperity and multi-ethnic population. These socioeconomic successes have been attributed to its meritocratic system that promises equality of opportunity. Consequently, educational achievement is highly sought after, with parents striving to give their children a head start through each stage of the educational system, from as early as preschool, to primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Unfortunately, unequal socioeconomic and academic outcomes expose the systemic inequalities in Singapore, especially along ethnic and socioeconomic lines. This further emphasises the need for models of development to meet the needs of diverse contexts.

However, few studies have described literacy practices in the Singaporean context. Most of the reviewed studies have taken correlational approaches, examining the relationships between specific practices and literary outcomes. Fewer still have examined the complex interplay between ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and literacy practices. The literacy practices of the minority populations of Malays and Indians have received little to no research attention, while it remains unclear if literacy practices are ethnically (Dixon, 2011) or socioeconomically (Aman et al., 2009) determined. There is a need for more descriptive studies of literacy practices in the Singaporean context, especially in the ethnic minority populations.

The study presented sought to describe and explain the literacy practices of six low-income earning, ethnic minority families of preschool-aged children in Singapore. The questions that guided this study were:

1. What are the literacy practices of low-income earning minority parents of preschool children in Singapore?
2. Why do parents choose these literacy practices?

The study utilised the Social Theory of Literacy (Barton, 2007; Barton & Hamilton, 2000, 2012) as its theoretical framework. This theory defines literacy as a set of social practices, and exists simultaneously in the relationships between people and within individuals. Literacy practices, which include observable activities and intangible attitudes and values, are “the general cultural ways of utilizing literacy which people draw upon in a literacy event” (Barton, 2007, p. 37). These practices exist within domains, structured contexts, most common of which are homes and schools. Literacy practices are also shaped by cultural and historical factors.

Research Questions

Race and racism remain largely unspeakable topics in China, partially due to the Chinese party-state’s denial of the existence of racism (Cheng, 2019). However, race plays a vital role in China’s education field, particularly in the English Language Teaching (ELT) industry. My study examines Chinese women teachers’ struggle to establish their legitimacy in the ELT industry where whiteness is the norm. The study finds that the ELT industry is more than a field of language teaching and learning. It is a field that commodifies whiteness, asserting a workplace racial hierarchy that affirms the racialised and gendered subordination of Chinese female teachers in relation to White male teachers. This study highlights a need to theorise race and English language education in China, given the growing role and impacts of European migrant teachers in China’s flourishing ELT industry. It also enables greater dialogue with the global English-language education community on the challenges and possibilities of diversity and inclusion.

The global spread of English as a lingua franca is historically associated with Western imperialism and colonialism (Phillipson, 1992) and shapes a ‘common sense’ that English is the property of white people (Jenks, 2017; Kubota & Lin, 2006; Rivers et al., 2013). Over the last two decades, China has become the world’s largest ELT market (Sohu, 2019). The intertwining of English and whiteness has translated into a massive demand for foreign teachers, particularly White people from Euro-American countries, to teach English in China, regardless of their professional backgrounds (Leonard, 2019). The industry accommodated over 400,000 foreign teachers in 2017, but two-thirds were reported unqualified who cashed in on their perceived closeness to White native English speakers (Pan, 2019). The racial hegemony in the ELT field formed by linguistic differences (Curtis & Romney, 2019; Von Esch et al., 2020) marginalises qualified teachers of color who are stereotyped as “inferior linguistically, economically and culturally due to their non‐white skin colour” (Author, 2019).

Race is not the industry’s only distinct category but also intersects with others, including gender and class, when constructing teachers’ subject positions. This study therefore explores Chinese women’s intersectional racialised experiences in China’s ELT industry. More specially, the study asks the following research questions:

1) How do Chinese women teachers describe and interpret their intersectional experiences in China’s ELT industry?

2) How do Chinese women teachers construct themselves in relation to other stakeholders in China’s ELT industry?

3) What are the affective dimensions of intersectional experiences on Chinese women in the ELT industry?

Theoretical Framework: Women of Colour Feminism

Following women of colour feminism (Hooks, 2000), this study develops theoretical concepts grounded in Chinese women teachers’ lived experiences. I employ intersectionality as a ‘sensitising concept’ (Blumer, 2017) to explore the complexity of interconnected identities and power relations that shape ELT teachers’ marginalisation and agency. I use interdisciplinary theoretical tools to place indigenous theoretical concepts, developed from teachers’ accounts, into academic conversation on affect theory, racial capitalism and possessive investment in whiteness. This allows for a greater insight into Chinese women teachers’ encounters with whiteness, revealing how race, gender class and the English language intersect to contribute to the inequalities present in ELT. For example, since intersectionality has been criticised for neglecting to consider factors that cannot be seen or heard (Falcón & Nash, 2015; Puar, 2020), this study uses affect theory along intersectionality. ‘Affect’ is not a personal emotion but a ‘felt’ power relationship (Pavlidis & Fullagar, 2013) involved in producing actions (Bogic, 2017; Puar, 2018), and this study use affect to understand what are the conditions that are producing certain emotions that reflect the ‘structure of being’ (Puar, 2018, p. 207) for Chinese women English-language teachers.

Background

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009 (known as the Right to Education Act or RTE) symbolises India’s commitment towards providing learning for all children. The RTE’s enactment means a statutory framework is now in place for the first time to ensure all children between the ages of 6 – 14 receive a compulsory education (Maithreyi and Sriprakash, 2018). This policy has so far been instrumental in increasing school enrolment (Bhattacharjee, 2019) while reaffirming India’s recent drive towards becoming a nation which embraces inclusive education.

The RTE is also striking for acknowledging the role of the private sector in realising an education for all. RTE Section 12(1)(c) is an innovative public-private policy instrument which mandates unaided private schools allocate 25% of school places to economically weaker / disadvantaged children (Sarin et al., 2017). The clause therefore echoes the sentiment of UNESCO’s recent Global Education Monitoring Report, “Non-state actors in education: Who chooses? Who loses?”, which highlights how meeting shared education goals may require close collaboration between state and non-state actors (UNESCO, 2021).

Yet in spite of the huge growth of the private sector and an increasing number of children accessing school places, whether the Section 12(1)(c) reservation (hereafter, the 25% provision) is universally applied and supportive of disadvantaged children remains in doubt. Although the provision applies nationally, only 17 out of 36 states are currently admitting children under its remit (Indus Action, 2021) and many elite private schools have resisted admissions or attempted to evade the system by contesting the constitutionality of the clause through the Supreme Court (Sarangapani et al., 2014).

Aims and Research Questions

The present qualitative study aims to evaluate how private schools under RTE Section 12(1)(c) support disadvantaged children with their learning, and the extent this learning can be deemed inclusive. It seeks to investigate this issue by exploring the views and experiences of different actors connected to private schools, namely pupils, parents, teachers and non-teaching staff.

Research in this area is needed because there remains a paucity of qualitative studies examining learning under Section 12(1)(c), particularly regarding the concept of inclusive education. Furthermore, given the absence of evidence regarding children’s experiences of the 25% provision (Lafleur and Srivastava, 2019), it would be interesting to explore this topic through the perspectives of child and adult actors experiencing the policy in their daily lives. This PhD project therefore assesses whether disadvantaged children under the 25% provision are treated and taught in the same way as their peers, or instead experience forms of discrimination or segregation. The following main research questions will aid this inquiry:

• What is the current role of India’s RTE 25% provision in enabling inclusive education for disadvantaged children in private schools?

• How is the RTE 25% provision experienced by various actors in private schools (students, parents, teachers and non-teaching school staff)?

Theoretical frameworks

The project relies on two frameworks to evaluate inclusive education elements under the 25% provision: Bronfenbrenner’s ‘Bioecological systems theory of human development’ (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2007) and Save the Children’s ‘Quality Learning Framework’ (QLF) (2022). Bronfenbrenner’s theory depicts the role of individuals, their activities and interactions across different levels of an ‘ecological system’, namely the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem. Thus, the framework provides the possibility of mapping, exploring and understanding the connections and interconnections that influence inclusive education (Anderson et al., 2014). The QLF is distinctive due to its incorporation of widely-accepted elements of inclusion in relation to education for all. It provides detailed guidance on crucial features of inclusive education, such as access to learning, teaching, community involvement and school leadership issues.

Critical thinking - the educational ideal of higher education - has become a mandatory objective that academics and educators seek to develop within their students as a crucial skill for their academic success, in the university setting and even beyond in the workplace (Davis, 2011). Critical thinking has become increasingly prominent in language education in the 21st century (Li, 2016).

With the demands of the twenty-first century, many countries in the world – in addition to western countries - have initiated educational reforms trying to ameliorate the students’ learning experiences, along similar lines (Bell, Stevenson and Neary, 2009). However, in Algeria, critical thinking has not received the same attention as other basic skills (Melouah, 2017; Kheladi, 2019). It has not been seriously supported by the educational system, and there is little evidence of it being infused into the curriculum (Benmati, 2008). Djamaa (2016, p.252) claims: ‘. . . critical thinking, however the cornerstone of higher education worldwide nowadays, seems lost in the shuffle in Algeria, particularly in the EFL classroom’.

Therefore, this study aims to explore the real state of critical thinking in the the Algerian university, nowadays, from different dimensions to identify where the actual problem lies. More specifically, this research aims the explore the extent to which critical thinking is integrated in the policy documents communicated by the Ministry of Higher Education. It aims also to explore EFL teachers’ conceptualisations of critical thinking, whether or not they have a deep understanding of the concept, how they view the significance of incorporating critical thinking in different subjects, and what teaching approaches and potential practices they employ to infuse it in their pedagogy, if there are any, highlighting the obstacles and challenges that prevent them from implementing critical thinking in their classes. Lastly, this study aims to investigate whether critical thinking has moved from the educational agenda to actual educational practices.

This paper aims to assess the trade unions’ alignment with the European Union (EU)’s skills strategy and the priority that trade unions give to the promotion of lifelong learning across all segments of the Belgian (future) workforce. Trade Unions hereby find themselves in competing social dialogues regarding Education, Employment and Social policy-making. The leading research question of this article is: how do trade unions contribute to promoting lifelong learning in Belgium?

For the last two decades scholars and policy-makers, knowledgeable in the disciplines of (Adult) Education and Social Sciences, have addressed the diversity of (adult) learners, and have warned for the risk of creating a dual society, between ‘those who know’ and ‘those who don’t know’ (Boeren, 2009; Desjardins & Ioannidou, 2020). Possessing agency to participate to (adult) learning in the new Information Society, is not an equal challenge for all (Boeren, 2017; Eynon & Malmberg, 2021; Iñiguez-Berrozpe & Boeren, 2020).

The EU’s Pillar of Social Right urges social partners, including trade unions, to put equal access to lifelong learning higher on the collective bargaining agenda (CEC, 2021; CEDEFOP, 2020) while Adult Education Surveys tell that employers distribute investments in adult learning unequally across their groups of employees. Vulnerable employees, are likely to participate less in learning in an unfavourable learning climate (Boyadjieva & Ilieva-Trichkova, 2017; Fugate, Heijden, Vos, Forrier, & Cuyper, 2021; Vansteenkiste, Kimps, Penders, Deschietere, & Van Cauwenberghe, 2022; Vansteenkiste, Verbruggen, Forrier, & Sels, 2014).

Policy-makers and business practitioners introduce upskilling and reskilling measures against the contested paradigms of full employment, and the imperfect matching of skills (de Beer, 2022; B. E. Kaufman, 2010). They blend concepts such as 21^st century skills, STEM education, lifelong learning and employability in contemporary work-of-the-future-narratives, and push educational curricula and teaching methods into reforms to modernise economy on the Industry 4.0 highway (Bughin, Lund, & Hazan, 2018; Federal Government, 2018; Krajcik, Sahin, & Mohr-Schroeder, 2019). The EU’s positioning of adult learning goals in economic competitiveness strategies, and the increased focus on quantitative benchmarking, tend to narrow down lifelong learning to lifelong earning goals (Boeren & Íñiguez-Berrozpe, 2022).

Educators often see their role with a humanistic scope, and fear that the social function of education is crowded out under business needs (Rasmussen & Lolle, 2022) while employers complain that school leavers lack a lifelong learning mentality and skillset to transit smoothly from school to work, and to adapt quickly to changing skill demands in the workplace (De Rick, 2010; Hvinden et al., 2019; K. Kaufman, Sahin, & Mohr-Schroeder, 2019).

Scholars find that growing effective lifelong learners before they enter the world of work, requires an integrated approach, and diverse learning experiences and diversity interactions from teachers (Loes, Pascarella, & Umbach, 2012). Goodman et al. recommend that instructors obtain training and support to adapt their teaching approach, and integrate diversity in view of improving learning for all students (Goodman & Bowman, 2014). Culver et al. have found -especially for students with lower grades when starting college- that a combination of in-class rigor and intellectually challenging assignments for first-year students benefits their critical thinking skills in the fourth year of college and throughout their careers (Culver, Braxton, & Pascarella, 2019).

Providing diversified education curricula demands considerable efforts from teachers, and leads to teachers’ trade union opposition (Barrett, 2020). Trade unions experience paradoxical tensions between debates of educational modernisation on one hand, and implementation of citizenship education frameworks, boosting equal access to 21^st century skills’ provision on the other hand. This research will describe and explain the pathways and instruments that trade unions in Belgium use to implement emerging lifelong learning legislation.

Abstract

This research aims to examine the perceptions of women academics in Turkey about the concept of mansplaining and to reveal and interpret their experiences of being exposed to it. Mansplaining is defined as the act of explaining something to someone in a patronizing and condescending manner (Reagle, 2016). In other words, it is the practice of a man explaining something to a woman in a way that shows he thinks he knows and understands more than she does (Oxford Dictionary, 2022). Mansplaining, in its simplest form, is the practice of silencing women by men. However, women from different social backgrounds can experience this in different forms and intensities. When the related literature is examined, it is seen that the concept of mansplaining is studied by analysing social media (Bridges, 2017; Lutzsky, 2021), it is analysed through the lens of epistemic injustice and it is determined what mansplaining is and what its damages are (Dular, 2021), a mixed-method study (Koc-Michalska, et al., 2021) which investigated the younger version of mansplaining in primary schools and examined the nature, prevalence and relations of the concept of mansplaining in modern working life. This research will examine the perceptions of women academics in Turkey about mansplaining and reveal their negative experiences, the obstacles and problems they face, the effects of this situation on their academic careers and their solution suggestions to overcome these problems will be revealed and interpreted.

Debates on patriarchy, gender inequalities, gender-based violence, and mansplaining encountered by women both in their social and working life as well as in academia have increased from past to present in European countries and around the world. The intensity of the discussions in this regard suggests that there are still some problems or deficiencies in the implementation of gender equality policies and in the elimination of patriarchy and the masculine mindset in academia.

Far from medical considerations (Stone, 1987), trans studies have become widely established in the field of education and trans*formational pedagogies are currently emerging in different countries (Nicolazzo et al., 2015).

The inclusion of "trans" students divides the French Republican school. Some professionals of the French education system, driven by the universalist tradition of the school as an institution (Haby, 1975) and its gender blind ambition, have difficulty accepting the recognition of students' gender identity. However, for some years now, we have been forced to note the intensification of differentialist orientations in French schools (Jospin, 1989) and the crumbling of the indifference to differences model (Rochex, 2020). Unsurprisingly, in 2021, a memo was published, aiming the actors of the French national education system, and entitled "for a better consideration of gender identity matters in the school environment".

Although the document undeniably provides fairly explicit guidelines, the fact remains that Éducation Physique et Sportive (EPS) – French Physical Education (PE) – is surprisingly evacuated from the subject, leaving the questions expressed by teachers in this discipline unanswered (Couchot-Shiex, 2019).

It must be said that trans studies in Education and Training Sciences are struggling to emerge in the Francophone context (Richard & Alessandrin, 2019). In France, there is a real dearth of scientific work on the experiences of young "trans" people in EPS, justifying the absence of institutional recommendations for professionals in the discipline.

On the other hand, in Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic, research investigating trans-identified people in Physical Education (PE) is multiplying. Different disciplinary particularisms are addressed: motor skills (Devís-Devís et al., 2018); locker rooms (Jones et al., 2016); groups (Hargie et al., 2017); performances (Devís-Devís, et al., 2018); physical, sports and artistic activities (McBride, 2021); or teachers (Foley et al., 2016).

Inspired by those, we have modestly begun, since 2020, to approach trans studies in EPS (Pouy-Bidard, 2022), an eminently singular discipline in the context of the "French-style" Republican School. On the occasion of the Emerging Researchers' Conference (ERC), we offered to explicitly answer these questions: what are the experiences of "trans" students in PE in France? And do they differ significantly from those of European "trans" youth?

The main hypothesis lies in the idea that PE, when it is an eminently scholastic teaching discipline in France, and when it officially is at odds with the competitive sports model, the experiences of "trans" students differ from those of their European counterparts. Put to the test, the validation or invalidation of this answer thus intends to make a singular contribution to the co-construction of the "trans-school-PE" research object on an international scale.

Introduction

In recent years, a previously invisible group of student has received more attention, girls with autism and their situation in school, both socially and pedagogically. Diagnosis criteria and most knowledge are previously based on boys (Kopp, 2010). The research today describes a group of girls that is marginalized and excluded, there are major difficulties that are not always visible as the girls strive to fit into the norm and struggle to achieve passing grades (Carpenter et al., 2019; Cook et al., 2018; Goodall & Mackenzie, 2019). This paper focus on the lived experience of participation in school context by semi-structured interviews with 11 girls with autism in secondary school. A large part of the previous research that exist comes from a psychological perspective, by having a focus on participation in a school context, the contribution of this study is a pedagogical perspective.

Girls with autism face difficulties both socially and pedagogically in daily school activities. According to Tomlins et al (2020) the school environment was experienced as stressful and difficult to manage. Moyse and Porter (2015) found four themes that gave difficulties during the day in school: the rules and norms, collaboration, completing school work and interaction with classmates during different activities. Socially the girls have a desire to have friends, but often feel excluded and alone, they experince difficulties to make friends and also to maintain a friendship (Myles et al, 2019; Cook et al, 2018).

The concept of participation is about being a part of something; it involves both an accessibility and a sense of belonging. According to World Health Organisation (2001) participation is about a persons engagement in their own life situation. In research there are two components that defines participation: accessibility to an acivity and the feeling of participation (Falkmer m. fl., 2012; Hodges m. fl., 2020; Simpson m. fl., 2019).

Aim and research question

Participation is an important factor in feeling included and recognized (WHO, 2001), which is a starting point for success in school and the rest of the society as well. The aim of this study is to investigate how girls with autism in secondary school experience participation in a school context.

How do girls with autism experience participation in their daily school life, both socially and pedagogically?

Theoretical framework

Point of departure in this study is that the society in its particular time and space create an understanding of each other through social constructions (Hacking, 1999). The constructions, the ideas, affect how we interact and also have an impact on self-awareness. Girls with autism is in fact objects, it is our concepts and beliefs which becomes a social construction. School as a space becomes important here, how the girls´self-images is created and re-created within the school as a space. Social constructions are created in communication and interaction with others.

A theoretical model for participation

To clarify and anderstand the concept of participation a theoretical model, developed by The Swedish National Agency for Special Needs education and Schools (SPSM, 2018) will be used both as a conceptual and analytic framework. The model shows that participation can be seen from six different aspects: accessibility, recognition, a sense of belonging, engagement, interaction and autonomy. These aspects provides a common language and a deeper understanding for the concept participation. They are not individual parts that stand on their own independently of each other. Rather, it helps to clarify and visualize the complexity of participation.

This research project is part of the connection between the system of social welfare services for the protection of minors, which in Europe is called Child and Family Welfare (CFW), and the juvenile justice system. In Italy, the Tribunale per i Minorenni, in the future 'Tribunale unico per le persone, i minorenni e le famiglie', deals with both the protection of minors and juvenile offenders. Due to the composition of the different services and professionals present in the juvenile justice system and the strong component of children of foreign origin involved, in this context the relationships between operators and users are characterized by a high degree of diversity and plurality. It is therefore evident that legal professionals, in their daily work, must learn to manage the encounter with otherness characterized by a strong component of diversity in biographical, cultural and linguistic terms.

It is therefore evident the need to make use of specific competences to manage diversity and plurality in the interactions and relationships proper to the juvenile justice system, starting from the awareness that the cultural and normative pluralism that characterizes the life of the child is an unavoidable fact for the legal professional (Mancini, 2019). These competences can be identified in the construct of intercultural competence, as also suggested in the report "The child welfare challenge- policy, practice and research" (Pecora et al., 2009), which includes intercultural competence among the five principles identified to guide interventions in the field of CFW. According to Deardorff, intercultural competence can be defined as "appropriate and effective communication and behaviour in intercultural situations" (Deardorff, 2009, p. XI), while the Council of Europe identifies attitudes, knowledge, understanding, skills and actions as building blocks of intercultural competence (Council of Europe, 2014; 2018).

Therefore, the focus of this study is on the intercultural competence (CIs) used by juvenile law professionals (judge, honorary judge, lawyer, magistrate, juvenile carer, etc.) to manage interactions with young people of different cultural backgrounds. The research's focus is on the aspect of everyday practices since working environments are seen as a special setting that can foster skill development and maturation (experiential learning). As a result, the research examines the forms of in-practice intercultural skills, with a particular focus on contexts supporting the development of these competences. From the analysis of the intercultural competences that emerged from the research, it is planned to construct a professional profile of the intercultural juvenile law practitioner/professional based on models of the Regional Frameworks of Professional Standards. This profile can be used to define what competences may be useful for juvenile law practitioners in increasingly multicultural contexts, but also to build specialized training courses.

The structure of the research methodology is qualitative and involves the use of different tools, one of which is quantitative: semi-structured interviews, questionnaire and focus groups. The research fits into the strand of pedagogical research in that the research design and the researcher's outlook belong to these paradigms. Furthermore, it is an intercultural research as it does not intend to pit immigrants and natives against each other but to address problems related to situations in which cultural differences are at the forefront (Mantovani, 2008). The main epistemological paradigms within which the research is developed are intercultural education (Cohen-Emerique, Bennett, Council of Europe) and intercultural competence (Deardorff, Fantini, Portera), and the child rights paradigm (Convention on the Rights of the Child-CRC-). Furthermore, by focusing on the relational dimension and the interaction between subjects in a systemic framework in which individuals and society influence each other, another theoretical framework is identified in symbolic interactionism (Mead, Blumer and Goffman).

UNESCO recognised that “every human being has a fundamental right of access to physical education and sport” (UNESCO, 1978, pp2), and that it is “the most effective means of providing all children and youth with the skills, attitudes, values, knowledge and understanding for lifelong participation in society” (UNESCO, 2013, pag.6). Furthermore, through sport activities it is possible to promote the development of skills and knowledge needed to create new forms of global citizenship (UNESCO, 2015).
The debate on physical education has been enriched by the publication of the Quality Physical Education Guidelines (UNESCO, 2015). These identify the promotion of physical literacy as a fundamental principle for the implementation of physical education by promoting the maintenance of physical activity throughout the life course (Whitehead, 2010) and enabling an understanding of the learning experience (Lundvall, 2015). Physical education must therefore deal with a subject who lives the experience by being a body in constant transformation (Lipoma, 2016), bearing in mind that the educational value of didactics is realised through the way he/she experiences situations and by giving meaning to the activities in which he/she is involved (Ceciliani, 2018).
However, there is no shortage of criticism of the dominant approaches of the time, which rarely associate Physical Education with “critical pedagogy” and “social justice” (Fitzpatrick, 2018; Hawkins, 2008; Evans & Davies, 2004).
In Italy, there is a general tendency towards traditional and assimilationist approaches (UNESCO Trento, 2020), but a substantial change seems urgent given the high rate of migration linked to global economic processes and the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing wars, persecution and climate change. In fact, approximately 7 million people holding international protection are hosted in the EU countries (UNHCR, 2021), people who have settled with the hope of finding security, continuing their studies and building a future (Harðardóttir & Jónsson, 2021). A situation that has been exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine. However, at least in Italy, little or no research is available on the refugee’s experience in an increasingly heterogeneous educational context. (Zoletto, 2016, 149)
Physical education can play a crucial role in integrating young people into their new environment by promoting embodied interactions and interpersonal encounters (Anttila et al., 2018), providing spaces for reflection where they can express themselves and become emotionally close to others (Spaaji, 2015), and following the values-based approach of Global Citizenship Education as defined in the Maastricht Declaration on Global Education 2002.
Physical education teachers and sport educators may be key actors in the process of adaptation of asylum seeker and refugee students to their new life context (Richardson et al., 2018), but the general claim that sport is always an inclusive tool seems controversial as it may expose participants to forms of racism, social exclusion and cultural resistance (Spaaji, et al., 2014).
Against this framework and due to the lack of specific research in the area, the generative research question of this study seeks to explore and examine the experience of asylum-seeking, refugee, or displaced students during high school physical education classes and/or in university settings.

This is a submission for a paper presentation on the theoretical study of a four-year-long place-based and practice-oriented empirical research project on citizenship education and diversity in secondary schools. The further description below explains the full project and the contribution of and to literature. While the research project focuses on educational practices in Antwerp, Belgium, the overarching educational questions are relevant and timely across Europe and beyond.

This research project is set in the highly diverse city of Antwerp in Flanders, the Northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. At national and European levels, citizenship education is described as a key educational goal carrying high expectations (Joris et al., 2021; European Commission, 2018, p. 4). However, the understandings of citizenship and what constitutes good citizenship education are contested (Joris et al., 2021; Biesta, 2014, p.5). Recently, the Flemish government adopted explicit citizenship education goals as part of a modernised educational programme (Loobuyck, 2020; Vlaams Parlement, 2018). Decisions surrounding the realisation of the citizenship education goals lie at the meso-level of the school and even at the micro-level of the classroom. Prior studies connect macro-level societal processes, including structural socio-economic inequalities, to the micro-level of the classroom (Clycq, 2016; Nouwen & Clycq, 2016). Antwerp has been considered a “majority-minority-city” since 2019 due to a majority of the citizens having a migration background (Geldof, 2019, p. 368). The emergence of majority-minority cities has prompted policymakers’ contradictory responses, also described as diversity approaches (Celeste et al., 2019). While some approaches focus on cultural homogenisation by stressing one national identity, culture and shared values, others focus on cultural heterogenisation, emphasising a global mindset, cultural empathy and interculturality. These tensions are also found in schools in super-diverse urban contexts like Antwerp. This study explores how these diversity approaches in schools converge or diverge with recently implemented citizenship education practices.

This literature study answers how citizenship education and diversity are related theoretically. Overall, the main research question of the full empirical research project is: How are citizenship and diversity enacted in urban Flemish secondary schools, and when and why do difficulties and opportunities arise? This project is part of the broader European research consortium “Solidarity in Diversity” (SOLiDi) that seeks to identify practices of solidarity in ethnic-cultural diversity as alternatives to national new-assimilationism trends.

A pragmatic approach to the role of theory is taken (Biesta, 2020, p. 8). Centralising the researched problem requires building upon the various streams of literature on citizenship (education), diversity and their relation. Banks (2022) and Biesta (2011; 2014) write on citizenship education and diversity. Biesta argues that “plurality and difference” are approached differently when emphasising social or political citizenship. For social citizenship, difference is considered a problem, while conversely, difference and plurality are important and need protection for political citizenship (Biesta, 2014, p. 2). Another relevant concept is Banks’ citizenship education dilemma, occurring when the “democratic ideals taught in citizenship lessons are contradicted by practices such as racism, sexism, social-class stratification, and inequality” (2022, p. 5). Moreover, earlier empirical studies on diversity approaches at secondary schools, both within citizenship education and beyond, are included (Celeste et al., 2019; Sincer et al., 2019). The project is practice-based, and therefore literature on pedagogy, especially critical pedagogy, is built upon (hooks, 1994; Freire, 1921). Finally, a specific theoretical aim includes exploring the relationship between difference (diversity) and sameness or unity (equality) in education. From a theoretical perspective, various authors write on tensions between diversity and equality (Abu E-Haj, 2007; Banks, 2022; Giroux, 1985; Fraser, 1997). It is questioned if, underlying the assumed tensions, forms of abyssal thinking are present (Santos, 2007).

Discussions around racism have recently propagated that before meaningful antiracism work can take place, societies must become more self-aware in how racist structures control everyday encounters. As outlined in the 2018 FRA report ‘Being Black in the EU’, racism continues to be a prevalent phenomenon in European countries. Especially in countries such as Finland, where racism has largely been ignored, there is a severe lack of tools for addressing systematic racial oppression. Arising from the Fanonian concept of Otherness (1952 & 1963), Ahmed’s theory of affective encounters (2000 & 2007) and Anderson’s exploration of epistemically safe spaces (2021), the article contemplates how to build learning environments that encourage critical reflections on racist structures among young people. More specifically, this paper explores what kind of space could encourage the formation of an affective community where young people, and the facilitator, come together to discuss, feel and learn about racist structures to challenge the abiding silence.

The theoretical framework presents race as a socially constructed phenomenon used to uphold unequal hierarchies of power, which have also reached their way into formal and informal educational spaces. In line with Ahmed (2000, 2007), the article outlines that the western aim to assimilate non-white bodies into constructions of whiteness has resulted in a structural act of Othering that labels individuals racialised as Other as not belonging. In Finland, previous research has problematised its multicultural approaches to antiracism education and emphasised a lack of tools to approach critical conversations. In response, this paper intertwines concepts of learning space and an affective community to suggest ways in which young people can be guided in developing a critical race consciousness.

By examining interview findings with experts (see methodology for details) in line with theoretical frameworks, the paper asks what experts consider essential in building up spaces for young people to begin constructing a collective understanding of race? The analysis is divided into three main categories: dynamics of power within learning environments, what affective encounters might transpire and addressing behaviours that disrupt the sense of community.

As a starting point for learning spaces, we look at Anderson’s (2021) criticism of safe(r) spaces; rather than providing marginalised groups with support and a sense of safety, they have turned into environments that often protect majorities from feelings of discomfort. In turn, epistemically safe spaces (Anderson, 2021) identify systematic inequalities in knowledge production and promote agency of marginalised groups through challenging normative constructions of knowing. The concept of epistemically safe spaces is intertwined with the Fanonian idea of a dehumanising white gaze and Ahmed’s figure of ‘the stranger’ as a production of affective relations between marginalised people and the white majority. To address the research question, the paper examines the concept of an epistemically safe learning space in encouraging young people to explore production of Otherness as an act of racism, which has become normalised in structures of everyday living.

The other key concept, becoming an affective learning community, arises from bell hooks’ thought that gaining a critical outlook on structural oppression requires learning with each other and about ourselves. Therefore, rather than presenting acts of racism as a personal choice and separating individuals between good people and bad racists, the paper addresses how epistemic awareness of systematic oppression and structural inequity might help in forming a sense of learning together as a community. In summary, the paper aims to visualise how epistemically safe learning spaces might reinforce the formation of an affective community where a group of young people become aware to the world from different perspectives while considering what kind of power dynamics their own position in society might reflect.

The central research question asks how the policy of the LCA programme is being lived out in practice today and whether this lived experience continues to marry with the original aims and rationale upon which the programme was conceived and developed. This study will examine the LCA programme from the perspective of those who live the programme, namely students and teachers, as well as from the perspective of policy makers and school leaders. The study will place these voices at the heart of the analysis. The discursive, spatial and relational discourses explored in this study in relation to the recognition and valuing of difference in education is pertinent not only in an Irish context but also in a European and international context.

This research is situated within the wider field of the sociology of education and employs a critical emancipatory perspective, as informed by a Foucauldian critical approach to analysis. It was informed by a number of theoretical commitments shaped by a critical theory perspective and which underpin the conceptual and contextual framework of this study. This approach changes the focus from the perceived deficits of students in order to focus on the practices and discourses within schools and the ways in which these affect students’ experiences and their ability to voice these experiences. The voices of students are foregrounded in this study and as such there is a refocusing of analysis from student deficits to student voice. In its commitment to an emancipatory approach that centred on student voice, recognition, and lived experiences, I was keen to locate thinkers who could enable an exploration of power, dialogue and affect, hence the choice of Michel Foucault, Paulo Freire and Anna Hickey Moody as key theoretical interlocutors. Foucault’s theories of discourse, power/knowledge, the micro-physics of power, and heterotopias help us in understanding the lived everyday experiences of students. However, while Foucault offers us much, he does not deal specifically with the critical nature of pedagogy nor the affective or emotional aspects of lived experiences so his work is brought into conversation with Freire’s work on critical pedagogy and Anna Hickey-Moody’s work on affective pedagogy. Foucault’s concept of the insurrection of subjugated knowledges helps to foreground the voices of students as the starting point in a politics of possibility, with the works of Freire and Hickey-Moody further developing this in possibility to pedagogy in practice, in particular the critical and affective possibilities of pedagogy. The combination of this theoretical framework and the methodological commitments to voice, lived experience, and recognition, as I will outline below, allowed for a nuanced examination of the Leaving Certificate Applied programme. This brings wider issues of inclusive education to the fore such as the emotional aspects of inclusion, the spaces students occupy, the embodied experience of policies, and the highly contextualised nature of schools, as well as the complexity of policy enactment.

Rather than seeking demystified insights that I could use in order to ‘emancipate’ LCA students, I aimed instead to open up a space where these students could be heard and make possible a new way of seeing or doing things and the concepts offered by the thinkers utilized in this study offered a conceptual language for this. The way things are is only one, limited possibility. As Foucault puts it, ‘it is seeking to give a new impetus…to the undefined works of freedom’ (Rabinow, 1984b)

Collaboration between schools has been recently promoted by policy and policy discourses as a central component for the improvement of Chilean schools. In fact, it is at the core of national-scale policies mandating public schools to take part in school–networks as a way to promote the encounter between different actors, and the emergence of locally-based collaborative work. However, these endeavours take place in a highly-privatised school system, where 55% of schools are privately owned (MINEDUC, 2022), and privately driven throughout (Bellei and Orellana, 2014). Moreover, schooling provision is highly marketised (Zancajo, 2019), and schools are individually liable for their performance through centrally designed schemes of accountability (Parcerisa and Falabella, 2017), conditions which would seem to make school-to-school collaboration unlikely.

One of these reforms is the New Public Education (NPE), a policy aiming at enhancing the quality and equity of the depressed Chilean public-school education. This reform implies the transference of schools from municipalities to school districts, new meso-level institutional arrangements provisioned with resources and staff supporting the administration and teaching and learning processes at the school level. One of the key principles of the NPE is the promotion of collaboration between schools, encouraging them to exchange information and educational practices, offering opportunities for professional development, and promoting collective strategies to address shared challenges (Bellei, 2018; Villalobos et al., 2019).

The abovementioned informs and frames my doctoral research project, which aims at exploring, describing, and understanding relationships of support between Chilean schools, and reflecting on the capacity of ongoing policies to fit or enhance these ties or create meaningful new ones. This project supposes that examining the way schools relate to others, delving into the characteristics of those that are more likely to build trustworthy relationships, and understanding the dynamics of those interactions may shed light on key worldwide educational issues in at least three ways. First, by informing to what extent building collaborative relationships is possible within highly privatised school systems. Second, intends to inform ongoing policies with school-to-school collaboration at its core. And third, to propose a relational perspective that may illuminate the understanding of wider questions regarding the work schools daily do.

In particular, this paper aims at exploring and describing how school leaders are navigating and making sense of new school-to-school collaborative arrangements as part of their transition to the New Public Education (NPE) system.

This research project is underpinned by a Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach (Borgatti and Halgin, 2011; Crossley et al., 2015), a conceptual and methodological framework concerned with the social structures (Marsden and Lin, 1982; Wasserman and Galaskiewicz, 1994) schools and their communities are embedded in. Empirical data was yielded through Ego-centric Network Map interviews (Altissimo, 2016) with a sample of public school headteachers. Interviews aimed at collecting data on relationships schools forge with others to support the work they daily do, acknowledging features of the networks, drivers, and the content of these bonds. Data was both quantitatively and qualitatively analysed, and show that schools relate to others as part of mandated and non-mandated networks, both encompassing different purposes. Whilst mandated networks are focused on facilitating school improvement processes by promoting the reflection and exchange of good practices between leadership teams, non-mandated networks are key to getting access to resources that schools need on a daily basis, but also to support other schools in crisis in the area. Findings also highlight some characteristics of schools and leadership teams that make them more prone to establish supportive and collaborative relationships with some and not others.

While demands on academic leadership in higher education have been increasing, there is a lack of empirical studies exploring the effectiveness and impacts of leadership development interventions. In addition, recent studies suggest a model of leadership development from international approach. Unfortunately, evaluation of those programs is scarce in the available literature. This article presents the results of the mid-term impacts of an international academic leadership development (ALD) program that has been organised since 2019. The project involved six European and six Chinese universities. After 2 years of project implementation, participants were invited to take the online survey and follow-up interview. 92 participants voluntarily took part in the online survey. Of those, 21 participants participated in semi-structured interviews. A mixed-methods approach using an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews was utilised in to evaluate each individual’s behavioral changes. The findings revealed substantial impacts on participants in two major respects: personal growth and professional practices. The research uniquely provides empirical evidence concerning the mid-term impacts of this international leadership development program that has equally emphasized leader development and leadership development. Theoretical, practical, and policy implications were presented.

Teachers play a central role in our current process of sustainable transformation, being tasked with the ambitious goal of giving students the necessary competencies for facing and mitigating the challenges of the Anthropocene. The current study aims to contribute to the literature on this topic by investigating factors that may aid teachers in their success in this endeavor.

Following years of curricula revisions to strengthen the presence of sustainability as a theme in education, a timely question is how these revisions are followed through at the classroom level, and how this process may be aided further. The present study contributes to the understanding of how teachers’ environmental and sustainability education self-efficacy (ESESE) may be fostered. While there is an increase in studies focused on environmental and sustainability education (ESE) in teacher education, few have investigated the relative significance of teacher education in relation to other interplaying factors when it comes to ESE (Evans, et al. 2017; Ødegaard, et al. 2021). As such, the guiding research questions for this study are as follows:

1. What factors may be associated with teachers’ ESESE, and what is the role of teacher education programs when compared to other theoretically significant variables?
2. To what extent does the results from the inquiry above differ between the Nordic countries?

The study is grounded in the theory of self-efficacy, as developed by Bandura (1977). Self-efficacy is a concept of a person’s own expectation to succeed at a given task (Bandura, 1977). In meeting challenges, self-efficacy may not only aid in reducing anticipatory stress, but also in fostering efforts, and may influence the results of the undertaking of an action (Bandura, 1977, 1997; Gardner & Pierce, 1998). Within the frame of educational research, teacher self-efficacy has been found to be a key factor both in student learning and teacher instruction practices (Klassen & Tze, 2014; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). Several factors are suggested as important for self-efficacy in the literature on the topic. In Bandura’s (1977) seminal work, four major drivers are presented: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states.

While the study’s primary aim is to better understand the fostering of teachers’ self-efficacy in ESE generally, a comparative approach is used as well, looking at differences between the Nordic countries. While these countries are culturally and historically similar, their approaches to sustainability in education in the past decades have differed (Breiting & Wickenberg, 2009; Straume, 2016). These differences came to light to some degree in the preliminary descriptive analysis of this study, which showed variety between countries in both ESESE and several of the explanatory variables described in the methods section below. The assumed and observed differences in the samples allow for comparative analysis to illuminate the effectiveness of approaches to ESE in teacher education in otherwise (relatively) culturally homogenous populations.

Over the past two hundred years, anthropogenic climate change has emerged as a major scientific and societal issue (Incropera, 2016). In this context, the latest Glasgow Climate Pact (UNFCCC, 2021) reiterated the importance of climate change education as a lever for action to mobilise the population. The problem is: whereas many countries integrate the topic of “climate change” in their national curricula, teachers very often face this topic alone, when they come to address it in class.

This paper focuses on the diversity of teaching postures in formal climate change education. It is positioned at the crossroads between a sociology of teaching practices, and a comprehensive sociology, studying the meaning given by practitioners to their own practice (Weber, 1965). It aims to highlight the diversity of teachers' postures when they address "climate change", by identifying their personal approaches and understanding of this topic, and investigating a possible distance of the teachers’ from the official instructions.

The research question can be formulated as follows: what is the diversity of postures amongst teachers regarding their personal approaches to and understanding of climate change, and how does this translate in formal education? The theoretical framework of this research includes the definition of Kelly's teaching postures (1986) on the teaching attitude in class around a controversial issue, and Jean-Marc Lange's postures (2008) on positioning oneself in relation to the object being taught. To answer the research question, the methodology is based on a qualitative survey in the form of semi-structured interviews, all conducted in 2022 with seventeen secondary school teachers from different disciplines, carried out as part of my Masters in educational sciences’ research.

The first part of my results concerns the teaching postures. They are translated by the transitive verbs used to express their action: to raise awareness, to give the keys to understanding, etc. These postures translate actions. The eight postures identified are those of: the facilitator (who gives the keys to understanding the phenomenon on the basis of scientific knowledge), the awareness-raiser (who relies on communication and awakening emotions regarding the topic), the thought-provoker, the illustrator (who uses the topic to give a "concrete" meaning to his usual theoretical teachings), the promoter of sustainable development solutions, the project coordinator, the posture of awakening to complexity, the awakening to the living environment, and finally the posture of neutrality towards the issue.

The second part of my results concerns the goals or “objectives” of these postures, i.e. what the teachers aims at for their pupils: that the children find solutions, that they change their habits, that they get involved in actions... The objectives reflect the teacher's intentions. For example: to inform (posture) in order to exercise critical thinking on media discourse (objective); to inform (posture) in order to adopt eco-responsible behaviour (objective); to make students think (posture) in order to propose solutions (objective). I identified eight predominating objectives in the following order:

1) adopting of eco-gestures,

2) orientating the pupils' choices as future "responsible" citizens,

3) that pupils find solutions and get involved in projects,

4) that pupils be able to think critically about media information,

5) awakening pupils' interest for a theoretical class through a “concrete” topic,

6) to have the pupils form their own opinion on the issue,

7) to get them to understand the complexity of the climate issue,

8) to get the pupils to feel a relationship with their environment.

The traditional role of the teacher as a "cultural mediator" (Hannah Arendt) is coupled here with the possibility of transforming the world by encouraging the younger generations to take action, but most often at the domestic or school level.

In many countries, particularly in the French-speaking world, "education for" has developed during the 1980s: health education, citizenship education, sustainable development education...

This communication project proposes to focus on Education for Sustainable Development, which could be described today as a "global movement" (Pauw et.al, 2015).
It was as early as 1972 with the Stockholm conference that environmental issues became an international concern. In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development proposing to achieve 17 Goals was signed by the 193 members of the UN.

Despite this international framework, national and local applications can evolve according to the pedagogical autonomy that teachers and headmasters can enjoy (Girault et.al., 2014).
This freedom can also be justified by the school-based form of this education, which differs from "classic" teaching by being based in particular on the acquisition of skills, values and attitudes (Barthes & Alpes, 2012)

If the objective is to train future conscious and responsible citizens, the question of sustainable careers arises : indeed, students must develop skills that "will guide their individual, personal and professional pathways" (Rieckmann, 2017). While it is difficult to estimate the emerging professions in the sector or to define a perimeter of professions labelled "sustainable development," works rather evoke the transformation of skills (Baghioni & Moncel, 2022) or the concordance of ethical values with one's career choice. (Di Fabio et.al, 2016)

In fact, finding its way path towards sustainable development does not only mean choosing a particular profession, but also taking into consideration ethical principles in one's professional aspirations. Indeed, we could be entering a new "guidance paradigm" that involves anticipating and preventing the ecological, social and economic impacts that a given choice of working life could generate (Guichard, 2016). Career choice would therefore represent a societal and even a global issue.

Schools, as key actors in the orientation and development of learning, are therefore asked to enter into a "global sustainable development approach" (Diemer, 2013). In addition to chapters in the school curriculum or the setting up of eco-delegates, some schools show their commitment by obtaining 'sustainable development' labels. In France, there are several labels, but one of the best known and most coveted is the E3D label (“Etablissement en Démarche de Développement Durable”), which implies taking sustainable development into account in the content and projects offered to students, but also in the management of the school itself (Chalmeau et.al, 2020). These establishments are therefore supposed to be in an important dynamic that should promote students' awareness and knowledge of global issues through the initiatives implemented in the name of sustainable development. Nevertheless, research shows that, overall, sustainable development is often addressed in a superficial manner in schools (Lange & Martinand, 2010).

Although we know that schools, particularly through their organisation, composition or pedagogical choices (Dumay & Dupriez, 2004), can have an effect on the cognitive skills of pupils, the question remains unclear as to their impact on the acquisition of sustainable skills by young people. We can therefore ask ourselves whether pupils in schools involved in a sustainable development approach will take sustainable development into account more in their choice of career path than pupils enrolled in an "ordinary" school. We can assume that individual characteristics such as gender or parents' qualifications will have an effect on awareness of these issues, but what about the school effect? Will exposure to education for sustainable development be enough to foster sustainable learning? And more importantly, beyond knowledge and familiarity with the issues, will students make sustainable development a new priority, a professional value?

Finnish welfare state model is often characterized as ideal in terms of its universal basic services and social security benefits. In recent decades, however, universalistic welfare state model has been taken greater steps towards neoliberal idealization that emphasize efficiency and competitiveness, similarly altering the relationship between the state and citizenship. Hence, when destabilizing the traditional welfare structure, it has been particularly important to support individuals to take a greater responsibility of their life and behavior (Heiskala & Kantola 2010; Kananen 2012). Brunila and Ylöstalo (2020) have previously pointed that neoliberalization of Finnish welfare state is strongly linked to the rise of the therapeutic welfare policies, characterized as increasing intentions to activate, train and support individuals for he needs of labor market. Therapeutic culture refers here to a wider social change, where psychologizing discourses have spread into schools and families, institutions, and everyday life of individuals with profound effects on identity, personal and cultural discourses (Nehring et al 2015).

This presentation builds on an article in which I look at education for young people as a manifestation of therapeutic culture. By youth education I mean different kind of short-term trainings and mentoring programs that are targeted to young people deemed to be in challenging life situations. Common objective in these trainings is to remove psychological barriers that would otherwise prevent for participating in traditional education or working life (Mäkelä 2018; Mertanen et al 2020). In this sense, it is perhaps not surprising that therapeutic ideas and practices have become common and rather unquestioned in youth education aims as improving self-esteem, individual strength and capacity, happiness, and positivity via the psy-oriented vocabulary of mental health, emotions, and anxieties (Brunila 2020). Especially techniques adopted from broader therapy cultures, such as cognitive-behavioural therapies, are increasingly applied to education of young people as forms of coaching and mentoring.

In this paper, I focus on youth education in Finland as an emblematic manifestation of therapeutic culture by discursively analyzing training materials of two cases-studies. The first case is a worldwide resilience building programme targeting young people at risk of social exclusion, implemented in Finland and internationally. The second one is a psychological flexibility coaching in Finland in the context of national-wide youth guidance centers aiming towards increasing young people’s employability. Trainings were selected as they both draw back from the basic principles of third wave cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) framework focusing on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (such as thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and develop personal coping strategies (Hayes and Hofmann, 2021; Kahl, Winter, Schweiger 2012). In both trainings, the techniques adopted from CBT promise the subject a better understanding of the self and possibility to become liberated from cognitive distortions and believes delimiting the possibilities to live life in its’ fullest. I wanted to examine these objectives further and detect how do these trainings delimit the rules of self formation. Inspired by Michael Foucault’s (1986) theoretical work on ‘technologies of the self’, I ask how do these trainings set rules for the subject’s self-transformation?

When being in class, learning, or having a test, pupils may feel a wide range of emotions. These emotions play an important role in learning, influencing learning behavior and performance. Learning can be defined as both a cognitive and affective process. During this process, any activity the pupil is engaged in, and any interaction with others, is likely to trigger one or several emotions (Orlova, Ebiner & Genoud, 2015). Therefore, many studies have been conducted to understand the role of emotions, both positive and negative, in school and particularly when learning. They have shown that the induction of pleasant emotions can, under certain conditions, improve learning by increasing pupils' interest as well as their involvement in the task they have to do. On the contrary, the induction of unpleasant emotions can delay, constrain learning, by decreasing pupils' interest and attention during learning (e.g., Cuisinier, Sanguin-Bruckert, Bruckert, & Clavel, 2010; Espinosa, 2018; Tornare, Cuisinier, Czajkowski & Pons, 2017 ). These results must take into consideration pupils' initial abilities and the type of tasks they are given (Tornare, Cuisinier, Czajkowski & Pons, 2017). Furthermore, a student "with a deficit in his understanding of emotions" would be "less available" for learning (Lafortune, Doudin, Pons & Hancock, 2004, p. 9, our translation).

However, few researches have focused on how these emotions experienced by a pupil remain in his memory (called autobiographical memory) and are likely to play a role in his current and future learning activities and processes. According to the control-value theory of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006), one’s affective memories of prior learning influence his expectancy of success or failure and his intrinsic learning task value. Our memories can be either consciously activated when we share them or activated automatically, without being aware of it. A stimulus from our environment can bring back to our mind certain memories and their contents, including emotions (Conway, 2005). Besides, studies have shown that the conscious or unconscious activation of memory can influence short-term psychological well-being. Recalling a negative autobiographical memory can negatively affect mental well-being whereas positive effects can be seen when recalling a positive memory (Philippe & Bernard-Desrosiers, 2017).

At school, for example, we could use this memory to help pupils recall certain positive affective memories of learning, "to reactivate knowledge" by "reiterating the same solicitation and the same positive emotions with the pupil " as during the encoding of the initial learning (Delannoy et Lorant-Royer, 2007, p. 70). So far, most research on pupils’ emotions has been conducted in Mathematics, regarding -mostly- anxiety; while studies in other disciplines or regarding other emotions are rather scarce.

Supported by a comprehensive approach, our doctoral research -conducted in France- investigates affective memories of learning situations in two school subjects: Mathematics and French. To what extent do pupils' affective memories of learning influence the emotions they experience in class? To what extent do affective memories participate in the pupils’ school experience and their identity construction as pupils?

The updated Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020, came into effect in April 2021. The Scottish Government (2020) recognises that schools do not hold sole responsibility in shaping the choices of children and young people but do play a key role in supporting healthier dietary choices. Cotton et al (2020) consider teachers as key agents in promoting health and nutrition within schools. The SG's health promotion guidance for schools states that ‘there should be flexibility to allow teachers to promote aspects of health and wellbeing in a holistic way and to make innovative provision within food and health education which addresses current circumstances and meets pupils’ changing needs’ (SG, 2020:14). As part of incorporating these updated guidelines into an integrated masters Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme it seemed fitting to explore preservice teacher’s understanding of this guidance and of food and nutrition education as well as their perceived role in supporting pupils’ with health promoting behaviours.

Health justice is an individual’s moral entitlement to develop a capability to be healthy. Health as ‘meta-capability’ goes beyond the health care provision so that social architecture facilitates a healthy life to allow individuals to flourish (Venkatapuram, 2011). Sen (2001) posits that freedom should be the driver for development and that political frameworks should not define human goals and what is required for human dignity. Walker and Unterhalter (2007) note that although all individuals may be provided with the same information/ knowledge it does not necessarily result in the same educational outcomes for all. Therefore individuals should have opportunities/ freedoms to behave and live in a way they chose to- not just access to resources but an ability to purposefully utilise resources and gain from them in a meaningful way. Race (2006) describes reflection as a process to deepen learning and this process can be used to facilitate and enrich learning dialogues, where teachers and learners can identify what has been achieved and what development is required. According to Nussbaum (2011), if an organisation or system values human flourishing it will address ten core capabilities. Nussbaum's capabilities approach has been used as a theoretical framework for this study in which wellbeing is considered in terms of capabilities and functionings to explore how educators do and could support learners to ‘fulfil one's potential as a human being’ (Nussbaum, 2011). This research explores the question: what are preservice teachers’ understanding of food and nutrition education and their role in supporting pupils’ capabilities in adopting health promoting behaviours? This empirical research study was guided by an interpretivist paradigm based on what Guba and Lincoln (1994:107) describe as ‘epistemological assumptions’ in which knowledge is built through the qualitative study of participants' individual views and lived realities. It focuses on the perceptions and experiences of ITE students from the Master of Education Programme with Primary Teaching Qualification in the University of Glasgow (hereafter, UofG). Although this study took place in one ITE institution in Scotland, it is also relevant for other ITE educators in the UK, Europe and other global countries that have responsibility for supporting preservice teachers to understand their role in providing effective support in schools for pupils to develop health promoting behaviours through effective food and nutrition education. This study can also be used in developing health and wellbeing career long professional learning experiences for teachers.

Schools are most successful when they respond to the academic, social and emotional needs of students. The wellbeing principles influence not only the content of the curriculum, but also how teachers structure their teaching and learning and the opportunities they create for children to practice socialisation. Teachers are therefore key agents in delivering the wellbeing agenda. In this research, we present teachers’ experiences with and perceptions of a novel socioemotional learning programme utilising puppetry and storytelling. Specifically, we examined teachers’ perceived benefits of the programme to the children, the impact of the programme on their own knowledge and self-efficacy, and the evaluation of the programme as a professional development tool.

Health and wellbeing education has been recognised as a priority globally, with national and local initiatives promoting and embedding socioemotional learning (SEL) across the curricula (European Commission, 2018; UNESCO, 2021). There is unequivocal evidence that health and wellbeing education and education outcomes are synergistic (Bonell et al., 2014). SEL not only promotes individual wellbeing and reduces mental health difficulties, but is also positively related with school success, school attitudes, behaviours, and learning outcomes, ultimately preparing children for the challenges of the outside world and equipping them with skills and tools for engaged citizenship (European Commission, 2021). Schools have been recognised as key contexts for prompting health and wellbeing, as they offer a platform and safe space for socialisation and the development of key social and emotional competencies. However, little is known about how well-equipped and well-supported teachers feel in delivering the wellbeing education agenda.

Since health and wellbeing education is fundamental for equipping learners for the challenges of the modern world and for realising equity and social justice, it is imperative that key stakeholders – teachers – are also equipped with skills and feel confident in teaching health and wellbeing, as well as feel supported in responding to the diverse needs of learners. Evidence from the literature, suggest significant gaps in professional development opportunities for teachers, in the areas of health and wellbeing education (Byrne et al., 2018; Otten et al., 2022). Confidence in the topic is often cited as a main barrier and challenge: teachers’ understanding of the value of health and wellbeing is crucial for a sustained impact. Professional development initiatives that promote health and wellbeing literacy amongst teachers, prove most effective and successful when contextualised, modelled and delivered in a collaborative, adaptive way (Otten et al., 2022). Supportive environment, climate of care, commitment from the leadership and a school ethos are also cited among the key factors influencing teachers identity as health and wellbeing promoters (Byrne et al., 2018; Spratt, 2016).

This research examined teachers’ experiences with and perspectives on an SEL programme utilising the power of puppetry and storytelling, focusing specifically on their evaluation of the programme as a teacher development tool. We focus on exploring the impact of the programme on teachers’ self-efficacy and the classroom environment. Teachers’ self-efficacy, which plays a significant role in their practice, influences their resilience, persistence and motivation (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007), and is found to rely on both internal factors (e.g. knowledge, values, confidence) and environmental factors (community, leadership support). It is therefore imperative to evaluate the SEL intervention, with respect to these areas.

You are warmly invited to attend this informal lunch session which will be facilitated by experienced academics and the ERG co-conveners who will help you chart your way through the conference program and understand the structure of EERA and how you can participate in additional activities. This is also a wonderful opportunity to connect with fellow ‘emerging’ researchers.

The following themes will be addressed within the session. The themes will shortly be introduced at the beginning of the session. After this introduction you are welcome to participate in informal discussions and ask questions pertaining these themes to the experienced academics and co-convenors.

Doing Educational Research

We are pleased to announce that we will be joined by the Editors of ‘Doing Educational Research: Overcoming Challenges in Practice’. This SAGE/EERA book was developed as a result of feedback from PhD students and addresses challenges researchers have encountered in their projects. In this there are accounts of how experienced researchers handled entry into the research field, how they discussed and managed research result that posed problems when accounted back to the field, and how doing research in a second language, i.e. English, creates a complex set of challenges from interpretation to communication of your research.

Networks, Networking and Development Opportunities

Connect with experts in your field by identifying your network and attending their programs. We will discuss opportunities and strategies for building your network during the conference and beyond.

Converting your conference paper into a publication

Explore the unique opportunities afforded to participants at the Emerging Researchers’ Conference to maximize your publication success. We will discuss several possibilities the conference offers to receive feedback on your work, for example during and after your conference-presentation.

ERG co-convenors

Meet the Emerging Researchers’ Group co-conveners who will share their recent experiences as Early Career Researchers and provide helpful tips for making the most of the conference experience.

Please register for this event on the first day of the ERC 2023 near the EERA Desk.

Working Meeting - EERA Exec

Pring et al. (2009) state, one of the most valuable functions of education should be responsible for keeping young people’s learning constantly up to date. This means that education should be shaped according to the needs and requirements of the period in which we live. Increased diversity within societies has started to influence school history to prepare students for the new world settings, due to its inherent nature such as understanding and respecting different perspectives, appreciating the value of diversity, and questioning one’s own views (Zajda, 2015).

Therefore, now, teaching sensitive and controversial issues (SCIs) has crucial importance within history-teaching communities in the UK for both developing individual cognitive skills and preparing students for a pluralist, democratic society (Barton & McCully, 2010; Hess, 2002; Oxfam, 2006). That is why, these kinds of subjects should be encouraged, to provide students, the opportunity to appreciate differences, tolerate different values and perspectives, and the ability to live in peace with people from various backgrounds in society (Bourn, 2014). However, the relevant literature in the UK frequently shows that history teachers hesitate to teach SCIs in their lessons (Byford et al., 2009; Kitson & McCully, 2005; Oulton et al., 2004). According to the Historical Association’s T.E.A.C.H. report, history teachers’ reasons for avoiding emotive and controversial historical subjects can be varied such as their lack of knowledge and skills, delivering misleading messages, creating conflict and alienation among students, and potential issues related to parent and school complaints (HA, 2007). Therefore, according to the research of Byford et al. (2009), the vast majority of teachers (60%) avoid teaching SCIs within the community they teach in order to protect themselves. The reasons behind this avoidance seemed to be related to the potential disapproval of the parents, potential lawsuits, and students’ sensitivities (HA, 2007; Philips, 2008, Traille, 2007). Additionally, topics related to students’ cultural and religious heritages and subjects about the wider issues in societies such as terrorism, racism and Islamophobia (Philips, 2008) are the other factors making teaching SCIs difficult for history teachers. The aim of this research, therefore, was to conduct exploratory case studies in London among history teachers, to gain further insight and understanding regarding the situation of teaching SCIs among English history teachers.

For these reasons, the research question that this study will address is: “What are the thoughts of the history teachers for teaching SCIs in history classrooms?” To answer this question, the following sub-questions will be explored:

• What kinds of challenges do teachers encounter while teaching SCIs?
• What approaches, strategies, methods, and activities do teachers utilise to overcome possible challenges while teaching SCIs?

The global discourse on diversity and inclusion makes it imperative for educational researchers to revisit marginalization in education settings. Marginalization in education is a form of acute and persistent disadvantage rooted in underlying social inequalities involving cultural differences, knowledge gaps, and socio-economic status (Akin & Neumann, 2013). It can affect students’ academic performance, peer-to-peer interaction and sense of belongingness in school (Benner & Wang, 2014; Pendergast et al, 2018). Despite the call for inclusive and equitable quality education (SDG4) that promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all, children from rural and urban poor communities, ethnic and linguistic minority children, and children in displaced situations in Ghana and many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced marginalization in education for decades (Mfum-Mensah, 2018). Thus, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all, it is essential for stakeholders in education to create learning environments that address educational inequities among students by empowering students to speak up and become actively involved in the teaching and learning process, particularly, those historically marginalized. Consequently, educational researchers advocate for better-informed practice with research that seeks to achieve social impact (García-Carrión et al., 2020).

Along these lines, research shows that dialogic learning has transformed classrooms and schools to provide high-quality education for all students (Flecha & Soler, 2013). This approach, according to Flecha (2015) increases academic performance, improves social cohesion, and enables participants to overcome educational inequality in diverse contexts. It dismantles deficit thinking and creates opportunities for participants to be confident and freely express themselves (Flecha, 2000; García-Carrión & Allotey, 2023). Thus, drawing on the social-cultural theory of cognitive development (Vygotsky, 1978) and grounded on the theory of dialogic learning (Flecha, 2000), research shows that Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLGs), foster learning and inclusion of vulnerable populations (Soler, 2020). This approach to teaching and learning has been acknowledged by the European Commission for achieving social impact and benefiting historically marginalized communities in many diverse contexts (European Commission, 2011).

DLGs are an interactive dialogue-based learning environment where participants share and discuss the greatest literary works through egalitarian dialogue that fosters respect towards diversity, solidarity, freedom, and overcomes inequalities (Flecha, 2000). Implemented in over 7,000 schools in fourteen different countries across Europe and Latin America (Soler, 2020), the efficacy of DLGs has been studied in various contexts where positive impacts have been observed in reading and students’ prosocial behavior. DLGs encourage relations of friendship and respect, it fosters a sense of community and self-confidence (Díez-Palomar et al., 2020) and encourages participants to speak up and share their experiences in an egalitarian dialogic atmosphere (Flecha, 2000; Soler, 2020). Nonetheless, little is known about DLGs in Africa, particularly in Ghana. Thus, granted that the call for diversity is also a call for voice, influence and power (Biesta et al, 2022), the objective of this paper is to explore how the Dialogic Literary Gatherings empower historically marginalized students to speak up while they participate in DLGs in an 8th-grade classroom in southeastern Ghana.

Abstract: In contemporary discourse, sexuality is being presented as something fluid, with research persisting in framing sexuality as flexible and negotiable to some extent. This way of examining sexuality is problematic because as one discovers how identity changes and evolves, a certain terminology, such as ‘trend’ or ‘phase’ becomes prominent giving the illusion that LGBT+ pupils with SEND are easily influenced and too immature to form LGBT+ identities because of their cognitive impairments. Educators viewing sexuality and gender identity as a phase or a trend can result in providing inadequate support, which can be limited due to the misconception that information about LGBT+ concepts is not important for this category of pupils or that one can simply stop being LGBT+. This paper discusses the views and experiences of SEN teachers involving their pupils' ways of exploring and expressing their LGBT+ identities and examines how this links to the misconception of their sexuality and gender as a phase or a trend due to their SENDs. Being inspired by the work of scholars exploring sexual and gender identity, the paper is framed by intersectionality which allows for a detailed analysis of how identities interact and inform when used as an analytic tool. The paper calls for more nuanced thinking of sexuality and gender in the lives of LGBT+ pupils with SEND, which will help to decrease inequality.

Author of proposal: Klaudia Matasovska (email: kmata005@gold.ac.uk)

First choice network: Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Second choice network: Gender and Education Network

Keywords: childhood, youth, SEND, gender identity, sexuality, phase, intersectionality

General description:

This paper explores the opinions and experiences of SEN practitioners with work experience involving children and young people with SEND who also identify as LGBT+. This study asks the question: How do SEN practitioners’ views compare with wider society’s misconception of disabled LGBT+ pupils’ sexuality and gender as a phase or a trend due to being often viewed as too ‘immature’ to have LGBT+ identities? There is very limited information regarding the LGBT+/SEND intersection. In particular, research is very limited regarding the views of SEN teachers in relation to the LGBT+/SEND intersection and their views about the misconception that disabled pupils’ sexuality and gender identity is informed by their disability. This study is an attempt to fill in this gap in research and to talk about the intersections regarding gender, SEND and sexual orientation. Intersectionality is the chosen theoretical framework for this study as it is a suitable tool for highlighting social inequalities with regard to the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, such as gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, etc. This framework is also used to highlight how individual intersections (disability, gender and sexual orientation in the case of this study) impact each other in terms of experiencing layered stigma.

In France, incarceration represents a time when inmates are isolated from the outside world and they deal with the resources available in prison. The Penitentiary Code of May 1, 2022 insists on the fact that "[every convicted person is obliged to carry out at least one of the activities offered to him]" (Article L411-1). Among these activities there is the teaching, the result of collaboration between the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of National Education since the agreement of January 19, 1995. The teaching provided in prisons is part of a perspective of lifelong education, an inalienable right of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "[everyone has the right to education]" (Article 26). The French prison population is mainly composed of poor young men with an educational level below the average of the population (Combessie, 2018). The obligation to provide primary education in all prisons for all inmates makes this activity more attractive since it is part of the main mission of the sentence of deprivation of liberty: the insertion or reintegration of persons placed under judicial authority (Article L1 of the Penitentiary Code, 2022). The time spent in prison can be an opportunity to make up for the shortcomings of initial education, especially because 67.8% of incarcerated persons have a level below the baccalaureate and 52.5% are serving a sentence of more than two years (Ministry of Justice, 2021). Thus, education appears to be a means for prisoners to educate themselves but also to demonstrate a desire to reintegrate into their prison pathway.

People serving a prison sentence in France have a particular relationship with education. The illiteracy rate in the closed environment is about 12% on average, whereas it is 7% in the overall population (Heraud & Marmonier-Lechat, 2021). Concerning the educational program offered, 53% of the penal population attending school is trained in basic skills, 16% of which are devoted to learning French correctly (Heraud & Marmonier-Lechat, 2021). This population is characterized as a priority need group that requires special attention.

In France, as in many other countries, teaching in prison is not the subject of much research. We are particularly interested of the professionals who teach in a closed environment, but also in the teaching itself and the meaning that professionals give to it. The professional subgroup of prison teachers represents 0.2% of the total number of teachers in France (Heraud & Soigneux, 2020). These teachers in the margins (Kherroubi, Millet & Thin, 2018) intervene punctually or full-time basis within prison establishments. Teaching in prison is a voluntary process, there is no systematic assignment possible, especially since the penitentiary institution seems to be an impediment to the proper conduct of teaching with the security and disciplinary logics it imposes (Salane, 2013). In particular, it would seem that reorientation in difficult contexts allows professionals to focus on the transmission of knowledge (Maroy, 2006). Moreover, these teachers on the margins of the institution also seem to present a logic of global educational action (Kherroubi, Millet & Thin, 2018) with the consideration of various dimensions, particularly social, adjoining teaching.

We can ask whether this teaching activity represents a resource for incarcerated people, both in terms of the activity itself and through the teachers practicing in prison. We hypothesize that teaching is a resource that takes different forms for adult prisoners. We also suggest that teachers are essential resources for people in prison. In this presentation, we will show the benefits to teachers and prisoners of this closed instruction. We will present our first results showing that teachers are resource persons for inmates and how they find a particular interest in this atypical environment.

Academic achievement in higher education (HE) is the subject of a substantial amount of research in the field of educational sciences, mainly aimed at identifying and understanding the factors of academic performance. In France, higher education is divided into a variety of educational institutions, of varying selectivity as well as ranging of academic or vocational nature. However, university continues to welcome a majority of students enrolled in HE and was up until 2018 the only remaining non-selective body in the French HE landscape: the only requirement was the Baccalauréat, the end-of-study secondary school diploma.

However, the comparison of the Baccalauréat pass rate (around 90%) with the Bachelor's first year achievement rate (barely 40%) highlights an apparent dissociation between secondary and higher education. To fight against failure in undergraduate programs, many HE measures have been taken over the years, the latest being the Orientation et Réussite des Etudiants (ORE) Act, in 2018. It introduced a new academic portal for HE application, Parcoursup, and thus, generalised selection, including at university. In continuation, for the first time since 1995, a secondary education reform has modified the structure of the general Baccalauréat, to improve the articulation between secondary and higher education, and therefore improve the Bachelor’s first year achievement.

Until now, the French general Baccalauréat (the most academic, non-vocational path of the diploma) has been characterised by three tracks: a scientific track, a social science track and a humanities track. The scientific track has always been the most prestigious, as it offered the most and the best opportunities in HE, including non-scientific degrees (Dubet, 1991; Duru-Bellat & Kieffer, 2008). For this reason, 40% of students in the science track did not pursue scientific studies in HE: they only chose this track for its reputation as the 'royal way' of the French education system (so for the best students), and not for its scientific curricula (Mathiot, 2018).

This is the reason why the Baccalauréat reform removed these tracks and offered instead a system of combinations of specialities, inspired by the A-level, which provides pupils a new diversity of subject choices. From now on, they must choose three specialities in the second year of secondary school and then keep two in their final year. These specialities are the most important subjects of the Baccalauréat curricula and determine their disciplinary profile. The aim is for them to build up a specialisation consistent with their aspirations for further education.

However, this system introduces many uncertainties. How will the choice of specialities be made? We can assume that the choices will depend on the individual characteristics of the pupils (gender, social background, past academic records…) and on the characteristics of their secondary schools (social composition, reputation and prestige, overall academic level, public or private status, geographical location, size…). Moreover, chances are that some students will reproduce the disciplinary paths of the previous Baccalauréat, especially the scientific track, while others will choose more atypical combinations of transdisciplinary specialities. But we do not know how these choices will affect their achievement chances in the first year of the Bachelor. What are the winning specialities and combinations of specialities in terms of academic performance? Will it remain scientific subjects? (Beaupère et al., 2007). And who will be the pupils informed enough to choose these combinations? If this new system allows for more curriculum diversity, there is a risk that choices will be highly predetermined by individual and contextual factors, resulting in a homogenisation of the students’ characteristics within some subjects, and thus, a loss of diversity, especially regarding gender and social background.

This poster will seek to illustrate a qualitative study of six newly-appointed headteachers in Scotland who have recently completed the mandatory qualification of Into Headship. As a course tutor on IH, the study is undertaken as the focus of my doctoral research.

In order to better understand the longer-term influences of the IH programme, I am curious to explore how former participants go on to further develop and apply their knowledge and understanding once appointed as headteachers post-programme. I am also interested in the significant prior learning and experiences participants bring to their IH studies and seek to explore the influence this has on them whilst on programme as well as post-programme.

Though IH is delivered by seven universities across Scotland, Education Scotland, which oversees the programme on behalf of the Scottish Government, collates an annual evaluative report. This report is based on a form of “satisfaction poll” completed by former participants at the point of course completion and is arguably unable to provide insights which deeply analyses or critically reflects upon the multiple influences of the IH programme. For IH, it is significant that only one study (Mowat, 2020) seeks to explore the ongoing development of former IH participants; however no studies were found which explicitly sought to do so over an extended time period or which studied former participants in permanent headship roles. Therefore, I believe it can be argued that there appears to be a clear “gap” in the field of knowledge related to the influence of the Into Headship programme.

Research Question

Taking account of the impact of leading during the COVID-19 global pandemic in Scotland:

In what ways do newly-appointed headteachers in Scotland perceive that their engagement in the Into Headship programme has influenced and continues to influence their leadership development in leading their school community?

1. Which aspects of participants’ leadership growth, sense of identity and related application of this understanding do they recognise to have been influenced /continue to be influenced (directly and/or indirectly) by engaging in the IH programme and in which ways?

2. Which aspects of participants’ leadership growth, sense of identity and related application of this understanding do they feel, have been/ are subject to other influences, contextual factors and other learning and in which ways?

Anticipated Outcomes

Through this study I hope to gain insights into:

• how study participants transfer and apply leadership knowledge & understanding gained in the IH programme in the various contexts they function within across the system.
• how study participants’ sense of identity as a headteacher has developed and continues to develop over time in their role as a newly-appointed headteacher
• what other significant influences study participants identify alongside the experience of engaging in the IH programme
• the part context, social learning, collaboration and engaging in networks/communities of practice plays in study participants’ ongoing development as headteachers

Key concepts are captured in a conceptual framework which has been constructed from the following dimensions:

• “Perceptions of Into Headship influences”, “Other influences” and their entanglement in the enactment of the headship role
• Notions of journeying i.e. personal and professional development over time, “Being, Becoming and Growing as a leader” (GTCS, 2021)
• The development of the professional, situated and personal identities of school leaders (Day et al., 2007)

Since the beginning of the new millennium, great efforts have been made at a European level on the integration of digital in education to overcome the monomediality, frontality, and transmissiveness of teaching-learning processes (e.g., European Commission et al., 2017).

Among the digital devices on the market, iPads, and other similar tablets, stand out for their affordances including portability, easy access to information, multitouch screen, and readiness for collaborative work (e.g., Henderson & Yeow, 2012). This translates into increasing autonomy, commitment, and motivation in learning activities, but also offering multiple opportunities to access the curriculum and a high degree of differentiation of the user's educational experience. Hence, one-to-one (1:1) learning initiatives started to be launched in Europe, especially in the Nordic countries. 1:1 learning initiatives are equipping all students of a given school, class, or age group with portable devices (e.g., laptops, netbooks, tablets, or smartphones) for learning purposes both at school and home (Bocconi et al., 2013).

However, research has long shown how the availability and adoption of digital equipment in the classroom are not automatically related to pupils’ academic performance (e.g., Hattie, 2009, 2015; Higgins et al., 2012, 2016). In other words, it is not the technology itself that makes the difference in achieving positive academic outcomes but how teachers integrate technologies in the classroom to improve and innovate education and training (Redecker & Punie, 2017). Therefore, what plays a significant role in influencing teachers’ behavior in the classroom is their preparation and perceptions of ICT integration (Abel et al., 2022). Unfortunately, most of the studies reveal teachers are not yet digitally competent (Fernández-Batanero et al., 2022). This became even clearer during the Covid-19 pandemic when teachers were revealed to be unprepared to set up forms of digital education (Lucisano, 2020; Ranieri et al., 2020).

It follows how important it is to intensify investment in didactic innovation, especially in terms of digital skills training in teachers (Commissione europea, 2020; European Commission et al., 2021 Ranieri et al., 2020). Teacher digital competence lies in knowing how to effectively integrate and use digital technologies at every stage of teaching and learning activities, considering the different contexts of use (European Commission et al., 2017).

Therefore, the study aimed at investigating the impact of a 1:1 iPad integration pilot project in a elementary school classroom through a professional development (PD) initiative with in-service teachers. PD is critical in enhancing teachers’ technology competence and confidence, thus promoting the successful use of technology in their teaching and students’ academic achievements (Abel et al., 2022). The study lasting one and a half calendar years involved 2 in-service teachers, a total of 23 first-grade (s.y. 2021-2022) pupils (13 female and 10 male), and their parents, of a elementary school in the Veneto Region, Italy. In addition, a control group of 17 students with similar background characteristics was also involved.

The application of a Design-Based Research (DBR) was chosen in the implementation and refinement of the teachers’ PD program. The DBR methodology is characterized by 1) being situated in a real educational context, 2) solving a real problem from the context, 3) focusing on the design and testing of a significant intervention, and 4) involving close collaboration between the researcher and stakeholders and multiple iterations to reach the best design of the intervention (Philippakos et al., 2021). A study on the use of iPad in teaching-learning processes in an Apple Distinguished School abroad was also performed.

At the end of the experimentation, the impact of the project will be determined in terms of teachers' PD and students' learning outcomes achieved thanks to the use of the digital tool.

An increasingly performative culture in higher education has tied the concept of ‘teaching excellence’ to ‘employability’. Consequently, higher education institutions and their academic teaching staff have been encouraged to rethink their approaches to embedding employability in the curriculum by collaborating with industry partners in the provision of ‘real-world learning’ (RWL) opportunities. Indeed, political discourse has positioned a culture of partnership at the forefront of higher education practice, reinforcing the importance of a positive experience of collaboration for all. The review of literature noted a prevalence of studies which have sought to identify and disseminate good practice in the development of real-world learning through collaboration. However, research into how collaborative practices can cultivate learners capable of transferring knowledge to real-world scenarios is in its infancy. Specifically, the lack of investigation into what employability means to students, academic staff and industry practitioners in the context of their experiences of RWL has been noted.

Focusing on the growing trend for collaboration between universities and industry partners in RWL provision and a desire to illuminate the diversity of experiences, this research examined a ‘direct’ model of collaboration (Bolden et al., 2009) involving one UK university and one local industry partner operating in the sport development sector. The resulting programme of RWL was aligned to a subject-specific strand of modules which were offered at the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications Level 4, Level 5 and Level 6 of one undergraduate degree course. Through the RWL programme, academic tutors and industry practitioners jointly supported students in applying subject-specific knowledge and skills to the real-world, via a combination of case studies, live briefs and extra-curricular activities, with the aim of enhancing employability for a career in the sport industry.

Adopting an interpretivist case study design and taking the programme as an illustrative example of RWL in UK higher education, three research questions were posed 1) How do stakeholders conceptualise and orientate to employability? 2) How is RWL experienced by different stakeholders? 3) How are stakeholders’ conceptualisations of employability and experiences of RWL related to the creation and maintenance of an employability culture?

The experiences of nine students, two academic tutors and four industry practitioners involved in the programme were explored via semi-structured interviews. A crystallised approach to analysis highlighted a series of critical incidents in the stakeholder experience of RWL. It is argued that stakeholders’ behavioural responses to such incidents are intertwined with their perception of the various aspects and functions of the RWL programme in which they are engaged and that these perceptions are simultaneously influenced by their beliefs about ‘employability’ in this context. Consequently, tension between stakeholders’ idealised beliefs about ‘employability’ and the reality of the RWL experiences provided through a university-industry collaboration actually presented challenges in the creation of the employability culture that such a programme of RWL demands. I therefore offer a ‘Framework for Establishing a Culture of Employability in RWL’ which is intended for educationalists to consider how the operations of a RWL programme may be manipulated to constrain or reify the occurrence of those critical incidents which will ultimately influence a stakeholder’s perception of the RWL programme and their beliefs or conceptions of ‘employability’.

This research project aims to develop, validate and evaluate a training proposal with a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) approach that promotes creative thinking and teaching skills for the initial training of Primary School pre-service teachers (PST). It aims to contribute to the design of a course elaborated based on the formative proposal and their results, and also elaborate a set of guiding principles for similar formative strategies.

Educating people to achieve future and current needs, demands that we accomplish not only several learning competencies for the 21st century (P21, 2015) but also their impact on society. Science Education (SE) aims to educate citizens to be prepared to their right and duty to make decisions in a conscious and responsible way with the current society and future generations (Galvão et al., 2016).

To consolidate an education that promotes an integrated worldview, it´s crucial to have teachers scientifically prepared and aware of the several kinds of teaching-learning strategies (Rodrigues & Martins, 2018). Therefore, it´s essential that since the beginning of teacher education, teachers are presented to an integrated SE perspective through a Science, Technology and Society (STS) (Vieira et al., 2011) / Science, Technology, Society and Environment (STSE) orientation (Rodrigues, 2011).

STEAM education is an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning, grounded in active learning methodologies and with an emphasis on real-world problem-solving (Shernoff et al., 2017). This approach not only proposes interdisciplinary learning through STEAM areas, but also prepares learners for the professional context by developing skills such as good communication, collaborative work, and the enhancement of interpersonal skills (Perignat & Katz-Buonincontro, 2019).

Based on this premise, Challenge Based Learning (CBL) methodology aims to, in a collaborative, multidisciplinary and experiential way, identify, investigate and propose solutions to real problems with an STS orientation (Nichols et al., 2016). From this perspective, the integration of STEAM and CBL has been described as having great potential for the development of 21st-century learning skills (P21, 2015), such as creativity, problem-solving, and others (Sanders, 2019).

The association of these active learning methodologies in SE since the early years, prepares future generations to be real-problem solvers, applying cross-disciplinary concepts coupled with their creative, critical and collaborative skills (Burrows & Slater, 2015). This project highlights the development of creativity throughout learning process. Creativity is a cross-disciplinary skill to produce ideas and strategies, individually or collectively, that are original, critical, plausible and feasible (Beghetto, 2007; Craft, 2009). The educational context should be a driver of human creativity, not a limiting factor (Robinson & Aronica, 2015).

Based on the theoretical background presented, research questions and respective objectives were settled for this research:

General Question: How creative thinking and teaching skills can be promoted for science primary school teaching through a STEAM approach?

Specific Questions:

SQ1. How to develop a proposal for pre-service primary teachers' initial training through a STEAM approach promoting creative thinking?

SQ2. What are the effects of the STEAM formative proposal on developing creative thinking in pre-service primary teachers?

SQ3. What is the relation between the creative thinking level and developing primary science teaching competencies?

Research Goals:

G1. To develop (design, plan, validate, implement and evaluate) a STEAM & Creativity formative proposal that promotes the creative thinking of pre-service teachers.

G2. To evaluate the effects of the STEAM & Creativity formative proposal on the level of creative thinking and its relation to developing teaching skills.

G3. To develop a set of recommendations from the research results for primary school science teacher training.

Teacher Education (TE) study programs play a crucial role in providing efficient preparation to prospective teachers for their teaching career. The quality of teacher preparation determines the effectiveness of classroom instruction which in turn influences the quality of student learning (National Research Council, 2010, in Feuer et al., 2013). Hence, it is important to ensure that prospective teachers receive good preparation. The aims of this study are to identify the structural components of TE programs, to examine the balance between theoretical and practical courses, and to analyze the TE programs in selected universities from Lebanon and United Arab Emirates (UAE) by benchmarking them against the conceptual orientations of the theoretical framework of Feiman-Nemser.

In Lebanon, TE programs are offered by fifteen universities (El-Mouhayar & BouJaoude, 2012). Elementary school teachers are required to receive three years of undergraduate education at the Education Department of any university to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education or in Elementary Education. Furthermore, students holding a bachelor’s degree in any other field who want to become teachers can receive a TD by completing an additional year of study (“Education in Lebanon,” 2018).

The development of TE programs in the UAE has gone through several steps. In 1979, the Ministry of Education founded two-year teacher training colleges. In the mid-1980s, the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), the first public university in the UAE, took over the responsibility of teacher preparation from the government. (Gardner, 1995, in Gallagher, 2019). In 1998, the College of Education at Zayed University initiated TE. Afterwards, UAE’s first teachers’ college, Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE), started in-country TE (Gallagher, 2019). Obtaining a Bachelor of Education in the UAE equips graduates to be able to teach students of different ages. For the secondary grades, many schools require a degree in the teacher’s field of expertise in addition to the degree in education. (“Bachelor of Education in the UAE,” n.d.).

The theory of Sharon Feiman-Nemser will be used as a framework. According to this theory, a set of ideas that guides the practical activities in TE programs is known as an “orientation.” Such practical activities can be identified as developing courses, teaching, supervising, assessing, and planning programs. An orientation would identify the goals of TE and the ways of realizing these goals. Views of teaching and learning and theories about learning how to teach make a “conceptual orientation.” Five conceptual orientations have been identified, each having a proposition that features certain aspects of teaching and TE programs: academic, practical, technological, personal, and critical/social orientations (Feiman-Nemser, 1990).

Examining the effectiveness of TE programs may provide insight into how well graduates are prepared and equipped to satisfy the requirements of their workplace (Mayer et al., 2015). Exploring the course offerings, the required hours, practicum policies and hours, and the number of required content courses provides the possibility to make comparisons across different programs. Such types of information are usually accessible on institution websites and catalogs, and hence a researcher who is not an insider may access them and examine them (Feuer et al., 2013).

Based on the theoretical framework, a review of relevant literature, and a survey of the TE program structures of the universities from Lebanon and UAE selected for this study, the following research questions have been identified:

- Which theoretical elements of the conceptual framework of Feiman-Nemser theory are implemented in the TE curricula of universities in Lebanon and the UAE?

- What is the distribution of theoretical and practical courses in the structural frameworks of the TE programs of universities in Lebanon and the UAE?

In comparison to their cisgender peers, gender creative students are more vulnerable to develop mental health problems, poor psychological well-being and negative peer relationships (Baams and al., 2013; Bennet and al., 2019; Gordon and al., 2018; Jewell and Brown, 2014; Rieger and Savin-Williams, 2012; Roberts and al., 2013; Zosuls and al., 2016). Ehrensaft (2011, p.5) defines a gender creative person as someone who “transcends the normative male/female definitions of culture to creatively weave a sense of gender that does not come entirely from within (the body, the psyche), nor entirely from without (culture, others' perception of one's gender), but resides somewhere in the middle”. Gender creative students deviate from the gender identity or gender expression that is culturally associated with their assigned sex at birth (Airton and Meyer, 2014). Thus, those students deviate from gender norms, i.e., they do not follow socially prescribed rules of conduct regarding roles, behaviours, activities, and characteristics deemed appropriate for their gender, which traditionally must correspond to their birth-assigned sex (Heise and al., 2019). Schools play a key role in the development of young people and in promoting their mental health. Since gender creative students are more vulnerable to developing poor mental health and since schools represent an environment that can convey gender norms (Weber et al., 2019), it seems important to look upon these topics inside secondary schools. This research will therefore try to answer the following question: How do gender creative secondary students perceive their mental health at school? Mental health is more than the absence of mental health problems (Gilmour, 2014). To see mental health fully, it is important to take into account positive mental health. Positive mental health has three dimensions: emotional well-being, psychological well-being and social functioning (Keyes, 2007). Meyer (2013) developed a minority stress model to explain the factors influencing mental health in minority individuals, i.e., the additional stresses experienced by these people. According to Martin-Storey (2016) and Rieger and Savin Williams (2012), the minority stress model could be a key to understanding low psychological well-being among gender creative youth as it would explain the discrimination, stigma and stresses experienced by them due to their minority status. The present study’s objectives are to explore the perception of gender norms in the school environment as well as the perception of mental health of gender creative secondary students. This study takes place in Canada, and more specifically in the province of Quebec. In Quebec, students in secondary school are between 12 to 17 years old and stay normally five years in these schools, from secondary one to five. The United Kingdom equivalent would be college from year 7 to year 11. Data were collected through narrative interviews with six gender-creative Quebec secondary school students, average age 15.5. Through their accounts of their school experiences, the students revealed that gender norms are still present in their respective school environments. Qualitative analysis by themes grouping revealed the sampled students' sense of well-being at school, the stressors they felt in the school environment, the coping strategies they developed, and the social support felt inside and outside school. In summary, the life stories highlight the different paths and varying levels of mental health of the students interviewed. Most of them reported overall positive mental health, despite previous literature generally attributing different indicators of negative mental health to gender creative students. The results allow to propose a model that incorporates additional stressors (Meyer, 2013) and elements of positive mental health (Keyes, 2007) experienced as a result of minority status, thus influencing the mental health of gender creative students.

This poster is based on a research that looked at the learning experiences of teachers during their journey through a full-time Master of Education programme for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MEd TESOL), in a university in the UK. The aim was to explore the cognition development of four international Asian students: two novice and two in-service teachers enrolled on the programme. This was achieved by exploring their cognitive processes (Badger, 2018) through focus on knowledge, beliefs, and identity which together form the model of cognition used in the current study, as set out by Borg (2003, 2009, 2015). This model is situated within the framework of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (SCT) that is widely used in this type of context.

The following research questions were addressed in the study: 1) what is the impact of the MEd TESOL programme on the teachers’ cognition? And 2) what is the influence of the MEd TESOL programme on the teachers’ future professional teaching identities? These were answered by examining the experiences of the four participants. Although each participant lived a unique experience, they all showed some indicators of changes in knowledge, beliefs, and identities. Also, their experiences on the MEd TESOL programme have clearly influenced their professional identities. The findings revealed unexpected aspects of the participants’ well-being, as well as the impact of Covid-19 on the students’ lives.

The ubiquitous phenomenon of sexualization, noticeable especially at the sociocultural level, is reflected in numerous activities in the public space (Waszyńska, Zielona-Jenek, 2016). It would seem that with the tendency to popularize this topic, there will be increasingly more studies, concerning sexual violence in the scientific discourse. Yet, the number of studies and researchers studying this topic is very limited. Simultaneously, one can find studies indicating a clear correlation between the acceptance of rape myths and the perpetration of sexual violence, as well as less frequent reporting of crimes by victims (Moyano, Monge, Sierra, 2017; Heath, Lynch, Fritch, Wong, 2013). The current disparities in the level of education and its consequences suggest the need to create a whole system of prevention and education against sexual violence. However, it is difficult to create effective social policy without adequate knowledge, a thorough scientific analysis of the phenomenon or a thorough terminological study of the new phenomena of sexual violence that have arisen with the development of new technologies.

Thus, the scientific aim of my work will be to investigate and describe the phenomenon of men experiencing sexual violence by women.

The research problems in this work concern (1) society's knowledge and opinion on sexual violence against men in Poland, including, among others, knowledge of the physiology of the male body during an attempted sexual abuse, current myths and stereotypes of masculinity, knowledge of the functioning of aid institutions or the social image of male victims of violence. In addition, the aim of the research is to present (2) statistics from the Central Statistical Office and the Police regarding reports of sexual abuse of which a male victim was a victim, as well as any noticeable, statistically-significant changes that have occurred in recent years. The third research problem revolves around the interviews conducted with experts and their knowledge of, the range of available assistance from which victimized men can benefit, the scale of the analyzed phenomenon in Poland, the social causes and consequences of not reporting the act of violence to law enforcement, and the recommended changes in this regard on the social, political and legal levels. The final, fourth research problem concerns the context surrounding the act of sexual violence in selected cases of men who experienced it. That is, the characteristics of the victim and the perpetrator, the consequences faced by the victims and the reporting of the analyzed situation to law enforcement authorities.

In the literature, it can be noted that the taboo of sexual violence, if it is already mentioned, mainly concerns women and children (e.g.: Marzec-Holka, 2011; Piotrowska, Synakiewicz, 2011). There is now much talk in the public space about equality and fair treatment of all people regardless of gender. A number of foundations have also been created to provide assistance and information campaigns on violence and gender equality. The nature of these foundations, however, most often points to women and children as the objects of assistance. In Poland, only one foundation deals with assistance aimed directly at men victimized by sexual violence. Certainly one of the reasons for this is the stereotype of men, which has been built up for many years, as those who are always willing to engage in sexual activity, are tough and do not show emotions, do not talk to other people about their feelings and suffer in silence (Grzybek, Bielak, 2015). The lack of reporting of the act of violence on men is reflected in statistics, which show that sexually victimized men are practically non-existent in Poland (Central Statistical Office), contrary to case evidence and sociopedagogical practice.

Despite extensive research about the value and features of dialogic teaching and learning (Vrikki et al., 2019), predominantly monologic interactions continue to persist in primary classrooms in the UK. The complexities of dialogic approaches are well-documented, from the difficulties of the fluid and transient nature of spoken language (Bearne and Reedy, 2018) to the shifts in power dynamics that such an approach demands (Thompson, 2007). However, the role of dialogue seems to be benefiting from a renewed focus, with current educational policy instructing pre-service teachers to both support effective dialogue within the classroom and engage in reflective dialogic learning themselves (DfE, 2013; 2019). With limited progress in this area of practice and professional development (Vrikki et al., 2019), teaching practices seem to resist fundamental and shifts towards dialogic teaching; this study asks why this might be.

In the context of dialogic education, prior research has often focused on dialogic interactions as a pedagogical approach. However, research which has moved beyond an interactional form in considering classroom dialogue suggests that teachers’ dialogic stance, identity, and sociocultural and socio-historical expectations of professional identity may offer insight for understanding why monologic patterns persist (Sherry et al., 2019). Furthermore, whilst attitudes and beliefs are seen as highly influential in the development of dialogic approaches, understanding how personal and professional dialogic experiences relate to pre-service teachers’ professional identities, learning, and practice is a significantly under-researched area (Groschner et al., 2020). Although research has considered the role of teacher identity in relation to reading and writing, there is a gap in research seeking to understand how teachers’ identities might either constrain or enable dialogic practices within the classroom. Indeed, Hofmann (2020) highlights the need for research which understands professional development as a sociocultural process and the role of teachers’ own learning experiences within this, in order to consider the range of complex challenges inherent in realising the benefits of a dialogic approach.

Whilst there has been a significant increase in interest in teacher identity within educational research and teacher education, there is a continuing lack of clarity around what we mean by this (Solari and Ortega, 2022) which presents a key challenge in understanding its influence on teachers’ learning and professional roles. Teachers’ professional identity can be seen as shaped by their past experiences and as a key motivating and orienting factor in their actions and beliefs about practice; yet there is a lack of knowledge about the dynamics of identity construction within teacher education (Henry, 2019). Hsieh (2015) usefully articulates these dynamics as “how teachers’ orientations in relation to the intersection of multiple competing discourse (internal and external) play out in their establishment of identities as professionals and in their professional practices” (p.179). By applying a dialogic lens to pre-service teachers’ professional identity construction, this study seeks to recognise this ongoing, dynamic interplay as distinct from the functions and procedures of the professional role. Furthermore, it is not simply a process of change and adaptation but is wrought with potential conflicts and tensions (Henry and Mollstedt, 2022), one in which core beliefs continue to be shaped and changed through experience (Wyk, 2011). Through this lens, the study aims to explore how past dialogic experiences and the ways in which pre-service teachers position themselves in relation to dialogue, influence their navigation of dialogic spaces and possibilities within their teaching practices and professional roles.

Surveys are arguably the most common tool for data collection in higher education research, particularly for the study of student behaviour and social inequalities. The well-known weaknesses of survey research are issues related to sampling, response rates and lack of knowledge about the characteristics of non-respondents (Nayak & Narayan, 2019). The use of administrative data can circumvent these difficulties. Higher Education Administrative Data (HEAD) is a large set of behavioural data based on documentation with administrative software systems of higher education institutions. The data include information on student characteristics, study and examination patterns, learning curves, student success, drop-outs and length of study. It allows comprehensive data to be collected on the diversity, academic performance and behavioural patterns of entire cohorts of students, which is of interest to higher education institutions themselves. In addition to teaching evaluation, the purposes include accountability to societal stakeholders and the development of higher education structures and new public management (Beerkens, 2022).

Compared to traditional survey-based research, the collection and analysis of HEAD requires a much higher level of commitment to ethics and data protection (Florea & Florea, 2020). Therefore, the actual use is limited so far. In Europe, HEAD in the form of registry data is mainly used in the UK (e.g. Campbell et al., 2019; Chowdry et al., 2013) and Austria (e.g. Zucha et al., 2021) due to the strong centralisation of national statistical systems. Apart from a few recent studies of examination data from specific universities (e.g. Behlen et al., 2022; Pannier et al., 2020), the accessibility of HEAD in other European countries, such as Germany, remains difficult and researchers often fail to obtain the data in full (see Bandorski et al., 2019; Grözinger & McGrory, 2020). In summary, the potential of both forms of HEAD, registry data and higher education institution-specific administrative microdata, has not yet been fully exploited across Europe.

Furthermore, the data provided by management information systems is not very systematically structured or clearly organised. Depending on the internal organisation of the higher education institution, data fragments are scattered across different parts of the institutional administration, including registries, departments and faculties, and are not intended to be linked. As a result, the quality of data varies not only between higher education institutions, but also within them (Daniel, 2015). Due to the lack of IT governance modernisation, data quality is mostly affected by deficiencies such as inappropriate data structures, data duplication and conflicts (Wang & Jiang, 2022). For an in-depth study of study courses, it is necessary to find out what data is available in higher education institutions and how researchers can process it.

Using the example of Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, this article presents opportunities and challenges for the use of HEAD. It introduces the form and structure of raw data provided by higher education administration offices, followed by recommendations for the conceptual handling and organisation of HEAD.

In the long term, the growing importance of HEAD for both research and internal evaluations of higher education institutions could lead to increased networking and communication between administrative, examination and enrolment offices. The increased demand for HEAD by researchers could therefore lead to greater efficiency in the internal administration of the higher education sector by reforming IT governance structures.

Teacher agency has become the focus of educational research in recent years, as a result, attention has been paid to the nature and ways of expression of agency, but also to everything that helps to strengthen agency – because it is a crucial component as part of the professional development of teachers.

Numerous researches have been done on which external factors work against the development of agency. For example educational policies that emphasize testing, accountability and efficiency have been heavily criticized for restricting teacher agency (see, e.g.,Cochran-Smith, 2004; Mirra and Morrell, 2011). Moreover, competitive education is counterproductive measure (Priestley et al. (2015).

Here, the focus is on construction of teacher agency, and firstly on factors connected with teachers’ professional identity, which enables or restrains the formation and further development of teacher agency. The extra angle is added by bringing in a concept of nostalgia for it can be linked to constructing teachers’ professional identity. The second focus is on factors connected with school environment and community, which can be considered as enablers or restraints to teacher agency.

Agency is an indicator that shows what teacher does, or to be more precise, what she/he is able to do – what firstly a broader context and secondly her own baggage and professional aims are allowing her to do and what she actually does.

Most generally, professional identity refers to how a person perceives oneself as a teacher. Identity building means finding a balance in between different aspects of it (Beijaard et al., 2004; Lipka & Brinthaupt, 1999). Professional identities are recognized to be teachers’ understanding of themselves as professionals (Eteläpelto & Vähäsantanen, 2008), including both, personal and institutional aspects of being a teacher (Beijaard et al., 2004).

Professional identity is in a constant change and development, being formed in the interaction between the individual and the social environment. This development is in turn influenced by the person's previous beliefs, experiences, values, as well as the experiences gained during studying and working, and the interpretation of these experiences (Flores & Day, 2006; Kagan, 1992; Löfström, Poom-Valickis, Hannula, & Mathews, 2010). According to Brown & Humphreys (2002) nostalgic narratives can be treated as an effort to maintain the collective sense of socio-historic continuity. Hence narratives of teachers provide fruitful data for analysing how nostalgia has been made use of in constructing ones professional identity and adapting to changes in the context of radical educational changes taken place during the last decades.

When change often reduces trust, integrity and professional autonomy then nostalgia quickly finds it place to make sense of it all. Nostalgia is seen as a psychological mechanism, which helps to sustain the integration of the personality by eliminating any pain related to the past and presenting it as a harmonious version of “golden age”. Nostalgia, although creating the image of the perfect past, actually tells us about the dissatisfaction with the present conditions (Velikonja, 2009).

Often nostalgia tends to carry not so much individual, but rather collective character and contribute into group identity building. However, it is important to note that those not having first-hand experience of certain period, regime, personality or culture feeling nostalgic about (Velikonja, 2009) can also carry on nostalgic narratives. This “second-hand nostalgia, borrowed or “stolen” nostalgic narratives of others (Velikonja, 2009) or “armchair nostalgia” can be as strong and influential as “authentic” nostalgia.

Abstract:

In this Ignite talk, I will present a paper in progress that examines pupils’ ability to participate in Norwegian schools through a case study developed in cooperation with a student teacher. Through an intervention, we attempted to search for alternative didactical methods by utilizing self-determination as a structural tool to encourage participation as a part of teaching democratically. This study examines this intervention through the lens of autonomy based on some of the perspectives from critical theory:

1. What factors affect pupils’ participation in class activities when the teaching is structured on the principle of autonomy support?
2. How does an intervention based on self-determination impact the pupils’ experience of autonomy in school activities?

The study is a part of a larger project where we investigate three interdisciplinary themes currently implemented in Norwegian schools (USN, 2020). These are public health and life skills, sustainable development, and democracy and citizenship (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2017b). This project specifically focuses on how to teach democratically. The ambition for a democratic school is not only stated in the Norwegian curriculum but is agreed upon in UN Convention on the Rights of Children (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2017a; United Nations, 1990).

Each year a pupil survey is conducted from 5^th through Upper Secondary School in Norway. The survey investigates the pupil’s experience regarding their teaching environment and schooling. The survey’s intention is to improve Norwegian schools (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2022). Pupils’ co-determination and participation are repeated and recommended in every yearly report but do not seem to be improving in Norwegian schools. At the same time, motivation for schoolwork is declining. In the later reports, it is demonstrated that the pupils’ stress impacts their well-being. The observed shift of focus toward achievements over learning could be a plausible explanation for their experienced stress (Mellingsæter, 2018). The psychological theory of self-determination is highly critical to the educational systems’ use of external pressure. External motivations’ effects on cognitive growth, academic success, and the learner’s well-being are regarded as questionable (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Although most Norwegian pupils experience well-being at school, it is alarming that motivation for doing schoolwork is declining, and that their experienced ability to co-determine in and through their education does not seem to improve.

Therefore, we initiated an intervention where pupils in 7^th grade chose what and how to learn, combined with questionaries to the pupils on their general opportunities for participation and their experiences of this intervention. Seven months after the intervention, we asked the pupils to briefly comment on what they remembered. Results from observational notes, questionnaires, and unstructured comments have been analyzed and discussed through a combined framework of critical pedagogy and self-determination theory. Critical pedagogy points at some of the problematic structures of traditional schooling, while self-determination theory is a motivational theory, explaining how a “…more self-­ determined functioning is associated with greater creativity, superior learning, better performance, enhanced well-being, and higher quality relationships” (Ryan & Deci, 2017, p. 17). Previous research has demonstrated the benefits such as learning, well-being, creativity, and motivation in situations where teachers are supporting students in their autonomy (Engesbak et al., 2021; Koestner et al., 1984).

Educators such as Paulo Freire (Freire, 1996, 2021; Shor, 1993) and bell hooks (1994, 2010) are critical to ‘authority-dependence’ as a consequence of learned passivity through traditional schooling. The critic is overlapping with the self-determination theory regarding external pressure, where top-down pressure is regarded as inadvisable. Instead, both theories promote students' and teachers' inclusion and active participation in co-developing educational content.

This study will investigate the changing professional role and practice of Further Education and Training (FET) teachers in meeting the needs of employers and industry. Initial exploratory findings will be used to develop a framework for establishing collaborative communities of practice and strategic partnerships between Further Education and Training (FET) educators, industry professionals and relevant other stakeholders.

The FET sector in Ireland has recently undergone fundamental reform (O'Leary & Rami, 2017) with the formation of SOLAS as the state organisation responsible for funding, planning and coordinating FET in Ireland. Alongside SOLAS are the 16 Education and Training Boards (ETBs) tasked with managing and delivering regional education provisions.

The National Further Education and Training Strategy (SOLAS, 2020) seeks improved alignment with industrial strategy and more employer partnerships. These strategic priorities include "closing the gap between vocation educational training and real cutting-edge industry innovation and technology development" (SOLAS, 2020, p 31).

While SOLAS firmly establishes Education and Training Boards (ETBs) as a critical resource for enterprise in up-skilling of staff and developing a future pipeline of talent, there are outstanding organisational design issues to be addressed for "a clear sense of how ETB staffing and structures need to evolve to deliver on the Future FET goals… and realise the full potential of the system." (SOLAS, 2020, p 56)

The reform of the FET sector in Ireland and abroad resulted in ideological tensions. O'Brien (2018) argued that the commoditisation and marketisation of education have resulted in FET provisions being subservient to the interests of the economy rather than being driven by emancipatory goals. Vocational Education and Training (VET) reforms in Australia (Locke and Maton, 2019) and the United Kingdom (Hodge, 2016) that drew ideas and values from political and economic fields resulted in teaching and education being reduced to focusing on certification and metrics. O'Brien (2018) reported similar findings in the Irish context, with provisions shifting from a flexible learner-centred approach to a simplified funder-centred system-driven model.

The acceleration to align education with employability is noted by O'Neill and Fitzsimons (2020), with a top-down re-organisation that has contributed to a "contested profession" of FET teacher.

This study proposes a bottom-up analysis through the theoretical lens of Expansive Learning and Activity Theory (Engestrom and Sannino, 2010) to map learning opportunities across multiple professional boundaries. Through a multi-voiced process, Expansive Learning takes a "societally essential dilemma which cannot be resolved through individual actions alone – but in which joint cooperative actions can push a historically new form of activity into emergence." (Engestrom, 2015, p 165)

By mapping the multiple professional perspectives of stakeholders as interdependent activity systems, this study will account for the social complexities integral to the FET ecosystem. The Expansive Learning Cycle (ELC) process, will be used to co-create practices and cultures for sustainable strategic partnerships. At the intersection of FET, industry and relevant stakeholders, learning is not primarily the process of transmitting and preserving cultures or processes, but rather the process of transformation and creating culture.

Driving this proposed research study are the following questions:

1. How is the role of FET teachers changing in response to sectoral reform?
2. What is the role of FET teachers in improving alignment with industrial strategy and establishing more employer partnerships?
3. How can FET teachers be supported in establishing strategic partnerships and collaborative communities of practice with industry professionals and other relevant stakeholders?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to illustrate the value of educational leaders intentionally including students on a leadership for inclusion team, critically reviewing and developing policies and practices that affect young peoples' experience of school. The study advocates for ways leaders can engage young people in school leadership and holds promise to build caring, equitable, and responsive classrooms and schools by centring students’ voices.

The potential of establishing collaborative initiatives to develop an individual schools' capacity for improvement is evaluated, specifically in their quest for inclusive education, where there is potential to increase knowledge about the value of including the voice and participation for students placed on the Autism Spectrum, as they engage in a collaborative leadership partnership that also comprises of school leaders and teacher leaders. Current opportunities for student participation in collaborative leadership teams are investigated, where students' and teachers' perceptions were sought; we gained insight into whether or not those perceptions hold any value in advancing the inclusive education agenda in schools. The study also investigated the impact of including students on collaborative leadership teams, where previously, there has been little empirical investigation of how adults facilitate the development of students' voice and, subsequently, youth leadership. It was intended to investigate how participation in a collaborative leadership partnership may develop a sense of agency in the students involved, where they become empowered as advocates and leaders of positive change towards greater inclusion. It is proposed that this study provides possible insights on how to develop clear systems and structures for teachers and administrators to facilitate and support collaborative initiatives within their organisation where there is the potential for students to positively impact school leaders and other staff in their development of policies, structures and procedures that will increase the school's ability to develop and provide more inclusive environments.

The research aims at exploring the experiences of developing professional development with science teachers through lesson study approach in Malaysia. The research will further explore on possibility of collaboratively develop materials, ways of implement the teaching and learning materials and reveal the impact to participating teachers. Hence the research centred on the following inquiries: 1) What are the areas of professional development needed by participating science teachers? 2) In what ways do participating teachers collaboratively develop, implement and evaluate the science teaching and learning materials? 3)To what extend does lesson study influence science teacher’s professional development?

The research is based on Illeris (2011) work and the three dimensions of learning and competence development.The interaction element is shaped by how teachers interact with their surroundings and serves to promote their personal integration within their school context.These three learning dimensions combine to reveal teacher competencies, which are a blend of functionality,sensibility, and sociality.In response to the paucity of research that leveraged theoretical approaches to explore professional learning through lesson study (Xu and Pedder, 2015), a professional learning model that centred on learning in the workplace was chosen.Reviews (e.g. Takahashi and McDougal, 2016; Xu, 2016) find scant evidence of teachers' reflective experiences in terms of their own professional learning.In this model,the professional learning dimensions of Incentive,Content, and Interaction are viewed as interacting within a larger context.When a teacher learns, it is essential to comprehend the "mobilisation of mental energy"(Illeris, 2011) involved-the incentives.By engaging in lesson study (LS), teachers may acquire a better understanding of the content - (1) how students learn,(2) how their pedagogies engage students, (3) how to collaborate effectively with others, and (4) the processes of evidence-gathering that inform practise. Interaction is considered an essential dimension of professional learning (Illeris, 2011). Rigorous scrutiny through conversations about such inquiries with a broad group of others, driven by curiosity, honesty, and open-mindedness, has been identified as an essential feature of high-quality lesson study (Elliott, 2019).The potential to critically reflect on whether the capacity for profound critical reflection on planning for, observing, and acquiring evidence regarding student learning facilitates teacher learning for future practise (Bocala, 2015; Cajkler et al., 2015).This kind of dialogic support could come from peers, "knowledgeable others" (Bae et al., 2016, p. 172), like mentors (Cajkler and Wood, 2016), or senior school leaders (Takahashi and McDougall, 2016), who could help with all three parts of teacher learning.

The growing concern about teacher shortages in secondary education is shared, to different extents, by most OECD countries. The declining attractiveness of the teaching profession, and the subsequent difficulties in attracting and retaining teachers, have become a central concern for education policies. One of the solutions advocated to deal with this issue is to broaden the recruitment pool for teachers, notably by facilitating access to teaching for individuals joining the teaching profession after other professional experiences. In France, as well as in many OECD countries, these so-called 'second-career' teachers represent a growing proportion of applicants and successful candidates in recruitment competitions. These teachers have special characteristics and come from a wide variety of previous professional experiences.

In the international scholarly literature, teachers retraining to enter teaching have been considered a group to be studied separately from teachers with a more traditional background (“second career teachers” as opposed to “first career teachers”, or “traditional entrants”) (Berger & D’Ascoli, 2011). This distinction between these two populations is justified by their particularities (second-career teachers face unique challenges, they bring a particular skillset, they have a specific relationship with pupils and the profession, etc. (Tigchelaar et al., 2009 ; Tigchelaar et al., 2014 ; Dozolme, 2015).

However, the boundaries of this population (and thus its definition) vary greatly depending on the research under consideration. For instance, the minimum amount of years spent in the previous activity that is deemed necessary to be considered a second-career teacher varies from 2 years for Denave (Denave, 2015) to 3 years for Wilkins (Wilkins, 2017), or even 5 years for Négroni (Négroni, 2019).

Putting at a distance the binary division that is typically used, I hypothesize that the population of second career teachers can be heterogeneous in terms of profiles and is thus composed of several groups of individuals who differ in the combinations of experiences they had before joining teaching. Consequently, I question how many trajectory profiles can be found, and how they differ from each other.

The aim of this paper is therefore to highlight individual differences in a population initially thought to be homogeneous (Courgeau & Lelievre, 1989) (by separating first and second career teachers, one assumes some form of homogeneity in the 'second career' category). I propose to study this diversity by creating a typology of the study and professional path for French secondary school teachers to access teaching, using statistical methods of hierarchical classification in a software that is called R. The study is based on data about the career paths of a large population of tenured French teachers. This data was collected as part of a thesis in education sciences.

The result of this typology of the diversity of access path to education is a classification in five groups, ranging from the most linear to the least linear. The three categories with the least linear pathways comprise almost a third of the total population, thus confirming the importance of further taking this population into account. The presence of five classes clearly highlights a diversity in the spectrum of possible and existing trajectories. This result allows us to question and challenge the boundaries usually drawn between first and second career teachers. In addition, different motivations for joining the teaching profession are found depending on the previous trajectory. This debate about the limits of the 'second career' population, and on the diversity of teachers' careers, leads us to conclude that it is a crucial factor to take this into account when considering the integration, professional training and professionalization of these teachers with a particular profile.

In teacher education (TE), teacher identity development studies can be seen as an emerging study area. There is much already written and published in the related literature on teacher education programs however, there isn’t much on teacher education policy, contextual factors, and teacher identity formation in relation to teacher education institutions and habitus. Individuals have a central identity composed of all identity statuses and different sub-identities such as professional, parental, sexual, and ideological identities (Gür, 2014). Identities are combinations of knowledge, emotion, competencies, and experiences with regard to a social role, described in this study as teacher identity (Giddens, 1991). Identity formation in a professional domain is “an ongoing process of integration of the ‘personal’ and the ‘professional’ sides of becoming and being a teacher” (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004, p.113), and becoming a teacher involves the construction of a person’s identity (Danielewicz, 2001). Through an in-depth analysis of the program in relation to institutional habitus, this study explores the complexity of teacher identity formation in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduate context. It aims to portray the identity formation process of EFL prospective teachers in a public research university where the medium of instruction (MoI) is English in Turkey. In addition, the study uses Bourdieu's field theory and its toolkit as its theoretical perspective in examining the institutional habitus concerning teacher identity development.

Institutional habitus can significantly impact the formation of a teacher's identity because teachers, often internalize the expectations and beliefs of the institutions they belong to. The institutional habitus may influence how teachers view their roles and responsibilities in an undergraduate education program. It may affect their beliefs about teaching and learning, and their relationships with students and colleagues. This can shape how they develop their professional identities as teachers. Programs should also provide opportunities for teachers to engage with various perspectives and reflect on how these may impact their professional identities. As for term definitions, Bourdieu (1992) defines habitus, field, and doxa terms. Habitus is the learned set of preferences or dispositions by which a person orients to the social world. It is a system of ‘durable, transposable, cognitive ‘schemata or structures of perception, conception, and action’. Field is defined as a playground. Doxa: rules and (dis)positions in that playground (in the field).

Additionally, TE programs should provide ongoing support and professional development for teachers to help them continue to grow and evolve as professionals. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is embedded in the theory of action that questions how regular patterns of practices are formed in social and cultural locations. Social actors inscribe the “structured structures” and play a role in their transformation into “structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 53). Teacher educators and prospective teachers are agents in such a habitus, and they play a role in “structuring the structures” in their institutions. Habitus refers to the internalized dispositions and practices that individuals develop due to their socialization within a particular group or field. An individual's experiences, and interactions shape habitus, and perceptions within a group or field, influencing how they perceive and interact with the world around them. The research questions are as follows:

1. How is EFL teacher identity developed through the pre-service teacher education program in a public research university context in Turkey?

2. How do teacher educators foster the development of teacher identities in prospective EFL teachers?

3. How do prospective EFL teachers in the selected cases define their professional identity development process?

4. How does institutional habitus influence the identity development process of prospective EFL teachers?

Majority populations’ deep ignorance about the world's Indigenous peoples has raised concerns in communities around the globe (Godlewska et al., 2020; Ranta & Kanninen, 2019; Taylor & Habibis, 2020). The challenge of mainstream ignorance lies in its structural connection to transnational, oppressive processes: it is not a matter of accidental "absence of knowledge", but a certain kind of knowledge, an engagement to discourses that invalidate and resist Indigenous experiences and identities (Cook, 2018). Since recognizing constraints of our current knowledge and assumptions is crucial for the onset of decolonization (Shahjahan et al, 2022), and since teachers have a unique role in distribution of knowledge and ideas, this paper is set to examine (1) how mainstream ignorance and approaches to dismantling it are conceptualized in six countries engaged in Indigenous education; Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia; and (2) how do these conceptualizations reflect on Finnish teacher education (TE) and outline alternative ways for its development.

The Sámi, Indigenous people inhabiting territories known today as Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia, are the only Indigenous people in the area of the European Union. European ignorance about the Sámi, and the alarming consequences this ignorance holds, has been recognized by Sámi communities and multidisciplinary professionals (e.g., OKM, 2021). Initiatives have been launched to raise awareness of Indigenous issues not only within Sámi states, but also at the EU level – increasing knowledge in EU policymaking is considered instrumental in promoting reconciliation and better conditions for Sámi people (Prime Minister’s Office, 2021; Saami Council, 2022). Finland, one of the official Sámi states, has received notifications from the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance on its deep national ignorance regarding Sámi matters and calls to address the issue through education (ECRI, 2019). This deficiency, as much of the critique of Finnish education’s incongruity in addressing social injustices, is often overshadowed in the discussions by Finland’s image as a country of equal and exemplary education (see Kasa et al., 2023). Thus, it is relevant to analyze the position Finland's prestigious TE holds in relation to the concepts of ignorance from global contexts and neighboring Sámi states, Sweden and Norway.

The research problems are approached through a thematic synthesis, a type of systematic literature review (Thomas & Harden, 2008). The research is ongoing and more information on the results will be available at the time of the presentation. However, some expected results can be outlined. The review is likely to find cohesion in the transnational conceptualizations of ignorance, considering the phenomenon's foundations in universal, colonial socio-historical processes. The suggested approaches to dismantling ignorance are expected to include both concrete and abstract focus points. In terms of concrete actions, various institutions have, for example, hired more Indigenous staff in educational institutions to support indigenization (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2019). More abstract are the calls to address the ignorance-driven discomfort toward Indigenous topics, experienced by majority educators (e.g. Higgins et al., 2015).

Considering the goals of sustainable and equal systems binding all of Europe (UN, 2015), understanding of diversity has justly penetrated the guiding educational values in Finland. Making mainstream ignorance visible is a long-overlooked objective despite its great potential for reframing unsustainable structures, affecting Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike (Taylor & Habibis, 2020). Efforts to train educators to see and overcome these structures are an example of systematic means that can trickle down to the wider society (Rubin & Brown, 2019).

Throughout their careers teachers are involved in a continuous process of personal and professional development. This begins with a formal qualification in pedagogical and content specific knowledge and skills. As they develop their practice, this formal qualification is regularly supplemented with additional qualifications and learning experiences. Teacher Continuous Professional Development (CPD) refers to the breadth of activities undertaken by teachers to develop their expertise and skills to improve the learning environment for their students (Guskey 2000). It can include directed, planned activities with a specific aim as well as more organic learning opportunities and can occur both individually and collaboratively with others (Day 1999). Teacher Learning occurs across the broad spectrum of learning from formal, through non-formal to informal learning. Formal learning is typically institutionally sponsored, classroom-based and highly structured. Non-formal learning is generally structured; however it may not be classroom based. Informal learning, a category that includes incidental learning, may occur in institutions, but it is not typically classroom-based or highly structured, and control of learning rests primarily in the hands of the learner. Incidental learning, a subset of informal learning, almost always takes place, although people are not always conscious of it (Marsick and Watkins, 1990).

Wenger-Trayner et al (2015) posit that professional occupations are made up of a “complex landscape of different communities of practice – involved not only in practising the occupation, but also in research, teaching, management, regulation, associations and many other relevant dimensions” (p15). As a teacher progresses through their career, they will be involved to a greater, or lesser, extent in many of these aspects of their occupation, engaging in different communities of learning. Social learning networks play a significant role in how teachers navigate this landscape of practice comprising the broad spectrum of formal, non-formal and informal learning opportunities they encounter. One such social learning network is a Community of Inquiry, which provides a framework for cognitive, social and teacher presence within which teachers can critically reflect on, review, and make adjustments to their teaching practice to improve the learning environment for their students (Garrison, Anderson & Archer 2000).

In February 2017 it was announced that a new Leaving Certificate subject in Computer Science was to be fast-tracked for introduction in Ireland in September 2018. By February 2018, the specification was launched which outlined the curricular areas to be taught and the assessment structures to be utilised. The specification outlined an approach to teaching and learning and assessment strategies with a focus on self-directed learning and reflection (NCCA, 2018). The nature of the specification with a focus on student-centred pedagogical practices and real-life scenarios required a novel approach to teacher upskilling to develop competence and confidence within the teaching community. A professional development framework was put in place to support teachers who wished to teach the newly introduced subject. This framework provided skills development workshops as well as webinars, MOOCs and online collaboration and networking platforms which proved very beneficial to the teachers involved in the professional development (McGarr et al, 2020). This provided a Community of Inquiry within which the participating teachers could learn with, and from, each other.

This research study will investigate the informal, social learning undertaken by teachers through their participation in a professional development community of inquiry to upskill in Computer Science. It will, potentially, help to identify practices and strategies that facilitate informal, social learning adding to the diversity of educational opportunities for learners and helping to re-order the national, adult learning agenda by placing “informal and implicit processes in a much higher position than they have hitherto occupied” (Evans, 2019 p. 14).

The focus of this paper is to describe the potential of school volunteering programmes presenting selected preliminary results of thematic analysis of focus groups conducted with student volunteers. To do so, it is first necessary to briefly define one of the key construct: school volunteering programmes (SVP).

SVP are a novelty in the education system in the European context and are gradually being recognised as a pedagogical innovation in the formal education system. The benefits of these programmes for all stakeholders (community, school, and students) are recognised. Through volunteering programmes, schools become more connected to the local community, creating a network of partners for collaborative solutions to community issues (Šimunković, Forčić, Milinković, Kamenko & Šehić-Relić, 2011). Students who have the opportunity to participate in activities in their local community and propose solutions to their needs in the school show a greater willingness to become involved in their (local) community currently and in the future (Torney-Purta, Lehman, Oswald & Schulz, 2001). In addition, while conducting volunteer activities, they strengthen their relationships with other students and also with teachers. Positive and closer relationships lead to a positive school climate. Students who participate in SVP show greater satisfaction with life and school, and describe volunteering as their lifestyle (Šimunković et al., 2011).

Organising, structuring, and planning SVP is a key factor in the success of the programme itself (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016), and increases the likelihood that young people will volunteer in the future (Harris & Nielsen, 2013). SVP coordinators play the most important role in the successful operation of the programme, as they have full responsibility for every part of it. In addition, the importance of involving parents and civil society organisations is emphasised in order to set a positive example for young people and, in this way, also increase the chances of young people volunteering in adulthood.

Civil society organisations (CSO) in Croatia play an important role in the implementation of volunteering programmes in school curricula. In the national context, CSOs were among the first to initiate the implementation of volunteer programs with the aim of cultivating elements of sustainability citizenship. CSOs also participate in the realisation of volunteer actions and activities together with the school. Through active participation in various activities of associations, young people become aware and interested in the community in which they live. They also have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and experience necessary to become a competent citizen, i.e., the result of young people's participation in CSOs is empowered, competent and active citizens (Ilišin, 2016).

The outflow of the rural population has become a prevalent phenomenon on a global scale under the influence of urbanization. Rural hollowing out, thereby leading to brain drain and rural decline, is placing small villages in a severe predicament regarding their existence and development (Drozdzewski, 2008; Lall et al., 2006). Currently, China is encountering the same dilemma: the perennial urban priority has become the culprit of hallowing out, acutely pumping the rural labor force empty (Murphy, 2002; Su et al., 2018). To elucidate why rural residents are inclined to pursue urban life rather than stay and serve their homelands, some researchers ponder how subjective elements affect human decision-making processes for migration. They pay attention to individual perceptions and attitudes toward the environment in which they reside (Pretty et al., 2006; Simões et al., 2020). Hence, the concept of place belonging is raised to describe the individual’s affiliation to a particular locale (Hay, 1998; Pretty et al., 2003).

The psychological concept consists of two key elements: membership and connection (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). First, the membership indicates a position in a locale where all in-group members can co-share the belonging consciousness. This membership represents a place-based identity, enabling one to discern in-group members and differentiate from out-group others by recognizing unique indigenous features (Hernández et al., 2007). Second, common connections with the location consolidate a sense of belonging. These connections incorporate similar life experiences, values, and cultures shared by community members. By producing personal and social memories, daily connections consistently endow a particular place with specific meanings (Eacott & Sonn, 2006). Place belonging develops across one’s lifecycle rather than remain unchanged. With the constant accumulation of shared experiences, residents are apt to strengthen their connection with the place and others within it. The process helps natives cement their group membership and shape a firm sense of belonging.

In China, many scholars agree that rural adolescents commonly lose a sense of belonging. The failure to identify with local cultures and values is regarded as one primary factor arousing the individual’s underlying proneness to abandon the rustic membership and out-migrate (Cheng & Qin, 2019; Liao & Wong, 2020; Si, 2009). Nonetheless, existent research portrays a general panorama for the theme of rural residents’ place belonging, most of which tends to be theoretical and descriptive, failing to offer detailed explanations and relevant evidence with first-hand data. The insufficiency of empirical research renders corresponding arguments plausible yet virtually not credible enough. Besides, amid a limited number of empirical studies, more samples involve people exposed to urban life (e.g., university students and migrant workers). In contrast, adolescents remaining in local communities with more rural living incidents are apparently overlooked. Given current research gaps, this empirical study covers two research questions. First, how do rural junior high students elaborate on the status of their village-based belonging? Second, how do rural junior high students construct the place belonging to their place of origin?

This study employs the concept of place belonging to reveal how Chinese junior high students with rural backgrounds cognize and interpret the relationship between themselves and their original dwellings, namely whether and how they feel that they belong to their rural hometowns. Research on rural adolescents is of great importance because they will grow into subsequent rural builders. Relevant findings on their place-based perceptions will facilitate further elaborations on why they choose to stay, leave, or return, thus benefiting the global explanation of rural developmental challenges. Noticeably, due to the word limits, this study seldom discusses the relationship between place belonging and migration intentions of rural students while taking it into future academic consideration.

Five new Technological Universities (TU) have been created through a series of mergers within the Institutes of Technology (IoT) in Ireland. The large scale sectoral changes have resulted in substantial organisational pressures on staff, students and stakeholders. One significant change is the shift from the previous IoT academic 16-18 hours per week ‘teaching-only’ model to a ‘teacher-researcher’ one balanced across research, teaching and innovation. TU key performance indicators (KPIs) will measure organisational success through increased faculty levels of: i) engagement with research/research related activities; ii) increased postgraduate studies research and teaching; and, iii) engagement in knowledge transformation and innovation.

These changes to faculty roles at work are manifesting in a significant shift in individuals’ perceptions of their professional role, leading to an evolving professional identity from ‘teacher’ to that of ‘teacher-researcher’ in the new TUs. Hazelkorn and Moynihan (2011) identify this as a ‘research-led teaching’ role that incorporates the three strands of ‘research, teaching and administration’. The previous ‘academic hours allocation’ model of 16-18 teaching hours per week is still in place within the changing working environment, which doesn’t provide any allocation for research. This is problematic as TU success criteria stipulate the need for increased research outputs and metrics (HEA, 2014; OECD, 2022). The diverse nature and roles of individuals working in the TU sector has also added a layer of complexity as not everyone is in the same place, ready or willing for these changes to happen. Consequently, there is a growing need to explore faculty experiences as they grapple with these changes and endeavour to meet their organisation demands of engaging in research as an integral part of their teaching role at work.

This paper shares results from Phase 1 of the overall study on the profile of the potential population of interest. It draws on a bibliometric analysis to map the evolutionary stages of faculty positions in relation to the personal changes required to move from a ‘teaching’ only to the new ‘teaching/researching’ role. Results from Phase 1 identify positions and roles that individuals typically occupy in IoT-TUs and share information on the nature of their work role as it currently is and what it may look like because of the proposed changes of the new TU.

Objectives

• Map the distinct types of teacher-researcher practice and the characteristics of these different types of practitioners.
• Examine the impact of the new TU ‘teacher-researcher’ role on the professional identity of individual’s working in the sector.

Literature

‘Identity self-states’ draws on ‘motivational self-systems’ that incorporate ‘possible’ and ‘ideal’ selves’ theory (Markus and Nurius, 1986) and informs emergent research on evolving educator identities (Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop, 2004; Rodgers and Scott, 2008; Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Graham-Cagney, 2020). Personal engagement as conceptualised by Kahn, (1990) is an internal state of being, comprised of three psychological domains of meaningfulness, safety and availability. They determine whether and to what extent an individual brings their ‘preferred self’ to their role as a professional working within a discipline and that of their role as a teacher-researcher within the organisation (Kahn, 1990; Lave and Wenger, 1991; May, Gilson and Harter, 2004; Saks, 2006; Shuck, 2011). The personal, professional and situational contexts of teacher’s lives, experiences, beliefs and practices are integral to one another. Tensions between these often impact to a greater or lesser extent upon teachers’ sense of self or identity (Day et al., 2006). Similarly, the complexity of moving from a singular role of ‘teacher’ to one of ‘teacher-researcher’ in a changed HE sector, requires a consideration of the distinct types of practice and the characteristics of these different practitioners (Rouna & Gilley, 2009).

The idea of the university initially emerged as a form of transmission of knowledge, culture and values. It was later that the purpose of this search for knowledge through research emerged, and it is now impossible to understand the university without this research aspect (Flander et al. 2020). This change came from Humboldt's University idea. He understood the work of a lecturer as a nexus from teaching and research (Paulsson y Macheridis, 2022). Nowadays, higher education has three missions within society. The first one is the education for the labour market insertion through the teaching part, the second one is the research with the aim to build up the life of everyone and the third one is to transfer knowledge to society. It is for this reason why not only do lecturers investigate their own field but also, they have to be able to transmit this knowledge to the society and to their students (Hordósy y Mclean, 2022).

In order to define this union, different perceptions of university faculty staff are found: 1) those who are skeptical of this relationship; 2) those who claim that there is no such union; 3) those who perceive it as a symbiotic relationship, in which research is used as a teaching tool (Tesouro et al., 2014). This is why it is often questioned whether good researchers make good teachers and vice versa (Paulsson and Macheridis, 2022).

Even though nowadays many universities in Europe follow Humboldt’s idea, there are preferences related to the focus of activity towards teaching or towards research (Paulsson y Macheridis, 2022). These preferences tend to be a function of how organizations evaluate academic work. Part of the problem with this duality might be that teaching is often seen as a secondary task in the academic profession (Lankveld et al., 2017).

On the other hand, some researchers have analysed the non-relation between these two dimensions, arguing that it is not worth their while to try to transfer what people research to what they teach (Ulla y Tarrayo, 2021). For this reason, some authors have spoken about the barriers in the academic career that prevent the realization of this union. These barriers might be identified as three factors: the first relates to time, dedication and commitment; the second relates to personality characteristics; and the third focuses on the incentives to pursue a career in academia (Pinchado et al., 2019).

Despite the large number of studies that we find in this regard, there is no clear idea of the benefits that this union can bring to higher education. This is why the aim of this research is to address the concept of a university teaching career by focusing on the link between research and teaching.

Over the recent decades, the UK has become a global hub for international scholars worldwide. Statistically speaking, in 2021, more than 70,000 international academic staff were employed at UK higher education institutions (HEIs), accounting for nearly one-third of the academic workforce. While the UK benefits substantially from its international academic workforce, the homelands of these international scholars pay the price for losing such talented minds to the UK. However, there are ways to ameliorate the effects of brain drain and even benefit from such academic diasporas. The literature suggests that academic diasporas can play a role as knowledge brokers (Larner, 2015), support home country development (Tejeda et al., 2013), or even offer political leverage for their homelands (Rabinowitz & Abramson, 2022). However, little attention has been paid to how academic diasporas reinforce the internationalization of higher education in the host country while supporting fellow nationals from the respective homeland. This paper explores the multiple roles academic diasporas can play by taking the example of UK-based Turkish academics and how these roles reinforce the internationalization of higher education.

This is an exploratory study, and in line with this, I employed a qualitative research design underpinned by a social constructivist philosophy. Further, I employed a transnationalism perspective to understand how UK-based Turkish academics develop a belonging to both countries. From this perspective, individuals act as carriers of their own identity without being uprooted from their home country so that they can belong to several places simultaneously whilst building up and maintaining transnational links.

Education across the globe, including Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia, has been fuelled by a resurgence of high-stakes testing, exacerbated by outcome-defined policies and competing factors, including the ongoing demands of accountability, performativity, and the rigid alignment between high-stakes exams and curricula (Lingard & Sellar, 2016; Löfstedt et al., 2020; Verger, Parcerisa & Fontdevila, 2019). The performance-based nature of education has turned education into schooling. Kemmis et al. (2014) describe schooling as the opposite of education; it is a ‘technical tool’ (p.25) used to impart and monitor information as outcomes. These influence assessments' objectives, methods, and outcomes, in addition, to teachers' pedagogical assessment practices (Cairns, 2020). Given current political preferences for teachers' accountability and measurable outcomes, students undertake multiple assessments measuring their learning at single points in time, each affecting their depth of understanding, engagement with the subject, and sense of who they are as a student (Andrade & Brookhart, 2020). Further, teachers' pedagogical practices may be modified by the effects of high-stakes testing as they move from collaborative work in the classroom to more 'teach to the test' methods, further reducing student engagement (Resnick & Schantz, 2017). A significant number of studies investigating the advantages of collaborative learning have been undertaken, promoting a constructivist approach to collaboration in the classroom. However, behaviourist methods are still prevalent when assessing students. This discrepancy leads to the question: if collaboration is widely recognized as enhancing learning, why does the reliance on individual summative testing persist? Broader recognition of multiple assessment methods is required to improve engagement in high school STEM classes and abate the documented effects of individual summative testing. Leading to the research questions –

• How do students perceive collaborative testing?

• How do students and teachers discern collaborative testing's impact on student learning?
• What are teachers' perceptions of the utility of collaborative testing?

Perspective

Humans exist in a dynamic world where we are a part of the world and being of that world interact with other humans and non-humans. Participating in the environment entangles or intertwines us with the material and others, all affecting each other as we understand our place, meaning and knowledge of the world (Barad, 2007; Muris, 2022; Plauberg, 2018). Knowledge is not separated from the learner; it is interwoven and interconnected; it affects and is affected by interactions with non-human and human interactions (Barad, 2007; Guillion, 2018).

Teaching science involves a dynamic intra-mingling between students, teachers, surroundings, and our classroom's tools. In this intra-play, students attained their understanding and knowledge of science. They did not do so alone; students did not sit apart, and they did not sit quietly; they participated, interacted and enhanced their understanding of science. These interactions influence our meaning-making (Koro- Ljungberg, 2015). The learner’s thinking and actions act upon the world equally as the thinking of the learner acts on the world. There can be no separation between object or subject, from human and non-human; all are intertwined in the knowing. Barad (2007) termed this interconnecting of theory and knowledge as onto-epistemology.

Onto-epistemology does not separate the object/subject, human/non-human, world/us, knowledge/learning. This theory places equal importance on the material world, ‘matter matters’ (Barad, 2007). Matter is an active participant in the entanglement of meaning, enfolded alongside material and discursive practices; they are constantly reconfiguring to forge reality (Guillion, 2018).

In December 2020, the Italian Ministry of Education adopted a new assessment modality based on predominantly discursive communication and the abolition of numerical grades. This means was introduced to incentivize greater equality and support students in becoming aware of how they develop their competencies (Girelli, 2022). One of the core elements of this change is the shift from a "normative" way of assessing pupils - that implies the comparison between a single student and the rest of the class - to a criteria-based one. This latter mode of assessment requires the teacher to consider pre-established criteria that help the students better understand their potential (Black, Wiliam, 1998) by indicating the level of achievement of a learning objective. Four fundamental elements must be considered for this purpose: the level of autonomy with which the pupil can achieve the set goals, his or her ability to find resources spontaneously, the fact that learning takes place in an unfamiliar situation, and finally whether the acquisition of the set goals is continuous (i.e. it occurs in more than a single isolated case) or not (MIUR, 2020).

The theoretical framework of this research is the Capability Approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2006). It is «an intellectual discipline that gives a central role to the evaluation of a person’s achievements and freedoms in terms of his or her actual ability to do the different things a person has reason to value doing or being» (Sen, 2009). The attention devoted to the valorization of non-quantifiable processes in terms of accountability and rethinking the role played by the concept of measurement (Unterhalter, 2019) makes this framework a proper tool for proposing a new look at the evaluation methods currently in use in Italian primary schools. Since the right to education «requires a deep commitment to building human capabilities» and «Education nurtures understandings and builds capabilities that can help to ensure that our futures are more socially inclusive (UNESCO, 2021)», it is necessary to understand whether the learning processes promoted at school can promote the development of such resources.

Therefore, the question from which this research stems is how can formative assessment help students develop their capabilities. To date, few studies within the capability approach have focused on primary schools and formative assessment (Robeyns, 2017; Unterhalter, 2019; Palumbo, Pandolfini, 2019). The Italian context lends itself particularly well to investigating the relationship between these realities since the main document used by teachers to guide their teaching (MIUR, 2012) was formulated by Edgar Morin and the theory of complexity is also a fundamental factor for the capability approach (Szekeley. Mason, 2018).

Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is the procedure by which students evaluate and rate teaching performance. Usually, during a SET procedure students complete rating forms or questionnaires about different aspects related to their teachers, but mostly about their teaching practices. Universities or higher education institutions from all over the world implement SET procedures to achieve 3 main purposes. Generally, and from a practical point of view, the main purpose of implementing this type of procedure in most universities is the necessity of reporting SET results to quality assurance agencies. The other main goal of SET procedures, and surely the most important one from an educational perspective, is to provide feedback to academics about their teaching practices and/or to design teacher training programs focused on developing teaching skills. Another important use of SET results is related to evaluating evidence of teaching performance to use the results for academic career advancements or other ways of rewarding teaching effectiveness.

The topic of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) is one of the most researched ones in the domain of educational research, with over 2000 studies published in peer-reviewed journals over a period of a little more than 100 years (Spooren et al., 2017). One of the earliest debates in this field of research is about the validity of the SET scales and procedures. The main question was whether the measurement instruments applied to students during these procedures can accurately measure teaching effectiveness. Even if this debate was most active in the 1970s and the evidence was inclining more towards the affirmative answer to the question in case (see reviews from Richardson, 2005 and Marsh, 2007), a recently published meta-analysis (Uttl et al., 2017) presented some evidence which seriously threatens the validity of SET results. The results of the mentioned study strongly suggest that there is no relationship between the SET results of a teacher and the level of their students’ achievement/learning.

Analyzing the SET scales utilized in the studies included in the last-mentioned meta-analysis, we observed that lots of them contain items that are either too vague, either unclear, or even completely unrelated to observable teaching actions and behaviors. Moreover, many SET instruments had only 1 or 2 overall questions about teaching quality.

Some of the main reasons why we chose to develop a new SET scale are the following: (1) most SET scales are not rigorously developed from the theoretical and psychometrical point of view, and those that are, were developed in older times when digital environments were not so common; (2) the majority of SET instruments lack available and published psychometrical evidence for the validity of the results; (3) there are very few instruments that contain questions strictly related to the observable behaviors and actions of teachers; and (4) there are not many SET instruments than can be adapted to different teaching contexts by adapting the selection and number of dimensions to be measured.

Thus, we propose the development and validation of a new multi-dimensional instrument that is based on a systematic mixed-methods process of defining effective teaching in higher education, consists of questions related to the observable actions and behaviors of teachers, and contains a large number of dimensions suitable for several teaching contexts.

Given that the purpose of the study is to develop and validate a SET scale, the research objectives are the following:

1) To perform the theoretical substantiation of the construct and related dimensions.

2) To develop and refine items for each dimension of the scale.

3) To gather evidence in favor of validity (content, construct and criterion) and fidelity (test-retest, internal consistency) of the scale.

Formative assessment places greater emphasis on bidirectional contributions between the students in the assessment process (Yorke, 2003), as well as advocates an equal teacher-student relationship. To promote student learning, both stakeholders are expected to be fully engaged in the learning process (Black & Wiliam, 1998), instead of measuring student performance unilaterally (Wiggins, 1998). Although formative assessment is well established in western classroom practices and is required as one underpinning literacy for teachers (Popham, 2011), when the idea of formative assessment was introduced to Confucian heritage countries in Asia, tensions for K‒12 teachers arose due to the perennial convention of overemphasizing summative assessment in school.

Profoundly influenced by Confucianism, teachers in China may perceive formative assessment as a novel assessment paradigm that contradicts their traditional mindset on assessment. Take Chinese teachers as an example, many of them seem to be reluctant to this reform (Zhan, 2021). Moreover, schooling in these countries has been constantly shifted to virtual online classroom platforms since the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that online classrooms largely constrain the effectiveness of the implementation of assessment (Khan & Khan, 2018), the different classroom modes complicate the teacher formative assessment practices.

However, there is a paucity of research on teachers’ overall literacy of formative assessment in the eastern Confucian heritage countries (Zhan, 2019). There is also a need to design and develop a psychometrically sound and culturally responsive inventory instrument in the field of formative assessment literacy in the Confucian cultural context. Thus, I attempt to design and validate a first easternized online inventory to evaluate teachers’ capacity for formative assessment acquisition and authentic application. The whole process includes four phases under the guide of an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. Building on the interviews and the prior inventories on relevant domains (e.g., Campbell & Mertler, 2004; Yan & Pastore, 2022), I plan to categorize the dimensions as five scenarios, consisting of 1) face-to-face classroom, 2) online classroom, 3) after-school assignments and tasks, 4) feedback, 5) ethical concerns. Each contains six multiple-choice questions and each question has one best answer. The inventory will be uploaded to www.wjx.cn, a Chinese online open survey website, and automatically code the correct answer as 1 point while the incorrect answers as 0 points. Thus, the total grade for one participant is 30 points and each subsection values 6 points.

In particular, I am fully aware of the unique characteristics of Confucian heritage culture and its ubiquitous impact on teacher assessment practices. Therefore, all the questions are edited in line with the authentic local classroom settings. For example, I will emphasize student dignity considerations to replace the typical western inventory questions about privacy risks.

The expected findings will contribute to the initial investigation of the status of formative assessment literacy for K‒12 teachers in Confucian heritage culture and locate the specific factors influencing the building and practice of teachers in this domain. Eventually, the inventory will be used to gather evidence to inform in-service and preservice teacher professional development programs.

This presentation is part of a larger PhD project which looks at research on policy-making in educational research. Specifically, the thesis will explore the relationships between researchers who study environmental and sustainability education, including climate change, and the policy-makers at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the core agency for education within the United Nations system, who develop guidelines, strategies, and plans to guide UNESCO’s Member States. This relationship between researchers and policy-makers is also called “Science-Policy Interface” (Kaaronen, 2016). There is a research gap on how the relationships between researchers and policy-makers work and how knowledge flows within the network. As Singer-Brodowski et al. (2020) claim: "what happens in a particular SPI [Science-Policy-Interface] policy-research relationship remains underresearched, particularly in relation to 'success criteria' for policy makers and researchers." (p. 554). It is also unclear if a science-policy interface is a desirable mechanism to develop policies.

This paper will focus on the literature review of the larger PhD thesis, highlighting what research has already been done in terms of researcher and policy-maker relationships in the areas of sustainability, and climate change education. The presentation will present concepts that are currently used within the United Nations Systems to educate all about the planets boundaries and what role educational research plays for the networks in which new policy are being created.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), a concept found in most national curricula frameworks of formal education globally today (UNESCO , 2021), tries to overcome our world’s issues by teaching systems thinking and ways to connect the today with the present (Leicht et al., 2018). It is one of the most dominant educational discourses steered by the United Nations (Bengtsson , 2016; Bylund et al., 2022; González -Gaudiano, 2016; Gough , 2017). ESD tries to teach all learners about the complex issues humankind has created, such as inequality, poverty, and climate change, and aims to overcome them by encouraging learners to take ownership and responsibility of their actions. ESD focuses on three, sometimes four dimensions – environment, social, economic, and culture – claiming that all dimensions are needed to create the Future we Want (United Nations , 2012), as the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development is called.

A related, although different concept is Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE), which is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). UNESCO and UNFCCC are increasingly working together to promote the concept of climate change communication and education (CCE), often in relation to ESD. Most recently, UNESCO and UNFCCC hosted a joined webinar series on ACE ahead of COP27. Due to this collaboration, ACE is also an area that has become relevant for this paper.

ESD is a highly contested concept debated by academics (González-Gaudiano, 2016). Interestingly, the same people who criticize the concept, also tend to be the people who are invited by UNESCO to contribute to policy-making (Lysgaard et al., 2016; Payne , 2016). ACE is slightly different, as it is primarily negotiated at UNFCCC events, such as the Conference of the Parties (COP). Nevertheless, guidelines for ACE are sometimes written by the same people as for ESD (e.g., UNESCO & UNFCCC, 2016). Therefore, the question is: how is sustainability and climate change policy made? Whose research is involved in making sure the policy is evidence-based? Where do the ideas for the education policy come from?

This paper aims to explore how neo-nationalism and neoliberalism interact in the context of French higher education (HE) policy. A focus on the affective dimension allows the analysis to cut across multiple scales and disciplines, shedding light on the dynamics tying the two paradigms together in the domain of HE policymaking. Within this wider framework, the present paper is dedicated to international students’ migration, subject to debate and legislation in both Paris and Brussels. Relying on the inherent diversity of educational research, the analysis builds on concepts and approaches developed in different disciplines, applying them across the individual, institutional, nation-state and EU scales.

According to Andre Gingrich and Mark Banks (2006), neo-nationalist forces constitute “new and recent variants of nationalism” sharing distinct anti-immigration and anti-European stances, combined with “pro-law-and-order elements” (Gingrich, 2006, p. 215). This conceptualization was further elaborated, as neo-nationalist parties began looking towards the left for their economic policies, embracing welfare-chauvinism (Eger & Valdez, 2019), and replaced their tout-court hostility against the EU with calls for an alternative vision of the Union (Coman & Leconte, 2019). Most importantly, the policies and stances advocated by neo-nationalist forces have been increasingly appropriated by the so-called mainstream parties, located around the centre of the political spectrum (Brøgger, 2022). Most of the policies adopted by these parties, nevertheless, are still commonly identified as an expression of neoliberalism, that this paper addresses as “a system of thought bound up with market capitalism” (Lazzarato, 2009, p. 110).

My fieldwork in France began, therefore, with the intention to explore whether and to what extent neo-nationalist trends were co-existing with neoliberal discourse and policies. While conducting interviews with university staff, affect prominently entered the scene: among others, experiences of resentment, disillusion, and fear for the future. The paper builds on the extensive scholarship that developed from the “affective turn” of the mid-90s and early 2000s (Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). In other words, the analysis will assign a key role to emotions – or affects, going beyond dichotomous definitions of the two and seeing them, with Sarah Ahmed (2014), as “a matter of how we come into contact with objects and others” (p.208).

In the wake of a flourishing literature focusing on affect within educational research (e.g. Taylor & Lahad, 2018; Staunæs & Brøgger, 2020), this paper was greatly inspired by the works of Riyad Shahjahan (2020; 2022). Shedding light on the relationship between temporality and affects in academia, Shahjahan (2020) argues for a multi-scale analysis of the different ways individuals, institutions and nation-states affectively engage with temporal norms. On the individual level, neoliberal governmentality leads to the adoption of different “survival tactics” (Shahjahan, 2020) and the profusion of what Lazzarato (2009) – building on Deleuze and Guattari (1980) – defines as “micro-politics of little fears” (Lazzarato, 2009, p.120).

Moving from the individual to the nation-state level, the paper builds on William Walters’ concept of “domopolitics” (Walters, 2005) and Nandita Sharma’s “home economics” (Sharma, 2006). Encouraging us to reflect on the government of the nation-state as a home (domus in Latin), these works contribute to highlighting the affective dimension of migration management and the often-overlooked links between border security and social security systems (Walters, 2005), and therefore HE policy.

The “Bienvenue en France” strategy, launched by the French government in 2018, serves as a case study to explore how different agendas intertwine, on multiple levels, in the domain of international students’ migration. Following the fil rouge of affects, the paper works across the policy framework provided by the EU, the measures adopted at state level, the reactions of HE institutions and the concerns of their staff.

Shadow education is known as supplementary tutoring courses, which is a metaphor saying that supplementary tutoring is influenced by mainstream education, like mainstream education’s shadow. Shadow education is a worldwide phenomenon now. In Europe, shadow education is increasing. And in some Asian countries, shadow education seems to even exceed mainstream education.

The seriousness of implications caused by shadow education cannot be ignored. The parents and students have to purchase supplementary tutoring. For this reason, the financial expenditure will be a burden for some low-income families. This concerns the equality of educational resources because the higher-income family might provide various quality tutoring chances for their children. And following, educational anxiety and students’ study burden increase with the increase in shadow education attended. Moreover, the salary of being a tutor is higher than being a school teacher, which might cause schoolteacher corruption. They might have a part-time tutoring job and ask students to sign up for their tutoring courses. There are many social problems caused by shadow education. The education policy toward Shadow Education varies according to the different national conditions. Basically, there are four types: supportive policies, such as in Singapore and America, the MOEs provided financial support to students joining extra lessons; regulating types, such as in India, Portugal and Austria, their MOEs regulated schoolteachers being tutors; laissez-faire policy types, such as in the Czech Republic and Japan, which believe that free-market economy competition will regulate shadow education by itself; and the last type is prohibitive policy, such as today’s China.

China had the most extensive shadow education system in the world. However, since 24/07/2021, Chinese shadow education has been facing an enormous change. The Chinese MOE issued Double Reduction policy aims to reduce students’ study and homework burden by banning supplementary institutions from tutoring primary and lower secondary school students. All the supplementary academic institutions were forced to transform into art institutions or nonprofit-seeking academic institutions. Furthermore, the Chinese MOE set up a new department to monitor shadow education.

However, the Chinese education assessment system is still based on academic performance, competitive grades are the main way to get into a quality university. Therefore, the extra tutoring lessons might help students to learn more and be more competitive in school, the demands are here but the “market” is banned. China is not the only one that issued a prohibitive shadow education policy. South Korea and Mauritius had similar banning shadow education policies but were eventually abolished because shadow education was still highly demanded even though there were prohibitive policies. Whether Chinese policy can work well has become the focus.

Nevertheless, recent research typically investigated how the students, parents and schoolteachers felt about the Double Reduction, it showed that they thought Double Reduction helped students reduce their burden and promote mental health, but schoolteachers felt the workload increased. And also the recent research paid attention to how the public understood the policy, which showed that they could understand the policy is for seeking education equality. However, these studies ignored the shadow education providers’ perspectives on how they understand the Policy, How the Policy is implemented in the institutions from their sight.

Therefore, the general purpose of my study is to explore and analyze what has happened and what is happening in Chinese shadow education after Double Reduction from the shadow education providers’ perspective. This is a referenceable experience we can draw upon that how the policy is implemented in the Chinese shadow education sector; where does it work? where are the deficiencies? And enriching the diverse perspectives of the Double Reduction, not only limited to students, parents and the public.

Youth mental health has become an increasing concern in public discourse, especially during the covid pandemic. With a growing number of courses and guidance related to emotional support and self-management, emotional wellbeing has also become a significant focus of education in Finland (Ahonen, 2020; Brunila, 2012b). However, the connections between mental health and social structures, such as masculinity ideals, remain understudied in Finland and educational contexts globally. In my research, I examine young Finnish men’s views of the connections between masculinity ideals, public mental health discourses, and young men’s mental health.

The basis for this research is the understanding that gender is socially constructed and that gender, and other identities, are relational and performative, constituted in discourses producing gendered conditions of possibility for individuals (Butler 1988; 1990/2006). I follow Foucault’s theorisation (1982) on power and discourses, in which discourses are understood as power-knowledge systems. The mechanics of power produce different types of knowledge, which in turn reinforce the power-knowledge systems by defining “normal” or ideal codes of conduct. These norms constitute our lived experiences and gendered subjectivities, governing and regulating the way we express ourselves and our gender (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016; Davies & Gannon, 2011). This research focuses on masculinity ideals, understood as contextual set of characteristics often associated with the behaviour of men, setting a standard for what is seen as appropriate behaviour (Brunila, 2019; Francis, 2008; Hyvönen, 2021). The first objective of this research is to examine what kind of masculinity ideals young Finnish men identify in their lives, how they align with these ideals, and how they view these ideals to be connected to their mental health.

The second objective is to analyse what kind of public mental health discourses young men produce and how they understand their mental health through these discourses. Following McLeod and Wright (2016), instead of defining what mental health is, the emphasis is on what the concept of mental health does, how is it talked about, and with what kind of consequences. Like gender, mental health is understood in this research as a socially and discursively constructed concept. Several scholars argue that mental health has become kind of “empty signifier” - a multifaceted concept with several cultural meanings attached to it, acquiring many meanings in everyday discourses, and used to justify many kinds of youth policies and support systems (Aneshensel et al. 2013; McLeod & Wright, 2015). The expanding focus on mental health has raised critical questions about the increasing governing that individuals are subjected to, justified with objectives of wellbeing. The concept of therapeutic culture has been used to describe how therapeutic vocabulary, practices, and “struggling with the self” have become an essential part of society and social life (Brunila et al., 2021; Brunila & Siivonen, 2016; Klein & Mills, 2017; Nehring et al. 2020). Therapeutic culture can also contribute to upholding and dismantling gender ideals by upholding prevailing normativities with gendered emotional practices and discourses but also providing tools to negotiate with these norms (Hyvönen, 2021; Kolehmainen, 2018;2021).

Based on the theoretic framework, my research questions are: i) What kind of discourses of masculinity and mental health do young Finnish men identify in their lives, and how are these discourses constructed? ii) How do young Finnish men align with and understand their mental health through masculinity ideals and mental health discourses? With young men, I refer to individuals who identify as men aged 15-29.

Analysing young men’s views on the masculinity ideals and mental health discourses prevalent in society and education can bring new perspectives to young men’s mental health and deepen the understanding of men’s diverse lived experiences.

Anti-gender discourse was central to the success of the 2019 electoral campaign of Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice. Since then, the concept of academic freedom has increasingly been mobilized in this discourse as a signifier of priced Polish values, and ultimately, of how national sovereignty is perceived to be under threat. This paper asks, what is the role of the signifier of academic freedom in the anti-gender discourse’s re-articulation of Polish nationalism in the space of higher education?

The political project of the Polish government is broadly speaking based on a narrative driven by anti-liberal ideas that contest the main features of liberal democracy on the backdrop of perceived failed attempts of enacting transitional justice by political and cultural elites after the transformations of 1989 (Coman & Volintiru, 2021). While illiberal and populist radical right parties in Europe and beyond have experienced increasing parliamentary success since the turn of the millennium, Florian Bieber points out that a prevalent perception in public media that “nationalism is on the rise” is not attributable to a global shift of voters’ attitudes but to “the political and social articulation of these attitudes” (Bieber, 2018, p. 520). Andre Gingrich’s concept of neo-nationalism can be understood as one way to conceive of such emergent articulations “in a globalised period of aggressive postcolonial and post-Cold War readjustment” (Gingrich, 2006, p. 200). In his analysis neo-nationalisms in Europe emerge and define themselves against the supranational polity of the EU, and view EU elites as a threat “from above” on the one hand, and migrants and sexual and gender minorities as a threat “from below” on the other. Consequently, a crucial element of these new articulations is the mainstreaming of radical nationalist sentiment in national political cultures transnationally by way of what Grzebalska and Pető call a gendered modus operandi (Grzebalska & Pető, 2018; Paternotte & Verloo, 2021).

In the case of Poland this mainstreaming has been observed over time. Many leading lights of populist radical right parties, who in their youth mobilized fellow skinhead radicals through crude anti-semitic tropes, would later come to rally their voters against so-called “LGBT ideology” and “neo-marxism” in a register that is perceived to be more intellectual, dignified and acceptable (Graff & Korolczuk, 2022; Pankowski, 2010). As analyzed by Szadkowski and Krzeski academic freedom itself, a core liberal principle, has recently been invoked and appropriated by the Polish government to challenge perceived censorship through state assertive policy implementation (Szadkowski & Krzeski, 2021).

It has been noted in the literature that the domain of higher education and research in Poland plays an important role for the mainstreaming of radical national sentiment in two ways: 1) academic spaces and discourse lend legitimacy and mainstream flair to neo-nationalist causes as “politics of knowledge” (Paternotte & Verloo, 2021, p. 558); 2) educational institutions have an instrumental value for the ruling party’s wider political strategy of “counter elite-populism” (Bill, 2020).

Looking at the field of higher education in Syria, the available studies on educational leadership are very few (Abdalla & Al-Hamoud 1995; Dalati 2014; Khalifa & Ayoubi 2015), and the issue of female leadership in higher education institutions is still untackled. Women’s status, education, employment and enhancement in society has been emphasised and endorsed by Syrian governmental legislations and policies (Touchan, 2014). However, these regulations of inclusion and equality does not necessitate commitment and achieving justice (Deem & Ozaga. 1997; Ahmed, 2013). Lack of research does not mean that the problem does not exist; I analysed 22 university websites and found a complete lack of diversity words and speech acts in universities’ mission statements. In some universities, the proportion of female professors in top roles was also extremely low or non-existent. Responding to this issue of inequality and lack of discussion of this issue in Syria, this study aims to investigate the experiences, and perspectives of Syrian academic faculty members in current or previous leadership roles in various Syrian universities with the view to understand the barriers for female academics in career progression and the enablers for those who hold successful executive leadership roles. The research project was guided by the following research questions:

How do male and female academics perceive women and men in leadership positions?

What do female and male Syrian academics consider to be obstacles to their career progression and how these differ by gender?

What are the facilitating enablers that have helped successful Syrian female leaders in Higher Education to reach top leadership positions, and what are the struggle they face in their new space?

In addressing these questions, the study’s objectives are to investigate gender inequality in academia as it manifests itself in various settings, such as homes, society, institutions, employment, as well as the struggle and symbolic violence that female academics face as a result of invading new spaces.

This study utilizes multiple theoretical frameworks. I draw upon Pierre Bourdieu's schematic form: habitus, field, capital, reflexivity and symbolic violence to understand how societal structures and power dynamics shape individuals' perceptions and actions within a given field, and to examine how the accumulation of cultural and symbolic resources by men in academia perpetuates a system of patriarchy, thereby limiting the opportunities and recognition of women in leadership positions (1977, 1984,1986,1990). Additionally, feminist theories are used especially those that re read and analyse Bourdieu’s works in relations to gender, and the concept of reflexivity, and how individuals can change the internalized habitus through their practices (Fraser, 1989; Mitchell, 1991). The results of this change and the struggle female academics face is discussed through the lens of Puwar’s theory of space invaders (2004) and Sara Ahmed's concepts of "feminist killjoy", "the wall of academia" and "the politics of being included" (2010, 2012, 2017) to understand the following:

how women's presence in academia is often perceived as a disruption of the status quo and how they are treated as invaders in the male-dominated spaces and how they can change the space and make it more inclusive.

how the academic institution itself can act as a barrier for marginalized groups and the strategies individuals use to navigate and resist these barriers.

how the act of inclusion is not neutral, but rather it is a political act that perpetuates the power dynamics that lead to exclusion.

The framework also incorporates Connell's concepts of hegemonic masculinity, and gender and power (1987, 1995), which highlight how dominant forms of masculinity serve to marginalize and oppress women, and how the norms and expectations shape the academic career advancement of men and women differently.

Teacher identity is shaped by the interaction between the teacher and the community of practice (Loo, 2021). Teachers’ personal experiences, as well as their emotions and interactions with students, colleagues and the entire educational community, influence their identity (Nichols et al., 2017; Walker-Gibbs et al., 2018). A crucial element of teaching identity is their professional (pedagogical) identity, which can be understood as how teachers define and assume their duties and comprehend their relationships with others who perform the same responsibilities (Avalos & Sotomayor, 2012). One of the main determining factors in teacher identity is the context; through interactions with the environment, identities are reconstructed socially and culturally (Baeza, 2022; Loo, 2021). Understanding teacher identities in rural Indigenous contexts is key to reviewing teacher education programs and professional development. Moreover, one of the leading causes of teacher attrition is the lack of preparation educators have to work in multicultural contexts. This situation is a global concern, as reported in countries such as Spain, Britain, Sweden, Canada and Australia (UNESCO, 2009). However, a limited number of studies have explored teachers’ identity in rural contexts and with a high Indigenous population. Some of these studies suggest that some essential components of teacher identity are the power relationship established with students and their knowledge of their learners (Perso & Hayward, 2015; Walker-Gibbs et al., 2018; White, 2015). The size of the school and the community can also influence their identity. For example, in small towns there are limited options for professional development (Walker-Gibbs et al., 2018).

The relationship with the local community is also essential to teacher identity. Several studies found the best way for teachers to understand their students’ culture is by working closely and collaboratively with the local community (Harrison & Murray, 2012). However, similarly to other countries affected by European colonization, in Chile, education has reproduced the dominant western culture, ignoring the incorporation of Indigenous traditional knowledge into school (Quilaqueo et al., 2014; Vera et al., 2017). Children are receiving a decontextualized and racist education, which is against preserving Indigenous culture and constructing a multicultural society (Mendoza & Sanhueza, 2016).

Theoretical framework

This study adopts an Indigenous decolonized approach, informed by the United Nations (2008) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. This declaration acknowledges the impact Indigenous communities have suffered from the effects of colonization, such as the loss of their ancient land and discrimination in their access to justice and education. It also emphasises the right of Indigenous children to receive an education that respects their local culture. Furthermore, the Indigenous decolonizing perspective highlights the knowledge of minorities affected by colonization in finding solutions to local concerns. Indigenous knowledge is shaped by interaction with nature and the relationship with other community members and the local context (McKenna et al., 2021). Consequently, Indigenous knowledge cannot be separated from the place in which this is generated (Higgins & Kin, 2018). In the interaction between Indigenous wisdom and research focused on social justice and democracy, Indigenous knowledge is built (Chilisa, 2012; Smith, 2012). From this point of view, this research includes the voice of Indigenous community members as the first source of information

This study intends to contribute to the knowledge about the experiences of rural teachers in Indigenous contexts. Through hearing the voices of teachers working in rural schools in the Atacama Desert in Chile, and members of the Atacameños Indigenous community, this research answers the question: How do the lives and pedagogical experiences of teachers in Indigenous rural contexts determine their professional identity?

The brutal murder of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis in the United States of America at the hands of a white police officer led to the largest global racial justice protest since the civil rights movement (Smith, 2021) However, concurrently, political leaders across the globe were also grappling with unforeseen statistics, which highlighted that Black Asian and Ethnic minority (BAME) groups had between a 10 and 50 % per cent higher risk of fatality due to COVID-19 in comparison to their White Counterparts (Smith, 2021. Public Health England, 2020). Subsequently, racism was named as a factor in the unequal deaths of BAME communities due to the ongoing pandemic and global leaders were forced to respond to both “viruses: the pandemic and racism” (Smith, 2021).

In Scotland the Scottish Government established ‘The Race and Equality Framework’, which aimed to ensure that Scotland’s Children and young people were provided with an understanding of the nation’s colonial and slavery history. While also challenging racism, eliminating racial discrimination, and promoting social equality (Scot, Gov 2021). In addition to this and in conjunction with the ‘The race and Equality Framework’, The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), also introduced the new ‘Professional Standards for teachers. This regulatory body goes on to state that teaching professionals should be committed to social justice through fair, transparent, inclusive, and sustainable teaching in relation to the nine protected characteristics and intersectionality (Ibid). However, in each of the documents discussed above there is no theoretical definition of what intersectionality maybe, its historical roots, or how teaching professionals can successfully implement this framework. Furthermore, the protected characteristics this document refers to, which are taken from ‘The Equality Act (2010) (Scot Gov, 2010) and similar to the EU Charter of Fundamental rights, are listed as a single identity lens which is known to create challenges in applying intersectionality- diminishing the synergy which is inherent in intersectional frameworks (Solanke, 2011). Education systems across the globe are charchterized by their cultural and ethinc diversity, however, education policy must reconcile with indigenous and ethinc groups and be culturally responsive to global and national issues.

Intersectionality is a theoretical paradigm and analytical tool that moves away from single-axis frameworks that view oppressive identity markers such as race, gender, sex, and class as juxtaposed identity groups (Crenshaw, 1998. Hill-Collins, 2016). As a theoretical paradigm, intersectionality is a critical framework that provides us with the language and mindset to identify interdependencies and interconnectedness between socially constructed systems and categories (Atewologun, 2018). However, this paradigm chart moves beyond identifying micro-level specific social locations and is also an analytical tool that helps individuals understand the world’s complexity. This framework unpacks intersecting systems of inequality and subsequently supports the analysis of the domains of power- structural, interpersonal, disciplinary, and cultural and how these domains organise power relations throughout society(Hill- Collins, 2016. Symington, 2004)

This research paper uses critical discourse analysis as an analytical tool to establish where this leaves contemporary policy responses in the field of education and the extent to which they are cognizant with intersectionality. Or if alternatively, contemporary political responses such as the ‘The Race and Equality Framework’ are an example of a pernicious form of doublespeak. A form of language which aims to communicate but does not, language which denies or shifts responsibility and language which conceals or prevents thought. The following sub questions guided this research project:

What approach is taken in Scottish education policy creation in terms of protected groups? Will this support the successful implementation of intersectionality? What role will this framework play in reinforcing, legitimising and reproducing white group dominance?

Migration constitutes an increasingly significant phenomenon in the Western world, and the reasons behind people’s choice to leave their native land are multiple. Most migrants depart from their country of origin to secure a better life for themselves and their offspring; aiming to do so, many of them rely on education. Given how Finland represents an attractive option for foreign students, who form a conspicuous part of its immigrant population (Maury, 2017), it is important to evaluate what shapes their identity and sense of belonging.

This paper contributes to the field of educational research by focusing on young adult and adult students who are from non-EU countries, particularly the ones who are reskilling, upskilling or in courses aimed for them to enter the labour market. My interest lies in how their experiences may contribute to the development of their sense of belonging. Aiming to provide an in-depth view of individuals' narratives, the fieldwork was carried out in adult vocational schools by means of mixed methods combining ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews.

The article aims to answer the following questions:

• What are the factors that contribute to young adult and adult migrant non-EU students’ sense of belonging in Finland?
• What barriers might they encounter and how does this affect their plans?

Previous research focusing on migrants’ experiences through the Finnish educational system show how these may be hindered by racialisation and genderisation (Kurki, 2019; Kurki et al., 2019). ‘Immigrantisation’ and ‘immigrant-ness’ combined with other social dimensions such as race, gender and class position them in a disadvantaged place within the power discourse, defining their subjectivities and their future perspectives.

Drawing on Foucault’s subjectification theories (1982) and Sara Ahmed’s feminist and postcolonial work on ‘Embodied Otherness’ (2000), I argue that temporality combined with racialisation may affect the development of young adult and adult students’ identity and sense of belonging.

Starting with Vygotsky's research and the decisive contribution of the ensuing cultural-historical tradition (Smolucha & Smolucha, 1992; Gajdamaschko, 2005) the use of the term "imagination" in psychological and educational research has changed radically. From an irrational, egocentric and unrealistic type of thinking (Piaget, 1962), the term has come to denote a sophisticated form of intelligence in which logic is integrated with emotions and cognitive flexibility (Abraham, 2020).

Moreover, recent research in cognitive science and developmental psychology, even outside the cultural-historical tradition, has provided further empirical confirmation to support this critical rethinking of classical Piagetian ideas about imagination. This psychological function has proved indeed crucial for personal development and meaningful learning at different levels. It supports and enriches personal meaning-making and knowledge construction (Kind & Kung, 2016; Root-Bernstein, 2013). It is required for the proper functioning of emotional intelligence, empathy and theory of mind (Goldstein & Winner, 2012). It enhances metacognition and self-regulation processes (Goldstein & Lerner, 2017) and is an essential component of creative idea generation (Russ, 2014), divergent thinking and hypothetical and counterfactual reasoning (Harris, 2021).

Imaginative Education (IE) is an educational theory that unfolds the consequences of this post-Piagetian perspective on imagination in the field of curriculum design, teacher education and teacher professional development. The theory clarifies in a systematic way the reasons why imagination is a crucial resource for teaching and learning. On this basis, it also provides teachers with a set of “cognitive tools crystallized in culture” (Egan, 1997) with which to enhance the imaginative potential of teachers and learners and relate it to the acquisition of curricular knowledge and skills.

However, despite addressing several focal issues in the contemporary debate on teacher education and professional development, in its two decades of global dissemination and application, IE has yet to be analyzed and tested in the European context.

This work is part of a larger doctoral project that aims at the following objectives:

-clarify the relevance of IE in relation to the main issues addressed in the contemporary debate on teacher education and professional development, such as the development of complex thinking and creative agency informed by critical and responsible reflection on the nature and purposes of education (Biesta, 2017);

-document and analyze IE-based teacher training programs that have been developed internationally for more than two decades;

-develop a prototype of an IE-based teacher training program to be implemented in the Italian context, taking current practices in Canadian universities in British Columbia as a model (University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Capilano University);

-conducting an exploratory case study with a group of in-service teachers to analyze the critical issues of this implementation process.

This study is the initial part of a wider research project that aims at the creation and evaluation of training programs for students and teachers based on the theory of Imaginative Education, and their implementation in the Faculty of Education of the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano. The hypothesis is that this process will result in a significant enrichment of the University's educational programs and catalyze its integration with other educational institutions in the region. Concurrently, we aim to support the dissemination and the development of Imaginative Education within the European context, to enrich the debate in the fields of curriculum design, teacher education and teacher professional deveolpment.

Research Question

What is the Role of the Primary School Teaching Assistant Amidst the Implications of Identity, Status and Professionalism in the Hierarchy of the School Workforce?

This research is an offshoot of a pilot study titled ‘The Role of the Teaching Assistant in Reflection of Experience, Qualifications and Status’, that I conducted in 2022.

Since the Plowden Report (1967), the Warnock Report (1978) and the Time for standards: reforming the school workforce report (2002), there has been a breadth of variation in both the roles and responsibilities of the teaching assistant in England’s schools (Adamson, 1999; Cajkler et al., 2007; Hancock et al., 2001). Barber (1996) characterised the employment of the teaching assistant as an ‘incipient quiet revolution’ as they began to adapt to more pedagogical roles (Butt and lance, 2009). Many teaching assistants were not specifically trained for this (Blatchford et al, 2004). Although teaching assistants began playing a major role in the teaching of children, they were not credited for this as the teacher was still viewed as being core to a lesson whilst the teaching assistant was seen as being periphery (Hancock and Eyres, 2004). With regards to positioning in the workforce, this view created a hierarchy between the teacher and the teaching assistant and what could be deemed as a watering down of a profession by funnelling traditional aspects of a professional job to an assistant. Friedson (2001) argued that the intertwining roles of professional and paraprofessional were designed to reduce the cost and the independence of the professions. Butt and Lance (2005) advised the need for sensitivity in the approach used by teachers towards teaching assistants. Difficulties and benefits associated with the remodelling of the workforce strategy continue to emerge since 2006 (Collins and Simco, 2006) but are seen as dependent upon the way in which teaching assistants are conceptualised, trained, and deployed by a school.

Professional learning required for successful large-scale reform depends on a commitment to experimentation and innovation at the local level (Leithwood et al, 2006). Since 2006, the role of the teaching assistant has undergone a period of experimentation and innovation and as there is currently no definitive job description that sets out the job role of the teaching assistant, it can be assumed that the drawn-out period of experimentation and innovation continues to be on-going. In the current climate, more than five decades after The Plowden report (1967), there are several options by which they are able to simultaneously work as a teaching assistant and upgrade their qualifications to enter the teaching profession (CooperGibson, 2019), albeit this being an expensive and time-consuming process.

This research aims to find out firstly if there is a definitive employment role for the teaching assistant in the primary school, to close the gap nationally in research literature on the actual role of the teaching assistant. This is timely because the whole picture of teaching assistant employment is and has been on a pendulum of continual change and whilst government research initiatives and updated government policies manipulate the pendulum, there remains a gap in research that identifies specifically, the current state of play in schools. Secondly, this research aims to explore how the implications of identity, status, and professionalism within the workforce, affect both the perceptions and the work role of the teaching assistant. There is currently a trending dichotomy in that the role of the teaching assistant is becoming professionalised whilst the role of the teacher is becoming de-professionalised.

Interviews (via Teams) are also being undertaken internationally, to provide a comparative overview on a global basis for this research.

Research on professional development (PD), exploring its practice and impact, has made significant progress in the past thirty years. In a vocational education environment, the role of teacher professional development in relation to enhancing teaching quality and capability has received extensive attention (Zhou, Tigelaar and Admiraal, 2022). Scholars have reviewed PD in conjunction with students' academic performance, leadership performance and school reform (Sims et al., 2021). More recently in China, the PD of middle leaders (MLs) has gradually entered scholars’ field of vision, through the development of distributed leadership theory and adult learning theory.

Internationally, MLs have been recognised as playing a key strategic and operational role in the leadership team of schools and colleges as executors, coordinators and participants of development strategies, working both vertically and horizontally within their organisations (Lipscombe et al., 2020). However, research exploring the PD for MLs in the Chinese mainland is still limited. Indeed, the literature review findings of this study found that most of the existing research is restricted to a general education environment. From a vertical perspective, research on the PD of MLs is relatively advanced (Zhang, Wong and Wang, 2022; Bryant and Rao, 2019; Walker and Qian, 2019; Bryant, Wong and Adames, 2020). From a horizontal perspective however, there are clear limitations to the research conducted to date, when compared with other countries. Scholars are accustomed to classifying the PD for MLs directly as teacher professional development, without taking account of the added complexities involved in MLs’ rolls and the PD needed to support their development. As such, this simplistic generalisation limits the scope of PD and its impact on both MLs’ and system improvement.

In the context of the new education reform, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a series of policies that put forward higher requirements for the quality and ability of teaching faculty in Chinese higher vocational colleges (CHVCs) from 2019. Among them, the principles of stratification and classification were explicitly proposed. The policy requires that the improvement plan for different stages of PD in CHVCs should be precisely planned, according to the needs of different teachers, leaders and trainers. However, reform efforts in PD for MLs lack an informed view, through the absence of empirical research in the context of China. There is a reliance on learning from the experience and achievements of research on PD and MLs conducted in other countries. This runs counter to contemporary understandings of the importance of context for system improvement efforts. Conducting localised research in China, is therefore key to reform, enhancing the quality and training of CHVCs. Moreover, such empirical research could contribute to the limited number of non-Western centric studies which dominate the international literature.

This study, located in CHVCs, aims to explore the relevant policy requirements and specific development pathways of PD for MLs, through exploring the following research questions:

1. What are the policy aspirations for the PD for MLs in CHVCs?

2. What is the experience of MLs engaging with PD in CHVCs?

3. What are the implications for the extent to which policy aspirations and MLs’ experience of PD match in CHVCs?

Through the generation and analysis of data through semi-structured interviews and policy documents on PD at the national, regional and institutional levels, the policy background and implementation status regarding PD for MLs in CHVCs has been illuminated. This study contributes to filling the research gap about PD in the Chinese educational environment. Correspondingly, it introduces understandings of PD from the Chinese mainland to an international audience, especially meaningful for European countries increasingly aware of the importance of MLs and their PD.

There is an increasing body of work which explores the use of various social media platforms in different educational contexts. Social media and online learning communities have been positioned as contemporary forms of professional development that can address the clear challenges associated with teacher learning (Goodyear, Parker, & Casey, 2019). Several studies identified that teachers, particularly pre-service teachers, are increasingly using social media for professional learning, voicing teaching problems and/or sharing teaching experience with experts and colleagues (Carpenter, 2015; Goodyear, Casey, & Kirk, 2014).

From a higher education perspective, Wang et al. (2012) found that a Facebook Group could be used as a Learning Management System (LMS) for Singapore students with the purpose of posting announcements, sharing resources, organizing weekly tutorials and conducting online discussions. Findings showed that students were satisfied with using Facebook in this way as it mirrored the fundamental functions of a LMS at this teacher education institute (Wang et al., 2012). However, many studies have criticised formal educations use of LMS as they limit students’ control over their learning (Chen & Bryer, 2012; Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012). Indeed, teachers and pre-service teachers may prefer informal learning activities, which do not follow a specified curriculum and are not restricted to certain environments (Desimone, 2009). Consequently, social media seems to provide teachers with more informal professional learning opportunities as they attempt to engage in professional development outside of formal contexts (Carpenter, 2015). Whilst some literature has reported that social media has the potential to integrate learners’ formal and informal learning, this work is under-theorized (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016). Indeed, little scholarly attention has been given to the study of the role of social media in supporting different types of learning from the learner’s perspective.

Research to date, concerningly, takes a predominantly Western perspective and focuses on students’ learning through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. In contrast, little is known about students learning through the unique social media environments in other countries such as China. Indeed, while Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest dominate the landscape of social media in many countries, they are infrequently used in China. Instead, social networking sites such as WeChat and Weibo are popular. Furthermore, given that cultural differences have been shown to strongly impact people’s online behaviour (Ji et al., 2010), coupled with the knowledge that the relationship between teachers and students in China is hierarchical (Zhao & McDougall, 2008), there is a need to better understand how students learn through the unique social media environment in China. This is even more important when noting:

(a) the dearth of research exploring how the Chinese educational culture might influence its students’ attitudes towards integrating social media into institutional settings, and

(b) that Chinese students are often inactive and unwilling to express their ideas in online discussions because they are not prepared to contradict their peers or instructors in a public platform, and they are afraid of losing face (Zhao and McDougall, 2008).

Despite this lack of knowledge, it is important to support the ambitions of the Chinese online community by furthering our understanding of social media in supporting physical education (PE) student-teachers' professional learning. There have, however, been very few research studies investigating how Chinese PE student-teachers' use social media as a professional learning platform and how they value online learning communities in their professional learning. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore Chinese PE student-teachers’ attitudes to using the WeChat group for professional learning under the lens of formal and informal learning theory.

Concerning the topic of higher education for sustainable development, Rieckmann (2012) and Barth et al. (2007) have addressed key competences for sustainable development. These studies consider future-oriented higher education through the promotion of different types of thinking: a systematic type, an anticipatory type and a critical type. Barth (2011) has also addressed the integration of sustainability in education through changes in higher education; while Barth et al. (2011) have addressed the students’ points of view on higher education as an innovative approach to make changes to education. Among other issues, it has been identified the challenge of transfer sustainable development approaches to universities (Adomssent et al., 2007), analysis of a transdisciplinary approach to teaching sustainability (Scholz et al., 2006) and the ethics of sustainability addressed by Biedenweg et al. (2013). In the case of the Technical University of the North of Ecuador, Barth and Rieckmann (2012) addressed the role of academic staff in guiding higher education towards a sustainable development approach. The study confirmed that competencies of academic staff are an essential prerequisite to achieve a paradigm shift in the approach of higher education for sustainable development. Peer et al. (2011) have addressed the role of universities as agents of change for sustainability. They conducted two case studies on the analysis of infrastructure for waste and energy management, highlighting the contribution of universities to local and regional development. These studies considered a conceptual framework based on the theory of teaching-planning-implementation. Bauer et al. (2018) recognize that Higher Education Institutions are not only virtual locations, but actual buildings that present their own sustainability challenges, stating as for example resource procurement and supply chain management, energy use and waste disposal.

According to Velázquez (2006), the focus of "sustainability on campus" is a recent debate in the discussion of strategies for promoting sustainability in universities. While some projects, programs or initiatives in education, research and communication are being implemented since the early seventies, sustainability initiatives on campus begun until the late nineties. With this research it is expected to expand the knowledge on the adaptation of campuses management and built environment toward a more sustainable system, considering the statement of Sonetti et al (2015) when highlighting the role of management capacities for a social responsibility transition.

The general objective of the research is to create a holistic “Sustainable University” model that enables an “ideal” university campus and built environment as a living laboratory for territorial development. This objective will be addressed through the definition of tools and methodologies for the comparison of sustainable university campuses and its institutional decision-making mechanisms when considering the higher education for sustainable development approach.

As stated previously, though higher education for sustainable development (HESD) has been approached broadly, it has been little addressed the role of territorial management in the context of HESD and its relationship with the concept of “sustainable campus”. Against this background, a Systematic Literature Review is being conducted to address the following research question: “What are the main and common variables that typify a holistic management model of an ’ideal’ sustainable university campus as a living laboratory for territorial development?”. The specific objective of the systematic literature review is to identify the State-of-the-art in the scientific debate of the relationship between the university campus-built environment characteristics and territorial management under the umbrella of higher education for sustainable development.

The central concept of the paper encompasses the learning characteristics achieved and developed through Forest Schools (FS) and the wider implications FS has for pupils and practice. The paper covers the pilot study and results and answers several research questions including: How do the experiences of Forest School support and develop characteristics of learning?

A recent movement in culture originating within the Scandinavian education system created a realignment in pedagogy across Europe that refocused learning on the outdoors and increasingly on Forest Schools (Sääkslahti, 2022). Outdoor education and Forest Schools were received positively by teachers, leading to a paradigm shift emerging within Britain in the 1990s and continues today (Mann et al., 2021). The same shift in practice and pedagogy has been seen in the development of new style playgrounds in Germany that encourage risk taking opportunities as well as the increase in Forest School and other outdoor learning within the UK. The initial influx of Forest School and its adaptation into schools has also begun to be seen within other countries such as America and Canada. Those within formal education have increasingly looked towards alternative provision to support pupils in classrooms but until recently Forest School and other outdoor learning provisions have lacked the research support for it to become an evidence-based practice within schools. This research fits into this year’s conference theme in several ways, it highlights the need for pedagogical change as well as learning context and culture. Forest School itself is also a force for inclusion as it should be available for all.

The pilot study results were derived from the pupils lived experiences and narratives, providing an insight into the lived experiences and possible skills gained through children’s attendance within forest school, meeting a documented need in education currently to provide recommendations for practice. Having multiple roles as researcher, FS leader and educator led to careful consideration of approach therefore, Interpretive phenomenology (IP) formed the epistemological, ontological, and theoretical underpinning of the study to reflect on and embrace the challenges and consideration of insider research. IP is socially constructed, and information is interpreted through roles such as practitioner and pupil, as well as symbols and values (Argarwal and Sandiford, 2022). Using this approach ensured three core benefits: it embraced the idea of insider researcher reducing conflict between researcher and practitioner roles, it supported symbolic and complex meaning to be understood from the words used by the participants within the Forest School context, and thirdly it provided a framework to conduct the research within the ethical guidelines and welfare principles of the Forest School setting. Forest School is grounded within practices and principles that put children’s wishes at the centre of Forest School practitioner’s planning and actions, these principles concur with IP’s theoretical underpinnings.

The paper contains the initial pilot study results and findings derived from this. This includes changes to the study and initial themes drawn from the participant’s discourse. The pilot study allowed reflexivity and introspection which lead to an understanding of the changes required to make the research more impactful and insightful which is reflected within the paper. The pilot study also provided several insights and aligned with theory that outdoor education and Forest School are beneficial and increased understanding in this area which will be covered within the conference session.

The paper and related study are part of a professional doctorate and as such must meet the strict criteria of ethics set out by the University. The paper introduces FS as well as provoking conversation and discussion about the future of learning and implications for future practice.

To heal the planetary community in terms of humans listening to non-humans, it is essential to become aware of the symbiotic bond that interconnects them. Environmental historian Linda Lear, in the introduction to Rachel Carson's book “The Sense of Wonder. A celebration of nature for parents and children” (2017), reminds us that “the child intuitively apprehends the truth that most adults have forgotten – we are all part of the natural world” (p.9). The awareness of being what Clement calls symbiotic man, i.e. the perception of oneself as part of the environment, requires the creation of a virtuous circle: activating the sense of being part of a system of relationships in order to become conscious of one’s symbiosis with the system itself. This circle is the prerequisite for the growth of ecological intelligence (Goleman, 2009), namely the ability to behave for the well-being of ecosystems. These considerations lead to reflect on the importance of promoting teaching practices rooted in the concept of sustainability, defined as the ability to listen to all forms of life, and oriented towards the promotion of planetary citizenship (Bianchi et al., 2022). UNESCO (2022) urges tertiary education to work in interdisciplinary manners in response to complex phenomena such as Plant Blindness, which undermine the achievement of the 2030 Agenda goals (Amprazis, Papadopoulou, 2020). Consequently, the research is characterized by an interdisciplinary ecological framework (Wernli, Darbellay, 2016; Bateson, 2000; Bronfenbrenner, 1986), which places eco-pedagogy (Misisaszek, 2021) and eco-didactics (Strongoli, 2021) in dialogue with anthropology and psychology.

While anthropological inquiries underline the relational structure of our thinking, psychological ones emphasize nature-based interventions – i.e. activities aimed at modifying the living/working environment or changing people's behavior (Shanahan D., et al.,2019). Particularly stimulating is research in higher education aimed at investigating the benefits of actively experiencing indoor green environments (Van de Bogerd et al, 2020). The world of education has the responsibility to investigate the contribution that the plant world, as a pedagogical entity, can offer to the development of such citizenship and, in turn, the contribution that this can offer to the non-human. The research places the university learning environment at the center, investigated as an ecosystem (Niemi, 2021) of teacher-student, human-plant relationships. Its objective is to examine how the formation of indoor educational environments through interaction with plants, which is conveyed by an interdisciplinary (Holley,2017), green, co-constructed curriculum, can foster the development of GreenComp (Bianchi et al,2022).

The main research question is whether is it possible to foster the development of 'GreenComp' in initial teacher education (ITE) students by setting up plant-rich educational environments and by formulating an interdisciplinary green curriculum. Three specific questions stem from this general question.

Q1. How does the presence of plants in tertiary education contexts affect the well-being and place attachment of professors and ITE students?

Q2. How can a model of interdisciplinary green curriculum for higher education focused on the relationship between humans and the plant world be developed participatively?

Q3. How can plant-rich academic teaching spaces and activities facilitate the development of “GreenComp in ITE students?