Conference Agenda

There exists abundant evidence about the effects of material learning environments on various aspects of educational experience – from learners’ behaviours and the development of habits, to learning outcomes, socialisation and wellbeing. However, it has also been fairly well-documented that the causal pathways between the material learning environment and desired outcomes are often hard to determine. Material learning environments are mediated and complicated by additional factors, which, importantly, operate at different spatial scales – from educational policy to digital technologies, and from community engagement with educational institutions to the agency of individual learners.
In the context of the above scholarship, this presentation seeks to (re)think why and how matter – understood in the broadest sense – matters in learning environments. Drawing on over two decades of research in both mainstream and alternative learning environments in countries including the UK, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, it aims to juxtapose a range of ways for thinking (again) about how the material environment matters to learning. Conceptually, the paper is based in the author’s broad-ranging engagement with inter-related theories that, together, offer insights into spatial processes in learning environments – including nonrepresentational, feminist new materialist and post-humanist approaches. These approaches emphasise complexity and relationality, and aim to witness aspects of everyday experience that are often overlooked or hard to represent – including bodily performances and habits, emotions and affects, and the entanglement of human with nonhuman forms of agency.
However, these conceptual approaches raise important questions about the extent to which human agents can operate within and control material learning environments – leading to important further (ethical) questions about humans’ responsibility to adequately attend to the role and rights of non-humans. These can be hard questions to grapple with, especially in the often highly-controlled, carefully-designed and -orchestrated and, importantly, indoor environments in which most humans learn (i.e. schools). Yet, by extending analyses to alternative environments such as Forest Schools and Care Farms, other ways to conceptualise matter emerge.
The presentation itself will explore several case studies from both mainstream and alternative educational environments that offer additional provocations and questions for (re)thinking the role of matter in material learning environments. In each case, there will be consideration not only of the specific constellations and micro-geographies of learning environments, but the ways in which these reflect or refract broader social, economic and/or moral imperatives. Examples will include: integrating design and use to create particular kinds of ‘atmospheres’ in the Steiner School kindergarten; intervening at the level of ‘habit’ in Forest Schools and Care Farms through careful choreography of and engagement with ‘natures’; co-producing urban treescapes with children in school grounds; exploring children’s interactions with plastics and metal elements through art and biosampling techniques. Based on these examples, the concluding discussion will outline potential avenues for further research about the role of matter in material learning environments.

How can we know and act ethically and responsibly as education researchers? Education research is increasingly expected to demonstrate utility, inform policy, and produce measurable ‘impact.’ Yet not only are these aims difficult to achieve, they also fail to prompt reflection on how research actively shapes the objects, problems and futures of education. This keynote begins with the provocation that education research is never merely descriptive: it is always world-making. If ‘knowing’ and ‘acting’ are co-produced rather than separate activities, what does it mean for education researchers to take responsibility for the worlds they help bring into being?

Drawing on Jasanoff, Stengers, Dewey, Haraway, Latour and recent work on responsible research and innovation, I explore key issues of partiality, legitimacy and utility in research. To demonstrate the ontological politics of knowledge-making, I focus on the methods, metrics and data infrastructures that organise contemporary education systems—from international comparisons to predictive analytics—showing how they configure what becomes visible, actionable and governable, while excluding other possibilities. Turning the critical gaze to our own practices, I argue that attending to the epistemic, material and institutional conditions of research allows us to understand responsibility not as compliance with external demands, nor as the production of impact, but as the cultivation of reflexivity about the effects and exclusions of our knowledge-making.

In a climate hungry for certainty, I argue for staying with the trouble and defending space for thinking and acting beyond narrow notions of impact. Understanding research as a collective endeavour shaped by civic epistemologies, informed publics and heterogeneous assemblages, I call for approaches that open up: slowing judgment, foregrounding uncertainty, inviting alternative perspectives, and making space for questions that do not necessarily fit prevailing frames. Responsibility, in this sense, becomes a mode of inquiry—a commitment not only to examining how we know, what we enact, and what possibilities we enable or foreclose, but also to considering ‘how we go on together.’

I propose to reconsider a form of inquiry that, at times and in connection with various pedagogical movements, theories and disciplinary interests, once formed an essential part of education research and the design of pedagogical practices: the study journey. I suggest to understand this journey as embodiment of the famous motto ‘sapere aude’. Which is to be translated, following Isabelle Stengers, as ‘dare to taste’ (not to test or to judge validity claims). And she understands tasting as the adventure of learning to perceive the effects of situated indeterminate encounters that form more intelligent and sensitive bodies. Hence, we can understand the study journey as engaging in a transformation of the enquirer as well as the educational field itself, where the enquirer not only starts to perceive the field differently, but also starts to inhabit a different field. Where different things (can) start to matter and (can) start to matter (each time) differently.

A study journey constitutes a rather simple dispositive including certain tools, particular manners, a kind of discipline and (much) physical work to be done. It stages study as adventurous encounters with the educational field, allowing for a particular ‘style of attention’. This style enables to perceive learning as part of various forms of pedagogical life, being each time a different matter and mattering differently. I will elaborate how it can break, in a unspectacular way, through a certain modern scientific style of attention to learning. A style leading to ever more indirect research, ever more tele-screen-research, for which mainly access to streams of information and (technical) images is needed (emerging out of measurements, tests, assessments, experiments, sensors). It can break through this way of perceiving (how learning matters and what matters to learning) not because it would involve a different theoretical view, but because perceiving becomes embodied in a different practice. This fieldwork is not so much to collect stories, narratives, opinions from the field or about approaching it as a landscape on which to get an overview or establish a perspective. But it could engage e.g. in the making of very particular (pedagogical) atlases that help to unfold the field, while being drawn into it. This can help animate, repopulate or vivify an educational field that learning sciences, certain digital technologies and certain psychologies and sociologies increasingly have disembodied, emptied from the rich variety of forms of pedagogical life (their matter and matterings). The study journey could be seen as one way of ‘refielding’ (Stengers) education research, one way of ‘touching the (educational) present’ (S. Todd), moved by a desire of relevance, rather than of (future) directing. Making the field otherwise relevant for the (re-)design of educational practices.

The European Research Council (ERC), set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organization for excellent frontier research. The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields, based on scientific excellence. Since 2007, ERC funded more than 18 500 projects and over 10 000 researchers. More than 200 000 articles were published in scientific journals. Many important prizes were awarded to ERC grantees, including 15 Nobel prizes.
The aim of this ERC session is to provide information about the ERC’s funding opportunities and encourage researchers to apply, with a particular focus on the education research community. This workshop will introduce the different funding schemes at the ERC and will focus on the three main investigator-based grant schemes (Starting Grant, Consolidator Grant, Advanced Grant). The session will include essential information about the ERC such as, e.g., the nature of the different calls, eligibility, principles of the evaluation process, and panel structure. “Tips and tricks” will be given on how to draft the B1 and B2 parts of the proposal, choose descriptors and panels, and what to focus on when preparing for an ERC interview.
Participants will have the chance to ask questions during the Q&A. Furthermore, ERC grantees will give testimonies about their own journeys of securing and implementing their ERC-funded projects (to be confirmed)

Mentoring trainee teachers is a complex, relational practice that draws on a repertoire of knowledge, skills and dispositions that are distinct from classroom teaching (Gardiner & Weisling, 2018). In England, the mentoring role has been part of teacher education since the early 1990s (Hobson et al., 2009), although recent government reforms (Department for Education, 2022), implemented from September 2024, have intensified its prominence. These reforms place renewed emphasis on the responsibilities, training, and leadership of school-based mentors, highlighting their central role in high quality teacher development and retention. These reforms make timely a closer examination of how mentoring is enacted at the point where trainees and school mentors first come together, their initial meeting, and how trainees experience the structures intended to support it.

At a European level, the European Commission’s report Supporting Teacher Educators for Better Learning Outcomes (2013) argued that mentoring and teacher‑educator work are a specialised professional practice. The report notes that rather than being treated as an extension of teaching, mentoring trainee teachers requires explicit competency frameworks, coherent preparation and continuous development. More recently, the Eurydice report Teaching Careers in Europe: Access, Progression and Support (2018) shows that across many European systems, mentoring and induction are regulated features of teacher training and early‑career support, with increasing clarity around mentor roles and the structure of mentor–mentee conversations. Framing the English reforms against this European backdrop positions them as part of a broader trend towards the professionalisation and standardisation of mentoring.

From a broader international perspective, the OECD’s TALIS survey (2024) found that mentoring of trainee and new teachers is expanding, is better recognised, and is increasingly embedded in policy frameworks. There appears to be a shift towards mentoring as an integrated, systemic support mechanism.

This study builds on previous work by the co-investigators (Connolly, Bates & Shea, 2022), which developed a set of questions to guide the mentor–trainee “initial encounter” on a postgraduate programme. Extending that work, the present research explores the use of the same questions in an undergraduate initial teacher training context at ARU, shifting the analytic lens to the perspectives of trainee teachers. By focusing on trainees’ experiences of their first meeting with school mentors, the study addresses a notable gap in the literature, which more commonly focuses on the mentor’s practice and programme design rather than trainees’ perspectives.

The contribution is twofold. Firstly, it examines whether a structured conversational tool helps trainees to articulate goals, negotiate roles and establish productive routines with their mentor. Secondly, considering the global emphasis on teacher retention and wellbeing (OECD, 2024), it investigates whether early, structured mentor–trainee dialogue can enhance trainees’ sense of support and professional agency at a formative moment in their preparation.

The study pursues two objectives:

1. to examine trainee teacher perspectives on their initial meeting with school mentors; and
2. to explore the use of a structured set of questions to support the initial meeting between trainee teachers and their mentors.

Reflection is widely recognized as a key component of teacher development and professional growth in higher education (Gast et al., 2022; Krapivnyk et al., 2021). Reflective teachers often critically evaluate both traditional disciplinary approaches and their personal teaching practices, aiming to enhance them through pedagogical theories (Nevgi & Löfström, 2015). In teacher education, reflection is typically integrated into teaching practicum, yet it frequently remains at a descriptive level, lacking theoretical depth or critical analysis (El-Dib, 2007; Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005).

Despite the acknowledged importance of reflection, concrete and systematic methods for fostering deep pedagogical reflection remain scarce in university pedagogy. Research shows that reflective practice requires conscious effort and structured support, particularly in connecting reflection to one’s own teaching (Nguyen et al., 2014). Schön’s (1983) concepts of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action further highlight that reflection may occur both during and after pedagogical experiences.

To address this gap, we have developed the PAKER method (Pedagogisen Ajattelun KEhittymisen Reflektio), a structured model for supporting Reflection on the Development of Pedagogical Thinking during teaching practice (Lähdesmäki et al., 2025). This study investigates how university teachers describe the development of their pedagogical thinking as they engage in the guided phases of the PAKER method.

The theoretical foundation of PAKER combines perspectives from authentic learning (Lähdesmäki, 2021) and a four-level reflection model (Kostiainen et al., 2023). Authentic learning emphasizes real-life contexts, disciplinary relevance, social interaction, cognitive engagement, and pedagogical coherence. Within the practicum, the aim is to create a reflective space where the teacher’s own practice serves as the basis for learning, shifting the focus from task completion to learning as a process (Harris & Salinas, 2009; Herrington & Herrington, 2008).

Kostiainen et al. (2023) model outlines reflection as a process progressing through four phases: descriptive, relational, conceptual and meaningful, and critical reflection. PAKER integrates this model into a three-phase structure: orienting, active, and synthesising reflection (Lähdesmäki et al., 2025). These phases guide teacher students in deepening their reflective skills and awareness throughout the practicum experience.

Although teachers’ reflective attitudes often develop during pedagogical studies, prior research suggests that reflection tends to focus on external factors and remains surface-level (El-Dib, 2007; Korthagen, 2004). In contrast, deeper reflection supports the recognition of both strengths and developmental needs in teaching (Gast et al., 2022) and contributes to the growth of pedagogical thinking as a form of professional expertise (Segal, 2023; Postareff et al., 2008).

In the university context, pedagogical thinking becomes visible in various professional tasks, including course design, facilitation of learning, assessment, and curriculum-level development (Van Dijk et al., 2020). It also extends to pedagogical leadership and programme planning. Thus, supporting teachers in articulating and developing their pedagogical thinking is essential for enhancing their professional practice holistically.

This study investigates how university teachers articulate the development of their pedagogical thinking across the three reflective phases of the PAKER method: orienting, active, and synthesising. Specifically, the study seeks to answer the following questions:

1. How do teachers describe the development of their pedagogical thinking during each phase of the PAKER reflection process?
2. What levels of reflection:descriptive, relational, conceptual and meaningful, or critical (Kostiainen et al., 2023), are present in their written reflections, and how are these demonstrated in practicum documentation?

By addressing these questions, the study aims to provide deeper insight into the progression of pedagogical thinking and the diversity and depth of reflective skills among university teachers in authentic learning environments.

This study explores how participation in a guided action research process can support teachers’ professional development and strengthen their reflective and pedagogical capacities. While action research has long been recognised as a promising approach for fostering teacher agency, inquiry‑orientation, and practice‑based learning, less is known about how teachers experience such processes when they are intentionally scaffolded by a researcher and embedded in their everyday school context. This study contributes to this discussion by examining teachers’ reflections on their learning and professional growth during a structured, collaborative action research project.

The research was carried out with Romanian teachers (N=15) who engaged in an action research cycle focusing on pedagogical challenges identified in their own classrooms. The process included joint planning, classroom experimentation, reflective dialogue, and iterative refinement of teaching practices. Continuing support was offered during the process by a university lecturer. Data consist of written reflections and recorded discussions. A qualitative thematic analysis was used to identify how teachers described changes in their thinking, practices, and sense of professional agency.

Preliminary findings suggest that guided action research can function as a meaningful and empowering form of professional development. Teachers reported gaining greater confidence in analysing their own practice, a clearer understanding of how theory can inform everyday pedagogical decisions, and an increased willingness to experiment with new approaches. The structured support (the combination of collaborative reflection and external guidance) was experienced as both motivating and professionally safe, enabling teachers to engage deeply with their own learning.

The study argues that guided action research holds considerable potential as a professional development method, especially in contexts where teachers may have limited opportunities for collaborative inquiry or structured reflection. The findings indicate that when appropriately supported, action research can foster practice‑embedded learning, strengthen professional identity, and promote a culture of inquiry within schools. The paper concludes by discussing the conditions under which this method may be recommended as a scalable and sustainable approach to teacher development.

Mentoring and professional collaboration are widely recognised as essential components of teacher induction, particularly for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) who lack classroom experience or are new to a school system (Ganser et al., 1998; Sundli, 2007). The first year of teaching is often described as the most demanding stage of a teacher’s career, as NQTs commonly encounter challenges in lesson planning, classroom management, differentiation, and assessment (Kadyrova, 2017). When such challenges are not addressed through structured professional support, early-career teachers may experience stress, psychological strain, and emotional exhaustion, which can contribute to reduced self-efficacy and even teacher attrition (Sanders, 2005).

In Kazakhstan, mentoring programmes are formally implemented across public schools, and newly appointed or newly hired teachers are typically assigned an experienced mentor through administrative procedures (Koroleva, 2017). Mentors are expected to support NQTs’ adaptation, methodological development, and professional growth. However, mentoring is not always implemented systematically or consistently across school contexts. In some cases, mentoring remains largely a formal requirement rather than a sustained learning partnership, which may limit its effectiveness as a mechanism for professional development (Levterova, 2017). This gap highlights the need to conceptualise mentoring not only as practical guidance but as a structured developmental process that empowers NQTs to learn through inquiry and reflection.

A structured school-based mentoring model can support NQTs by providing purposeful professional dialogue, regular observation and feedback, and collaborative planning opportunities. Research suggests that mentoring contributes most effectively to induction outcomes when it is embedded within a supportive school culture and implemented through clear structures that promote collaboration and mutual learning (Shanks, 2005). Importantly, mentoring is not only a national priority in Kazakhstan but also part of broader international educational trends aimed at strengthening teacher retention, professional learning, and instructional quality. European approaches increasingly promote “educative mentoring,” where mentoring is grounded in reflective practice, professional dialogue, and early-career teachers’ personal and professional development (Da Rocha, 2014).

Against this background, the present study addresses two research questions: 1) How can a school-based mentoring system improve NQTs’ practitioner research skills? 2) How can creating a mentoring environment enhance the professional development of newly qualified secondary school teachers? The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing a school-based mentoring system and developing a supportive mentoring environment in enhancing the teaching practice of newly qualified secondary school teachers. More specifically, the study investigates whether these mentoring approaches can significantly strengthen NQTs’ practitioner research skills and thereby contribute to their sustained professional development.

Within this framework, mentoring can serve as a foundation for developing NQTs’ practitioner research competence, including identifying classroom problems, collecting evidence from practice, engaging in systematic reflection, and applying findings to improve teaching. The theoretical framing of this study draws on scaffolding, which conceptualises mentoring as structured support enabling novice teachers to accomplish professional tasks beyond their independent capacity, and andragogy, which emphasises that adult learning is self-directed, experience-based, and problem-oriented.

Overall, mentoring is positioned as a key mechanism for strengthening NQTs’ inquiry-oriented professionalism, resilience, and long-term commitment to the teaching profession.

Like many other nations globally, Armenia is currently undergoing a process of education system reform to enhance educational processes and outcomes as well as to increase the relevance of educational services through innovation and change.

In doing this the Armenian government is keen to take cognisance of what other countries have done and learn from positive experiences and successful outcomes elsewhere. However, the government is not adopting an approach of direct policy borrowing, i.e. “a conscious and deliberate attempt to reform an educational system through the introduction of a policy plan that originated in a different context” (Nir, 2019, p. 1).

Instead, it has adopted an approach we call ‘international co-development’ here, which is focused on capacity building through working with carefully selected international experts – in this case a team from UCL Institute of Education which also comprises experts from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford – to provide context sensitive technical advice that takes cognisance of important aspects of national identity in the context of a distinctly post-Soviet education and research tradition.

Such an approach can be seen to be important in so far as it provides the opportunity to seek to avoid potentially deleterious homogenising influences of globalised neoliberal policy imperatives inherent in the playbooks that tend to be used by transnational policy and funding agencies.

Whilst the importance of quality and efficiency in a context of finite financial and human capital resource is fully understandable and there is legitimacy of a concern with productivity and accountability – provided it recognises the importance of professional agency, provided that performance and is not narrowly measured by metrics, which are often at best poor proxies for what they seek to measure, and provided it does not in and of itself become the raison d'être of educational institutions (see e.g. Tolofari, 2005).

This symposium will explore these, and related issues, with specific reference to the establishment of a so-called ‘Education Cluster’ as part of the ‘Academic City’ initiative (https://www.acarmenia.am/en), which has the strategic goal of providing access to graduates to internationally recognised professional qualifications – with a central focus on teacher education and education research – to strengthen their contribution to individual professional satisfaction and societal economic productivity and the common good as well as to promote the quality, efficiency and internationalisation of the higher education system and, through its focus on professional learning, strengthen education in Armenia.

The approach adopted by the government of Armenia is in keeping with a growing policy focus internationally on teacher education reform as a perceived lever for wider education system reform. In Menter’s words (2019): “dominant values within any society may be manifested in the shaping and reshaping of teacher education”.

The symposium will draw of Menter et al.'s factors (2025) to describe and evaluate the particularities of teacher education provision, which he calls ‘vernacular globalisation’ – and which have elsewhere been termed ‘glocalisation’ (Tatto, 2025) – by drawing attention to how national and global influences interact in particular contexts. As such the symposium, whilst focusing on (teacher) education reform in one country and underpinned by an initial phase of data gathering in Armenia comprising documentary study and focus group interviews, will have a very strong international dimension in its theoretical positioning and data analysis inter alia through an in-depth engagement with international literature on teacher education with a focus on Anglophone, post-Soviet and BRICS countries. The team of researchers brings together colleagues with extensive first-hand experience as teacher educators and researchers from England, Armenia, Austria, and the Lebanon and the discussant will add a perspective from Australia.

The presentation provides an overview of the extensive literature that informs the (Teacher) Education Work theme of the Education Cluster part of the Armenian Academic City project. The paper focuses specifically on international published research around the professional preparation of teachers (and in particular beginning teachers) and examines a range of inter-related factors inherent in a range of different models. Following a search of educational databases using specific selection criteria, the most relevant papers were collated within sub-topics to inform the review. The paper will reflect on wider conceptualisations of the purposes of teacher education, and what teacher professionalism entails (Winch, Oancea and Orchard, 2015). First, it will explore the different models of teacher education that operate in and across a range of international contexts and, through analysis of the underpinning rationales for such models, will identify the inherent assumptions about professional learning that each embodies. It will also explore to what extent these models might reflect a particular signature pedagogy for initial teacher education (Shulman, 2005). Second, this analysis will lead to a broader exploration of the nature of beginning teacher learning and the development of appropriate teacher education curricula. This will include an examination of the specific contextual factors which have a role in determining these curricula, including the influence of both the global and the local. Third, the paper tackles the perennial (and often seemingly problematic) role of both theory and practice in teacher education, and the relationship between the two within the different models under discussion. The issue is an ongoing focus of research, both in England (see for example, Burn, Mutton and Thompson, 2023), in Europe (see for example, Resch, Schrittesser and Knapp, 2024; McGarr, O’Grady and Guilfoyle, 2017; Rasmussen and Rasch-Christensen, 2015) and internationally (Darling Hammond, 2017). In particular, it will explore the way in which innovative, research-informed approaches have attempted to address this seemingly unhelpful binary. Central to any consideration of the relationship between theory and practice is the final area addressed in the paper, namely a consideration of the complex nature of school-university partnerships and the challenges of effective partnership working, including a focus on the role of teacher educators (including those who work either in university or in school settings) and the related professional knowledge base that these educators require.

Burn, K., Mutton, T. and Thompson, I. (eds.) (2022) Practical theorising in teacher education, London: Routledge Darling-Hammond, L. (2017) ‘Teacher education around the world: what can we learn from international practice?’ In European Journal of Teacher Education 40(3), pp. 291-309 McGarr, O., O’Grady, E., and Guilfoyle, L. (2017) ‘Exploring the theory-practice gap in initial teacher education: moving beyond questions of relevance to issues of power and authority.’ In Journal of Education for Teaching 43(1), pp. 48-60 Rasmussen, J., and Rash-Christensen, A. (2015) How to improve the relationship between theory and practice in teacher education.’ In Educational Research for Policy and Practice 14(3), pp. 213-230 Resch, K., Schrittesser, I., and Knapp, M. (2024) ’Overcoming the theory-practice divide in teacher education with the ‘Partner School Programme’. A conceptual mapping.’ In European Journal of Teacher Education 47(3), pp. 564-580 Shulman, L. (2005) ‘Signature pedagogies in the professions’. In Daedalus 134 (3), pp. 52–9 Winch, C., Oancea, A. and Orchard, J. (2015) ‘The contribution of educational research to teachers’ professional learning: Philosophical understandings.’ In Oxford Review of Education 41(2), pp. 202-216

As part of the Teacher Education Work Theme of the Armenian Academic City project, this paper critically explores policy borrowing in the Armenian educational context. Teacher quality, and assumptions about contingent teacher knowledge, pedagogical strategies and competences required to secure quality in (teacher) education are increasingly reliant on globalised metrics to inform policy and practice. The effects of global education policy borrowing and lending, as well as international assessments of students’ academic outcomes (e.g., PISA, TIMSS) have led to view teachers as technicians (Winch, 2017). Macro-economic measures of teacher quality focused on cost benefit analyses, are exploited to support claims to authority about ‘what works’ in teacher education and therefore what pedagogical techniques can be exported/imported across international contexts. Some question the authority of such econometrics to evaluate teacher quality, arguing that insights from educational research, teacher and teacher education research are excluded from the production of nuanced and responsive professional knowledge (Tatto, 2021). In Armenia, recent reforms to teacher education have identified the 'teacher as a researcher' concept as the highest level of teacher standard. A qualitative exploratory methodology is employed, using analysis of data from desk review and stakeholder interviews to explore gaps in understanding as well as misunderstandings of teacher education quality. To resist a pejorative and uncritical analysis, policy borrowing is not positioned as an inherently good/bad thing. As Burdett and O’Donnell suggest (2016, p. 113) “few would argue that the intermingling of ideas from different education systems” does not have a role to play. We report our findings from our initial stakeholder consultation, analysing data from academics in three universities with pedagogical programmes, teachers and school leaders, parents and various NGOs working in the education sector across Armenia. Our findings illustrate the imperatives for utilising teacher education research could be utilised to address the challenges of policy borrowing; for example, sustaining cultural responsiveness and the localised production of professional knowledge and understanding. Our original contribution is in problematising the philosophical framing of policy ‘borrowing’ through the lens of refraction (Goodson and Lindbald, 2011) to argue that teacher education research has an important role to play in the refraction of ‘borrowed’ ideas. Our findings show that without refraction the sustained production of professional learning and knowledge is put at risk as the notion of ‘international best practice’ dominates the reform discourse and the lack of quality research fails to adapt or localise international policies.

Burdett, N. and O’Donnell, S. (2016) ‘Lost in translation? The challenges of educational policy borrowing.’ In Educational Research 58(2), pp. 113–120 Goodson, I. and Lindblad, S. (eds) (2011) Professional Knowledge and Educational Restructuring in Europe. Rotterdam: Sense Tatto, M. (2021) ‘Developing teachers’ research capacity: the essential role of teacher education.’ In Teaching Education 32(1), pp. 27–46. Winch, C. (2017) Teachers’ know-how: a philosophical investigation. Wiley

The aims and objectives for many development initiatives that involve consultants who advise policy and its implementation, are often driven by international metrics, indicators and definitions of success (Marginsson, 2022). Research quality can be defined within metrics widely used in Research Assessment exercises (Pontika, et.al, 2022), and in doing so define quality as being focussed on three areas: outputs (or publications); case studies that define and demonstrate impact of research; and statements about the institutional research culture and environment. Within these categories, quality is defined through originality, significance and rigour. Such definitions of quality are then also internationalised through performance league tables and international ranking exercises. But to what extent can a state authority, with ambitions to improve their research “performance” (against such metrics) do so in a way that is sensitive not just to local cultural traditions but also to research histories, infrastructures and shared understandings of its role and purpose? This paper reports on the approach adopted on the Academic City project to achieve this aim. Commencing with a thorough review of the state of play in research activities across Armenia, and based on the literature search and review reported by Saghdasaryan in this symposium, and a series of stakeholder interviews with current academics in three merging universities, as well as those in other organisations (both academic, philanthropic and third sector), we sought not just to develop a full understanding of the education research culture across Armenia but also to explore the value systems which underpin it. Based on an analysis of education research cultures in countries with similar influences from post-soviet education and research legacies, we wanted to understand what teachers, schools and education academics valued about their research culture and what they perceived research to be for within the wider education ecosystem, with particular reference to teacher education. We then contrasted these views with the widely accepted parameters of what makes for a success “performance” in ranking systems (such as the QS World Ranking). Our aim was not to develop a deficit narrative of what the system in Armenia lacked, but to build on the aspects of the research culture that spoke to the education community in Armenia. In the paper, we present our analysis, our findings and our research strategy: a research plan that combines enhancing methodological expertise across the education ecosystem, along with targeted interventions on those areas for research that stakeholders agreed matters.

Marginson, S. (2022) ‘What drives global science? The four competing narratives.’ In Studies in Higher Education 47(8), pp. 1566-1584 Pontika, N,. Klebel, T., Correia, A., Metzler, H., Knoth, P., and Ross-Hellauer, T. (2022) ‘Indicators of research quality, quantity, openness and responsibility in institutional review, promotion and tenure policies across seven countries.’ In Quantitative Science Studies 3(4), pp. 888–911

The role of education research in relation to policy and practice is contested (Aldridge et al., 2018). Its potential aims range from that of informing practice through joint research by practitioners and researchers (Wyse et al., 2020), to that of developing evidence to measure impact and inform policy (Wiseman, 2010). Regardless of purpose, research quality is valued while the indicators of quality are defined differently across the board. As part of the Academic City project, along with other objectives, the Armenian Government aims to improve the quality of education research to inform policy changes and evaluation and for practitioner improvement. The (Teacher) Education Work theme of that project’s Education Cluster aims to accomplish that aim through the approaches presented by Brooks and Turvey and Kyureghyan. To enable that work, we explored the state of academic publications in Armenia about education. This resulted in a unique review of educational research of one country. The aim of this review was to describe the current research trends about education in Armenia, and to explore links between research done and ongoing policy changes, if any. The review included any research published that corresponded to the following criteria:  published between 2005-2025  published in Armenian journals included in the list of the Republic of Armenia State Scientific Committee: note that these overwhelmingly comprised of in-house university publications,  published either by an Armenian author(s) or by non-Armenian author(s) exploring an Armenia-specific topic  research on K-12 or higher education in Armenia, or context-independent research on education  published in Armenian, English or Russian. The search led to over 2,100 papers that were then analysed based on research type, topic, research methodology, data collection tools, sample size, and funder, where available. Methodologically, the analysis shows that many papers omitted an outline of their chosen methods and how they secured the rigour of their research. This could be seen through an absence of stated and used methodology except for a few examples of empirical research based on simple surveys. The analysis also shows a disconnect from contemporary international literature and with ongoing policy changes in the country. This paper will present the research undertaken, its methodology and the main findings in the context of ongoing policy changes and the Academic City project.

Aldridge, D., Biesta, G., Filippakou, O. and Wainwright, E. (2018) ‘Why the nature of educational research should remain contested: A statement from the new editors of the British Educational Research Journal.’ In British Educational Research Journal 44(1), pp. 1-4 Wiseman, A. (2010) ‘The uses of evidence for educational policymaking: global contexts and international trends.’ In Review of Research in Education 34(1), pp 1-24 Wyse, D., Brown, C., Oliver, S. and Poblete, X. (2021) ‘Education research and educational practice: The qualities of a close relationship.’ In British Educational Research Journal 47(6), pp. 1466-1489

Topic and Background

This study examines an innovative professional learning and development model based on "dialogical andragogy" – a theoretical-practical framework tailored to the unique needs of adult learning in professional and organizational contexts. Professional development for educational leaders faces universal challenges across educational systems: maintaining intrinsic motivation, addressing diverse professional needs, and creating meaningful learning that impacts practice (Loeng, 2018; Sousa, 2024). Traditional training models often fail to account for the rich life experience and autonomous learning needs characteristic of adult learners in leadership positions. The dialogical andragogy model proposes a multidimensional approach that simultaneously addresses individual, interpersonal, and organizational dimensions of professional learning for educational supervisors and instructors.

Theoretical Framework

The study builds upon classical andragogical theory, which distinguishes adult learning from pedagogy through core assumptions: self-concept, prior experience, readiness to learn, intrinsic motivation, need to know, and problem-centered learning (Purwati et al., 2022; Yusuf, 2021). Sousa (2024) presents an integrated approach emphasizing active and meaningful learning that includes context, relevance, and practical application of knowledge. The model extends these principles by incorporating self-determined learning concepts and transformative learning theory, which emphasizes perspective transformation through disorienting dilemmas.

Drawing on Malaguzzi's Reggio Emilia approach – a European educational philosophy emphasizing collaborative inquiry – the model proposes that meaningful adult learning occurs through three simultaneous dialogues: internal dialogue (self-reflection), dialogue with peers (collaborative learning), and dialogue with the organization and environment (contextual understanding). This aligns with developmental task theory, recognizing that adult learners in educational leadership roles seek expertise development relevant to their professional responsibilities.

The model comprises three essential components: (1) Inspiring motivation – creating transformative dilemmas; (2) Developing expertise – providing practical tools and solutions; (3) Peer learning – leveraging shared experiences through collaborative processes. Korpela (2023) demonstrates that peer teachers provide personalized guidance and foster an environment of equality and mutual learning, while Qi (2023) emphasizes the importance of feedback and reflection processes. Recent research demonstrates that andragogical approaches enhance professional identity development and workplace effectiveness among educational leaders (Oliveira et al., 2024).

Research Questions

1. How do the components of inspiration, expertise development, and peer learning contribute to educational leaders' learning experience?
2. What are the main challenges in implementing the dialogical andragogy model with educational leadership personnel?
3. What is the significance of the process for participants' professional identity and educational leadership practice?

Methodology

The research employs instrumental case study methodology (Yin, 2018) examining a three-year professional development initiative (2019-2022) involving approximately 120 educational leaders—district supervisors and instructional coordinators—characterized by significant cultural and professional diversity: 90% women, 30% Arab-Bedouin educators, spanning early childhood to secondary education oversight.

Data collection included semi-structured feedback questionnaires from nine feedback opportunities (958 responses), organizational documents, visual artifacts, and observations. Analysis followed thematic analysis principles (Braun & Clarke, 2006) with reliability ensured through triangulation and reflexive positioning (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).

European/International Relevance

This research addresses challenges universal to European educational systems: professional development for educational leadership in culturally diverse contexts, implementation of contemporary adult learning theories (Sousa, 2024), and creating sustainable models for continuous growth of supervisory personnel. The dialogical andragogy model demonstrates applicability across diverse educational leadership contexts. Findings on managing heterogeneous groups, fostering peer learning communities among educational leaders (Korpela, 2023), and balancing autonomy with organizational needs are directly relevant to European leaders implementing reforms aligned with EU lifelong learning frameworks for educational leadership development.

Expected Contributions

This study provides evidence-based insights for European educational policymakers and administrators, demonstrating how integrated andragogical approaches enhance professional identity and leadership practice (Oliveira et al., 2024), contributing to international discourse on effective adult learning for educational leadership in multicultural settings.

Multilocational has become a widespread practice in knowledge work following COVID-19. As leadership has been identified to be a critical factor in enabling effective multilocational work (Contreras et al., 2020), as well as supporting learning (Wallo et al., 2025) and well-being (Lundqvist & Wallo, 2023) of employees in multilocational work settings, targeted interventions that can enhance leaders’ competencies are in high demand. Although scholarly interest in this topic is growing in HR and leadership research (Mahadevan et al., 2025), to our knowledge, no existing training program has been specifically designed to address leadership in multilocational, nor has the impact of such program been empirically assessed. Our study addresses this gap by examining whether a peer group-based leader training intervention can enhance leaders’ abilities in leading multilocational. The proximal effects of the intervention were studied using pre-post survey design across four waves.

Theoretically our study relies on Bandura's (1986) Social Learning Theory and Ajzen's (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior. Both theories emphasize individuals’ perceptions of their specific self-efficacies as key determinants of actual behavior. Besides self-efficacy, we focus on enhancing leaders’ abilities to cope with the possible obstacles and setbacks while leading multilocational work. Leaders’ resilience in overcoming challenges is, in fact, seen as an important personal resource that enables them to cope effectively with complexity and high job demands (Leithwood, 2023). The specific abilities targeted by the training intervention are derived from studies identifying the focal leadership factors for multilocational work (e.g., Hincapie & Costa, 2024, Lacroix et al., 2025, Mühlenbrock et al., 2023, Pianese et al., 2023, Wallo et al., 2025). Accordingly, the training focuses on three core leader abilities relevant in leading multilocational work: supporting employees’ learning and development, strengthening employees’ social capital, and supporting employees’ motivation and commitment.

The change in leaders’ abilities is aimed to occur via utilizing peer learning as a primary pedagogical method. Despite its demonstrated potential to support well-being and motivation in challenging contexts (Tenenbaum et al., 2020), peer learning has remained relatively underexplored in leadership development research compared to coaching and mentoring programs (Larsson et al., 2018).

In addition to specific abilities, previous intervention studies have introduced the concept of “preparedness,” which integrates individuals’ self-efficacy beliefs related to specific tasks with their readiness to handle potential setbacks (Pankkonen et al., 2025). As applied in leadership research, leaders who demonstrate high levels of preparedness exhibit both confidence in their leadership abilities and emotional resilience when facing challenges. In line with Meichenbaum’s (2007) cognitive stress inoculation framework, the training also emphasised preparation for setbacks by prompting participants to discuss the challenges they had faced in leading multilocational teams and to co-develop practical leadership solutions.

We expected that the training intervention would increase leaders’ perceived abilities to H1) support employees’ learning, to H2) strengthen employees’ social capital, to H3) support employees’ motivation and commitment to organization, and H4) increase preparedness to handle leadership challenges in leading multilocational work. Furthermore, we expected that the increase in perceived abilities and preparedness would be maintained during and remain after the training intervention.

Research objectives

Digital technologies enable the expansion of learning communities from a single school to multiple schools (Shal et al., 2024). However, empirical understanding of such communities, both in Europe and globally, remains underdeveloped, particularly in the context of leadership development. In the ever-changing and uncertain contexts that school leaders navigate, they require a new mindset, skills, and capacities to enhance their schools and improve student outcomes (Fullan, 2020). This study focuses on the online component of a comprehensive leadership development program in Hong Kong SAR. Similar to the leadership development programmes in European countries, the development of school leaders in China addresses the needs of school leaders by emphasizing networked learning to help them transfer knowledge into their real work contexts (Sahlin, 2025; Shantal, 2014). The structured, online learning component of the program includes readings, video lectures, PowerPoint slides, and connection activities (CAs). CAs are Moodle forum activities that report on and investigate learning and experiences arising from various program components. CAs provide participants with opportunities to interact while reading, posting, and responding to peers, program organizers, and coaches.

In this study, we investigated learning and experiences arising from CAs on Moodle. We sought to understand how the networked online learning community emerged and how it shaped school leaders’ engagement in the programme. Accordingly, the specific questions guiding our research were:

RQ1. What is the nature of the online learning component of the leadership development programme?

RQ2. How do school leaders and experts as coaches engage in the online learning component of the leadership development programme?

We hypothesized that an online learning community with online coaching fosters collaborative online learning engagement (Luik & Požogina, 2025). The manner in which the findings can enable practitioners and scholars internationally to learn from the Chinese experience is discussed.

Conceptual framework: Knowledge process model

Through the intentional formation of ties, school leaders leverage their networks to acquire new knowledge and refine their leadership approaches, potentially fostering leadership learning and growth (Crawford, 2002; Floyd et al., 2025). Although boundary crossing carries learning potential (Engeström et al., 1995), participants often find it challenging to acquire, integrate, and generate new knowledge from diverse sources. Carlile (2004) found that shared knowledge is particularly beneficial for connecting units, enabling knowledge to be managed across boundaries and thereby stimulating innovation. Carlile's (2004) work on managing knowledge across boundaries is valuable here. Carlile (2002, 2004) identifies three models of knowledge processes that occur across boundaries: knowledge transfer, translation, and transformation. Knowledge transfer is the process of sharing knowledge. It lies in the information processing across boundaries and knowledge sources- receiver connections. Knowledge translation refers to the translation of ideas and methods into concepts that individuals can understand and apply in practice. Knowledge transformation is the process of adapting, integrating, and reshaping existing information to create new or altered knowledge.

Participants typically integrate knowledge in multiple contexts in providing solutions. This landscape of expertise has been characterized as “polycontexturality” and “boundary-crossing” (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003). Learning across work teams significantly enhances the transfer of knowledge to their specific contexts (Baldwin & Ford, 1988). While knowledge flows across boundaries are possible, they do not occur without support (Hawkins & Rezazade, 2012). To address the challenges posed by knowledge boundaries, boundary brokers- individuals who connect different domains and facilitate the movement of knowledge between them (Carlile, 2004; Hawkins & Rezazade, 2012). The second mechanism involves boundary objects, identifiable, understandable, and sharable artefacts or activities meaningful to diverse groups of participants (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). This theoretical perspective enables the authors to analyze different knowledge processes and reveal the underlying knowledge management mechanisms.

Across Europe, secondary education systems face persistent challenges related to learning loss among pupils (i.e., students in secondary education) and increasing workload among teachers (OECD, 2021). These challenges have intensified in recent years, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and have renewed attention to interventions that provide additional support within classrooms (Carlana, 2021; European Commission, 2022; OECD, 2022). While many European education systems have invested in such measures to address learning gaps and alleviate pressure on teachers, robust empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions remains limited (Carlana, 2021; European Commission, 2022; OECD, 2022). This has increased interest in interventions that improve pupil learning under conditions of teacher shortages, high workload, and limited differentiation.

The proposed presentation focuses on StudentinzetopSchool, an intervention in the Netherlands in which student assistants—higher education students not enrolled in teacher education programmes—support secondary school teachers after completing a compulsory three-hour training provided by academic teacher training programmes. These student assistants work within classrooms and provide support for the teacher, for example by working with individual pupils or small groups, or by other supporting classroom-related tasks. Importantly, these student assistants do not replace teachers, but function as supplementary support aimed at increasing instructional capacity within existing school structures. The intervention has a dual objective: its primary aim is to improve pupils’ learning outcomes, while a secondary objective is to reduce teachers’ perceived workload by redistributing tasks.

The primary research question guiding the study is: What is the effect of student assistants’ support for teachers on pupils’ learning outcomes in secondary schools? In addition, the study includes exploratory analyses examining (a) whether teachers’ perceived workload changes during the intervention period, and (b) how variation in implementation-related conditions—such as task agreements, and the preparation of student assistants—may help explain differences in observed outcomes. By combining a focus on pupil outcomes with attention to teachers’ professional experiences and implementation processes, the study contributes to European discussions on evidence-informed educational interventions and professional support structures in schools.

The theoretical framework draws on two complementary theoretical perspectives. First, research on tutoring and small-group instruction demonstrates that targeted instructional support can substantially improve pupil achievement, particularly when instruction is responsive to learners’ needs (Begeny et al., 2018; Nickow et al., 2020). This body of research highlights the potential of additional instructional capacity to facilitate differentiation and provide more individualised support, which is often difficult to achieve in traditional whole-class settings. It has been shown in different contexts that small-group tutoring can be as effective as one-on-one tutoring. Also, satisfactory results have been reported with small-group tutoring by student assistants . (Elbaum et al., 2000; Invernizzi et al., 1996; Wyatt & Chapman-DeSousa, 2017).

Second, studies on the deployment of additional personnel in classrooms suggest that such support may influence teachers’ workload and professional experience, while emphasising the importance of clear task allocation and role differentiation (Blatchford et al., 2008). Prior research indicates that when roles and responsibilities are insufficiently defined, the deployment of additional personnel does not automatically lead to reduced workload or improved instructional quality, and may place additional demands on teachers’ coordination and supervision (Blatchford et al., 2008).

Together, these perspectives highlight that both pupil outcomes and teachers’ workload are shaped not only by the presence of additional support, but also by how this support is organised in school practice. Accordingly, the theoretical framework focuses on implementation-related conditions—such as clear task agreements, the preparation of student assistants, and alignment between student assistants’ expertise and classroom needs—as key factors for understanding variation in outcomes (Devecchi & Rouse, 2010; Jackson et al., 2021).

In this article, we take our starting point in the ideas of Vygotsky (1978, 2000), commonly referred to as sociocultural theory in the United States and other Western contexts (Wertsch, 1991; Wertsch et al., 1995). From this theoretical foundation, we trace the development of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) through Leont’ev and further to Engeström’s contributions. This means that we start by emphasizing individual perspectives, then move toward learning and development as a shared, collective process. We also shift the focus from children to the collective processes of adults.

Vygotsky was concerned with the developmental process of growth and its origins, rather than with “fossilized behavior” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 63). Genetic analysis, in this context, means that the focus is placed not on the end product of development, but on the very process through which higher mental functions are formed. Artifacts hold a prominent place in sociocultural theory and are even regarded as extensions of the individual (Prawat, 1996). However, Vygotsky (2000) regarded language as the “tool of tools,” and was convinced that communicative processes are the primary medium through which individuals form their consciousness. Leont’ev (1981) expanded Vygotsky’s theory by shifting the focus from the individual to the collective, introducing the concept of division of labor. He exemplifies this through the activity of hunting for food or skins, demonstrating how various goal-directed actions contribute to fulfilling a shared collective motive related to the object of the activity.

Leont´ev (1978) defined the object concept in the following way: ‘[…] The object of the activity is twofold: first, in its independent existence as subordinating to itself and transforming the activity of the subject, second; as an image of the object, as [a] product of its property of psychological reflection that is realized as an activity of the subject’ (p. 52). The object is therefore both material and ideal. Leont’ev (1978) noted that “the meeting of need with the object is an extraordinary act” (p. 54) and later emphasized that “the object is the real motive” (Leont’ev, 1981, p. 59), meaning that in educational settings, practitioners must at least understand, or ideally share, a collective motive to act meaningfully on the object. When this happens, the object becomes “invested with meaning and motivating power” (Sannino et al., 2016, p. 602).

Engeström (1987) expanded activity theory by introducing a graphical model and adding the concept of expansive learning, which he and Sannino (2010) define as “learning something that is not yet there.” (p. 2). According to Vygotsky (1978), learning is a process starting at the social and external level before it is internalized on the internal level, and furthermore, good learning is ahead of development. He states that a person’s learning should be supported in his or her zone of proximal development by a more capable peer or adults (p. 86), thus facilitating progress beyond the learner’s current developmental stage. Engeström (1987) has expanded on this definition of the concept for the individual and explains the zone of proximal development in this way: ‘It is the distance between the present everyday actions of the individuals and the historically new form of the societal activity that can be collectively generated […]’ (p. 174).

With this theory as the frame for the research and development work we pursued the following research question:

How are learning and development conceptualized within cultural-historical activity theory, and what implications does this have for the interventionist researcher who supports and investigates these processes in whole schools?

The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges and opportunities that an interventionist researcher may encounter when employing CHAT as the theoretical framework.

Research engaged schools promote enquiry stances by teachers, and the use of published research and other school evidence; they are outward looking and connect to the research community (Godfrey & Brown, 2019). In these schools, research is integrated into the lives of teachers and school leaders, as part of the structures and cultures of the organization. In this qualitative case study, a research engaged school is studied to address the following questions:

• What are the perceptions and attitudes towards the use of research among teachers and school leaders in a research-engaged school, and why?
• How can research engagement be observed in behaviors, communications, and practices of educators?
• How can research engagement be observed in artefacts in the school environment and in documentation of values, visions, and practices?

To analyze this, two separate theoretical lenses will be used. First, the research engagement will be seen through the optics of Etienne Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning, conceptualizing the school as a community of practice. This entails an exploration into how the research engagement is reified in the organizational culture, as well as how participation enhances and reproduces a research rich culture.

Second, the culture and structure of the case school will be analyzed using a framework for multi-level mechanisms of research use (Hagevold et al., under review), in an effort to understand how trust, skills development, sustainable structures, and relationships shape and affect research use in practice.

Internationally, research into teacher professional learning has increasingly explored how teachers and academics can work successfully together to bring about educational change. Recent literature underscores the importance of working with, rather than on teachers, and highlights the inherent complexities of changing teacher practice (Admiraal et al, 2021; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). In this paper, we critically examine our assumptions and practices as education academics engaged in a longitudinal project with in-service teachers, co-designing and implementing problem-based learning (PBL) in school-based STEM education. While the teachers led the implementation in their schools, co-design and evaluation was pursued as an authentic partnership with us, the academic researchers. As the project evolved, we began to question both our strategies for positioning teachers as co-researchers, and our assumptions about co-design and research. While research on co-design from the perspective of teachers is a growing field, this study is unique in its focus on the professional learning and reflexive shifts experienced by us, the academic researchers. Accordingly, our guiding research question is: How does the intention to position teachers as authentic co-researchers in a school-based PBL project challenge and reshape the practices, assumptions and roles of academic researchers?

The study is theoretically framed by concepts of co-learning and co-design, which together provide a lens for examining collaborative knowledge production and role negotiation within teacher-academic partnerships. Jaworski (2001) conceptualises teacher-academic collaboration in terms of co-learning partnerships, drawing on Wagner’s (1997) notion of co-learning whereby researchers and practitioners actively participate in the learning process engaging in shared action and reflection. Through this shared relationship each not only learns “something about the world of the other” but also “each may learn something more about his or her own world and its connections to institutions of schooling” (Wagner, 1997, p. 16).

Complementing this perspective is the concept of co-design, which adds a practical dimension to collaborative partnerships. Roschelle et al. (2006) define co-design as a “highly-facilitated, team-based process in which teachers, researchers, and developers work together in defined roles to design an educational innovation, realize the design in one or more prototypes, and evaluate each prototype’s significance for addressing a concrete educational need” (p. 606). In this study, we utilise a theoretical framework informed by co-design and co-learning to examine the dynamics of our interactions with teachers as we sought to position them not only as implementers but as co-designers and co-researchers of a STEM PBL educational innovation in their schools.

In previous research aiming to position teachers as co-researchers, tensions emerged for researchers related to different professional contexts, roles and expectations related to timelines, aims and workload (Bevins & Price, 2014; Roschelle et al, 2006). Tensions also exist around role asymmetry, such as perpetuating the ‘researcher as ‘thinker’, teacher as ‘doer’’, even when researchers strive for egalitarian approaches (Bungum & Sanne, 2021). Valuing different knowledge types (Bungum & Sanne, 2021) and differing goals, such as teachers’ orientations towards clearly defined and measurable outcomes aligned with curricular realities, as compared to researchers’ desire for innovation and open-ended tasks that involve ambiguity (Bevins & Price, 2014; Schafer, 2025) create further tensions.

Building on the theoretical contribution on supervision as a catalyst for professional and organisational learning in schools (presented at ECER 2025: Oberreiter & Zehetmeier 2025), this empirical study examines the enabling conditions for an innovative process architecture in which teachers and school leaders participate in supervisory settings while conducting their own action research projects. These projects are continuously accompanied and supported through supervision. Particular attention is paid to trust within the group and to the preconditions for professional development and organisational learning, with a specific focus on how linguistic diversity and educational equity are discursively negotiated. The study draws on interviews with key actors (parents, teachers, and school leaders) conducted as part of the action research process. In addition, student- and organisation-centred surveys are used to capture how language-related issues are addressed in school practice.

This study examines how reflection-based professionalisation formats, particularly supervision and action research (Altrichter et al., 2018), contribute to professional development and organisational learning in schools. It focuses on the interplay of these formats in supporting professional learning and development and situates them within broader collaborative and leadership-related school development processes (Oberreiter & Zehetmeier, 2025). Research on teacher collaboration indicates that joint professional practices among teachers have positive effects on students, teachers, and schools as organisations, while emphasising the importance of a supportive and trust-based collaborative atmosphere (Vangrieken et al., 2017, p. 57) and can thus contribute to the demand for language-related professionalisation of teachers in various contexts (Amberg et al., 2022; García & Kleyn, 2016; Hélot, 2011; Vetter et al., 2022; Wegner & Vetter, 2014). The format chosen for this study is the interplay between Professional Learning Communities (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and Organisational Learning (Oberreiter, 2021), implemented through an innovative approach combining action research and supervision in schools.

Supervision, understood as a counselling and reflection format for individuals, groups, teams, or organisational units (Pühl, 2017), complements action research by enabling reflexive distance from professional practice. By fostering reflective dialogue and perspective-taking, supervision supports both individual and collective professional learning and contributes to the development of a reflective organisational culture.

Against this background, the study is situated in schools deeply influenced by broader societal transformations, with a particular focus on multilingual realities and the complex challenges they pose for teachers, teams, and school organisations. Linguistic diversity, shaped by migration, language policies, and power relations, profoundly influences students’ educational trajectories and teachers’ professional decision-making (Horner & Weber, 2018). Multilingualism is conceptualised as a complex discursive field in which meanings, norms, and hierarchies are negotiated. Acknowledging both its potential benefits and the associated “emotional hardships” (Jessner & Kramsch, 2015, p. 6) is crucial for supporting teachers and schools in areas such as language policy development, classroom management, and the language-sensitive organisation of teaching. Tensions and controversies emerging in multilingual schools and classrooms are thus understood as potential triggers for systemic learning, provided that schools can translate them into cooperative and reflective practices.

The study advances the hypothesis that agile ways of working, characterised by iterative learning cycles, shared responsibility, transparency, and adaptability, constitute a key enabling condition for professional development and organisational learning. It is assumed that such agile practices, when combined with supervision and action research, foster conditions under which reflective cooperation, experimentation, and learning from tensions become possible. Furthermore, the study explores transformational leadership as a critical contextual factor that supports these processes by articulating shared visions, encouraging professional autonomy, and creating psychologically safe spaces for reflection and innovation.

The rapid proliferation of generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in our life and work presents a dual challenge for Vocational Education and Training (VET): educators should utilise AI for pedagogical efficiency and improvement while simultaneously preparing students for labor markets where AI is increasingly embedded in professional practice. Despite this "dual significance" of AI as both a teaching and learning tool and a vocational competency (Attwell et al., 2020), there is a paucity of research on how VET teachers acquire and should acquire the necessary literacy to integrate these tools effectively.

This paper presents the results of a pilot study conducted within an Erasmus+ cooperation partnership involving four European teacher educator universities. The VETAssIst project (2024-2027, No. 2024-1-HU01-KA220-VET-000253387) developed and piloted a specialised e-learning course designed to enhance VET teachers' AI literacy. The partners designed the curriculum and learning content in eight modules focusing on different aspects of the VET teaching work (e.g., GenAI for active learning, GenAI for assessment, GenAI for planning, GenAI for professional development etc.), developing VET students’ AI literacy, and ethics and data protection. Each module consists of a Lesson, a practical Assignment, and questions encouraging self-reflection (AI Learning Diary) and the exchange of experiences in asynchronous group discussions (Forum). By aligning the modules with the competencies outlined in an AI Supplement to DigCompEdu (Bekiaridis & Attwell, 2024), UNESCO’s AI framework (Miao, F., & Cukurova, 2024), and the cognitive levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Oregon State University, 2024), we aimed to create practical and pedagogically sound learning experiences. The course was implemented in Moodle in five language versions with slightly adapted and supplemented national language content to suit the local needs. The pilots were organised in slightly different ways in the four partner countries but using a uniform core set of questions to collect participants’ feedback to finalise the curriculum and learning content. This study thus adopts a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach, characterising the educational intervention as an iterative process enacted in real-world settings.

The theoretical framework distinguishes between AI as a mere technical tool for routine automation and AI as a tool for pedagogical augmentation (Huang & Rust, 2021). While early adoption often focuses on efficiency (Celik et al., 2022), our study also aimed to explore the deeper transformative potential of AI in VET. We define this potential specifically as how and in what aspects AI can improve VET teaching - moving beyond mere workload reduction to enhance active and collaborative learning, personalisation, and the creation of adaptive learning environments that were previously difficult to implement (Kasneci et al., 2023).

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the pilot implementation of the VETAssIst course. We seek to answer the following research questions:

1. How effectively does the VETAssIst course support AI literacy development among VET teachers?

2. What specific barriers (technical, linguistic, or contextual) do VET teachers encounter when integrating GenAI tools into classroom and workshop settings and other aspects of the teaching work?

3. In what aspects and ways can AI improve or transform VET teaching?

The study posits that successful AI adoption in VET requires a curriculum that is responsive to the specific "timetable realities" of VET educators and addresses the ethical and social risks unique to the sector (UNESCO, 2023).

Communication competence is a key transversal skill for employability in vocational education and training (VET) (Calero López & Rodríguez-López, 2020) and a domain-specific competence in occupations with intensive customer contact. In the Swiss dual VET system, retail apprentices are expected to handle challenging complaint situations professionally, a competence anchored in the occupational ordinance and educational plan (SBFI, 2021; Bildung Detailhandel Schweiz, 2021). Despite this curricular emphasis, opportunities for repeated, high-quality practice remain scarce at classroom scale. Authentic role-play typically requires trained actors, dedicated rooms, and expert coaching to structure reflection. These resource requirements limit frequency and equity of access and constrain vocational schools’ capacity to offer deliberate practice with timely, task-specific feedback. Immersive roleplay with embodied conversational agents offers a plausible response to this gap. Virtual role-playing can provide repeated, situated practice with standardised starting conditions and comparable difficulty levels, while VR can increase experiential fidelity through embodiment, social presence, and contextual cues (Othlinghaus-Wulhorst et al., 2019). Recent advances in generative AI extend this potential by enabling unscripted, adaptive dialogue without predefined branching scripts and by supporting structured post-simulation coaching dialogues grounded in the preceding interaction (Okonkwo & Ade-Ibijola, 2021; Li et al., 2025). Conversational agents are also increasingly used to scaffold post-simulation debriefing, where structured reflection and transfer are consolidated. Recent evidence from a VR counselling simulation suggests that chatbot-guided debriefing can yield learning gains comparable to human-led debriefing (Evangelou et al., 2026).

This paper presents an AI-mediated communication training and coaching system for retail apprentices, implemented across three modalities (audio-only, desktop, XR). The training unfolds in three pedagogically sequenced phases supported by two distinct AI personas. The coach persona, Gisela Dacosta, is an AI coach and expert in retail sales communication who conducts the introduction and reflection phases. The customer persona, Klaus Trubel, is an adversarial AI customer (a middle-aged man with biases against Generation Z) who drives the complaint-handling simulation.

• In the introduction phase (about 1 minute), the coach provides a short briefing on purpose, structure, and success criteria.
• In the customer conversation phase (about 5 minutes), learners engage in an unscripted complaint dialogue with Klaus Trubel, who claims a jacket is defective and demands a substantial price reduction. A replacement is unavailable and he refuses a store voucher. His behaviour is intentionally confrontational but becomes more cooperative if the apprentice maintains a consistently professional and friendly demeanour. For classroom practicability, the interaction is time-bounded and ends after a fixed number of turns.
• In the reflection and feedback phase (about 5 minutes), the coach returns to guide structured self-evaluation: she summarises key moments, prompts sense-making and perspective taking, and provides criterion-referenced feedback aligned with the Swiss qualification procedure (e.g., offering appropriate solutions in difficult situations and creating a positive customer experience).

The prototype was developed as a design-based research (DBR) implementation study (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003; McKenney & Reeves, 2012) with two aims: (a) to lay the groundwork for sustainable classroom implementation through field-based development in close collaboration with practitioners, including a prospective educational publisher as practice partner; and (b) to derive transferable design characteristics for integrating AI-driven VR communication training into everyday VET teaching.

A survey of 1558 university students from Germany, the US and the UK in 2023 suggests that students have a fairly high level of interest in AI and a positive attitude towards it, but relatively low levels of AI literacy (Hornberger et al., 2025). These findings are consistent with those of a survey of 236 teacher training students in vocational education in Austria at the beginning of 2024. This survey revealed that over 80% of respondents expressed a desire to learn more about the application of AI in university teaching. However, many respondents were unsure about the rules governing the use of AI in preparing theses, assignments and examinations at university (Cechovsky & Malli-Voglhuber, 2025).

In response to the rapid development of AI, universities need to create conditions that will enable AI to be integrated into everyday teaching and examination practices. Nevertheless, steps must be taken to equip university lecturers to teach AI-related competencies to their students. An international survey conducted by UNESCO in September 2025 shows that almost two-thirds of higher education institutions have guidance on using AI, or are in the process of developing it. Additionally, the majority of participants use AI in their professional lives. However, more than half of the respondents are uncertain about its educational or research implications, have limited technical knowledge and are largely unaware of its ethical implications (UNESCO, 2025).

The use of AI in higher education is therefore a highly relevant topic, but one that places significant demands on higher education teachers. They are also affected by the EU's AI Act. The Act stipulates that employees using AI systems must receive training to ensure they can use these systems competently and responsibly (Aschemann & Klampferer, 2024). According to Article 3(56) of the AI Act (AIA), AI literacy encompasses

skills, knowledge and understanding that allow providers, deployers and affected persons, taking into account their respective rights and obligations in the context of this Regulation, to make an informed deployment of AI systems, as well as to gain awareness about the opportunities and risks of AI and possible harm it can cause.

This research and development project addresses the following guiding research question in order to develop an offering for university lecturers that enables them to further develop their AI literacy in a targeted manner in areas relevant to vocational teacher education at our university:

How can a design-based research approach be applied to develop microlearning modules on AI-related topics for university lecturers in vocational teacher education?

Adopting a design-based research approach, we developed, tested and iteratively optimised microlearning modules that address current challenges in the intersection of AI and university teaching in vocational teacher education. Within the framework of the project, microlearning is defined as media-supported learning in small steps and units, characterised by the clear presentation of content, short processing times, and the ability to be used at any time and in any location. Microlearning is based on cognitive load theory, with the aim of minimising extrinsic load through optimal module design to generate capacity for learning-related processing (Krieglstein et al., 2023).

The phenomenon of practice shock—the gap between theoretical training and the practical demands of classroom teaching—represents a major challenge for novice teachers worldwide (Grossman, 2008). Research indicates that beginning teachers often struggle to apply their pedagogical knowledge effectively, particularly in classroom management and instructional practice (Morton et al., 1997; Danner, 2014; Dicke et al., 2015). Within the European Union’s broader agenda to enhance teacher professionalism and support competence development (EC, 2013), addressing this challenge has become a key priority.

In Germany, this issue has prompted reforms in teacher education programmes, most notably the introduction of the practical semester across eleven federal states. This phase seeks to bridge theory and practice through extended school placements supported by university seminars and regional education authorities (LABG, 2009 §12). For many student teachers, it constitutes their first substantial engagement with real teaching contexts and serves as an initial confrontation with the realities of professional life. The practical semester is designed to foster competence development and a deeper understanding of teachers’ professional roles (Weyland & Wittmann, 2011).

Teacher competence development has been widely studied (Cramer, 2010; Kunter et al., 2011), with evidence suggesting a strong relationship between practical experience and professional growth. However, few studies have explicitly examined how such training relates to student teachers’ perceived competence development (Bodensohn & Schneider, 2008). Emotional experiences are also crucial within this process (Bach & Hagenauer, 2022). During school placements—often characterised by high performance pressure—achievement-related emotions strongly influence learning processes, identity formation (Timoštšuk & Ugaste, 2012) and competence acquisition (Marais, 2013). Positive emotions encourage openness to new methods and resilience when facing challenges, whereas negative emotions tend to reinforce established routines (Frenzel, 2014).

Previous research confirms that emotional experiences shape competence development from the very first teaching encounters onwards (Burić et al., 2020). Yet studies focusing on these dynamics within vocational teacher education remain limited.

This study investigates how vocational education and training (VET) student teachers evaluate their competencies before and after engaging in school-based activities during the practical semester. It further explores the emotional responses elicited by these experiences in order to assess whether the practical semester supports competence development and helps reduce practice shock.

It is a challenge to recruit vocational education and training (VET) teachers in Norway (Vaag Iversen et al., 2023) and worldwide (OECD, 2023). For society, qualified and motivated teachers are key agents in providing high-quality instruction and teaching, resulting in improved educational outcomes, social equity, and development (Toom et al., 2015). It is essential to examine what motivates pre-service teachers to enter the teaching profession because their motivations are related to professional development, job satisfaction, and commitment (e.g., Goller et al., 2019; OECD, 2023).

To date, there is limited quantitative research in the Norwegian VET context regarding what motivates pre-service VET students for their choices. In other European countries, motivations to become teachers are markedly underexplored among VET pre-service teachers (Vilppola et al., 2023) although these teachers play a vital societal role in educating labour forces within industry, construction, trade, and health. Studies from Finland (Goller et al., 2019), Switzerland (Berger & D’Ascoli, 2012) and Sweden (Kristmansson & Fjellström, 2022) have examined motivations to become a VET teacher for example using the FIT-Choice scales. These motivations may be widespread, for instance intrinsic career values, social contributions, and work-life balance.

It would be valuable to gain deeper insights into how VET pre-service teachers view the expertise required to be a teacher, the challenges associated with the role, and the task return in terms of salary (Nesje et al., 2018). These aspects are relevant because they reflect which values, aims and practices teachers adopt in their teaching work; thus, contributing to student learning (e.g., Bükki & Fehérvári, 2024).

The FitChoice instrument has been used to measure motivation and perceptions among VET pre-service teachers in Finland (Goller et al., 2019), Switzerland (Berger & D’Ascoli, 2012) and Sweden (Kristmansson & Fjellström, 2022). By exploring the same concepts in a Norwegian context, this study contributes further to building a European knowledge base about motivation and perception among VET pre-service teachers.

Yet, when it comes to motivation and perception, it is interesting to relate this to study programs, gender, and work situations. This study has two research questions:
RQ1: How do vocational pre-service teachers perceive the teaching profession, and how do these perceptions differ based on study programs, gender and work situation?
RQ2: What motivates the teachers to pursue a career in teaching, and how do these motivations vary according to study programs, gender and work situation?

In Norway, the Education Act (2023) regulates that a relevant teacher training programme must be completed to be employed in a teacher position. This regulation includes VET teachers. As recruitment of VET teachers might be challenging, it is possible to be appointed as in-service VET teacher under the condition that the teacher training programme is completed. Employment in teaching positions requires relevant qualifications in the vocational subject area.

Norway offers two possible educational trajectories for becoming a VET teacher. There is a Postgraduate Certificate in Education for VET teachers (PPU-y) for those who have a professional bachelor's degree relevant to the educational program they are intend to teach in, or a vocational qualification awarded after completing upper secondary VET, in addition to documented vocational theoretic competence above level 4 in the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and a minimum of two years of professional experience. The other option is a three-year VET teacher bachelor program (YFL) that requires general university and college admissions certification, or recognition of prior learning. In addition, entrance requires a vocational qualification from upper secondary VET and at least two years of relevant practice in the vocation.
Both programs qualify to teach in relevant subjects for lower and upper secondary level, grades 8-13.

Teacher well-being is crucial to educational quality and the sustainability of the education system, and vocational education plays an essential role in socioeconomic development, yet the well-being of teachers in higher vocational education remains underexplored. This study collected qualitative interview data from 17 higher vocational teachers in Hangzhou, China. Guided by the PERMA model, reflexive thematic analysis was conducted with NVivo to identify key factors influencing their well-being.

Teachers in educational studies have gradually drawn global scholarly attention. While teachers’ wellbeing starts to grow as a domain in teacher studies, teachers are facing challenges that hinder their well-being. Enhancing teacher well-being is crucial to both teachers and the education ecosystem (Ozturk, Wigelsworth, & Bagnall, 2025). With industrialization now oriented by technologies, socioeconomic development requires increasing numbers of highly trained technical workers rather than labourers for repetitive work in the past (Dunkel & Le Mouillour, 2009; Kyvik, 2009). Despite growing global scholarly interest in teacher well-being, research on higher vocational teachers, who are central to high-quality vocational education (Edel, 2022; Ke & Shi, 2018; Loo, 2022), remains scarce, particularly in the Chinese context. As China advances its vocational education reforms, higher vocational teachers face mounting pressures from shifting policies, industry demands, and institutional changes, yet their professional experiences and well-being receive little academic attention.

This study aims to explore the teaching experiences and well-being of higher vocational teachers, with particular attention to those working in institutions that have lower social recognition. Drawing on their lived experiences, the research seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the conditions that shape teacher well-being in this under-researched context.

By centring teachers’ voices, this research offers both empirical and theoretical contributions to the field, informing the application of positive psychology in non-Western educational settings. The findings aim to inform educational policy and practice, providing recommendations to better support teachers’ well-being and ultimately enhance the quality and sustainability of vocational education.

The PERMA model, proposed by Martin Seligman in 2011, is adopted as the theoretical framework for the current research. It contains five components contributing to individual well-being: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Each element contributes uniquely to well-being: (1)Positive Emotion refers to the experiences of pleasure and satisfaction; (2) Engagement focuses on the state of being absorbed or immersed in activities; (3) Relationships underline the significance of social connections and support networks; (4) Meaning pertains to the sense of purpose and coherence in life, motivating individuals to pursue activities that align with their values; (5) Accomplishment refers to the pursuit and achievement of goals.

The PERMA model has been increasingly adopted in educational and professional settings. Interventions and education programs based on the PERMA framework have shown positive effects on students’ motivation and engagement (Miranda et al., 2024). The PERMA model also facilitates teacher satisfaction and development. Teachers who experience high levels of well-being measured by the PERMA model are more likely to be productive and engaged (Leng & Zhang, 2024). The application of PERMA components on Chinese higher vocational teachers helps us to understand the well-being of this unique group of teachers, and thus yields an improvement in their professional performance (Hascher & Waber, 2021). The qualitative utilisation of the PERMA model provides a lens for in-depth exploration of how and why each factor affects their well-being. However, teachers’ well-being through the educators’ living experiences and narratives remains understudied (Weiland, 2021).

Rapid societal and technological changes as well as student heterogeneity and individual needs shape work and skill requirements of Finnish vocational education and training (VET) teachers (e.g., Vilppola et al., 2022); thus, underlining the need to study VET teacher competence and its development. Competence of (VET) teachers has been a topic of growing interest in the previous European research, including Finland (e.g., Antera, 2023; Lehtonen et al., 2018; Sartori et al., 2015). Prior research (Antera, 2023; Sartori et al., 2015; Tapani & Salonen, 2019) has adopted four competence domains which are argued to respond to the diverse competence needs of VET teachers: pedagogical domain (e.g., teaching methods, setting up a safe learning environment, assessment, being familiar with the curricula and qualifications), professional domain (e.g., professional know-how; understanding the codes, statutes and methods of one’s discipline), organisational domain (e.g., economic and administrative know-how) as well as developmental and research domain (e.g., development of occupational practice, self-reflection of teaching practice). While these domains are based on a broad set of literature, they lack quantitative evidence from the teacher perspective which this study aims to provide.

Previous research has also shown that the work environment is pivotal in providing organisational support for teachers’ everyday continuous professional development (Ballangrud & Nilsen, 2021; Kyndt et al., 2016). Such support may range from offering working hours and opportunities for individual and collective reflection to more formal events, such as teachers’ work placements; at any case, the work environment is the context for VET teachers’ professional development (Ballangrud & Nilsen, 2021). However, we lack the studies examining detailed patterns between VET teachers’ competence and organisational support for competence development, and how gaps between them are related to teachers’ work engagement and turnover intentions. In this study, we assume that organisational support gaps for professional development may decrease teachers’ work engagement, reflected in lower vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2019), and increase their intentions to leave their workplace or teaching as a profession (Huhtala & Feldt, 2016).

This study aims to investigate how Finnish VET teachers perceive their current level of various competencies and organisational support for competence development. The study also aims to examine how the gap between the organisational support and self-assessed levels of competencies is associated with teacher engagement and, ultimately, turnover intentions. The research questions are as follows:

RQ1) How do Finnish vocational teachers perceive the organisational support for their competence development?

RQ2) How do the teachers perceive that organisational support for competence development contributes to their levels of work engagement and turnover intentions?

The presentation investigates the intrinsic logics of the (learning) outcome orientation in vocational education (VE) through a linguistic analysis. The paper focuses on the Finnish term osaaminen, which is commonly used as an equivalent to competency, skill, and (learning) outcome. Notably, osaaminen does not denote learning, nor does it collocate with learning in Finnish VE policy. This explains the brackets in (learning) outcome. The ambiguity surrounding osaaminen illustrates a broader tension in its association with education.

Theoretically, the paper draws on the sociology of education, particularly research on competency-based training (CBT) and policy transfer in VE. The use of skill and competency as central descriptors of CBT in VE originates in the Anglophone world but has travelled successfully across contexts (Wheelahan, Moodie & Doughney 2022). Over recent decades, these (learning) outcome models have been adopted in EU and member state policies, thereby framing VE through concepts such as competency (Lassnig 2012). Consequently, Finnish VE is strongly oriented towards (learning) outcomes through the application of CBT (Rosenblad 2023; Pietilä 2025).

However, although EU policy aims for coherence through the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) remain embedded in national contexts. During policy transfer, finding satisfactory equivalents for key concepts has proven difficult, and in some cases unsuccessful, due to cultural, historical, and institutional differences in how VE and central concepts are understood (e.g., Clarke & Winch 2006; Brockmann et al. 2008).

In national policies, the (learning) outcome materialises as sequences of letters—that is, words in national languages. This process is far from merely technical; it has significant implications for educational policy thinking. Nevertheless, we possess limited knowledge of how these translated concepts function in national contexts. This paper therefore examines osaaminen as one linguistic vehicle used in Finnish policy transfer. It addresses the following question: How, why, and in what ways does osaaminen operate in the VE policy context?

Vocational education and training (VET) plays a pivotal role in the initial socialisation and professional integration of young people into the workforce and into society. “Early contract dissolutions” (Huismann & Hippach-Schneider, 2023) are therefore considered problematic for the young people concerned, for companies and for society. Research on this topic has grown considerably over the last ten years (Böhn & Deutscher, 2022). This applies primarily to questions about the structural determinants of early contract dissolutions (Krötz & Deutscher, 2022; Kriesi et al., 2016), including the perspective of the apprentices themselves (Bosset et al., 2022) and the individual consequences for career development at an individual level (Stadler & Schmid; 2016, Schmid, 2010). Early contract dissolutions are a widely discussed topic internationally, including the associated conceptual and terminological differentiation (Cedefop, 2016; Huismann & Hippach-Schneider, 2023).

Although the political problematisation of this phenomenon seems to be subject to its own rationales, it was already in the 1970s attributed to function as a “thermometer for identifying existing strengths and weaknesses in vocational education and training” (Nigg & Gelb, 1979). In VET research, this period is regarded as the “decisive years” in the development of dual VET in particular (Bonoli & Gonon, 2023). During these years, VET had to respond to several key challenges, including meeting the very high demand for skilled workers and responding to new social expectations. The debates of the time focused on the need to put “all available reserves” to work and enable all “talents” to access higher-level education and training. In this context, early contract dissolutions, a phenomenon that has always existed in VET, take on renewed significance. To grasp this renewed significance, it is crucial to examine the structural development of early contract dissolutions and how they were referenced in contemporary discourse.

For this reason, this paper offers a new lens on the development of dual VET. First, the data and debates surrounding early contract dissolutions are used analytically as a “thermometer” to examine these “decisive years” for VET. To date, the historical development of early contract dissolutions has hardly been considered in VET research. Second, adopting a historical approach to the phenomenon of early contract dissolutions allows for a more nuanced perspective on today’s controversies surrounding their political, educational and economic significance. While existing studies have generated a rich body of knowledge on the definition, the background and the consequences of early contract dissolutions in VET, they rarely consider how their significance depends on changing historical expectations towards VET.

We are therefore asking two questions: (1) How have early contract dissolutions and the political debates surrounding them changed during the period of educational expansion in the 1960s and 1970s? (2) What does their renewed significance reveal about changing expectations of VET?

In response to the growing needs associated with an ageing population, the training and competencies of care and support staff in long-term care institutions have gained renewed prominence in Switzerland (Merçay et al., 2024). Public swiss french authorities have recently demonstrated a strong commitment to enhancing the skills of a workforce that is highly experienced yet formally underqualified. In this context, federal training programmes are being offered to professionals, many of whom have migrant backgrounds and lack formal qualifications. These programmes aim to develop and broaden their competencies, particularly in care, support and social care activities, while fostering reflective capacities that may ultimately enable them to access professional status recognised at a federal level. We were commissioned to evaluate these training programmes through a research-intervention project.

To respond to this evaluation, and support participants' professional development, we encouraged professionals to analyse their own practices through video-based interaction analysis.This method has been increasingly recognised and understood in the social sciences as both a research method and a 'pedagogical institution' that supports learning and development (Harris et al., 2012; Stevanovic & Weiste, 2017; Stokoe, 2014). Recent experiments have explored the potential for 'data sessions' based on conversation analysis principles to facilitate the development of interactional competence in vocational training contexts (Filliettaz, Garcia & Zogmal, 2022).

Our contribution focuses on this practice collective analysis approaches inspired by the principles of interaction analysis (Filliettaz, 2018; Filliettaz et al., 2021) and on how it can foster the interactional competence of the professionnals participanting. All language coordination involves the mobilisation of interactional competence, defined as the set of abilities enabling interactants to participate effectively in an interaction by coordinating their actions and accomplishing the social activity in which they are engaged (Young & Miller, 2004). Shaped by the socio-historical context of the activity in question (Pekarek Doehler, 2006) and visible through the behaviour of the participants, interactional competence is subject to continuous evaluation and regulation throughout the interaction (Mondada, 2006). Our contribution will focus on how participants use filmed footage to coordinate their efforts in describing their professional activity and indentify their professionnal competences. It also examines how they mobilise, share and co-construct knowledge and expertise related to their professional activity, and how this enables them to define themselves as professionals.

The aim of the study is to understand the meanings general upper secondary students (hereafter: gymnasium) in Estonian context attribute to their work experience and how students and employers perceive/recognise the interrelations between school and workplaces.

The rationale behind the study is twofold:

first, the share of students working alongside the school studies in general education programmes is growing in Estonia. Over half of students up to 17 years old worked during the school year (Ministry of Social Affairs, 2020) and over 60% of students had work experience outside the school, whether short-term, temporary paid work, voluntary work, family businesses etc. (Erss et al., 2024).

secondly, while work experience of vocational students in formal vocational programmes is rather well addressed by researchers, significance of work experience of general education students in authentic work environments is rather underestimated.

Furthermore, gymnasium has traditionally been viewed as a gateway to academic education and preparation for university education; however, the question of how to establish a connection at earlier stages of general education between what is learned at school and the skills required in the labour market has become increasingly important (Education Strategy 2021–2035). The earlier studies have shown that practical work experience of general education students in authentic environments significantly develops skills that are important both in working life and more broadly in life, such as social, self-regulation skills and other generic skills. Such experiences also shape young people’s career awareness and competencies related to learner agency and therefore, makes easier coping with the vulnerability of working life (e.g Billett and Ovens, 2007, Erss et al., 2024; Loogma et al., 2024). Nevertheless, the acquisition of these types of experiences largely remains outside the formal curriculum of general education and is weakly interrelated with and may remain invisible in the school. (Peterson et al., 2025).

However, the trend that more gymnasium students want to acquire work experience alongside the school studies reflect the wider learning ecology, emphasising that students in formal education programs learn in various ways in various environments (e.g Selliov, 2017), such as web-environments (incl AI), social media networks, museums etc being simultaneously involved in a complex set of institutions, interrelations, activities, and social actors (Weaver-Hightower, 2008). However, workplaces are continuously one of the most important learning environments in these learning ecologies, to cope better with the fragile, unsustainable world and in the world of work (Jackson, 2023). At the same time, access to various learning environments can be uneven, depending on many factors, such as family situation, location, academic abilities and others that may create experience gaps and new inequalities (Barron & Bell, 2015).

We approaching the issue from the viewpoint of social ecology to understand better interrelations between school and workplace learning in the context of general secondary education emphasising on two main aspects: 1) students´ meanings of the competences they develop at work and 2) interrelationships between learning at school and workplace.

Thus, the research questions are: Which competences and abilities general education students think they develop through work experience? How do students and employers perceive the interrelations between general upper secondary schools and workplaces?

This project explores antiracism as a dynamic curriculum practice. Antiracism practice is examined by focusing on how the interplay and tensions between discursive patterns and resistance manifest. The study follows a strand of curriculum research that engages with critical perspectives on the structural ideologies that curricula reproduce, as well as possibilities for transformation (see Schubert, 2018). Scholars have previously problematised how normalised discourses on what is “good” and desirable in European societies tend to reproduce problematic ideas about equality and people(s) (Hübinette and Lundström 2014). This study delves into this issue and explores various perspectives on racism and combating racism within antiracism practice, across the school as an institution.

By highlighting challenges and possibilities within teaching specifically, the study contributes to another, related strand of curriculum research. This strand explores pedagogical opportunities of European dimensions in education, while also considering potential dangers (see Philippou, 2005). The study contributes to this strand by examining the topic of colonialism in teaching, more specifically (cf. Araújo and Maeso, 2012; Jore, 2019; Nagre, 2025). As the study problematises, antiracism practice, partly connected to the topic of colonialism, is characterised by intersecting interests such as social justice, economic development, educational assessment, and friendships.

The project is guided by the overarching question: How is antiracism practised through discursive interplays in a Swedish compulsory school? To study this, the research questions are divided into three questions:

• How do students describe racism and antiracism?
• How are racism and antiracism displayed in relevant documents and classroom practice?
• What do students express about this classroom practice and the school practice in general regarding antiracism? What opportunities and limitations do students identify?

Theories on curriculum making (Priestley et al., 2021) and critical discourse analysis (Simpson et al., 2018) contribute to the theoretical framework, emphasising curriculum sites of activity and agency. The presentation specifically addresses how antiracism discourse spans the national curriculum, a teacher’s lessons related to racism, and students’ everyday life in school. Power is understood as routines and language sustained through discourse—in this case, antiracism discourse—and appears as natural and commonsense. The study explores discourse strategies and their links to ideology and resistance in antiracism discourse shaped through curriculum making. Some strategies are analysed as denials of racism, reflecting an ideology that reproduces racism structurally and often unintentionally characterises antiracism discourse in Sweden (Habel, 2012). This ideology manifests in expressions and practices of silencing, minimising, and denying racism, which uphold privileges for those who conform to white norms (cf. van Dijk, 1992; Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Lipsitz, 2019). Other strategies are analysed as discourse resistance to the denial of racism and offer insights into potentials for future antiracism efforts. They also represent possible ideologies of antiracism.

In this paper we present findings of a four-year curriculum study which has provided new insights into how Indigenous Knowledges and ways of knowing interface with western education systems and the curriculum produced and valued within such systems. In our multidimensional research project, we have empirically investigated the long-documented challenges that teachers, school leaders and policy makers encounter when attempting to include Indigenous content in their classroom curriculum; these challenges persist despite there being mandated content provided within the official curriculum as is the case in systems like Australia. The project has filled a critical knowledge gap within the curriculum field by delivering a comprehensive empirical understanding of teachers’ approaches, attitudes, and capabilities regarding their teaching of Indigenous curriculum content. With little evidence available on ‘how’ this content can be effectively planned for and taught in situ, or the values, attitudes and beliefs of teachers across different disciplines that influence the effective uptake of this content, there has been limited focus on identifying, or indeed redressing, the issues impacting teacher practices in this work and how these factors influence student learning experiences.

We use the case of Australia, which has a national curriculum with dedicated and mandated Indigenous content included as a cross-curriculum priority, meaning this content sits horizontally across eight school subjects. Thus, the study has implications for other systems where there is necessary impetus to provide culturally inclusive curriculum. By focusing on how teachers understand the task of teaching Indigenous content in the science and history secondary curriculum, we have built an evidence base to better understand how teachers plan for the incorporation of Indigenous content in their classrooms, and, in particular, how the disciplinary structures of curricula impact teachers’ practices, as well as hamper or support their capacities to foster genuine engagement with Indigenous content for their Indigenous students, and their non-Indigenous peers.

The study was framed by the following research questions:

RQ1: What does the positioning of Indigenous content within the official curriculum disclose about the evident epistemic, cognitive and socio-political inter-relationships?

RQ2: How do teachers’ personal beliefs and values impact on ‘how’ and ‘why’ they prioritise, plan, teach and assess Indigenous content?

RQ3: How do disciplinary structures impact on ‘how’ teachers are able to interpret, prioritise, plan, teach and assess Indigenous content across different curriculum areas?

The Australian education context is a cautionary tale for other culturally diverse contexts. Including Indigenous content in the curriculum has been a major policy initiative of successive governments in Australia for more than four decades. These moves have been a legitimate part of (perhaps) well-intentioned attempts to simultaneously improve schooling outcomes of First Nations’ students and supporting national reconciliation more broadly. The inclusion of this content is thus designed to achieve the dual goals of engaging First Nations students in schooling and improving the knowledges that non-Indigenous young people have about the rich First Nations’ Australian cultures and knowledges. However, evidence has demonstrated that despite its inclusion in the official curriculum, Indigenous content has largely failed to resonate within local school curricula. To date, educational authorities have largely responded to this problem through standardisation, developing decontextualized Indigenous curriculum content that removes the need to localise learning (Harrison et.al., 2019). We would argue that standardizing curriculum removes the nexus between Indigenous content and local communities and pays insufficient attention to how content is instantiated in classrooms Our point is that despite the official inclusion of First Nations’ content, the barriers teachers face in developing coherent programs and approaches that specifically address the needs and aspirations of First Nations’ young people and their families and communities have not been removed.

Across Europe and beyond, happiness and wellbeing have become central reference points in contemporary educational policy and curriculum reform. International frameworks such as the OECD’s work on student wellbeing and initiatives like Happy Schools promote happiness, wellbeing, and resilience as key educational goals that can be fostered and embedded within schooling (OECD, 2013; OECD, 2024; UNESCO, 2016). While these developments respond to pressing societal concerns, they also raise fundamental questions about the nature of educational aims and the forms of knowledge through which these aims are articulated and governed.

This paper approaches happiness not primarily as a psychological outcome, but as an educational ideal with a long and complex history. Its immediate point of departure is the subject Glück (Fritz-Schubert, 2012) and the ongoing debate in Germany. In some schools, Glück has been introduced as an explicit subject or curricular focus, framed as an innovative response to contemporary wellbeing challenges. Rather than evaluating this subject as a curricular model, the paper uses it as an entry for a broader theoretical inquiry into the implications of institutionalising happiness as an educational aim.

Taking the German notion of Glück as an analytical starting point, the study examines how ideas of happiness have been conceptualised within pedagogical theories over time and how these conceptions are transformed when happiness is translated into curricular goals in contemporary wellbeing discourses. The objective of the paper is to clarify the epistemic and normative assumptions underlying current approaches to happiness in education and to reflect on their implications for curriculum theory in international contexts.

The paper is guided by the following overarching research question:
How has happiness functioned as an educational ideal within pedagogical thought, and what epistemic shifts occur when happiness is translated into a curricular goal in contemporary educational discourse?

This question is further specified by asking:

• How have pedagogical theories historically conceptualised happiness in relation to education, subjectivity, and society?
• Which continuities and ruptures become visible when these conceptions are systematically related?
• What implications do these transformations have for current curriculum debates on wellbeing and educational aims?

The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in educational philosophy and curriculum theory. Drawing on the tradition of German educational theory, education is understood as a normative and reflexive practice rather than as a purely instrumental process (Benner, 1989). Educational ideals such as happiness are therefore not treated as fixed concepts, but as historically situated orientations whose meanings emerge in relation to broader educational, philosophical, and socio-political contexts.
Within this framework, contemporary wellbeing discourses—such as positive education, resilience programmes, and happiness-oriented curricula—are situated within a longer educational tradition that includes classical references to Aristotelian eudaimonia as well as modern pedagogical theories of Bildung (MacIntyre, 2007). While contemporary approaches frequently invoke ideas of flourishing, the paper argues that these references often involve selective and decontextualised appropriations. Ethical, political, and educational contexts in which these concepts originally functioned are frequently omitted, resulting in a transformation of happiness from a shared normative educational orientation into an empirically measurable construct of individual optimisation.

By critically examining the curricularisation of happiness, the paper contributes to European and international debates on educational aims, wellbeing education, and curriculum reform. Using nationally situated developments as a theoretically informed point of entry, the study highlights how educational ideals circulate across policy contexts shaped by OECD and UNESCO discourses (OECD, 2013; UNESCO, 2016). Rather than proposing a specific model of wellbeing education, the paper provides conceptual resources for rethinking how happiness and wellbeing are framed and justified in contemporary educational systems.

In many countries, curricula operate with various descriptions of student mastery (Højgaard & Sølberg, 2023). However, curricula descriptions of mastery differ, through various use of terms like competences, skills, and knowledge. Of the three terms, competences represent a clear ambition to set student mastery as a goal for education (Højgaard & Sølberg, 2023). Major international organisations, including the OECD, UNESCO, the World Bank, and the European Commission, promote a competence-based educational orientation which especially influenced European curricula, peaking in the early 2000s (Tahirsylaj & Sundberg, 2020).

Consequently, competence has become a central organising concept in many primary and lower secondary curricula (e.g. Education Scotland, 2009; Gordon et al., 2014; Ministry of Education and Research, 2019), although no consensus exists regarding the meaning of the term (Ropohl et al., 2018; Tahirsylaj & Sundberg 2020; Christiansen, 2025). In other curricula terms such as skills or capabilities (e.g. in England and Australia) are used in ways that arguably reflect similar competence-oriented intentions (Anderson Levitt, 2017).

Naturally, science education has likewise adopted competence-based goals, though with substantial variation across countries (e.g. Waddington et al., 2007; Mathelitsch, 2013). In Denmark, the compulsory primary and lower secondary science curricula are organised around four competence goals (Ministry of Children and Education, 2019):

1) Inquiry competence – the ability to design, conduct, and evaluate inquiries/investigations in biology, physics/chemistry, and geography;

2) Modelling competence – the ability to apply and critically assess models within biology, physics/chemistry, and geography;

3) Perspective-taking competence – the ability to relate biology, physics/chemistry, and geography to societal and environmental contexts, and to connect subject content to the development of scientific understanding; and

4) Communication competence – the ability to communicate scientific issues within biology, physics/chemistry, and geography

The curricula emphasise that competence exceeds the mere accumulation of knowledge and skills. It includes the capacity to independently and responsibly reflect on their application in specific science related situations, thereby enabling critical thinking and informed action (Ministry of Children and Education, 2019).

According to an executive order from the Ministry of Children and Education, primary and lower secondary students should come to recognise science and technology as part of culture and worldview, strengthen their sense of responsibility toward nature and resource use, and develop confidence in their ability to take a stance and act (Ministry of Children and Education, 2024).

Especially, the ability to act is a central goal in Danish primary and lower secondary competence-oriented curricula, with an underlying competence definition comparable to that of Adelsberger et al. (2008), who describe competence as “the ability to act in unknown areas, using knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (p. 4070). Thus, competence concerns the ability to respond appropriately to challenges in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts. It is performance based and reflected in observable actions and choices. Being competent requires not only qualification but also the willingness and ability to apply one’s qualifications.

These four areas of science competence constitute the framework Danish primary and lower secondary teachers are required to work with. However, competence-oriented teaching appears challenging for both teachers and students (Christiansen, 2025). To better understand the roots of these challenges, this study examined, through interviews, students’ and teachers’ perceptions of science and science education in relation to formal science competence goals, pursuing the following questions:

1. What do students and teachers say about science competence and what it means to be good at science?

2. To what extent is there alignment between the official science curricula's description of educational goals and teachers’ and their students’ perceptions of educational goals, and to what extent would possible differences pose a problem?

The dilemmas and challenges of curriculum reform concern 1. the document itself (national curricular framework) and the process of “curriculum development “, as well as 2. its implementation into practice – broader “curriculum making” taking place in schools and other settings (Priestley & Philippou, 2018) and 3. other aspects of the educational system and the wider social situation that can function as enabler or barrier of the reform. Of course, these aspects cannot be completely separated in practice; however, in this paper I focus mainly on various aspects related to the design and development of the document itself. As international comparisons show, it is very difficult to find a balance between having too much or too little specifications in the curriculum. While an overloaded curriculum limits teachers’ flexibility, reducing content too much can mean that students aren’t guaranteed access to important knowledge and skills, exaggerating the injustice. "Specificity about what is to be learned in a curriculum is important for clarity, progression, and equality. Systems which have less-specific curricula have experienced teacher confusion, increased workload, inequalities between schools, and difficulties with student progression at transitions. “ (Crehan et al., 2025) This paper shows the difficulty of finding the optimal form of a national curriculum in a post-socialist context.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR) in 1991, fifteen independent states emerged across a vast territory covering approximately one-sixth of the world’s land surface. These states inherited a common educational legacy shaped by the late Soviet model of general and higher education, characterized by a highly centralized national curriculum, narrow specialization, tuition-free education at all levels, and guaranteed—yet compulsory—employment for graduates. Over the subsequent three decades, however, the political trajectories, social structures, and educational policies of these former “brotherly” nations have diverged significantly.

The challenges of schooling and curriculum reform in post-socialist countries continue to stimulate the development of educational theory and research (Goodson & Mikser, 2023; Silova et al., 2017). One of the major issues concerns the reliability and interpretation of data and sources.

During the Soviet period, educational research tended to idealize socialist education and emphasize its supposed superiority over Western systems. While traces of this perspective persist, recent literature often reflects the opposite tendency, emphasizing systemic deficiencies in ways that may serve to justify international development assistance. Simplified negative portrayals of the Soviet curriculum model frequently emerge within this discourse.

While Central European countries that were Soviet satellites experienced a shorter period of communist rule and retained greater curricular continuity and autonomy, former Soviet republics faced a higher level of curricular harmonization and a more complex post-Soviet transformation.

Focusing on Georgia, this study highlights the complexities of curriculum development in a conflict-torn country and examines the ongoing search for balance between school and teacher autonomy and the structured guidance provided by the national curriculum. It also illustrates the ambiguous effects of importing international models of curriculum, teaching, and assessment into the post-Soviet context.

In 2009, a longitudinal study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) revealed a significant misalignment between Irish post-primary education and student needs. At the time, the three-year Junior Cycle mirrored the Senior Cycle: a collection of siloed subjects assessed by a centralised, terminal examination (Smyth, 2009). This “Junior Cert" model exerted a negative backwash effect on the purpose, processes, and practices of schooling (Doyle, 2019). Following disappointing PISA results in 2009, macro-actors sought a radical departure from this state-certified, examination-led status quo (Perkins et al., 2011).

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) responded by designing a lower-secondary framework vastly different from previous iterations. This new ideology prioritised student learning and holistic development through an overarching framework of 24 statements of learning, eight principles, and eight key skills (NCCA, 2012). Crucially, it championed a constructivist pedagogy (Vygotsky, 1978), moving away from rigid syllabi toward subject specifications defined by learning outcomes. Assessment was no longer about performance but about supporting learning. This policy shift demanded that teachers evolve from curriculum "deliverers" to curriculum "makers", an aspiration that proved premature, resulting in a hybridized approach to design. Instead of a pure transition to a constructivist, student-centred model, what emerged was a mixture of epistemologies and curriculum paradigms (Gleeson, Doyle & O’Neill, 2025).

Over the last decade, Irish upper-secondary reform has adopted a "backward design" approach, informed by these previous curriculum reform cycles. To avoid a disruptive overhaul, and acknowledging the immense pressure of the high-stakes Leaving Certificate, the NCCA began by rejuvenating subject specifications through learning outcomes. However, the recent introduction of a "content column" alongside these outcomes suggests a regression toward "teacher-proof" lists and a behaviourist model of delivery. While these pre-determined outcomes offer a form of contractual certainty for high-stakes examinations, they simultaneously highlight the friction between reformist ideals and the systemic weight of traditional assessment.

This paper investigates the perspectives of key macro-actors: the Department of Education (DoE), the NCCA, and the State Examinations Commission (SEC), on the curriculum-making process and endeavours to signpost issues that hinder and assist changemakers in bringing about reform. Specifically, it explores how the decision to utilise pre-determined learning outcomes influenced curriculum making during the Junior Cycle reform and how those implications are now manifesting at the Senior Cycle. Our research asks: What were the rationale and implications, from the perspectives of macro-stakeholders, for introducing learning outcomes in recent post-primary reform? In the landscape of Irish education, progress is rarely linear; it is often a series of calculated retreats and advances.

The theoretical framework in this study is based on Haraway’s (2016) concept of Speculative Fabulation which prompts us to search for the ideas, thoughts and knowledge behind the dominant narratives of learning outcomes. The framework understands that different patterns of threads are made and unmade as curriculum develops at different points in time, they are passed on in different twists that require ‘passion and action, holding still and moving, anchoring and launching’ which allow the actors to render each other capable by becoming-with each other within each pattern. Curriculum making through this lens is a practice and a process of becoming-with, and the way to map it in order to learn from the process is to unpick the threads in order to see ‘what thoughts think thoughts’, because this matters. The thread that an actor brings to the table in curriculum making is never what they leave the table with, it is within the encounter with others that the curriculum is conceived, developed and made.

Inclusive education (IE) has become a central policy objective across education systems worldwide. The adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) marked a decisive step towards legally binding commitments to IE at all levels (United Nations, 2006). This development builds on earlier international frameworks, notably the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), which positioned IE as a normative ideal. UNESCO later reinforced this by defining IE as a systemic effort to remove barriers to participation and learning. Together, these frameworks underpin an international policy agenda that has been unevenly implemented in national reforms across Europe and beyond.

Despite this strong international consensus, comparative research shows that the systemic realisation of IE remains uneven. Many countries continue to operate hybrid systems in which inclusive ambitions coexist with long-standing segregated structures (Ainscow et al., 2019). This observation leads to the central research question guiding this workshop:

Which policy-level conditions enable inclusive education to move from a legal and normative commitment to a realised system-level outcome?

Theoretical framework

Within this research workshop, IE is approached primarily as a policy implementation challenge, rather than as a school-level or pedagogical issue. This perspective draws on classical yet enduring theories of top-down policy implementation, most notably the work of Mazmanian and Sabatier (1983), who identify a set of structural conditions that shape whether public policies achieve their intended outcomes. Their framework highlights the importance of clear policy objectives, coherent policy design, sufficient implementation capacity and long-term policy stability.

For the purpose of comparative international analysis, this workshop adapts the Mazmanian and Sabatier framework to the field of IE and operationalises it into five macro-level policy conditions:

1. Normative and legal anchoring of IE: the extent to which IE is explicitly embedded in binding legislation or regulatory frameworks as a guiding principle of the education system.
2. An explicit policy theory of inclusion: the presence of a clear causal logic explaining how policy measures are expected to lead to IE outcomes.
3. Instrumental and organisational coherence: the degree to which policy instruments—such as funding mechanisms, support structures, regulations and accountability arrangements—are aligned to promote inclusion and discourage segregation.
4. Structural implementation capacity: the availability of stable professional, organisational and material resources to implement IE policies at system level.
5. Policy stability and priority over time: the extent to which inclusive education remains a sustained policy priority across political cycles.

Together, these conditions provide a theoretically grounded analytical lens for examining how IE policies are designed, implemented and sustained across different national and regional contexts.

Methodological approach and purpose

Methodologically, the workshop adopts a comparative configurational approach inspired by Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) (Ragin, 1987, 2008). QCA allows for the analysis of combinations of conditions, acknowledging that similar outcomes may be achieved through different pathways. The workshop applies a crisp-set logic, calibrating conditions as present (score=1) or absent (score=0). Given the use of five conditions in a crisp-set QCA design, a minimum of 17 cases is required to ensure sufficient configurational diversity for a meaningful comparative exercise.

IE is treated as a system-level outcome, defined in line with CRPD Article 24, which emphasises non-exclusion from mainstream education, participation in local communities, and the non-dominance of segregated educational pathways (United Nations, 2006).

In this workshop, participants are invited to represent their own national or regional education system and to reason explicitly from the legislative and policy framework that applies in their context. Through a structured calibration exercise (0 = absent, 1 = present), the workshop enables systematic comparison across European and international cases and is oriented towards collective knowledge production, including the development of a jointly authored comparative article.

Ableism is socially constructed along gender and racial ideologies that lead to institutionalized forms of violence negatively influencing girls and women with disabilities (Ben-Moshe & Magaña, 2014; Parsons et al., 2016). Parsons (2017) defines gendered ableism as “the cross section of discrimination based on both disability and gender having serious implications for women with disabilities who are rendered powerless by society” (p. 209). Gendered ableism leads to higher risks of violence and lack of access to resources for minoritized girls and women (Kim & Shalk, 2020; Moral-Cabrero & Serrato-Calero, 2025). In compulsory schooling, girls with disabilities endure multiple obstacles hindering their wellbeing and inclusion, being vulnerable to facing discrimination, distress, and unmet socio-educational needs (Nanda, 2019; Ramírez Morera, 2022). Statistics reveal how only 41.7% of girls with disabilities complete primary school in contrast to 52.9% of able-bodied girls in Europe (UN Women, 2025). These barriers are the result of enforced heteropatriarchal ableist ways of knowing and being historically operationalized in schools (Dean et al., 2023; Hall, 2011; Zamorano et al., 2024). Likewise, disability hierarchies across the disability spectrum further perpetuate the stigmatization of non-normative bodies (Grue et al., 2015; Pritchard, 2023; Sánchez Rodríguez, 2023). These hierarchies lead to “soft” disability categories such as emotionally disturbed, ADHD, and “mental retardation” (Nanda, 2019). Racialized girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to being pathologized across axes of institutionalized oppressions, including racism and cultural erasure (Miller, 2024; Tesfahunegn, 2025).

This literature synthesis analyzes recent studies published between 2015 and 2025 decentering gendered ableism in schools by attending to the perspectives, experiences, and assets of girls and young women with disabilities. This framing shies away from pervasive discriminatory discourses portraying these minoritized learners as depleted and agencyless, when focusing solely on their social marginalization. Thus, this literature synthesis includes only peer-reviewed sources that follow a critical social model of disability (Oliver, 2013). Feminist disability frameworks are used alongside capital theory to examine the literature on gendered ableism in European educational settings. Feminist Disability Studies (FDS) emerged in the 1990s to challenge the medicalized view of disability and recognize it as a complex sociopolitical construct (Garland-Thomson, 2005; Hall, 2011). This framework rejects victimization narratives and condemns ableism as a social ill, impairing everyone’s lives (Kim & Schalk, 2020). In addition, feminist disability studies expose the interlocked forms of violence, including racism, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, hindering the lives and opportunities of girls and women with disabilities (Moral-Cabrero & Serrato-Calero, 2025). The interplay between ableism, heteronormativity and citizenship has been silenced to uphold the cis-ableist state (Glenn, 2015; Patel, 2017). Applied to the field of education, this framework serves, for instance, to explain the overrepresentation of students of color in special education settings (Temel et al., 2025). In addition, Bourdieu’s capital theory is used to problematize the socially constructed nature of disability as a cultural, historical, and political phenomenon (Holt, 2019; Mithen, 2015). In a field dominated by able-bodied discourses and ideologies, the disabled body possesses “disabled capital” (Berezin, 2014). Disability is often constructed through a pathologizing lens, which acts as a barrier to accumulating the valued “cultural capital” (set of normative knowledge, skills, values) that schools relegate exclusively to the status quo (Bourdieu, 1986). This work embraces the socially rejected forms of capital the youth bring with them to school, contributing to the deconstruction of what counts as capital. This literature synthesis seeks to answer the following research question: what are the experiences and perspectives of girls and young women with disabilities exposing gendered nativism in schools? This work holds scholarly significance considering how the topic has been underresearched and these youth’s perspectives undertheorized across educational and disability studies in Europe.

In contemporary societies, increasing visible diversity related to gender, culture, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation has made questions of social cohesion, mutual respect, and democratic coexistence central to public debate. As school textbooks are fundamental pedagogical resources used consistently over many years (Stará et al., 2017), they play a crucial role in shaping societal perceptions of professions typically associated with men or women (Fruehwirth et al., 2024). Although their primary function is the transmission of knowledge, textbooks often convey gender stereotypes and may influence how students perceive their future, their abilities, and their role in society.

This research (Kerger, Pianaro & Schadeck, 2023) is grounded in a theoretical framework combining gender studies, critical discourse analysis, and the sociology of education. Drawing on the work of Brugeilles and Cromer (2005, 2008), the Centre Hubertine Auclert (2015, 2020), textbooks are conceptualised not as neutral reflections of reality but as normative representations that legitimise specific social orders. From this perspective, representations of gender and diversity in textbooks can either reproduce inequalities or promote equality, inclusion, and respect for diversity, influencing students’ attitudes, aspirations, and understanding of social norms.

The central research question guiding this study is: To what extent do school textbooks used in the lower cycle of Luxembourg’s secondary education reflect and promote values of gender equality, diversity, and inclusive citizenship in line with national, European, and global commitments? More specifically, the study examines how gender, disability, ethnic diversity, and sexual diversity are represented across different school subjects.

The study is situated within a strong institutional and legal context. Luxembourg has ratified key international conventions, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (United Nations, 1981), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) (United Nations, 1969), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (United Nations, 2008). Additionally, national policies such as the first National Action Plan for LGBTI Rights (Ministère de la Famille, des Solidarités, du Vivre ensemble et de l'Accueil, 2018) reflect a commitment to inclusive education. These frameworks align with broader European objectives promoting equality, non-discrimination, and democratic citizenship as articulated by the Council of Europe.

Despite these commitments, recent public debates in Luxembourg—illustrated by parliamentary petitions (Petition, 2024) concerning the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ topics in education—demonstrate that issues of diversity and inclusion remain socially contested. This highlights the importance of empirically examining how educational materials address gender and sexual diversity, particularly in ways that are age-appropriate and focused on values such as respect, empathy, and openness.

The importance of this research extends beyond the national context. Across Europe and worldwide, textbook analyses have consistently revealed persistent gender stereotypes, underrepresentation of women and minorities, and limited visibility of non-heteronormative identities. By focusing on a multilingual and culturally diverse country such as Luxembourg, this study contributes to comparative international research on inclusive education and textbook reforming. Its findings offer insights relevant to policymakers, educators, and researchers seeking to align educational practices with international human rights standards.

Ultimately, this study underscores the responsibility of educational systems to ensure that textbooks support the development of critical thinking, democratic values, and social inclusion. By examining the gap between institutional commitments and actual representations in textbooks, the research highlights both challenges and opportunities for fostering equality and living together in increasingly diverse European and global societies.

Compulsory schooling in Denmark is currently confronted with sustained concerns about pupils’ student motivation, school satisfaction, and well‑being and engagement, alongside renewed attention to inequalities in achievement and engagement. Recent Danish and international research indicates that pupils’ school satisfaction and student motivation tend to decline across grade levels, with notable differences by gender and other background factors (Bang et al., 2020; Pless & Katznelson, 2019). Furthermore, levels of academic achievement remain critically low. Reflecting this trend, the share of students failing to pass Danish or Mathematics in their final examinations has risen to an unprecedented 11.9% (Jensen, 2025). In parallel, large-scale comparative assessments continue to document gendered patterns in achievement (OECD, 2023). Thus, in their latest analysis, Dansk Erhverv documents that Danish girls’ mean grade average across all subject fields is 0.8 (on a scale from -3 to 12) higher than that of boys. Against this backdrop, evaluations and policy analyses have questioned whether performance-oriented governance and reform initiatives have succeeded in improving learning outcomes, while also highlighting potential adverse implications for well‑being and engagement (Carlsson, 2022; Jacobsen, 2024).

Danish school policy has recently shifted toward greater local autonomy and an emphasis on freedom, immersion, and renewed attention to Bildung, learning, and well‑being and engagement. This reorientation is articulated in the governmental policy initiative “Prepared for the Future II: Freedom and Immersion” (Danish Government, 2023). Consistent with this agenda, a growing number of schools are revisiting student-centred and participant-directed pedagogies, including project- and problem-based learning (PBL). PBL is a learner-centred pedagogy that enables students to influence their own learning processes while designing solutions to authentic problems. It has a long-standing tradition in Denmark and is widely associated with the ‘Aalborg model’, in which learning is organized around collaborative, problem-oriented project work (Stegeager et al., 2024).

This paper reports findings from a municipality-wide school development project in Northern Denmark (2022–2026), in which all public schools worked to integrate PBL across subjects and year groups. The project was based on the following problem statement: What conditions and systemic factors shape the possibilities and potentials for implementing project‑based learning (PBL) across the primary school system of a Danish municipality when approached through a pragmatic whole‑systems framework?

Researchers from Aalborg University and VIA University College supported the implementation through teacher professional development and a mixed-methods evaluation design. Two survey waves (2024 and 2025) were administered to staff and pupils, yielding responses from 2,613 pupils on student motivation, sense of mastery, and attitudes toward group work and project work. Survey findings are complemented with qualitative process data (e.g., implementation logs and interviews with pupils, teachers, and school leaders) to contextualize variations in adoption and classroom enactment.

Preliminary results suggest that pupils of all genders report particularly high student motivation for group work and collaborative project work. While student motivation for schoolwork generally declines with age, the decline appears less pronounced for group work and project work than for conventional individual school tasks, aligning with research that frames student motivation as relational and context-dependent (Pless & Katznelson, 2019). Moreover, whereas overall school student motivation shows clear gender differences, with boys more likely to ‘completely disagree’ or ‘disagree’ with the statement “I work with engaging things at school”, these differences are attenuated in relation to group work and project work. These patterns indicate that project-based, collaborative pedagogies may function as an equity-promoting learning environment by broadening participation and strengthening pupils’ sense of competence and belonging. In the full paper, we will discuss the implications of the study for municipal capacity-building, teacher professionalism, and pedagogical design practices that safeguard well-being while pursuing academic improvement.

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) continue to face situations of stigmatization and inequality across social, educational, and occupational contexts, which contributes to the persistence of negative attitudes toward this group (Tavor & Akirav, 2023). Such attitudes act as a barrier to social inclusion and restrict access to genuine opportunities for participation. Moreover, research has shown that negative social attitudes have a direct impact on the psychological well-being of people with intellectual disabilities, affecting dimensions such as self-esteem, self-concept, and perceived personal competence (Ankori et al., 2023; Himmelberger et al., 2022; Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021).

From a psychosocial perspective, attitudes are conceptualized as relatively stable predispositions that integrate cognitive and affective components and guide the ways in which individuals evaluate and respond to different social objects (Triandis, 1971). Although these dispositions tend to show some resistance to change, numerous studies have demonstrated that attitudes toward intellectual disability can be modified through planned interventions, particularly when these combine rigorous information with meaningful experiences of social interaction.

Among the factors most consistently associated with positive attitudes toward intellectual disability is the level of contact with people with intellectual disabilities (Kármán et al., 2022; Ruano & Galán-Casado, 2024). However, the literature emphasizes that contact is not automatically effective; rather, it must occur under structured conditions and be explicitly oriented toward attitudinal change in order to generate positive effects (Vasileiadis et al., 2021).

Interventions in which people with intellectual disabilities themselves assume a central and active role therefore constitute a particularly valuable strategy, both for their empowerment and for broader social awareness-raising (Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021). Furthermore, this type of program yields benefits not only in terms of attitudinal change among participants without disabilities, but also for the people with intellectual disabilities who actively take part in these interventions (Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021; Rodríguez Herrero et al., 2023).

A recent systematic review examining programs aimed at changing attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities (Beunza-García et al., 2025) confirms the importance of implementing intervention programs, as all of the initiatives reviewed showed positive outcomes in terms of attitudinal change. In particular, social interactions and interventions combining information with structured and planned contact with people with intellectual disabilities emerged as the most effective strategies for improving attitudes toward this group (Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021; Vasileiadis et al., 2021; Watkins & Colgate, 2016).

Within this context, the We are Accesible program is positioned as an intervention based on first-person experience and shared reflection on social accessibility. The aim of the present study is to analyze the outcomes of this program in relation to changes in attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities, as well as to explore its potential impact and transferability to other educational and training contexts.

This study responds to the recent arrival of Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic and the ongoing public and professional discourse surrounding inclusive education. As schools increasingly serve linguistically and culturally diverse student populations, teachers’ attitudes play a critical role in shaping inclusive classroom practices and educational outcomes (Moberg et al., 2019; Pivarč, 2024; Woodcock & Anderson, 2024). Grounded in the tripartite ABC model of attitudes—encompassing affective, behavioral, and cognitive components— (Duckitt, 1992; Katz & Stotland, 1959; Newcomb et al., 1966), the study aims to examine the construct validity and reliability of a newly developed research instrument assessing primary school teachers’ attitudes towards both inclusive education and pupils of Ukrainian background.

The research instrument consists of two theoretically aligned scales. The first scale measures attitudes towards inclusive education and is inspired by the widely used Multidimensional Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale or shortened MATIES (Mahat, 2008). However, the instrument was substantially modified to reflect the specific features of the Czech educational context; therefore, it is treated as a newly developed instrument rather than an adaptation. The second scale focuses on teachers’ attitudes towards pupils of Ukrainian background and was constructed using the same theoretical framework to ensure conceptual consistency across both measures. Both scales retain a three-dimensional structure corresponding to the ABC model and employ four-point Likert-type items.

Prior to the main data collection, the instrument underwent qualitative pretesting to evaluate item clarity and response processes. Eight focus groups involving a total of 32 teachers from four primary schools were conducted to assess participants’ understanding of the items and the functionality of the response scale. Based on participant feedback, selected items were revised to better align with their intended meanings while preserving the instrument's theoretical structure. The quantitative phase of the study will involve a convenience sample of primary school teachers from 39 schools in one region of the Czech Republic, aiming to recruit at least 600 respondents. Data will be collected through school-based survey administration. Construct validity will be tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Internal consistency will be evaluated using McDonald’s omega.

The expected outcomes of the study include verifying the instrument’s construct validity and reliability, as well as empirically measuring the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of teachers’ attitudes. Furthermore, the study seeks to examine potential correlations among these attitude components and across both scales, thereby contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the internal structure of teacher attitudes in the context of inclusive and migration-responsive education. By developing and validating a contextually sensitive instrument, this study seeks to contribute methodologically to research on teacher attitudes while also addressing an urgent educational issue in Central Europe. Understanding how teachers perceive inclusive education and pupils with recent migration experience is essential for informing teacher preparation, professional development, and policy initiatives that support equitable educational environments (Woodcock & Jones, 2020; Yada et al., 2018). As teacher perceptions are a primary determinant of inclusive classroom culture (Woodcock & Anderson, 2024), understanding these attitudes is vital in contexts like the Czech Republic, where practitioners often view 'top-down' inclusive reforms with skepticism or resistance (Štech & Smetáčková, 2023). The findings are expected to provide empirically grounded insights into the structure of teacher attitudes and to offer a reliable measurement tool for future research examining inclusion in rapidly changing educational contexts.

Research on teachers’ attitudes on the education of disabled students is prolific and explores two usually overlapping areas, teachers’ attitudes towards disability and attitudes towards the mode of education for these students. Considering the continuous prominence of this research, the limited critique of its purpose, focus and methods within the field is puzzling and worth exploring. In the field there is almost no engagement with Slee’s (2011) position that ‘most of this work is of questionable value and much of it is very predictable in design, creation and findings’ (p. 49) since it defines disability as the problem and the disabled person as the object of attitudes with a hierarchical pathologising depending on the category and severity of impairment, and it decouples attitudes conceptually from the actual contexts where they occur. This critique moves beyond the need for ‘better’ research to question its benefit.

This is more important in a time of increased pushback to the rights, protections, participation, and even survival of disabled people. The layers of this pushback are structural, such as policy reversal, funding cuts, increased bureaucratic processes, as well as discursive. At stake here are the minds, hearts and ultimately the behaviour of non-disabled people, it is about attitudes. The presentation establishes the starting premise that attitudes are both significant and problematic aiming to challenge the discursive construct of attitudes in the mostly ahistorical and acritical conceptualisation of attitudinal research in inclusive education. The genealogical approach allows to interrogate the apparent consistency and linearity of attitudinal research on inclusion by foregrounding alternative perspectives. It does that by examining the contextual circumstances of two seminal texts and locating them within their historical context.

The first text is the early study by Norris Haring, George G. Stern and William Cruickshank, Attitudes of educators toward exceptional children, published as a monograph in 1958 and reprinted in 1978. This study allows to locate the presentation within the historical context that attitudinal research emerged in the United States and the historical connectedness between categories of race, class, gender, and disability. The discussion is centred on race at the time of Brown versus Board of Education. The second text is Vic Finkelstein’s Attitudes and Disabled People (1980). Finkelstein, as a co-founder of UPIAS, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, which was foundational in the articulation of the Social Model of Disability in the UK, presents a powerful conceptual and methodological critique on attitudinal research on disability of the time, including the vested interests of professionals. The presentation discusses the centrality of vested interests, including the vested interests of researchers, in the field. This historical work is of significance for the field internationally as it allows us to look at the past to explore possibilities for the future. Considering the prominence of attitudinal research, with one third of all reviewed studies in Amor et al.’s (2019) systematic review being attitudinal studies, it is essential to critically engage with it, especially in a time that the rights of disabled people are under attack.

Inequality in mathematics education remains one of the most persistent and socially consequential forms of educational injustice. Large-scale assessments consistently demonstrate substantial achievement gaps in mathematics between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. These differences appear early, persist throughout schooling, and correspond to several years of learning (Baucal, 2012a; OECD, 2023). Students from low-SES families are disproportionately represented among those performing below basic proficiency levels and are less likely to aspire to mathematics-related educational pathways or careers (Baucal et al., 2006; Baucal, 2012b; Saw et al., 2018). Unequal access to mathematical success therefore affects far more than achievement, shaping students’ possibilities for social mobility, while simultaneously contributing to the reproduction of existing social hierarchies (Jorgensen et al., 2014).

Traditional explanations of these disparities have often relied on deficit-based frameworks, attributing lower achievement to individual, familial, or cultural shortcomings thus shifting responsibility away from educational institutions (Gorski, 2012). In contrast, sociocultural and sociopolitical approaches emphasize how mathematics education itself produces and sustains inequality (Lerman, 2000). Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, researchers have highlighted the misalignment between the cultural capital of students from low-SES backgrounds and the norms governing school mathematics (Bourdieu, 1984; Zevenbergen, 2005). Mathematics classrooms operate as social fields structured by particular forms of language, interaction, and valued knowledge, privileging students whose dispositions align with these expectations (Jorgensen et al., 2014; Lerman, 2020). In contrast, students from disadvantaged backgrounds often enter school with a “virtual school bag” that lacks the forms of capital most valued in mathematics education, placing them at a structural disadvantage (Thomson, 2002).

These structural dynamics shape not only achievement but also students’ relationships with mathematics. The concept of mathematical identity provides a lens for understanding how inequalities are lived and internalized through everyday educational experiences (Grootenboer & Zevenbergen, 2008). Rather than framing disengagement as a lack of ability or motivation, mathematical identity foregrounds issues of belonging, recognition, and meaning within the mathematical community (Daragh, 2013). Students’ self-perceptions as mathematics learners develop through participation in classroom practices and through feedback from significant others, including teachers and parents (Wenger, 1998; Anderson, 2007).

For students from low-SES backgrounds, several interrelated processes contribute to a weaker mathematical identity. The gap between school mathematics and their everyday experiences and future life worlds limits opportunities to imagine themselves as participants in mathematics and to perceive the subject as personally relevant (Anderson, 2007; Mićić, 2024). Lower achievement—rooted in structural misalignment rather than ability—reinforces perceptions of incompetence and exclusion, which are further shaped by teachers’ lowered expectations and subtle institutional messages about who belongs in mathematics (Jorgensen et al., 2014). In addition, students from low-SES backgrounds often lack access to models of successful mathematics learners within their families. When parents and other significant adults are not perceived as competent or successful in mathematics and are unable to provide schoolwork assistance, students may implicitly learn that mathematics is “not for people like us,” limiting the development of a positive mathematics identity (Mićić & Jovanović, 2025).

Importantly, these processes are likely to vary across educational stages. As mathematical content becomes more complex and instruction shifts from class teachers to subject teachers, both the nature of instructional support and the extent to which parents can effectively support their children’s mathematics learning change, reshaping students’ experiences of recognition, expectations, and belonging in mathematics.

Drawing on sociocultural perspectives on mathematics identity, this study examines parental and teacher-related processes as mediators of the relationship between socioeconomic status and students’ mathematics identity, and tests whether these mediating pathways differ between Grades 4 and 5, a transitional period marked by increasing mathematical demands and a shift from classroom-based to subject-based instruction.

This study centers on relatives’ and parents’ perspectives on students with intellectual disabilities enrolled in an 18‑month inclusive postsecondary education program (IPSE) at a public university in the southwest United States. The overarching theme is how IPSE participation functions as a catalyst for change at the family-system level, extending “inclusive education” beyond access to classrooms toward independence, self-determination, and community participation outcomes that are central to international disability and inclusion agendas.​

The study’s research questions addressed: (1) how family members experience and perceive students’ involvement in IPSE; (2) what barriers and challenges families and students encounter from pre‑admission through graduation; (3) how family roles, expectations, and identities change as students gain independence; and (4) how parents perceive outcomes beyond the classroom, including home, community, and self‑image developments. These questions speak directly to global concerns about the under-representation of students with intellectual disabilities in higher education and the conditions that enable successful transitions into adulthood, particularly for students from minoritized and first-generation backgrounds.​

Conceptually, the work is grounded in inclusive education, self‑determination theory, and family-systems perspectives, with strong connections to life-course and identity development approaches. The manuscripts explicitly situate IPSE within the legislative context of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, the international inclusion movement, and emerging scholarship on culturally responsive practices at Minority Serving Institutions, themes that resonate with European policy discussions on widening participation, equity, and disability rights.​

Methodologically, the panel draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with relatives (parents, siblings, grandparents). Applied thematic analysis with rigorous coding, intercoder reliability checks, and member checking underpins each study, enabling a nuanced description of developmental processes such as “evolving goals,” “letting go,” and “developments at home and in the community.” Thematically, the contributions converge on how IPSE participation prompts shifts in parental aspirations, reduces the salience of disability labels, and reframes independence in culturally situated ways at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), offering transferable insights for European and international contexts seeking to design inclusive, family-engaged higher education.

This study examines parental perceptions of the implementation of inclusive education in Kazakhstan, with a specific focus on curriculum accessibility, school practices, leadership, teacher preparedness, and the overall inclusion climate experienced by children. While inclusive education has been formally embedded in national education policies in Kazakhstan, empirical evidence on how these policies are perceived and experienced by parents remains limited. Parents play a critical role in advocating for inclusive practices and supporting children’s learning and well-being; however, their voices are often underrepresented in policy implementation research.

Guided by international frameworks on inclusive education (UNESCO, OECD) and ecological perspectives on family–school partnerships, this study addresses the following research questions:
(1) How do parents in Kazakhstan perceive the effectiveness of systems and policies supporting inclusive education?
(2) How do parents evaluate curriculum relevance, adaptability, and school-level practices related to inclusion?
(3) How do parental perceptions of inclusion climate relate to their satisfaction with their child’s school experience?

The study adopts a quantitative survey design using a structured parental questionnaire administered nationally. The instrument captures multiple dimensions of inclusive education implementation, including curriculum design and adaptation, leadership and governance, teacher training and motivation, availability of resources, inter-agency collaboration, and parental access to information. In addition, the Parental Perception of Inclusion Climate Scale (PPICS) is used to assess parents’ views on their child’s sense of belonging, peer relationships, teacher support, emotional safety, and overall well-being at school.

The conceptual framework integrates policy implementation theory with inclusive education models that emphasise stakeholder engagement, systemic support, and school climate. By focusing on parental perspectives, the study complements existing research that predominantly examines inclusive education through institutional or teacher-centred lenses.

The international relevance of this research lies in its contribution to comparative discussions on inclusive education in middle-income and post-Soviet education systems undergoing systemic reform. Findings are expected to inform policymakers, school leaders, and researchers by highlighting alignment gaps between policy intentions and parental experiences. Moreover, the study offers insights relevant to other countries seeking to strengthen inclusive education through family–school partnerships and evidence-informed policy implementation.

Inclusive education and the meaningful use of assistive technologies (AT) for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are key priorities within European education systems. AT—such as augmentative and alternative communication tools, visual supports, and digital applications—can enhance communication, predictability, and social-emotional development, particularly in early childhood education. Despite evidence of their effectiveness, AT remains inconsistently implemented in inclusive classrooms. This inconsistency is closely linked to digital inequalities, limited teacher preparedness, uneven institutional support, and insufficient integration of inclusive digital pedagogies into teacher education. These issues have strong European relevance because they affect equity, accessibility, and participation across diverse education systems.

Teachers are central to translating inclusive policies into classroom practice. Their professional knowledge, attitudes, and confidence determine whether AT is used as a meaningful pedagogical resource or remains underutilized. Although European policy frameworks promote equity and inclusive participation, teachers across countries continue to face challenges related to training, infrastructure, and guidance on developmentally appropriate and evidence-based AT use. This study responds to the need for cross-national research that examines teacher preparedness and professional support needs in relation to inclusive education and AT, with a particular focus on the social-emotional development of children with ASD.

The overarching objective of the study is to explore how pre-service and in-service teachers from Poland, Spain, and Türkiye perceive their preparedness, challenges, and support needs when working with children with ASD in inclusive educational settings. Particular attention is given to the role of assistive technologies in supporting social-emotional learning and inclusion.

Research aims include:

• Examining teachers’ perceived preparedness and challenges in inclusive classrooms across different national contexts.
• Analysing how initial teacher education and professional development contribute to readiness for inclusive practices and AT integration.
• Identifying patterns of AT use and key barriers to effective implementation.
• Exploring the types of resources and supports teachers consider most critical for fostering social-emotional development in children with ASD.

Research questions:

1. How do pre-service and in-service teachers perceive their preparedness to support children with ASD in inclusive settings?
2. What challenges do teachers encounter in integrating AT to support social-emotional development?
3. How do national contexts shape teachers’ experiences and access to professional support?

The study is grounded in inclusive pedagogy and socio-cultural perspectives, which conceptualise inclusion as a dynamic process shaped by interactions between learners, teachers, institutional structures, and policy environments. Inclusive pedagogy emphasises responsibility for all learners and flexible, non-deficit-based teaching approaches. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles further inform the study by framing AT as a means of reducing barriers through multiple forms of representation, engagement, and expression.

Additionally, the study draws on the CASEL framework for social and emotional learning, which identifies five core competencies—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. AT is conceptualised as a mediating tool that can scaffold thesecompetencies when embedded within developmentally appropriate and inclusive pedagogical practices.

This study adopts a cross-national comparative design involving pre-service and in-service teachers from Poland, Spain, and Türkiye, reflecting the European dimension of the Erasmus+ project EARLY-ASD (project no. 2024-1-PL01-KA220-HED-000246304). The research aims to capture both shared and context-specific patterns in teacher preparedness, professional support needs, and the integration of AT for children with ASD in inclusive classrooms.

A mixed-methods approach is employed to provide both breadth and depth in understanding teachers’ experiences. Quantitative data are collected through a structured online survey designed to measure teachers’ self-perceived preparedness, attitudes toward inclusion, use of AT, and access to professional support. The survey includes standardized items and scales adapted from established instruments in inclusive education and educational technology research, ensuring comparability across national contexts.

Across European education systems, inclusion is increasingly framed in terms of access, participation, and recognition of diversity. Policy frameworks and institutional practices emphasise widening access and supporting engagement, particularly in higher education and professional pathways. Yet many autistic adults—especially those who have formally entered and remained within these systems—describe persistent exhaustion, withdrawal, and burnout that arise not from exclusion, but from the sustained effort of remaining included. This recurring pattern raises a central question: under what conditions does participation become sustainable, and what does it require to remain recognisable as such within contemporary inclusion regimes?

This paper develops the concept of inclusive exhaustion to analyse exhaustion as a relational and institutional phenomenon rather than an individual coping failure. It builds on qualitative research on autistic burnout, masking, and participation (Raymaker et al., 2020; Botha & Frost, 2020; Hull et al., 2017), which consistently describes cycles of high effort, delayed collapse, and withdrawal. While this research is often interpreted in terms of stress or vulnerability, the present analysis instead examines the conditions under which participation becomes possible, and how these conditions are distributed.

The argument proceeds through a distinction between epistemic and performative dimensions of participation. Epistemic difficulty concerns the work of understanding and learning. Performative difficulty concerns the conditions under which this understanding must become visible as competence—through timing, responsiveness, and adherence to implicit norms. This distinction helps explain why exhaustion persists even where epistemic access is supported: while learning may be accessible, the conditions under which learning must be displayed remain continuous and evaluatively charged.

Within this framework, participation depends not only on knowledge or competence, but on the capacity to render that competence intelligible under prevailing expectations. This often involves what can be described as translation labour: the ongoing work of interpreting expectations, calibrating responses, and aligning expression with dominant norms of communication. Participants describe not only having to understand tasks, but having to determine how much to say, how quickly to respond, and how to appear appropriately engaged.

These dynamics are situated within a critical–phenomenological account of institutional time and organisation. Drawing on work on rhythm and resonance (Fuchs, 2018; Rosa, 2019) and on audit and performativity in education (Ball, 2003; Power, 1997), the paper argues that educational environments are organised around expectations of continuous performance, visibility, and responsiveness. Where institutional systems lack slack or flexibility, the burden of adjustment shifts onto individuals, who must sustain alignment across contexts in order to remain recognisable as competent.

From this perspective, inclusive exhaustion can be understood as the cumulative cost of sustaining participation under conditions of misalignment between uneven cognitive rhythms and environments calibrated for continuous performance. Exhaustion emerges not simply from high demand, but from the requirement to remain intelligible within systems that do not make their expectations explicit. What appears as individual fatigue can thus be reinterpreted as an index of institutional miscalibration.

The paper contributes to inclusive education research by shifting the focus from access to the sustainability of participation over time. In relation to the conference theme Knowing and Acting, it highlights how inclusion regimes privilege particular forms of acting—being visibly engaged and responsive—while marginalising forms of knowing that unfold unevenly or require temporal margin. While developed through autistic experience, inclusive exhaustion is proposed as a travelling concept for understanding participation under audit-driven inclusion regimes more broadly.

Across superdiverse education systems, NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) trajectories are often explained through visible socio-economic constraints—poverty, migration, family structure—while "quiet barriers" inside schooling remain under-measured. This paper argues that reading comprehension functions as an invisible gatekeeper to participation in secondary education, vocational pathways, and labor-market entry, particularly for neurodivergent learners (including autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and other learning differences) who are frequently underserved in inclusive education implementation.

We develop an inclusion-to-transition pathway model in which literacy access is not only a pedagogical issue but also a mechanism shaping opportunity structures. In superdiverse contexts, literacy barriers interact with disability status, language background, gendered expectations, and institutional capacity, producing non-linear risk accumulation. The result is that students can be formally "included" (i.e., enrolled in mainstream classrooms) yet practically excluded from curricular access, credential attainment, and transition supports—conditions that elevate NEET risk.

Reading comprehension is foundational to nearly all secondary-level learning: understanding textbooks, following instructions, accessing digital resources, and participating in assessments. For neurodivergent students, difficulties with decoding, vocabulary, inference-making, or executive function can create cascading disadvantages. When these difficulties are not identified early or addressed with evidence-based interventions, students fall progressively behind, experience repeated academic failure, and disengage from schooling. This disengagement is often misattributed to "lack of motivation" or "family problems" rather than recognized as a consequence of inadequate literacy support.

The problem is compounded in superdiverse settings where teachers face high classroom heterogeneity (students with varying language proficiencies, prior schooling experiences, and support needs) but receive limited training in differentiated instruction or evidence-based literacy interventions. Research from Turkey, Jordan, and similar middle-income contexts shows that inclusive education policies are often implemented without corresponding investments in teacher capacity, instructional materials, or progress monitoring systems (Kuyini & Desai, 2007; Savolainen et al., 2012). As a result, neurodivergent students—who could succeed with appropriate supports—are left to "sink or swim," and many sink.

This paper synthesizes evidence across three domains: (i) reading comprehension interventions suitable for inclusive classrooms (e.g., explicit instruction, graphic organizers, peer-assisted learning), (ii) progress monitoring and individualized supports (e.g., curriculum-based measurement, single-case design), and (iii) transition-focused instruction linking academic access to employability skills (e.g., functional literacy, self-advocacy, career exploration). We argue that addressing literacy barriers is not merely a matter of academic equity but a structural transformation lever: improving reading comprehension for neurodivergent students increases human capital, reduces dropout and NEET risk, and enhances labor-market participation.

Our conceptual contribution is twofold. First, we reframe literacy access as a system-level mechanism rather than an individual deficit. Poor reading outcomes reflect not only student characteristics but also teacher capacity, curriculum design, assessment practices, and institutional responsiveness. Second, we propose a feasible evaluation design for subsequent empirical work: using single-case experimental design (a strength of special education research) to trace mechanisms at the individual level, while integrating system-level indicators (e.g., school policies, transition provisions, NEET rates) to ensure relevance beyond individual cases. This design is particularly suited to middle-income and low-income contexts where large-scale randomized trials are often infeasible.

We conclude with implications for teacher education, inclusive curriculum design, and policy: if reading comprehension remains unaddressed as a foundational access mechanism, inclusion agendas risk becoming symbolic rather than transformative. By making literacy barriers visible and actionable, we can strengthen the link between inclusive education and economic participation.

Background

Higher education is in Norway a key gateway to employment and provides opportunities for participation in society and independent living. Therefore, it has been a stated political goal for decades to get more students with disabilities to complete higher education (Bø, 2018). The legislation provides the basis for students with disabilities to have individual right to accommodation (Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act, 2017; Universities and Colleges Act, 2024).

Students who have both a disability and a high learning potential are a topic which in lesser degree have been investigated through research. Being “doubly exceptional” can be challenging both for the student themselves, and for those around them. It may be assumed that students with high learning potential can manage on their own. High learning potential can manifest itself in acquiring learning content at a faster pace than others, and having great potential within academic subjects such as mathematics, reading/writing/language, arts, science, and technology (Idsøe, 2025, p. 649). A great learning potential can occur simultaneously with learning disorders such as ASD, which may point to a need for accommodation even with good cognitive abilities (Idsøe, 2025, p. 651-652).

Purpose

The purpose of this ongoing study is to investigate how HE students with both high learning potential and a disability in the form of ASD (autism spectrum disorder), can manage academic learning activities, and further, to what extent they are provided with help and support in the form of accommodations. ASD was selected as disability because several studies indicate that students with this diagnosis are a growing student group (Gelbar et al., 2014, p. 2593; Knarlag, 2016). The article examines the part of student life that deals with participation in and completion of academic learning activities such as lectures, work requirements and reading the syllabus and other academic material on their own. The research question following this study is: How do students with both high learning potential and ASD experience the completion of academic learning activities, and what offers of accommodation are they becoming in HE?

Several studies indicate that academic learning activities have been less investigated through research, and this also applies to students with disabilities. As an example, Anderson et al., (2019, p. 1554) point out that “the significance of their [ASD students] academic difficulties and need for academic support may have been undervalued”. Failure to succeed in academic tasks can lead to students with ASD dropping out of higher education (Byrne, 2022).

Challenges

For children and young people with great learning potential, teaching and tasks can be experienced as unrewarding and unmotivating both in primary and secondary education, and they can thus appear as underachievers (Lie, 2014, p. 87). It is therefore not obvious that students with great learning potential will get as far as higher education in their qualification for adult life. It is also not obvious that academic learning activities in HE will “go by themselves”.

Academic learning activities require concentration, staying focused and being able to work purposefully with abstract texts and content over time. For students with ASD, this can be demanding, since a characteristic of the diagnosis is a failure of executive functions, which can be expressed in difficulties in planning, getting started with academic tasks, regulating time and energy, and making choices (Gleinsvik et al., 2018, p. 22; Knarlag, 2016, p. 19). Against this background, it is relevant to investigate the extent to which “doubly exceptional” can also lead to "double challenges" in completion of academic learning activities.

On Instagram, parent-run accounts increasingly document children’s everyday lives and developmental trajectories. A visible sub-set focuses on children with disabilities, chronic conditions, syndromes, or developmental differences and shares unusually open and emotionally dense narratives about diagnosis, support needs, encounters with professionals, and family routines. While prior work has highlighted the role of parental online narratives for coping, sense-making, and community building, less is known about how these accounts function as educational publics in which parents interpret and contest institutional practices and circulate knowledge that is meant to influence inclusion and participation.

Against the backdrop of ECER 2026’s theme Knowing and Acting, this paper conceptualises parent-run disability-related Instagram blogs as platformed sites of knowledge production and action orientation: parents do not only report experiences but also translate specialist information, articulate normative claims about inclusion, and mobilise audiences. This matters for educational research because the accounts blur boundaries between private family life and public educational discourse, and they may reshape expectations toward early childhood settings and schools.

The study addresses three research questions:

1. Which education-related themes (e.g., early childhood education, schooling, support and resources, rights/entitlements, participation in everyday institutions) are negotiated by parents in disability-related Instagram blogs?

2. How do parents position themselves vis-à-vis educational institutions and professionals (e.g., as partners, critics, advocates, “experts by experience”)?

3. Which knowledge claims and calls to action emerge, and how is the child represented within these educational narratives—particularly regarding vulnerability, agency, and voice?

By analysing how parents “make inclusion speakable” in a public, algorithmically curated medium, the paper contributes to research on family–school relationships and inclusive education in two ways: (a) it foregrounds parents’ digital practices as a form of educational participation and agenda-setting; and (b) it connects inclusion-related advocacy to ethical and children’s rights questions that arise when intimate child-related content becomes persistently accessible and shareable in public online spaces.

Conducting online searches requires continuous decision-making. The decision-making process regarding the selection of information sources, the choice of search terms, the refinement of search queries, the pursuit of further information and the termination of search processes, rests with the searcher. Furthermore, decisions must be made at a meta-level, for example with regard to the intensity of the approach, the content verification deemed necessary and the appropriate effort. These decisions are not made in isolation, but are also embedded in external, often uncontrollable, framework conditions. These framework conditions include, for example, the technical conditions of digital systems, time constraints, social expectations and economic resources.

For young people these decision-making requirements arise under special conditions. They have limited experience in dealing with complex information situations and operate in digital information spaces that are increasingly characterised by contradictory content, uncertainty and deliberate manipulation. In particular, the emergence of different types of information disorder – such as mis-, dis- and malinformation – which differ in terms of accuracy and intent to deceive (Baines & Elliott, 2020; Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017), as well as new information technology approaches such as artificial intelligence are increasing the demands on search, orientation and decision-making processes in online search.

Research on online search strategies shows that young people's search processes are rarely linear, but are characterised by heuristic shortcuts, situational adaptations and recurring patterns of behaviour (Materna & Brüggen, 2024). At the same time, the current systematic literature review by Chakrabarti et al. (2025) indicates that there has been limited empirical research to date on how children and young people deal with mis-, dis- and malinformation, particularly with regard to search and decision-making processes, differentiation by age group and beyond a narrow focus on ‘fake news’.

This article addresses this research gap by focusing on search strategies as a central form of information-related behaviour. Search strategies are defined as deliberate, goal-oriented approaches to processing information-related tasks at the cognitive level, which include analytical, evaluative and decision-related processes (Barzilai & Zohar, 2012; Brand-Gruwel et al., 2005; Kurt & Emiroğlu, 2018). These are not conceptualised as completely pre-planned courses of action, but rather as processually realised contexts of action that unfold, change or stabilise in the course of online research under real conditions and are located in the context of media and information literacy.

UNESCO symbolically understands media and information literacy (MIL) as an ecological roof under which a very diverse network of competencies in dealing with information and media content interacts, enabling individuals to participate sustainably in society at the individual, institutional and social levels (Grizzle et al., 2021; UNESCO, 2013).

Empirically, the research looks into the search strategies of secondary school students (eight-grade) in topic-specific online research on climate change and health in Austria. The focus is on how these search strategies unfold throughout the information process when young people are confronted with information and different types of information disorder and which similarities and differences become apparent in the process.

These search strategies are analytically reconstructed based on the decisions that students make in the course of their online research, such as selecting, discarding or pursuing information. Decisions are not considered as an independent focus of analysis, but as an empirical approach through which search strategies become visible and comparable in the process. The article's empirical findings contribute to our understanding of media and information literacy as a processual, action-oriented practice. It explores how young people manage uncertainty and information disorder in socio-technical contexts.

Current calls for smartphone bans in schools and age restrictions on social media signal a broader societal uncertainty about how to deal with digital communication in educational contexts. International policy monitoring shows that restrictions are expanding across education systems, yet their enforcement and effects are inconsistent (UNESCO, 2025; OECD, 2024). While some countries, such as Australia, already have age restrictions for social media and similar developments are emerging in others, such as France, lively political debates are taking place across Europe. These political debates often foreground academic performance, safety, and health, while pedagogical perspectives are rarely taken into account. However, empirical evidence indicates that restricting smartphone use in schools alone does not reduce overall use or reliably improve wellbeing outcomes, pointing to the limitations of approaches based solely on bans (Goodyear et al., 2025).
Research findings also suggest that digital technologies are reshaping professional work, communication patterns, and relationship building in schools and leadership positions (Heffernan & Selwyn, 2021; Krein, 2025). On the one hand, these can promote digital communication between families and schools, transparency, and the involvement of stakeholders, but on the other hand, they can also exacerbate misunderstandings and conflicts (Macià & Garreta, 2019). Consequently, an ambivalent picture emerges regarding the use of smartphones and social media in schools, which has both advantages and disadvantages, but which is usually discussed in a narrow context. It is also apparent that debates mostly reflect the perspectives of politicians, teachers, and school leaders, while the perspectives of students usually remain unheard or unconsidered.
This contribution addresses these issues and aims to shed new light on current debates surrounding smartphone bans from various educational science perspectives. In doing so, we will address the following questions: How can we develop a common approach to smartphone use that reconciles children's rights, youth communication cultures, media education and professional boundaries in schools?

‘Learning with media’ and ‘learning about media’ as core activities of Media Education is part of many school curricula throughout Europe. This contribution will present a research & development project that enables teachers and pupils to learn about and discuss social media. With a focus on ‘learning about media’, pupils can share visual material in safe environments such as classrooms.

Research on young people’s use of social media has shown that sharing visual material is common and popular. This relates to recent theoretical developments on “conceptually linking visual competencies and digital sovereignty” in the course of young people’s socialisation process (c.f. Kramer et al., 2022) and even in processes of self-optimisation (c.f. Flasche & Carnap, 2021). These practices of sharing visual material include e.g. biographical photography-related memory (c.f. Kramer, 2020), politically motivated material (e.g. Klawitter, 2025; Kramer et al., 2025; Bellinger et al., 2025), even very intimate material (c.f. Kramer et al., 2022), etc.

In relation to school, it was found that “checking” social media, a highly entangled practice of perceiving and producing representations (i.e., social media posts), primarily on the three platforms #WhatsApp, #SnapChat, and #Insta (i.e., Instagram), is involved in the practice of doing homework (Rummler et al., 2019, 2020).

Promoting the competence of ‘digital sovereignty’ in school means ‘learning about media’. Teachers and youth workers therefore play an important role in exploring, and practising the use of social media with young people. Teachers and supervisors face the challenge that commercial platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and similar services cannot be used to design learning scenarios because data protection, the protection of minors, and protection from disinformation, hate speech, or bullying cannot be guaranteed for school use. At the same time, these are the aspects that need to be addressed in lessons in a secure and reflective way. The lack of protection often prevents exploratory engagement with a highly relevant topic in which reflected experiences are substantial (Boyer et al., 2025).

For the active exploration of social media topics, the open-source project opostum (www.opostum.ch; https://github.com/opostum/opostum) has been developed at the Zurich University of Teacher Education since January 2024. On this secure and protected platform, pupils can experience social media in a safe environment.

Teachers and supervisors have complete control over the data generated by the application. Teachers, administrators or facilitators, via a dedicated dashboard, can decide who is accepted into the network, and even larger networks, such as the entire school. Flexible user management allows for the use in extracurricular youth work. opostum provides teachers with various support tools that allow them to control the options for interaction, as well as identify undesirable behaviour, and respond appropriately, or irrevocably delete posts (right to be forgotten). In addition, opostum can be used to address other relevant topics such as personalised advertising, user tracking, or recommendation algorithms, etc. Young people can design their own advertising campaign and display them to specifically selected users. This allows the topic of advertising to be covered comprehensively.

An accompanying wiki (wiki.opostum.ch) currently contains four scenarios on topics that are increasingly prominent in public discourses on social media (fake news, influencer marketing, self-presentation and privacy, personalised advertising). These scenarios have been developed for classroom use. In addition, there is one scenario for extracurricular work (a simulation game in leadership training simulation game) and one during an activity week. A handout for teachers, worksheets and import files for artificial profiles are provided. These artificial profiles allow a hub to be ‘filled’ with content and can be used to lay the foundation for introducing a topic. Pupils can then respond to these posts and create their own.

This paper presents the research design and early stage of project IB24159 (co-funded by the EU, the Regional Government of Extremadura, and the Government of Spain.), which examines the implementation and evolution of the «Future Classroom» programme in schools in Extremadura (Spain) as a strategy for digital transformation combining redesigned learning spaces, educational technologies and active pedagogies.

The regional programme (AdFE) is embedded in the InnovaTed plan and is explicitly connected to European initiatives such as Future Classroom Lab (European Schoolnet), positioning the Extremadura case within an international agenda on innovative learning environments and school modernisation.

By 2024, Extremadura reports 81 Future Classrooms across primary, secondary and teacher support centres (CPR), in an expansion process linked to infrastructure, digital equipment and professional development for teachers.

The project makes two contributions. First, it shifts the analytical focus from «does it work?» to «how is it implemented?», addressing a central challenge in innovative learning environments: spatial redesign does not automatically produce pedagogical change.

Second, it aims to generate transferable evidence to inform educational policy and practice on scaling digital transformation with attention to quality and equity, an agenda shared across European education systems.

The study is grounded in implementation science and uses the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) as its main theoretical, methodological framework. CFIR, still emerging in educational research, is applied here to identify barriers and facilitators, as well as issues of fidelity, adaptation and sustainability when implementing a complex innovation. The programme is conceptualised as an Evidence-Based Innovation (EBI) that may show promise in controlled or pilot conditions but requires contextual adaptation for real-world scaling in schools.

The research questions are: (1) How does the programme evolve across phases 2 and 3 of implementation and consolidation, and how does it interact with schools’ curricular design and organisational arrangements? (2) Which CFIR factors (intervention characteristics; inner/outer setting; individual characteristics; implementation process) explain adoption trajectories, fidelity and local adaptations? (3) What teaching practice models emerge in Future Classrooms, and how are they connected to the development of key competences and to teachers’ perceptions of learning space transformation?

For ECER 2026, we will report the research protocol and preliminary outputs from the diagnostic phase (document analysis and initial stakeholder interviews), laying the groundwork for a longitudinal implementation study and for internationally comparable indicators that can support cross-case comparisons and knowledge exchange with similar European «future classroom» initiatives.

The contemporary context, known as surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019) or the platform society (Van Dijk et al., 2018) is characterized by being highly mediated and permeated by technology. There is no sphere of life that is not, in part, digital (Pancrazio & Sefton-Green, 2021), and this also affects children from early childhood.

Digital technologies offer new forms and modes of participation, but they constitute also new forms of surveillance, discipline and control. Platforms, their architecture and their logic, affect and cause problems to contemporary democracies (Dussel & Williams, 2023; Van Dijk et al., 2018), weakening democratic institutions, such as the public school, that are especially important for looking after minors, and have to tackle digital vigilance, data colonialism or issues related to misinformation and fake news (Salcedo et al., 2025).

In this scenario, dominated by platforms and algorithms, it is crucial to prepare and instruct a critical digital citizenry. As Pancrazio and Sefton-Green (2021) state, it is of great importance to prepare people so that they can develop their full potential and express themselves in the world that they live in, far from the neoliberal logic of preparing them for the labor market. This type of logic, the economic logic, is strongly present in the sociotechnical imaginary, as there is a direct link between digital technologies and economic growth, productivity or employability (Dussel & Williams, 2023). These are conceived as key to the progress of economy, as highlighted by this investigation (Castañeda & Williamson, 2021; Jandric et al., 2024). Given this reality, to exercise digital citizenry, which refers to the right to participate in the digital society (Pancrazio & Sefton-Green, 2021), it is essential to possess the necessary knowledge to participate in a critical, informed, responsible, ethic and complete way in a world mediated by technology, addressing the digital divides: material access, instrumental skills, opportunity for use and participation. This situates digital competence as fundamental knowledge in contemporary society.

National and international governments have not been unaware of this priority and in recent decades educational policies that address the integration of digital technologies and media in schools have multiplied, as well as those that incorporate learning related to them. In this regard, in the European context, the DigComp Project, currently in its 2.2 version (Vuorikari et al., 2022), has emerged as a common competency framework for the development of citizen’s digital competence.

In Spain, the Organic Law 3/2020, of 29 December, which amends Organic Law 2/2006, of 3 May, on Education (LOMLOE, 2020) also addresses the need for a digital competence so that children and young people can develop and participate in a reflective, ethical and with critical sense way in the digital world in which we currently live.

In recent years, following the coming into effect of the LOMLOE (2020), multiple educational policies that address the digitalization of schools have proliferated in Spain. These policies highlight digital competence for critical citizenry in a world facing major technological challenges. As part of a broader project, CiDiC_EI [Project PID2023-148530NA-I00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER, EU], which seeks to identify and analyze best educational practices that help form a critical digital citizenry from early childhood, this study, in accordance with one of the project’s landmarks that seeks to map ICT educational policies for students in early childhood education and based on a previous work by Dussel and Williams (2023), seeks to identify and analyze the sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015, in Dussel & Williams, 2023, p. 43) in the educational policies of three regions of Spain: Galicia (northwest), Madrid (center) and Murcia (southeast).

Digital technologies profoundly shape everyday life and function as structuring elements of social, cultural, and educational realities. In postdigital conditions, digital technologies are no longer experienced as an “addition” to otherwise analogue practices; rather, their absence becomes the exception (Knox, 2019). Educational space, in this sense, cannot be reduced to physical settings such as classrooms but emerges as a relational configuration. It emerges as a sociomaterial arrangement constituted through institutional conditions, pedagogical practices, and technological infrastructures. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) intensifies these dynamics: it does not merely provide new tools and opportunities for teaching and learning, but intervenes in the conditions of education through epistemic transformations of knowledge production, validation, and circulation in school contexts.
Generative AI reshapes authorship, assessment, and teacher professionalism (SWK, 2023). In response to these shifts, emerging international AI literacy and competency frameworks for teachers seek to define and stabilise new forms of teacher professionalism under conditions of generative AI. This paper critically examines three influential models—the AI extension of the European DigCompEdu framework (Bekiaridis & Attwell, 2024), UNESCO’s AI Competency Framework for Teachers (Cukurova & Miao, 2024), and the OECD AI literacy framework for primary and secondary education (OECD, 2025)—to analyse how they frame educational space, pedagogical relations, and professional responsibility in postdigital schooling.
One characteristic is particularly relevant for schooling: social perceptibility, that is, the capacity of generative AI systems to interact as a social counterpart—an affordance that may contribute to the anthropomorphisation of chatbots (Mishra et al., 2023). At the same time, generative AI can be conceptualised as an epistemic technology: it produces and systematises knowledge and thereby influences which knowledge becomes available and which content remains invisible (Alvarado, 2023; Eynon, 2024). These developments directly speak to the ECER 2026 Network 06 Special Call “Educational Space Responding to Social Transformations: Learning Environments and the Changing Conditions of Education”, as they mirror how educational space is reconfigured under postdigital conditions and reshaped through emerging socio-technical infrastructures. We conceptualise educational space as an enacted assemblage (Fenwick & Landri, 2012) to emphasise that it is not a neutral container for educational activities but is actively produced through sociomaterial relations. Human actors, AI systems, pedagogical practices, and institutional norms are mutually constitutive in this process, as they co-emerge through their ongoing relations. This perspective is particularly important under postdigital conditions, where generative AI reshapes epistemic practices, agency, and responsibility rather than simply being added to existing educational settings. Educational space can be understood as opening up a ‘Third Space’ (Bhabha, 1994), in which meanings, norms, and forms of knowledge are not fixed but emerge through ongoing processes of negotiation and translation. In this sense, educational space is shaped by encounters between diverse cultural backgrounds, epistemic positions, and sociotechnical arrangements, rather than being tied to predefined settings such as classrooms.
This paper contributes to the call by analysing how international AI literacy and competency frameworks for teachers conceptualise educational space under conditions of generative AI. Building on critical policy analysis that examines how frameworks embed sociotechnical imaginaries (Linderoth et al., 2024), we ask what these frameworks assume about educational space, pedagogical relations, and the distribution of agency and responsibility in education, rather than treating AI literacy as merely an individual and instrumental skills set. Our research questions are:
(1) How do international AI literacy frameworks for teachers conceptualise educational space under conditions of generative AI?
(2) To what extent do these frameworks make visible (or obscure) epistemic, infrastructural, and responsibility-related transformations inherent in these emerging configurations of educational space?

The “integration of refugees” is today characterised by temporary protection and repatriation schemes, and the “Danish approach” to integration has gained traction across many European countries because of its restrictive measures. Within the national welfare states, asylum seekers and ‘refugees’ are increasingly promoted and positioned only as assets for the host states, who invests in ‘refugees’’ human capital to stimulate growth and employment in industries and occupations in demand of labour power. Welfare workers in Denmark, such as social workers, social educators and schoolteachers, have since the 1970’s engaged in educating ‘the refugee’ with reference to the welfare state’s social-liberal norms concerning self-sufficiency and the achievement of life quality, aiming to integrate and form the refugee within the existing capitalistic welfare society (Padovan-Özdemir and Øland 2022b, 100–127; 2022a).

Recently, Heba Gowayed, has constructed a theory of state-structured human capital (2022, 4) to study how Syrian refugees’ human capital “is augmented, transformed, or destroyed by national incorporation polices” in the US, Canada and Germany. But while Gowayed focuses on how different national policies either recognises and/or invests in one group of newcomers across three states, we will focus on how municipal integration workers have sought to transform and potentialize ‘refugees’ in local communities and its different economies.

Thus, the purpose of this paper is to study integration as a category of practice (Korteweg 2017; Jacobsen 2023; Masoud et al. 2023), and investigate how integration is described and work at the municipal level; how the state’s production of refugee positionalites is further governed locally. Thus, we focus on integration, not as a concept professing coherent meaning nor as a category of analysis, but exclusively as a category of practice which means that we focus on the “social, cultural and economic processes that produce groups in ways that move beyond integration discourse” (Korteweg 2017, 440). We engage in integration as a category of practice across multiple settings and investigates how municipal integration practices unfold, as narrated by the integration workers themselves. The analysis pays particular attention to how integration practices interact with and effectuate national policies of temporariness and repatriation in ambiguous ways, and how differences between rural and urban municipalities, their political leadership, and differences in housing, occupational and populational infrastructure transpire.

Research has translated integration as a category of practice into a bordering practice of internal frontiers that reproduces symbolic boundaries, racial difference and social inequalities within democratic policies (Borrelli 2021; Shapiro et al. 2024; Stoler 2022; Øland 2019; 2025). Such research shows how race is produced in the targeting of racialised groups by racialised images and interventions, and thus how racialisation implies practices and actions by dominant groups. Research has also pointed to how the refugee category itself has become racialised and racialising in as much as it has become associated with non-white bodies (Picozza 2024; Blinkenberg and Øland 2026). We use these insights in our analysis to point to what we conceptualise as racialisations and racialising narratives where refugees are targeted as a racialised group by disparaging and dehumanising images that seem to legitimate coercion and exploitation in the narratives of the integration workers.

The research question underpinning this paper is: how are local interests conveyed and canalised into integration practices and how do these practices simultaneously enact dynamic constructions of ‘refugees’?

This study discussed here is part of a larger project titled Apart and Apart? Education and social inclusion of refugee children and youth in Iceland. One of the project’s pillars is to examine refugee youth’s language learning, language use, and multilingualism. Building on that pillar, this study examines multilingual practices that support learning Icelandic and heritage languages, including Icelandic-as-a-second-language classes, homework support, and heritage-language classes across family, school, and community contexts. The research question guiding this study is the following:

How do the language practices of family, school, and community shape Syrian and Iraqi youth’s Icelandic language learning, heritage-language maintenance, and academic progression in upper secondary school education?

Findings from previous studies in Iceland focusing on youth with refugee backgrounds have consistently highlighted structural and institutional barriers to educational inclusivity, including a lack of policy, a lack of teacher preparation, limited heritage-language support, and sustained home-school collaboration (Gunnþórsdóttir, 2019; Hama, 2020; Harðardóttir & Magnúsdóttir, 2018; Ragnarsdóttir, 2020). At the same time, research has paid less attention to the facilitators that enable youth to persist and progress across school levels, including family language practices, community-based language support, and linguistic and cultural approaches within schools (Allen et al., 2021; Fong et al., 2024). Even less visible is how youth and their families actively navigate structural and institutional barriers to educational inclusivity in everyday life, for example, how they negotiate language expectations, mobilize resources across home, school, and community contexts, and sustain both Icelandic language learning and heritage language use as Syrian and Iraqi youth transition into upper secondary school (Prasad & Lory, 2020; Ungar, 2011; Ungar & Theron, 2019).

European scholarship highlights the growing recognition of multilingualism and its cognitive, educational, and social benefits. Scholars such as Cummins (2021, 2024) emphasize that multilingual learners benefit when schools move away from monolingualism and create classroom ecologies that welcome cross-linguistic connections, translanguaging, and identity-affirming language use (Cummins, 2021, 2024). Similarly, Fong et al. (2024) argue that undervaluing ethnically or racially minoritized students’ identities, including social status, religious beliefs, and their socio-ecological environment, can undermine their sense of belonging, which in turn shapes their academic progress. Lastly, Chumak-Horbatsch (2025) underscores the importance of investing in multilingual, inclusive classroom practices that draw on all students’ language repertoires and create equitable environments that strengthen students’ belonging.

This paper draws on a theoretical framework in socio-ecological resilience (Ungar & Theron, 2019) and Linguistic and Cultural Collaboration (Prasad & Lory, 2020). In line with Ungar and Theron (2019), resilience is treated as a multisystem process: young people do well under adversity when they can navigate toward and negotiate for psychological, social, cultural, and material resources that sustain well-being and a sense of belonging in culturally meaningful ways. This framing aligns with the study’s focus on how Icelandic language learning, heritage language maintenance, and academic progression depend on resources accessed and negotiated across family, school, and community contexts, including instructional support, culturally and linguistically safe relationships, and opportunities to maintain heritage languages. Complementing this notion, Prasad and Lory’s (2020) LCC specifies what equitable collaboration can look like in practice. In practice, LCC is both a process and a product that emerges when teachers, students, families, and community actors utilize diverse language repertoires and funds of knowledge to enrich learning while challenging deficit views of marginalized languages. Together, these lenses support an analysis of language practice as socially organized, power-laden, and consequential for the academic trajectories of Syrian and Iraqi youth.

Topic: In many societies around the world, collaboration between school and families is recognized as essential to support students' educational success. This is the case in Quebec, a French-speaking province of Canada, where Epstein's typology (2011) has been widely used in research to study parental involvement and opportunities for parents to collaborate with schools. The typology is divided into six types: 1) parenting; 2) communication with the school; 3) parental involvement at school; 4) monitoring and supporting learning at home; 5) participation in decision-making; 6) collaboration and exchanges with the community.

However, some authors express reservations about Epstein's typology when it comes to studying the involvement of parents who do not represent the majority (Gosselin-Lavoie et Charette, 2024). In this regard, Bower and Griffin (2011) point out that the modes of involvement and collaboration traditionally expected of parents, such as involvement at school or support with schoolwork, do not cover the ways in which parents can be involved when they are in a low socioeconomic situation or when they represent a minority group. In these contexts, Bower and Griffin (2011) highlight the value of supporting networking among parents and their power to act about their rights and those of their children. Cranston et al. (2021), in a study focusing on refugee parents who do not speak the language of the school, also describe Epstein's conceptual framework as problematic. It does not consider the challenges that parents may face in the host society, which could affect their possibility to get involved in their children's education, such as a lack of knowledge about the school system, partial mastery of the language of school, or the time-consuming search for employment. According to Conus (2023), school expectations are governed by rigid norms that distance some parents from school by placing the burden of collaboration on their shoulders, rather than considering the structural and institutional factors that create barriers. According to Coady et al. (2015), who examine collaborations between school and Spanish-speaking immigrant families, to demonstrate inclusion in collaboration, it is essential to reconceptualize the relationship between parents and the school, as well as the resources available to them.

Research question: How do the terms of collaboration offered to refugee families or asylum seekers in Quebec enable or prevent parents from meeting their needs and addressing their realities?

Conceptual framework: The capabilities approach theory will be used to answer our research question, which is part of a social justice perspective and was developed by Amartya Sen in the field of social economics (Sen, 2000). The author describes the concept of capabilities as a set of modes of functioning that are potentially accessible to a person, whether they exercise them (Sen, 2000). They are real opportunities available to persons that would allow them to choose to “be” and “do” what they value (Olympio, 2020; Picard et al., 2015). The capabilities approach aims to inform people of their rights and the resources available to them but also emphasizes the need for people to know how to use these resources, thereby opening a wider range of opportunities for them (Sen, 2000). The approach also draws on the concept of conversion factors, which can be negative or positive. These factors explain why individuals with the same resources do not necessarily achieve the same results. These factors can be personal, sociocultural, environmental, etc. They affect people's ability to use and transform resources (Sen, 2000).

This research addresses a critical yet under-examined subject within the sociology of education and internal migration: the lived experiences and identity formation of young women who grew up as children of rural-to-urban migrants in China’s distinctive ‘urban villages’ (chengzhongcun城中村). While the children of China’s estimated 300 million internal migrants have garnered significant scholarly attention (Luo, 2012; Dorfman, 2018), research often bifurcates into a discourse of ‘left-behind children’ in rural areas versus ‘migrant children’ facing integration barriers in cities (Li et al., 2025; Dong, 2018). This study identifies a significant empirical and theoretical gap concerning those who inhabit a unique socio-spatial niche: they are not ‘left-behind’, nor are they transient ‘migrants’ in the typical sense; they are socialised within the city, yet within enclaves marked by informality, stigma, and profound inequality. Urban villages, formed by the engulfing of former rural settlements by expanding metropolises, are dense, low-cost neighbourhoods housing millions of migrant families (Zhou, 2025; Lam, 2022). They are physical and symbolic frontiers where urban dreams and rural origins collide.

Focusing on female experiences introduces a vital gendered lens, as daughters often navigate compounded pressures from limited family resources, gendered expectations, and the imperative for educational success as a perceived sole pathway to mobility (Jacka, 2005; Goodburn Lau, 2015). The research is guided by three questions: 1) How do the spatial and social characteristics of urban villages shape the educational opportunities, identity construction, and emotional experiences of women raised within them? 2) What strategies do these women employ to pursue educational success and social mobility within constrained environments? 3) How do they negotiate and reconfigure their complex, hybrid identities during their transition to adulthood?

The theoretical framework synergistically integrates Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital. Sen’s approach shifts the evaluative focus from outcomes (e.g., test scores, income) to the expansion of individuals’ substantive freedoms and ‘capabilities’—the real opportunities to achieve valued ‘beings and doings’, such as being educated, enjoying social integration, and maintaining self-respect (Sen, 1999). It provides a normative lens for assessing equality of opportunity. Bourdieu’s conceptual toolkit (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital, habitus, and field) offers a critical sociological apparatus to diagnose the structural roots that constrain these capabilities (Bourdieu, 1986). The spatial and social milieu of the urban village is analysed as a field with a specific distribution of capital, where families often possess limited economic capital, marginalised cultural capital (relative to urban mainstream norms), and thin local social networks. The ‘urban village’ label itself often carries negative symbolic capital (stigma) (Lam, 2022). This integrated ‘capital-capability-field’ framework allows us to analyse how structural inequalities in capital convertibility systematically limit the development of individuals’ capabilities, while also examining the agential, often burdensome strategies individuals deploy to accumulate capital (notably educational credentials) and expand their horizons (see also a model linking Bourdieu and Sen by “The Role of Outside-School Factors in Science Education”, 2016).

The European/international relevance of this study is multifaceted. It contributes to global debates on the intergenerational consequences of migration, educational inequalities in super-diverse cities, and the role of space in reproducing social class. It resonates with European research on the integration of second-generation immigrants in contexts of spatial segregation and offers a comparative perspective from the Global East on how rapid, state-driven urbanization creates unique marginal spaces and subjectivities. The study’s theoretical engagement with capability and capital provides a robust, transferable framework for analysing educational mobility at the intersection of space, gender, and class across different national contexts.

In inclusive and culturally diverse educational settings, teachers play a key role in fostering academic learning and social inclusion among diverse groups of students (Farmer, 2019). For instance, teachers' attributions influence teacher feedback that affects students’ behavior and achievement (Reyna, 2000). Attributions are made on two dimensions: location (internal vs. external) and stability (stable vs. unstable; Weiner, 1976). These attributions reflect relatively stable tendencies based on repeated observations but allow for situational variation depending on context and evaluation demand. Consequently, teachers’ attributional patterns tend to be stable over time (Reyna, 2000), yet are influenced by socio-demographic characteristics of students (Espinoza et al., 2014; Reyna, 2000). For example, teachers tend to explain boys’ successes and failures to internal and stable causes, whereas girls’ outcomes are more often attributed to internal and variable causes (Espinoza et al., 2014). Teachers also tend to attribute academic success in students with migration backgrounds (MB) and/or low socio-economic status (SES) to external (stable or variable) or internal-variable causes (Wiley & Eskilson, 1978).

Previous research on teachers’ attributions has predominantly addressed academic performance and student behavior (Reyna, 2000), with limited attention to attributions on students’ social inclusion, which includes social interactions, acceptance, and friendships in class (Koster et al., 2009). This study addresses this gap by examining teachers’ attributions of students’ positive peer experiences, such as inclusion, acceptance, and friendships.

Student social behavior (SSB), as a consistent and observable pattern over time (Reyna, 2000, Perren et al., 2012), is particularly relevant for teachers’ attributions along the stability dimension, indicating whether the causes for positive peer experiences are assessed as stable or unstable over time (Weiner, 1976).

Teacher-student relationships (TSR) also play a crucial role in shaping teachers' attributions by acting as a relational filter shaping how teachers perceive and interpret these experiences, especially affecting the locus of causality dimension (internal vs. external) through emotional and relational context (Pianta, 2001). As SSB influences the quality of TSR (Magro et al., 2025), it is reasonable to assume that teachers’ attributions are likely shaped first by observable social behaviors of the students and subsequently by TSR.

Socio-demographic variables are associated with SSB and TSR. For example, boys with a MB and low SES show lower levels of social behavior (Luo et al., 2022) and are more likely to have a conflictual TSR (Li et al., 2020). Furthermore, social behavior and TSR have been found to correlate with teachers’ attributions (Fleming et al., 2025). The different mechanisms by which SSB and TSR influence teachers’ attributions, and their possible mediating role between socio-demographic variables and teachers’ attributions, remain insufficiently studied. In particular, it remains unclear whether and how TSR and SSB translate students’ socio-demographic characteristics into teachers’ attributions of peer experiences.

Our analysis aims to close these gaps by examining the following research questions: To what extent do students’ socio-demographic variables predict teachers’ attributions of positive peer experiences and are these effects mediated by SSB and TSR? Additionally, how do these relationships vary across the dimensions of stability (stable vs. unstable) and locus of causality (internal vs. external)?

Drawing on the reviewed literature and theoretical background, we hypothesize (1) that students’ socio-demographic variables (i.e., gender, MB, and SES) predict teachers’ attributions of positive peer experiences, and (2) that the effects are mediated by SSB and TSR. We further explore whether these mediation effects differ between the dimensions of stability and locus of causality.

Policies of the European Union, focusing on developing programs aimed at reducing early school leaving, highlight the role of education. Educational policies that intervene in the system can be categorised into three main types: prevention, intervention, and compensation (Eurydice, 2014). Research has shown that practices in various European countries aim to decrease the ratio of early school leavers (Tomaszewska-Pękała, 2017). In the context of this paper, young Roma people are the most affected (Bocsi et al., 2023), as early school leaving is not only dependent on school performance but also linked to structural oppression (Boros, Bogdán & Durst, 2021), which intersects with living in rural areas (Eurostat, 2023). This presentation focuses on a research-development programme that designed a preventive intervention (ISCED2 level), with the help of 10 primary schools and 10 mentor teachers, who were also developers of the programme. The research-development was implemented in the academic years 2021/2022 and 2024/2025 (four-year-long development). Mentoring is a tool for providing equity. Mentoring in this development is youth mentoring carried out by adults, teachers (Raposa, Rhodes & Herrera, 2016; Keller, 2007) in a location-based, school-based format (Sipe, 2007).

Besides the primary aim of the development, promoting students’ success and career guidance, a secondary focus of the development was enhancing teachers’ professional development. Teachers in the programme joined voluntarily and engaged in monthly workshops and regular mentoring sessions with the students. The development aimed at promoting horizontal learning between the 10 mentor teachers, creating a professional learning community (PLC) (Dzieciatko-Szendrei et al., 2024; Handayani, Ciptaningrum & Triastuti, 2025; Huyen, Nga & Thao, 2024). Professional learning communities of teachers are analysed in school-based contexts (Thomas, 2009, 2022) and in non-formal learning environments (Dzieciatko-Szendrei et al., 2024). Findings of literature highlight that the professional development of teachers has a positive impact on students’ performance (Ventista & Brown, 2023) and can contribute to teachers’ success. The PLC met monthly online (Jin et al., 2024), and in-person learning was also provided in the development. The PLC developed and presented in this paper is based on the findings of inclusive developments (Varga, 2015), with a two-fold approach. Firstly, creating an inclusive community essentially determines the involvement of participants in development (Varga, 2015). Secondly, being part of an inclusive community and experiencing structures created in such an environment can model the expected inclusive approach for the mentor teachers.

Applying the process-based model of inclusion (Varga, 2015), this paper aims to reveal mentor teachers’ perceptions on the development of the programme and participation in the PLC. We intend to address the following research questions: 1) What motivated teachers to join and engage in the programme, and how do they characterise themselves at the beginning of the programme? 2) What were the characteristics of the professional learning community that enhanced their developers’ role and helped their professional development? 3) How do teachers evaluate their professional development?

The conference asks how education research can know and act amid shifting political-ideological conditions, datafication, and crises of credibility. Our paper responds via a dialogical/narrative autoethnography (Cann/DeMeulenaere 2020) that traces practice under pressure across two participatory projects located in different parts of the education ecosystem. Project “H” is a cumulative dissertation on narratives of discrimination and their relation to educational processes, combining feminist Collective Memory Work (Haug 1999; Doblmair/Hackl/Vogler forthcoming) with students at the University of Vienna and biographical materials from prior studies (e.g. participatory co-inquiries). It explores how barriers and discriminatory experiences shape, enable, and block educational trajectories, drawing on intersectional analysis (Riegel 2010, Hackl/Märker/Doblmair 2024) and abductive, grounded-theory logics (Dausien 1996). Project “D” is participatory action research with an austrian group for teacher protests, emerging in autumn 2022 through the campaign against acute teacher shortages and growing later when racist school policies added to the trouble. It interrogates how competing political claims on education enable or constrain concepts of Bildung, analyzing difference patterns between state-intended education processes and those articulated within protest.

Argument framing: We advance a political process-oriented conception of education research. Drawing on process oriented, feminist and participatory epistemologies, and a hegemony-informed view of empowerment, we treat methodological choices—timing, sequencing, authorship, visibility—as strategic acts in volatile fields. To resist the depoliticization of activist concepts, we frame empowerment not as a deliverable but as an open horizon that orients practice. Three tension fields organize our analysis: (1) levels of empowerment (individual, collective, institutional); (2) recognition and addressing within participatory spaces; and (3) reflection, (re)distribution of resources, and transforming conditions (Märker/Hackl/Strasser 2026).

Empirical focus: In project H, discrimination is examined as structurally embedded yet biographically processed: educational credentials promise participation, yet opportunities are unequally distributed (Miethe et al. 2017, Ahmed 2012 & 2017). Following Heinemann and Mecheril (2017), discrimination research becomes educational research when it probes how learning and Bildung are mediated or prevented by discriminatory relations. Combining biographical narratives with collective memory work (Haug 1999), the study seeks both understanding and emancipatory potential in co-researching experiences of discrimination. In project D Bildung is explored as both an object of political contention and a process within protest, mapping how protest-generated educational practices confront policy framings.

We trace in our research experiences how we articulate political process-oriented, hegemony-aware research that orients toward empowerment while holding contradiction. Articulating these thoughts in dialogical autoethnography helps us to grasp our entangled practices of knowing and acting. Institutionally, we propose recalibrations aligned with quality of education and the public good.

This presentation reports on a doctoral research project exploring the intergenerational and intercultural dynamics within Chinese migrant families living in the UK. The project focuses on families in which parents are adult migrants from China and children have spent most, if not all, of their lives in the UK. These families present an important yet under-researched site for intercultural research, as they are shaped by intersecting processes of migration, language, intergenerational and cultural negotiation.

The study is situated within the ethnic Chinese communities in the UK, a population which continues to grow rapidly but is under studied (Huang and Lamb, 2015). Earlier research which explored UK-Chinese families often presented the Chinese in the UK as a homogenous group and often used an essentialist frameworks of culture to explain behaviours (e.g. Sham and Woodrow, 1998). Given the diversity of Chinese people who live in the UK today, a non-essentialist, more critical understanding of culture can shed more light on these families’ experiences.

Although migration is a common practice, and it has been identified by migration scholars that the family is central to the migration process (Scocco, 2022), surprisingly few studies actually explore what is happening within the family after migration. This study addresses this gap by focusing on the everyday lived experiences and the intergenerational intercultural relationships of migrant parents and children.

This study is guided by the research questions:

1. What are the shaping influences on these UK-Chinese families with intercultural intergenerational relationships?
2. How are these intercultural intergenerational relationships perceived by the parents and the children of these UK-Chinese families?

The study aims to explore how family cultures emerge and are shaped within UK-Chinese migrant families and how intercultural dynamics are played out in intergenerational relationships. It aims to shed light on the diversity and complexity of UK-Chinese family cultures. It aims to contribute to intercultural education research by offering a non-essentialist, ecological account of migrant family experiences.

The study is grounded in an ecologically oriented, non-essentialist approach. Drawing on Holliday’s (1999) small cultures paradigm, family cultures are understood as emergent, locally situated practices rather than as expressions of fixed or homogenous cultural identities. This perspective resists deficit or essentialist representations of migrant families and aligns with social justice concerns around representation and voice. The study further adopted Holliday’s Grammar of Culture (2011) as a conceptual framework to understand how shaping influences within the families environment interact and how fixed ideas of culture (large culture) can shape small culture formation.

Despite sustained policy efforts to expand preschool education (PSE) provision in rural China, disparities between urban and rural areas persist. While recent reforms have significantly increased the number of kindergartens and improved affordability, uneven patterns of participation remain. Existing research and policy interventions have largely conceptualised access to PSE in terms of enrolment rates and have prioritised supply-side expansion. Far less attention has been paid to how rural families make decisions about when, where and for how long their children attend preschool, even in contexts where formal provision exists.

This study addresses this gap by examining rural families’ decision-making processes regarding preschool education attendance from the perspective of parents themselves. Drawing on qualitative case studies of two rural villages in Ningxia Province, north-western China, the research foregrounds parents’ lived experiences and locally constructed meanings of PSE. Although children in both villages generally participated in some form of preschool education, substantial differences emerged in enrolment timing, duration and location, revealing forms of inequality that are not captured by enrolment statistics alone.

Guided by four research questions, the study explores: (1) parents’ expectations and perceived benefits of PSE; (2) the factors shaping parental decision-making; (3) how these factors interact to produce concrete decisions regarding preschool attendance; and (4) how local governments might better incorporate families’ voices to improve PSE access. The findings show that parents in both villages shared a common primary need for PSE: preparing children for primary school within an exam-oriented education system. Only when this primary need was perceived to be met did parents articulate secondary needs, such as safety and wellbeing, social and language development, or the cultivation of learning interest. Importantly, these secondary needs were non-linear and highly context-dependent.

The study further demonstrates that parental expectations and perceived benefits are shaped through socially structured mechanisms. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and capital, the analysis shows how rural parents’ educational aspirations for upward social mobility coexist with constrained expectations and a bounded capacity to act. In more remote villages, limited economic resources, caregiving obligations and restricted mobility led parents to delay enrolment or limit participation to one year of preschool. In contrast, families located closer to urban centres were more likely to enrol children at age three and sustain longer participation, supported by greater spatial opportunity and an “in-between” rural–urban identity.

By conceptualising PSE through a supply–demand lens, the study argues that persistent inequalities are not simply the result of insufficient provision, but of a mismatch between policy-driven supply and families’ differentiated needs and capacities. The findings highlight the importance of moving beyond supply-oriented solutions and towards context-sensitive approaches that engage with parents’ lived realities. By foregrounding rural parents’ voices, this research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of PSE participation and offers insights for policymakers seeking to improve equitable access in structurally unequal contexts.

Migration to Iceland has grown rapidly in recent years, including asylum-seekers and refugees. This paper explores the trajectories of Syrian and Iraqi refugee families during their time of migration and resettlement in Iceland. The aim of the research is to explore how six refugee families from Syria and Iraq who resettled in Iceland in 2016-2020 have managed to adjust to their new social, cultural and educational context and what challenges and opportunities they have faced during these transitions. These families have children at different ages and have experienced the different levels of the education systems with their children.

The research questions are:

1. How have the six Syrian and Iraqi refugee families adjusted to their new social, cultural and educational contexts?
2. In what way has their social and cultural capital enabled their adjustment?
3. How have the intersections of their overlapping identities such as gender, race, disability and class shaped their trajectories and their experiences of adjustment?

The paper derives from the research project, A Part and Apart? Education and social inclusion of refugee children and youth in Iceland (ESRCI) which aimed to critically explore the inclusion of refugee children and youth at pre-, compulsory and upper secondary levels and the structures created for their learning and wellbeing in their social and educational settings.

The theoretical background draws on Bourdieu’s (1991) concept of social and cultural capital to analyse how refugee families negotiate unfamiliar social fields, including educational institutions, labour markets, and local communities. Complementing this perspective, Crenshaw’s (1989) intersectionality framework illuminates how multiple, overlapping identities such as gender, race, disability, and class shape the differentiated experiences of refugees. Together, these frameworks illuminate the structural and relational dynamics that produce uneven inclusion and differentiated opportunities for participation among refugees. They also emphasise the need to account for the multidimensional nature of refugee identities when examining integration processes, particularly in relation to access to education, participation, and other essential forms of support.

This study examined profiles of teachers’ resilience and work burnout using a sample of 331 Finnish elementary school teachers (79% females) who filled out an online questionnaire in the spring of 2022.

Teaching is often described as a highly demanding occupation (e.g., Johnson et al., 2005; Kyriacou, 2011). In recent years, demands such as increasing workloads and the time required for nonteaching duties, along with the changes teachers faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have strained their sense of occupational well-being (e.g., Hascher & Waber, 2021; Salmela-Aro et al., 2022). This is a woeful reality, especially given that decreased occupational well-being, such as burnout – conceptualized as exhaustion, negative attitudes toward work (i.e., cynicism), and inadequacy toward work (Maslach et al., 2001) –, is harmful and related to, for example, lower sense of job satisfaction (e.g., Hakanen et al., 2006; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017).

Nevertheless, despite the demanding nature of teaching as an occupation (Kyriacou, 2011) and the alarming number of teachers experiencing stress due to their work (e.g., Herman et al., 2020), it is also evidenced that there are plenty of teachers possessing high or at least fairly good levels of occupational well-being (Hascher & Waber, 2021). Such teachers might be, for example, resilient to counter their work-related challenges (e.g., Beltman et al., 2011; Mansfield et al., 2016). Resilience can be defined as the ability to bounce back from difficulties (Smith et al., 2013). According to Smith et al. (2008), the process of bouncing back includes three intertwined phases: 1) confronting the stressful event, 2) directing oneself toward a positive future outcome of the event, and 3) taking active steps to cope with it. In addition, teachers may have contextual or individual resources that protect them against the strains of work-related demands (e.g., Bermejo-Toro et al., 2016; Granziera et al., 2022; Hascher & Waber, 2021).

Increasing empirical evidence is also suggesting that there is substantial heterogeneity in teachers’ experiences of occupational well-being (e.g., Herman et al., 2020; Pöysä et al., 2022; Salmela-Aro et al., 2019). This notion implies that teachers may not be a homogeneous group; rather, there may be different subgroups of teachers in terms of their occupational well-being. For example, while it is known that teachers’ higher sense of resilience is related to their lower levels of occupational stress and burnout (e.g., Burić et al., 2019; Richards et al., 2016), the majority of the studies examining such a relation have assumed that this is similar for all teachers. Similarly, while it is known that sense of having a supportive leader–follower relationship can act as a protective factor for teachers’ occupational well-being (e.g., Bermejo-Toro et al., 2016; Hakanen et al., 2006), this has been mainly examined without considering the possible heterogeneity among teachers.

Therefore, to gain novel insights into teachers’ occupational well-being, the present study used the person-oriented approach to simultaneously examine teachers’ resilience and work burnout. In addition, to move beyond the assumption that the relations between sense of occupational well-being and different individual and contextual factors are similar for all teachers, subsequent analyses for the identified profiles were executed. The following research questions (RQs) and hypotheses were formulated: RQ1: What kinds of subgroups can be identified based on teachers’ experiences of resilience and work burnout?; RQ2: To what extent do the identified subgroups differ with respect to teachers’ individual factors of perceptions of work meaningfulness and overcommitment with work?; RQ3: To what extent do the identified subgroups differ with respect to the contextual factors of teachers’ perceptions of a supportive organizational climate and the leader–follower relationship?

Many countries worldwide are facing teacher shortages in schools (Craig et al., 2023; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2024). To maintain the functioning of schools, alternative pathways into teaching have been introduced, including shortened and practice-oriented training routes for career-change teachers (European Commission/Education Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency/Eurydice, 2021). In some education systems, including Switzerland, schools additionally employ untrained staff with no or minimal formal teaching qualifications to address acute staffing shortages (Sandmeier & Herzog, 2024).

Despite the profound challenges associated with these staffing arrangements, empirical knowledge about how teacher shortages shape everyday work in schools remains limited (McPherson et al., 2025; Sandmeier & Herzog, 2024). Emerging evidence indicates increased strain on school principals and fully certified teachers, particularly due to the increased need for mentoring and support of those staff members without full teaching qualifications (Porsch, 2025; Schwalbe & Puderbach, 2023).

A suitable framework for exploring these experiences is provided by the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, especially in light of recent extensions emphasizing its relevance for understanding work in times of crisis (Demerouti & Bakker, 2023). JD-R theory conceptualizes working conditions in terms of job demands requiring sustained effort and job resources that support effective functioning. JD-R theory also accounts for personal demands (e.g., perfectionism) and personal resources (e.g., resilience) as individual factors shaping employees’ work experiences (Barbier et al., 2013; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). Prior research shows that demands and resources are closely linked to well-being and retention among teachers and school principals (Collie et al., 2020; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2018), making this framework particularly relevant in the context of teacher shortages. In addition, recent studies have begun to examine implemented measures to address teacher shortages in schools (Boström & Bostedt, 2025; Porsch, 2025), yet little is known about how such measures are perceived by teachers and school principals and which solutions they consider promising for the future. Using a qualitative research approach, we address the following research questions:

1. Which job demands, job resources, personal demands, and personal resources linked to teacher shortages do teachers and school principals report?
2. How do teachers and school principals perceive the implications of teacher shortages for their well-being and intentions to remain in or leave the school or profession?
3. What measures do schools implement to address teacher shortages, and which potential future measures do teachers and school principals perceive as promising?

Increasing psychological strain in everyday school life makes mental health and well-being in schools a pressing issue. Current evidence on the high prevalence of depressive symptoms and anxiety disorders among students (Sevecke et al., 2022) highlights the need for preventive, low-threshold support services in which schools can play a central role. This, however, depends on teachers’ ability to sustain their own mental health and well-being, so they can reliably take on this supportive role. Reports of high emotional exhaustion and elevated burnout risk among teachers (Lillich et al., 2023), alongside their characterization as a high-risk group for stress-related conditions such as burnout (Adam et al., 2025), underscore the urgency of examining teacher well-being with greater conceptual precision.

Research on teacher well-being has traditionally emphasized adverse outcomes such as stress, exhaustion, and burnout (McCallum et al., 2017). Likewise, international large-scale studies such as TALIS, PIRLS or TIMSS have often operationalized teacher well-being primarily via negative indicators (e.g., stress levels, burnout-related symptoms) and implicitly treated low stress as an indicator for high well-being. This framing risks underestimating positive dimensions of functioning and experience and limits the interpretability of findings for prevention and school development. The present study therefore adopts a multidimensional, resource-oriented perspective and is grounded in Westerhof and Keyes’ two-dimensional model (2010), which conceptualizes psychological distress and mental health as related but distinct dimensions requiring separate assessment and promotion. This approach is consistent with the World Health Organizations (1984) definition of health as more than the absence of disease, encompassing physical, mental, and social well-being. It implies a measurement and intervention logic that goes beyond symptom reduction to also capture and strengthen positive aspects such as positive emotions, engagement, supportive relationships, meaning and accomplishment, as conceptualized in the PERMA model of well-being (Seligman, 2018). In doing so, the current study contributes a multidimensional picture of teachers’ well-being and stress experiences in Austria. Given the conceptual proximity of different well-being approaches, research question 1 examines whether PERMA and subjective well-being reflect the same construct or can be empirically distinguished.

The current study additionally draws on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker et al., 2023), which distinguishes job demands (e.g., work pressure, emotionally stressful interactions) from resources (e.g., collegial support, supportive leadership). Within this framework, high demands combined with insufficient resources are linked to emotional exhaustion and elevated burnout risk, whereas resources are expected to promote aspects of well-being and buffer strain. The JD-R model further includes personal resources such as mindsets and resilience, which affect how teachers interpret demands and use resources proactively, contributing to sustained well-being. Building on this logic, the current study models three mindsets as psychologically relevant mechanisms: growth mindset as belief in the malleability of abilities (Dweck et al., 1995) as well as visionary mindset describing a future-oriented, meaning- and goal-directed orientation and vigilant mindset as anticipatory risk awareness and proactive coping (Ninković et al., 2025). These orientations are expected to influence how teachers assess demands and utilize resources (Nalipay et al., 2022), thereby affecting well-being both independently and in interaction with job demands and resources. As research questions 2 and 3, this study examines to what extent teachers’ growth, visionary, and vigilant mindsets predict well-being and whether mindset explains additional variance beyond job-related demands and resources.

In doing this, the study responds to limitations of large-scale surveys (e.g. TALIS, PIRLS,..) by complementing predominantly deficit-oriented indicators with multidimensional, positive measures of teacher well-being. Additionally, the use of validated, internationally compatible instruments and theoretically grounded constructs (including newly operationalized mindset measures) facilitates cross-national comparison and supports the transfer of insights across European school systems.

Co-creation in educational settings is understood as a collaborative process in which students, educators and other stakeholders jointly design and implement learning experiences (Vilaça, et al., 2025). Rather than treating learners as passive recipients, co-creation positions them as partners, redistributing power and responsibility in learning and teaching processes (Bovill et al., 2011; Bovill, 2014). Reviews of student–staff co-creation in education show that such approaches can foster agency, motivation, sense of belonging and positive relationships, with clear implications for wellbeing (Bovill, 2020; Lubicz-Nawrocka, 2018).

Within the Health-Promoting Schools (HPS) framework, co-creation aligns closely with whole-school approaches that emphasise participation, equity and relational wellbeing. The Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation advocates action-oriented, participatory projects in which students, teachers, families and community actors jointly identify priorities and design health-related actions as part of everyday school life (Vilaça et al., 2019). In parallel, the UNESCO strategy on education for health and wellbeing calls for school environments that promote physical and mental health, sexuality education, life skills and rights, and safe, inclusive learning spaces free from violence, bullying and discrimination (UNESCO, 2022). Co-creation offers a concrete pedagogical pathway to enact these ambitions.

Evidence from whole-school resilience and mental-health programmes also points to the value of co-creation. The UPRIGHT project, for example, used regional co-creation to adapt a universal resilience intervention to local school realities, reporting positive effects on students’ wellbeing and coping skills (Morote et al., 2022). At the same time, research underlines that professionals need specific competencies to facilitate co-creation processes, negotiate power relations and sustain collaborative work with young people and communities (Darlington et al.2022). Teacher professional development that combines conceptual work on wellbeing and health promotion with practice-based, collaborative learning is therefore central.

While co-creation is increasingly promoted in policy and research, there is still limited longitudinal evidence on how a co-creation-based curriculum within teacher professional development translates into concrete practices in health-promoting schools and how these practices affect students’ wellbeing. In particular, few studies have examined whole-class approaches to co-creation in early childhood and compulsory education, or how teachers and school communities sustain such approaches over time.

Against this background, this research aims to analyse how a co-creation curriculum embedded in in-service teacher training shapes teaching practices, school-level processes and student wellbeing in health-promoting schools. Therefore, the research objectives are:

• To explore how teachers, early childhood educators and other professionals understand and appropriate the concepts of co-creation and wellbeing during and after the training on school-based co-creating well-being;
• To examine how participants initiate and develop whole-class wellbeing co-creation projects in their schools, and how these projects are embedded in the HPS framework;
• To analyse perceived effects of these projects on student engagement, relationships, sense of belonging and action competence;
• To understand how peer-to-peer pedagogical coaching and communities of practice support or constrain the sustainability of co-creation practices within schools;
• To identify contextual factors (institutional culture, leadership, resources) that enable or hinder the integration of co-creation-oriented professional development into everyday school life.

The study focus on interprofessional collaboration (IPC) among professionals within student welfare teams in Finnish compulsory schools, specifically exploring the factors that shape this collaboration in the context of promoting student well-being. The study is guided by the question: "What factors do members of student welfare teams experience as shaping interprofessional collaboration aimed at promoting student well-being, and how can these be understood through the lens of Reeves et al.'s (2010) framework of interprofessional teamwork?"

The primary objective is to deepen the understanding of how professionals in student welfare teams experience factors that influence IPC for promoting student well-being. A secondary objective is to provide valuable insights into the implementation of IPC for health prevention within the broader context. The results can be utlised outisde of the finnish context as mental health challenges among children and intergrated services are similar in other western countries.

The study utilizes the conceptual framework of interprofessional teamwork developed by Reeves et al. (2010). This framework provides a lens for interpreting findings by highlighting four domains that shape interprofessional teamwork and collaboration: relational, processual, organizational, and contextual factors. The analysis employed a theory-guided qualitative content analysis approach, integrating existing theoretical perspectives from this framework while remaining open to emergent patterns.

The research is situated within the Finnish educational and welfare system, offering a distinct European perspective. In Finland, student welfare services are mandated by the Student Welfare Act (2014) to be organized through IPC, with a legal aim towards preventive work. The study highlights the complexities and challenges specific to this context, such as the division of responsibilities between schools and Well-being Services Counties (WSCs) for providing professionals like psychologists and school counsellors. Economic struggles within WSCs and their impact on statutory resource provision are noted as significant contextual factors.

The findings reveal that while regular meeting routines and staff continuity support collaboration in preventive work, a common vision for student welfare is often absent among Finnish professionals. Challenges include unclear responsibilities, the ambiguous role of school coaches, and the impact of organizational changes and employee turnover within the WSC system on long-term collaborative relationships. The study underscores the ongoing shift from corrective to preventive measures in Finnish student welfare, noting that this transition has not been realized as intended, partly due to resource constraints and a reactive rather than proactive approach to student well-being. The findings suggest a need for improved governance and clarification of roles within the Finnish student welfare landscape.

Over recent decades, school coaching has developed internationally as a dynamic and emerging profession within the education sector (Van Nieuwerburgh, 2012), including in Finland, where it is increasingly becoming an institutionalized practice among educators (Tynjälä et al., 2019; Korhonen et al., 2017). Broader societal and educational changes have shifted attention away from purely academic goals toward a more holistic perspective that emphasizes student development and well-being, supported by international policy frameworks (OECD, 2021) and collaborative teaching practices that promote school well-being (Ukskoski & Lerkkanen, 2024). Within this framework, school coaches have assumed a central role in supporting students in Finnish schools, as their mission to strengthen self-regulation, goal orientation, and personal growth aligns with national initiatives aimed at advancing holistic well-being and positive education practices (Finnish National Agency for Education, n.d.; Positive Education Finland, n.d.). Increasingly, whole-school programs designed to support both staff and students incorporate coaching practices (Ponsford et al., 2022), while peer-led approaches have demonstrated positive effects on help-seeking behaviors and school climate (Pointon-Haas et al., 2023). In Finland, the strong national focus on psychological well-being and social learning has further facilitated the integration of school coaching as a supportive educational practice (Rautanen et al., 2022; Yli-Pietilä et al., 2024). However, as school coaching remains a relatively new and evolving profession, examining the professional role of school coaches is essential (City of Helsinki, 2023b). Moreover, when recognition is limited, mutual support is lacking, or coaches are uncertain about their role and authority, coaching may not effectively enhance students’ self-development or academic outcomes (City of Helsinki, 2023b). Although school coaches represent valuable resources within schools, unclear job descriptions and the absence of standardized guidelines lead to considerable variation in their roles and responsibilities across institutions (Woulfin & Rigby, 2017; Woulfin, 2018).

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) such as TIMSS, ICCS, PIRLS, ICILS, PISA, and TALIS provide critical insights into educational outcomes and inequalities across diverse national contexts. They are widely used to monitor trends, enable international comparisons, and inform educational policy and practice (Johansson, 2016). At the same time, ILSAs function as laboratories for methodological innovation, supporting research that links individual outcomes to institutional and systemic conditions (Strietholt & Scherer, 2018). This symposium brings together recent research drawing on multiple ILSAs and is organized into five interrelated thematic sessions addressing digital transformation, civic education, educational inequality, student engagement and well-being, and methodological challenges in international assessment research.

The first thematic area focuses on digital competencies and emerging technologies in education. Drawing on ICILS, TALIS, and TIMSS, papers examine cross-national variation in technology and AI integration, the role of teacher characteristics and professional learning, and how digital provision and pedagogical use relate to achievement and inequality, including disparities linked to socioeconomic background and early tracking.

The second thematic area addresses civic attitudes, values, and engagement among young people. Using ICCS data, contributions explore students’ intentions to participate politically, their attitudes toward minorities, immigrants, and gender equality, and how school experiences relate to tolerant dispositions and engagement with social and environmental issues.

The third thematic area examines structural inequalities and contextual effects in education systems. Papers investigate how school composition, segregation, and socioeconomic context shape achievement and well-being across countries, including intersectional patterns by gender, immigrant background, and socioeconomic status. The session also addresses systemic resource inequalities through evidence on mathematics and science teacher shortages and their unequal distribution across schools.

The fourth thematic area focuses on students’ attitudes, motivation, and psychosocial factors. Contributions examine long-term gender gaps in reading behavior and achievement, the relationship between teacher gender and student outcomes, and trends in test-taking motivation relevant for interpreting achievement changes.

The fifth thematic area is explicitly methodological, with papers analyzing item-level features of achievement scales, participation and sampling standards, and the measurement of socioeconomic status, highlighting how technical choices shape conclusions about trends and inequality.

Overall, the symposium fosters dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners and advances rigorous, policy-relevant use of ILSAs to support more equitable and effective education systems.

Digital technologies have become an integral component of contemporary education systems, yet evidence remains inconclusive regarding their actual contribution to student learning outcomes. While many schools have expanded their digital infrastructure, it is still unclear how the availability, quality, and pedagogical use of digital tools influence students’ competences in mathematics and science. This study examines the relationship between digital technology provision and student achievement by analysing data from TIMSS 2019 and TIMSS 2023, including student, teacher, and school questionnaires as well as performance results. Background and Purpose: The study addresses a central problem: although digital technologies are increasingly embedded in learning processes, little is known about how frequently and effectively they are used, and whether such use leads to improved student performance. The research explores digital provision, historical developments in school digitalisation, the impact of national strategies and COVID 19, and teachers’ digital competences. Additionally, it investigates the role of school leadership in supporting digital transformation, strategic decision making, and policy alignment. Research Questions: (1) How has the availability of digital technologies changed between 2019 and 2023? (2) To what extent does better digital provision correlate with higher achievement in mathematics and science? (3) What differences exist between urban and rural schools? Methods: The empirical analysis uses TIMSS student achievement data alongside school level and teacher level indicators. Data processing includes identifying correlations, comparing technological access and use across contexts, and analysing changes in digital environments over the two cycles. The analysis will primarily focus on countries that demonstrate high achievement levels in both mathematics and science, as well as countries characterised by advanced digital technology availability in schools and frequent pedagogical use of digital tools during lessons. Particular emphasis will be placed on Latvia, the home country of the authors, to provide a deeper contextual understanding of national developments and comparative positioning. Variables include students’ outcomes in mathematics and science, frequency of digital tool use, and digital infrastructure indicators for grade 4 settings. Expected Outcomes: The study is expected to clarify whether improvements in digital provision reflect meaningful pedagogical integration and whether such integration supports higher student performance. It will identify contextual disparities, highlight barriers to effective digital use, and assess trends in digital transformation across the two TIMSS cycles. Relevance: Based on the findings, recommendations will be developed for policymakers, school leaders, teachers, and families to enhance digital learning environments and strengthen students’ competencies in mathematics and science.

Anwar, C., Aznem, A., Payung, L. T., & Hidayanto, N. (2025). Empowering Education through Digital Leadership: The Evolving Role of School Principals. Formichella, M. M., Alderete, M. V., & Di Meglio, G. (2020). New technologies in households: Is there an educational payoff? Evidence from Argentina. Education in the Knowledge Society, 21, 181–1814. https://doi.org/10.14201/eks.23553 Gizatullina, O. (2023). MODERN COMPETENCIES OF A TEACHER FOR EFFECTIVE WORK IN A DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.7630210 Jeong, D. W., Moon, H., Jeong, S. M., & Moon, C. J. (2024). Digital capital accumulation in schools, teachers, and students and academic achievement: Cross-country evidence from the PISA 2018. International Journal of Educational Development, 107, 103024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2024.103024 Karlsson, L. (2022). Computers in education: The association between computer use and test scores in primary school. Education Inquiry, 13(1), 56–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2020.1831288

This paper investigates cross-national patterns of artificial intelligence (AI) use among secondary school teachers using data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024. The study is theoretically grounded in established models of technology adoption, particularly the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al., 2003) and the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). These perspectives emphasize that technology integration is shaped by teachers’ digital competencies, perceived usefulness, ease of use, pedagogical beliefs, and contextual support (Davis, 1989; Scherer et al., 2021). Building on research on digital media use, which has shown substantial heterogeneity among teachers (Pozas et al., 2022), this study examines how AI-related practices vary across countries. Applying multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA; Henry & Muthén, 2010), the study identifies distinct teacher-level AI usage profiles and explores how their prevalence and predictors differ internationally. Latent class approaches have proven effective for analyzing technology use patterns (Graves & Bowers, 2018), yet systematic cross-national analyses focusing on AI remain scarce. The analysis distinguishes between individual characteristics (Level 1) and system-level influences (Level 2), including digital infrastructure, leadership support, and professional development opportunities (Buabeng-Andoh, 2012; OECD, 2020). Three research questions guide the study. First, it examines whether similar AI usage profiles emerge across countries or whether some profiles are context-specific (Eickelmann & Vennemann, 2017). Second, it analyzes how the probability of belonging to specific profiles varies internationally. Third, it investigates whether profile membership is mainly explained by teacher-level factors—such as self-efficacy, attitudes toward AI, and training—or by broader structural conditions (Ifenthaler & Schweinbenz, 2016; UNESCO, 2021). System-level effects are captured through aggregated indicators from teacher and school leader reports, including AI-related policies, training accessibility, and governance frameworks. Additional national indicators such as innovation capacity and education expenditure are considered. This multilevel approach allows a comprehensive analysis of contextual determinants of AI integration. Methodologically, MLCA identifies latent subgroups based on reported AI practices such as lesson planning, assessment, adaptive learning, and support for students with special needs. Measurement invariance tests assess cross-national comparability, and model selection is guided by statistical fit indices and interpretability. Overall, the study provides internationally comparable evidence on the diversity of AI adoption among teachers and highlights the importance of targeted support strategies tailored to specific national contexts. The findings contribute to a differentiated understanding of AI integration in education and inform policy and professional development initiatives.

Buabeng-Andoh, C. (2012). Factors influencing teachers’ adoption and integration of ICT into teaching. International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 8(1), 136–155. Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008 Eickelmann, B., & Vennemann, M. (2017). Teachers’ attitudes regarding ICT in European countries. European Educational Research Journal, 16(6), 733–761. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904117725899 Graves, S., & Bowers, C. (2018). Exploring teacher and student use of technology. Education and Information Technologies, 23(6), 2445–2464. Henry, K. L., & Muthén, B. (2010). Multilevel latent class analysis. Structural Equation Modeling, 17(2), 193–215. Ifenthaler, D., & Schweinbenz, V. (2016). Teachers’ perspectives on learning analytics. Teaching and Teacher Education, 56, 157–167. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017–1054. OECD. (2020). TALIS 2018 results. OECD Publishing. Pozas, M., Letzel, V., & Schneider, C. (2022). Teaching and technology use: Patterns and predictors. British Journal of Educational Technology, 53(4), 842–860. Scherer, R., Siddiq, F., & Tondeur, J. (2021). The technology acceptance model: A meta-analysis. Computers & Education, 128, 13–35. UNESCO. (2021). AI and education: Guidance for policy-makers. UNESCO et al. (2003). User acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425–478.

Computational thinking (CT) skills are increasingly important as digital technologies transform education and the labour market, and they also support broader outcomes such as critical thinking and academic achievement. (Lei et al., 2020; Kumar & Mohd, 2024). Schools, and especially teachers, play a central role in developing CT, yet little is known about how teacher characteristics vary between high- and low-performing schools. Evidence suggests that high-performing schools are more likely to have teachers who are motivated, collaborate frequently, and participate actively in professional development, all of which support effective teaching and improved student outcomes (Lorenz et al., 2022). Highly qualified teachers tend to work in schools with academically stronger students, while less experienced teachers often teach in schools with higher concentrations of disadvantaged students (Pop-Eleches & Urquiola, 2013; OECD, 2019). Socioeconomic context also influences teacher characteristics and instructional practices. Schools with higher-SES students generally have better resources, more experienced staff, and greater instructional stability, whereas lower-achieving schools face limited resources, higher teacher turnover, and fewer opportunities for professional growth (Yang Hansen et al., 2016; Sirin, 2005). Teachers in high-achieving schools are more likely to employ cognitively demanding methods, such as inquiry-based learning, formative assessment, structured feedback, and problem-solving tasks, which support CT, critical reasoning, and data analysis (Hattie, 2009). This study examines information technology, computer studies (or similar) teacher characteristics in the highest- and lowest-achieving schools in countries where students’ average in International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2023 CT achievement exceeds the overall study mean: Belgium (Flemish), Chinese Taipei, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Latvia, the Republic of Korea, and the Slovak Republic. A particular focus is placed on the topics most frequently taught in top-performing schools and how these relate to what students actually learn. Using ICILS 2023 information technology, computer studies (or similar) teacher and student questionnaires, the analysis identifies which CT-related activities are emphasized. While the specific emphasis on topics and activities is expected to vary across countries, clustering countries with similar patterns allows for targeted recommendations to help teachers strengthen students’ CT skills.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge. Kumar, I., & Mohd, N. (2024). Ways of using computational thinking to improve students’ ability to think critically. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-0782-3.ch015 Lei, H., Chiu, M., Li, F., Wang, X., & Geng, Y. (2020). Computational thinking and academic achievement. Children and Youth Services Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105439 Lorenz, R., Endberg, M., & Bos, W. (2022). Teaching with technology: A large-scale, international, and multilevel study of the roles of teacher and school characteristics. Computers & Education, 179, 104408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104408 OECD. (2019). TALIS 2018 results (Volume I): Teachers and school leaders as lifelong learners. OECD Publishing. https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en Pop-Eleches, C., & Urquiola, M. (2013). Going to a better school: Effects and behavioral responses. The American Economic Review, 103(4), 1289–1324. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.4.1289 Sirin, S. R. (2005). Socioeconomic status and academic achievement: A meta-analytic review of research. Review of Educational Research, 75(3), 417–453. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543075003417 Yang Hansen, K., Gustafsson, J. E., & Rosén, M. (2016). Context factors and student achievement in the IEA studies: Evidence from TIMSS. Large-Scale Assessments in Education, 4(1), Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-016-0020-6

Digital competences are widely regarded as a key prerequisite for educational success, labour market participation, and social inclusion (Fraillon, 2025; Hoe, 2025). International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) such as the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) play a central role in producing policy-relevant knowledge on these competences and in shaping educational discourse. International evidence from ICILS shows substantial cross-national variation in students’ digital competences, which—similar to traditional competence domains—is closely associated with socioeconomic background (Fraillon, 2025). However, less is known about how institutional features of education systems structure inequalities in digital competences, and how such inequalities emerge within data-driven, internationally comparative research contexts. In particular, early between-school tracking constitutes a core institutional design feature that systematically differentiates learning environments at an early stage, yet its role in shaping digital competence inequalities has received little empirical attention. This paper addresses this gap by examining early tracking as a structural moderator of socioeconomic inequalities in digital competences. We ask: (1) To what extent does the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and digital competences vary across countries? (2) Does early tracking affect average levels of digital competences? (3) Does early tracking moderate the relationship between SES and digital competences? Theoretically, the paper brings together insights from the digital divide literature, which conceptualises inequalities in digital access, use, and competences as socially structured (Dijk, 2020), and theories of educational inequality that emphasise the role of cultural and economic capital in shaping learning opportunities (Bourdieu, 1983). Early tracking is understood as an institutional mechanism that allocates students to differentiated learning environments (Terrin & Triventi, 2023), thereby structuring access to pedagogical resources, digital infrastructures, and forms of knowledge valued within education systems. Empirically, the analyses draw on pooled data from ICILS 2013, 2018, and 2023, covering 44 education systems, including 12 characterised by early tracking. Digital competences are measured using the Computer and Information Literacy (CIL) and Computational Thinking (CT) scales. Multilevel regression models with students nested in schools and countries are estimated, including cross-level interactions between SES and early tracking. Preliminary results based on ICILS 2023 indicate strong socioeconomic gradients in digital competences across systems. While early tracking shows no significant effect on average competence levels, inequalities by SES are significantly steeper in early-tracking systems. These findings suggest that early tracking primarily structures the distribution—rather than the overall level—of digital competences.

Bourdieu, P. (1983). Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital. In R. Kreckel (Ed.), Soziale Ungleichheiten (pp. 183–198). Schwartz. Dijk, J. van. (2020). The digital divide. Polity. Fraillon, J. (2025). ICILS 2023 International Report: An International Perspective on Digital Literacy. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). https://www.iea.nl/sites/default/files/2025-03/ICILS_2023_International_Report.pdf Hoe, S. L. (2025). Digital transformation and the future of work: Closing the digital skills gap. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 39(3), 14–17. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-06-2024-0167 Terrin, É., & Triventi, M. (2023). The Effect of School Tracking on Student Achievement and Inequality: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 93(2), 236–274. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543221100850

Across education systems, pressures to standardise assessment collide with traditions of teacher autonomy. This tension raises a crucial question: What counts as valid assessment?

The fundamental nature of assessment is often ignored in policy debates and public discourse. To address this gap, Jönsson (2020) has proposed a distinction between two approaches: assessments based on qualitative (or evaluative) judgments made by assessors and those grounded in quantitative measurement principles informed by psychometrics. In this study, we refer to these paradigms as judgment and measurement.

Psychometrics traces its origins to the latter half of the 19th century, with major advances occurring during the 20th century in relation to the measurement of human intelligence. From this foundation, numerous branches have emerged, including tests of scholastic aptitude, personality, and academic achievement (e.g., Black, 1998; Urbina, 2004). Qualitative judgments (Sadler, 1989), also called evaluative judgments (Boud et al., 2018), are used to appreciate the quality of student performance. According to Sadler (1989), a qualitative judgment is made by a knowledgeable expert and is not reducible to a formula that nonexperts can apply.

The most notable difference between evaluative judgment and a psychometric perspective lies in their focus. In psychometrics, assessment is treated as an inferential process, targeting an invisible theoretical construct such as knowledge. Consequently, psychometric approaches depend on indirect indicators, aggregating data from multiple items. In contrast, evaluative judgment centers on the quality of performance itself. Assessing an essay or report is a direct act, requiring no inference about hidden traits.

Building on this conceptual distinction, this study examines how these paradigms framed summative final assessment and positioned teachers in the context of a nationwide Finnish assessment reform. The reform introduced detailed national assessment criteria for final grades at the end of lower-secondary education, aiming to make teachers’ grading more consistent while preserving classroom-based assessment practices.

A clear understanding of final assessment is essential because of its profound impact on students’ futures and the functioning of society. In this context, teachers are users of public power and may need to justify their grading decisions. Clarity in grading principles is critical: Should professional judgment count as valid evidence, or should grades rely solely on external measures? Do we want teachers to act as assessment machines? Or do we want to externalise assessment to tests, viewing teachers as technicians without power over assessment?

We analyzed two complementary datasets: 56 official and media documents saping public discourse during the reform, and 66 semi-structured interviews with lower-secondary subject teachers across six disciplines.

Our analysis of the public and official documents showed that the measurement and judgment paradigms were intertwined in discourse, and so tightly that it was difficult to disentangle them. Moreover, teachers were positioned in somewhat confusing ways both 1) as parts of the assessment machine (conductors of measurement) and 2) as assessment machines (professionals using evaluative judgment).

In the interview data, we identified three distinct ways in which teachers referred to assessment and their positionings within it: 1) as designers of the assessment machine, who constructed instruments to ensure reliability (referring to measurement), 2) as assessment machines, who applied holistic, criteria-based judgments that resisted reduction to mere metrics (referring to judgment); and 3) as calibrators who adjusted quantitative indicators intuitively with the criteria (referring to intuitive judgment).

Our findings indicate that these paradigms of assessment are intertwined in societal discourse, simultaneously positioning teachers as agentic professionals and sources of error – an inherently contradictory stance. This underscores the need for clearer conceptualisations of assessment to inform both policy decisions and practical implementation, clarifying whether teachers are expected to act as objective technicians or professional interpreters.

In Lithuania, a new competency-based curriculum has recently been introduced alongside a two-stage external state examination system. The intention was to replace high-stakes examinations, predominantly composed of closed- or short-answer items, with competency-based assessments that give students an opportunity to demonstrate their unique skills and performance. However, the newly developed examination system did not deliver the expected results. The number of examinations increased when examination parts were transferred to a digital format, the test design remained unchanged, and no performance assessment was introduced (Raudiene et al., 2025).

After the first year of implementing the new exam, marked by a high number of issues related to poor item quality, difficulty-level mismatches, and technical implementation, which raised public dissatisfaction and anger, we decided to analyze how the decision-making process was carried out and how far the current assessment system is from the competency-based assessment.

Focusing on competencies as learning outcomes assumes that checking whether students recall information is no longer the highest priority, while assessing what students can do with knowledge is (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2010; Elmer et al., 2019; Black & Wiliam, 1998). Assessing how students apply knowledge in new situations goes beyond traditional paper-and-pencil tests or their digital alternatives and involves direct interaction between the assessor and the assessed, which may not consistently yield quantitative feedback. This does not satisfy the bureaucratic apparatus that uses exam scores, indicators, and rankings for governance and accountability at all levels, from students and teachers to municipalities and states (Ball, 2003). Little is questioned about what this culture of measurement brings to education apart from competition, stratification, the distortion of basic pedagogical principles, and distrust in education (Biesta, 2010; Koretz, 2017; Au, 2009).

Because of the lack of clear rules and a diverse array of actors, the development of education policy is complex (Shaw, 2019). Ball (1998) described it as a process of bricolage, borrowing and copying bits of ideas from elsewhere, interpreting theories and research, and reusing them as though they might work. Due to the high stakes associated with school examinations, university enrollment, school rankings, and follow-up consequences, assessment policy-making is considered extremely complex and multilayered, thus requiring a well-established theoretical approach.

The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) (Kingdon, 2014) offers a lens for understanding how certain proposals reach the political agenda and why some issues receive political attention at certain times while others do not. The MSF is a tool for analyzing nonlinear and non-rational political processes (Shaw, 2019; Stout & Stevens, 2000), including policy agenda-setting, identifying the necessary conditions for translating political agendas into concrete decisions, determining the timing of reform, and diagnosing policy failures.

Kingdon (2014) suggests that policy development comprises three streams:

• The problem stream explains “how problems come to be recognized and how conditions come to be defined as problems” (Kingdon, 2014, p. 19), bringing stakeholders’ concerns to light.
• In the policy stream, people with specialized knowledge generate alternative proposals to address the problem. The proposals that win should meet criteria such as value alignment, societal support, financial capability, and political support.
• The political stream represents “swings of national mood” (Kingdon, 2014, p. 20) or the dominant view on the issue and the proposed responses to it. This stream is characterized by stakeholders' involvement in solving the problem.

These streams develop independently, but at critical moments all three conflate, opening a window of opportunity to introduce a new policy. Policy-making is enhanced by policy entrepreneurs who invest resources, such as expertise, political influence, and determination, to bring together all three streams to achieve policy change.

Assessment has become an increasingly central aspect of teachers’ professional work, reshaping how teaching, learning, and evaluation are understood in everyday school practice. Scholars in education around the world suggest how teachers have to respond to these accountability claims in order to show effectiveness and quality, ultimately making school results the focus of education (Biesta, 2009; Irisdotter Aldenmyr et al., 2025). This has affected the teaching profession in several regards, changing core aspects of the institutional structures for teaching and even what it means to be a teacher (Ball, 2003).

This paper explores how teachers in Sweden navigate professionalism in relation to assessment in a school system characterized by a focus on school results. Drawing on focus group interviews with teachers across primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary education, the study aims at exploring how teachers in Sweden understand and enact professionalism in assessment, with particular attention to how their professional judgement is negotiated within institutional conditions shaping teaching and learning.

When the quality of schools, and even teachers, is defined in terms of measurable educational outcomes, there is a risk of teaching focusing on testing and grading, or what has been labelled “teaching to the test”, which, in turn, leads to tests gaining an ever-increasing role (Vogt, 2022), constructing a testing culture in schools (Birenbaum, 2016). Additionally, a school characterized by performance activities and excessive summative assessments is problematic as it often causes teacher stress (Lundahl, et al., 2022; Saeki et al., 2018; von der Embse et al., 2015) and put students learning and well-being at risk (Brolin Låftman et al., 2013; Hirsh, 2020; Luthar et al., 2020).

The study is grounded in sociological theories of professionalism and professional work, combined with research on teachers’ assessment practices and assessment literacy. Professionalism is understood not merely as the possession of formal knowledge or skills, but as a socially and institutionally situated practice shaped by norms, values, and expectations regarding appropriate professional behaviour (Freidson, 2001; Evetts, 2006, 2013). From this perspective, what counts as “professional” teaching is continuously negotiated within specific organizational and policy contexts. A key distinction is made between professionalism as enacted from within the profession and organizational professionalism which is defined from outside of the profession and based on bureaucratic logics and accountability activities (Evetts, 2013). This distinction is used to analyse how teachers’ assessment practices are influenced by institutional demands while still relying on teachers' professional judgement.

Teacher agency is conceptualized as relational and context-dependent, drawing on an ecological understanding of agency (Priestley et al., 2015). Teachers’ responses to assessment practices are thus seen as negotiated rather than uniform. To capture the complexity of assessment work, the analysis is further informed by the concept of assessment literacy (Pastore & Andrade, 2019), which distinguishes between conceptual, praxeological, and socio-emotional dimensions of assessment. This framework enables an examination of how teachers balance formal requirements with pedagogical concerns not forgetting ethical considerations and the pupils’ socio-emotional development. Together, these perspectives frame teacher professionalism in assessment as a dynamic process shaped by institutional conditions and pedagogical values.

Performance Level Descriptors (PLDs) are embedded in curriculum frameworks internationally to describe the quality of student achievement (Cizek & Bunch, 2007; Sadler, 1987). These frameworks respond to legitimate concerns about the limitations of numerical scores and provide a common language for describing achievement. However, existing approaches to PLDs face a persistent dilemma: they tend to be either too generic to guide classroom assessment or too holistic to provide diagnostic information (Sadler, 2009; Wyatt-Smith, Klenowski, & Colbert, 2014).
In Australia's New South Wales curriculum, for example, the Common Grade Scale describes achievement from A to E using broad descriptors such as "the student has an extensive knowledge and understanding of the content and can readily apply this knowledge" (Level A) or "a sound knowledge and understanding of the main areas of content" (Level C). While these descriptors provide consistent language for reporting, they do not specify what "extensive knowledge" or "sound understanding" looks like for particular subjects or curriculum outcomes. Subject-specific Course Performance Descriptors exist for some stages, but these describe holistic profiles of achievement - what an A student in English looks like overall - rather than differentiating components of performance or connecting to specific curriculum outcomes. Teachers are required to make holistic judgements without explicit inferential warrants (Wyatt-Smith, Klenowski, & Colbert, 2014). This challenge is common across standards-referenced systems internationally; the translation from generic descriptors to specific assessment judgements remains under-theorised (Dolin & Evans, 2017; Harlen, 2005). The tension between system-level consistency and classroom-level specificity is a global problem.
This paper addresses the question: How can Performance Level Descriptors be operationalised to support warranted teacher inference at the classroom level?
We propose a framework that addresses this gap by synthesising three research traditions. First, research on disciplinary competency dimensions identifies what constitutes competent performance across domains - factual knowledge, core concepts, disciplinary skills and practices, and metacognition (e.g., Liu, Rogat, & Bertling, 2013). Second, research on transfer and assessment of learning outcomes distinguishes levels of cognitive demand - from recall of presented material through application in new situations to solving novel problems (e.g., Mayer, 2011; Barnett & Ceci, 2002). Third, research on expressions of quality articulates intellectual standards that characterise quality thinking - clarity, precision, logic, accuracy, relevance, and depth (e.g., Paul & Elder, 2019). From this synthesis, we derive six components of performance level descriptions - knowledge integration and use, conceptual understanding, reasoning and metacognition, disciplinary practice, skill fluency, and communication - that apply across subjects while manifesting differently for different content.
We argue that valid inference from student performance to achievement level requires operationalisation at the intersection of these components and specific curriculum outcomes. Drawing on argument-based validity frameworks (Kane, 2013; Toulmin, 2003), we present a specification structure that makes explicit: (a) which curriculum outcomes are being assessed, (b) what each component means for those specific outcomes, (c) what observable evidence warrants each level of placement, and (d) the limits of generalisability from any single task. The specification documents the inferential argument, making visible the warrants that are typically implicit in teacher judgement.
The framework is demonstrated through an assessment task developed for Stage 2 (Years 3–4) students in NSW. The task integrates English outcomes (persuasive writing) with social studies curriculum outcomes (comparing conservation and sustainability; Aboriginal sustainable land management practices). The design process articulates what each PLD component looks like for these particular outcomes, and reveals how task conditions must be engineered to elicit evidence for specific component-outcome intersections and how readily a task can fail to create these conditions if designed generically.

Over the last 30 years, International Large-scale assessments have become ubiquitous in the field of education. They are often cited by researchers and policy makers as their source of information in support of their findings and policy recommendations. In addition to the assessment, these large-scale assessments collect a wealth of background and contextual information from the students, their parents, their teachers, and the principals of their school. The institutions conducting these large-scale assessments make these data available for secondary users, but due to the large amount of information collected, and the complex nature of their assessment and data collection designs, these are not always easy to figure out or navigate.

This workshop will provide participants with an overview of the main international large-scale assessments, their goals, the information available, and the main methods of analysis. It will also provide an overview of freely available software that can be used to navigate the complex structure of the data and the analysis setup. Contents covered will be the following:

• Large-scale assessments: what are they and why are they useful
• Overview of the main large-scale assessments (TIMSS, PIRLS, ICCS, ICILS, PISA, PIAAC)
• Description of the types and sources of information available: assessment results, background information and process data.
• Overview of the methods and procedures of data collection, and implications for the analysis
• Discussion of potential research questions that could be addressed using these data

The workshop will consist mostly of lectures, but will also dedicate ample time to answer questions from participants on the potential uses of large-scale assessment databases for secondary analysis. This workshop is ideal for emerging researchers looking for a source of data that would help answer research questions that will shape their careers.

Teacher educators operate in a distinctive professional space: they are teachers of teachers and therefore work in a “second-order” practice where what and how they teach is itself the message (Lunenberg, Dengerink, & Korthagen, 2013). This feature makes professional identity particularly salient, because teacher educators continuously “model” teaching while simultaneously explicating and legitimising their pedagogical choices (often framed as teach what you preach or modelling-based pedagogy). At the same time, teacher educators experience role tensions—e.g., educator and researcher, mentor and assessor/gatekeeper, curriculum developer and bridge-builder—which can fuel uncertainty and identity work (Lunenberg et al., 2013).

Identity development is not only cognitive but also moral and relational. Teacher educators, like teachers, build relationships of care and responsibility and enact value-laden professional judgments (Vanassche, 2016; Pols, 2018). Moreover, the profession is structurally vulnerable: many conditions that shape professional success remain only partly controllable, and judgments are often contested, sources of vulnerability that can be intensified in times of societal pressure and institutional change (Kelchtermans, 2023).

A promising way to access and support professional identity work is to focus on professional narratives. Storyline methods allow participants to visualise and narrate “highs and lows” across their trajectory, making identity tensions and meaning-making visible and discussable (Oolbekkink-Marchand, Meijer, & Lunenberg, 2021; Oolbekkink-Marchand & Meijer, 2022). This research workshop builds on that insight and offers a concrete, researchable protocol: a storyline-based focus conversation designed to generate rich qualitative data while safeguarding authenticity, collegiality, and participant ownership.

Aim and workshop format

The aim of the research workshop is twofold. Methodological learning: participants experience and critique a concrete method for conducting focus conversations on teacher educator professional identity that balances authenticity and data collection.

Experiential understanding: by applying the protocol, participants can feel what “works” (and what creates friction) in real time, providing immediate methodological feedback and refinement ideas.

During the workshop, participants will (a) create a short personal storyline, (b) participate in a facilitated focus conversation using the protocol, and (c) debrief analytically: What enabled authentic talk? Where did structure help or hinder? What kinds of identity data emerged (values, tensions, turning points, role negotiations), and how could these be coded or thematised?

This workshop is relevant for researchers studying teacher educators, identity development, and professional learning, and for those seeking robust, ethical ways to collect rich qualitative data in collegial settings.

This scoping review investigates the role of teachers' collaborative competence for Game-Based Learning (GBL), especially for primary education. Over the last 20 years, GBL has gained interest, above all, because it fosters student motivation. GBL is a complex pedagogical approach that lacks its own epistemology, although it is generally considered within the socio-constructivist paradigm. The complexity of this approach is due to its interdisciplinary nature, which requires insights from both game studies and instructional design. Moreover, GBL teachers utilize a variety of approaches and games, including Commercial off-the-shelf games, Serious Games designed for specific learning outcomes, but also opt for Student Game Design, since the act of creation itself fosters learning. Furthermore, teachers use games that range from the digital to the non-digital repertoire. This study excludes gamification, the application of game elements to non-game contexts, so as to maintain a strict focus on the use of actual games in the classroom. Despite its potential, numerous barriers persist for GBL implementation, including difficulties in aligning games with learning goals, a lack of technological openness, and the need for teachers to develop a lusory attitude. Consequently, Professional Development (PD) is essential to help teachers adapt to the unique roles required by GBL.

Grounded in Lave & Wenger’s Situated Learning Theory (1991), this study posits that teacher learning is a social practice embedded in specific educational contexts and communities. This study consequently looks into the current meaning of teacher communities, which are shaped by the professional needs and social dynamics of educators. These communities vary significantly, as they can be live or online and their nature changes based on their history, the frequency of their meetings, and the inclusion of non-teacher members, such as game experts and designers. Teacher collaboration and networking is considered only as a peripheral element in some GBL frameworks like Game Network Analysis (Foster et al., 2019) that focus on the technological and pedagogical knowledge. In contrast, the Nousiainen et al. (2018) model identifies Collaborative Competence as a fundamental pillar alongside pedagogical, technical, and creative skills and attitudes. Collaborative competence is framed as fundamental because it is key to overcome implementation barriers, thanks to the sharing of practical solutions among teachers. However, the collaborative competence defined within this framework treats online and offline training as if they fostered PD similarly, although sharing practices differ significantly in the two settings. By focusing on co-development and community networking, this review explores how teachers’ sharing of ideas, materials and difficulties helps them overcome doubts and fosters a deeper understanding and possible adoption of GBL pedagogy. Moreover, it looks into the specificities of on-site and off-site GBL teacher training.

Therefore, this review addresses three primary research questions: what facilitates GBL PD teacher collaborativeness, what effects collaborative GBL PD foster, and to what extent the Nousiainen model can be generalized.

This paper analyzes the tensions between researchers/teacher educators and practicing teachers in a collaborative project focused on diversity, multilingualism and social justice. The collaborative action research project involves teacher educators working in a teacher education program that explicitly emphasizes these themes. The primary aim is to deepen a common understanding of diversity, multilingualism and social justice within the teacher education program's profile. Specifically, it seeks to understand what characterizes a school that prioritizes these themes in its teaching and operations, as well as what defines collaborative learning in a partnership process involving teacher educators, partner schools, and teacher students.

In this study, diversity encompasses various dimensions, including language, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, gender, ability, and social class. Addressing each student’s uniqueness while adhering to principles of social justice presents challenges in everyday school settings. Social justice, rooted in equality, requires teachers to recognize the importance of norms and representation and to reflect on how power, oppression, and privilege manifest in society and educational contexts (Björkman & Bromseth, 2019; Gorski & Pothini, 2018).

Collaboration with schools where teacher students complete their internships is vital for teacher education programs. Effective partnerships demand consensus, open communication, and a mutual commitment to ongoing development, ensuring that students' internship experiences align with their overall education. This collaboration emphasizes collaborative learning and fosters a partnership for learning (cf. Day et al., 2021). Recognizing that different partners possess varied expertise is also essential for enriching the collaborative process.

The teacher educators involved in this project are active researchers in the field, while the teachers in partner schools are experts in didactic issues and relationships related to everyday school life. Teacher students should have opportunities to develop research-based knowledge in these profile areas during both theoretical courses and internship periods.

In an equitable and mutually reinforcing teacher-researcher collaboration, the ideal is for teachers' reflections and critical questions to continuously enhance and challenge researchers' understandings, while researchers support teachers in their professional development as lifelong learners (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). The study assumes that the development work is partnership-based. Although these partnerships are founded on mutual respect, they are not devoid of potential tensions regarding expectations of professional roles and developmental tasks.

This research focuses on the tensions that arise when both parties discuss issues related to diversity, multilingualism and social justice in a school context. The material consists of 26 transcribed interviews and discussions. The research question is: What kinds of tensions regarding issues of diversity, multilingualism and social justice have been identified in the research collaboration between university researchers and teachers in local schools?

Theoretically and conceptually, we start from the concept of tension. Alsup (2006) identifies various types of tensions in the teacher education context, including those between personal beliefs, skills, and professional role expectations. In this study, tensions are understood broadly to encompass challenges, struggles, frustrations, and general discomfort related to the issues at hand, in line with the definition used in Capello (2020). Previous research indicates that these tensions generate a need for professional identity development and become apparent in interactions between perceived present and future selves, as well as in romanticized perceptions of the teacher and school reality (Anspal et al., 2019; Schatz-Oppenheimer & Dvir, 2014).

The collaborative work studied falls within the framework of a partner school network, reflecting the diverse systems for student teachers' practice found across Europe. Recognizing these different structures and systems is essential, as they influence the opportunities for effective teacher-researcher collaboration and shape the experiences of student teachers during their internships.

The early years of teaching constitute a critical period during which professional identity, instructional competence, and long-term career trajectories are shaped. Entry into the profession, however, is frequently experienced as a demanding and emotionally taxing transition for beginning teachers (UNESCO, 2024), commonly defined as those with fewer than five years of teaching experience. Early-career teachers (ECTs) often confront a complex set of professional expectations that extend well beyond those encountered during pre-service preparation. These include managing diverse classrooms, responding to accountability pressures, engaging with parents and communities, and navigating school cultures that may offer limited structured support. As a result, many ECTs enter the profession feeling insufficiently prepared for the realities of contemporary schooling and the opportunities for Professional growth. There is evidence that ECTs’ Professional Development has a strong alignment with teaching commitment (Nakata et al., 2026), and ECTs’ retention (Mason & Poyatos, 2015).

Evidence from Australia and across Europe suggests that this vulnerability is systemic rather than context-specific. In countries such as England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, ECTs report high workloads, role ambiguity, and uneven access to induction and mentoring support. Despite variations in teacher education systems and policy frameworks, international research consistently identifies the early-career phase as a period of heightened risk of stress, burnout, and attrition. First-year teaching experiences are particularly influential, as they shape teachers’ instructional practices, professional confidence, and attitudes towards the profession in enduring ways. Negative early experiences can lead to disengagement and early exit, while supportive conditions can foster resilience and sustained commitment (Ronfeldt & McQueen,2017).

For many first-year teachers, the transition from pre-service preparation to full professional responsibility is experienced as abrupt and isolating. Feelings of uncertainty, professional loneliness, and self-doubt are commonly reported, particularly in schools with weak collaborative cultures or where ECTs are assigned challenging teaching loads. These experiences have significant implications for teacher well-being, with consequences not only for individual teachers but also for broader school functioning, including staff stability, collegial relationships, and continuity of student learning. Supporting ECTs during this formative period is therefore both a workforce sustainability issue and an educational quality issue.

Identifying the factors that enable ECTs to navigate the early years of teaching is essential for promoting long-term well-being and professional growth. Professional learning (PL) is widely promoted in policy discourse in New South Wales (NSW) and across European education systems as a key mechanism for supporting early-career development. Induction programmes, mentoring initiatives, and school-based professional learning communities are intended to enhance teachers’ motivation, adaptability, and instructional capacity. However, there remains a limited empirical understanding of how PL functions as a lived experience for ECTs. In particular, it is unclear under what conditions professional learning operates as a meaningful resource rather than an additional demand (Trust & Prestridge, 2021)

This study addresses this gap by examining professional learning through the lens of Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory. This theory provides a robust framework for understanding how workplace demands interact with available resources to shape employee wellbeing, engagement, and performance (Bakker et al., 2014). Applied to early career teaching, the theory enables an examination of whether and how professional learning mitigates job demands such as workload intensity, emotional labour, and role uncertainty, or alternatively, exacerbates stress when poorly aligned with ECTs’ needs (Sincock et al., 2026). By employing a qualitative case study approach in NSW schools, this project seeks to generate in-depth insights into how ECTs experience professional learning as a potential well-being resource. The findings are expected to have implications beyond the Australian context, informing policy and practice in European systems similarly concerned with early-career teacher well-being, retention, and sustainable professional growth.

Multicultural education has become increasingly significant in contemporary classrooms, shaping how educators address equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive teaching (Banks, 2004; Gay, 2002). Across Europe and internationally, migration, mobility, and demographic change have increased cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity in schools, requiring teachers to interpret classroom interaction within varied sociocultural norms (Gay, 2002; Gorski, 2010). Importantly, classroom behaviour does not carry fixed pedagogical meaning: the same observable event may be interpreted differently across cultural contexts. This calls why teachers need situation-specific competencies to interpret classroom events equitably in multicultural settings (Gay, 2018; Ladson-Billings, 1995).

Teachers’ interpretations of culturally patterned behaviour are shaped not only by professional knowledge but also by beliefs, instructional self-efficacy, cultural background, exposure to diversity, and institutional norms (Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 2003; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). Years of experience are not equivalent to experience in culturally diverse classrooms; without explicit engagement with diversity, professional experience may reinforce dominant norms and lead to systematic misinterpretation and inequitable responses (Gay, 2018; Santamaria, 2009; Villegas & Lucas, 2002). This issue is highly relevant to European debates on equity, inclusion, and teacher preparedness for diverse learners.

Against this background, this study presents a scoping review of teacher professional vision (TPV) in multicultural classrooms. TPV is defined as teachers’ situation-specific capacity to selectively attend to instructionally relevant classroom events (perception), interpret these events using professional knowledge and instructional goals (interpretation), and consider possible pedagogical responses (decision-making) (Sherin, 2001; van Es & Sherin, 2008). While professional vision research often distinguishes noticing and reasoning (Blomberg et al., 2011; Sherin & van Es, 2009), this review treats TPV as an overarching construct encompassing perception, interpretation, and response consideration. Teacher noticing is used narrowly to refer to the perceptual component of TPV, consistent with prior work distinguishing selective attention from interpretive reasoning (van Es & Sherin, 2002; Sherin & van Es, 2009). This mapping is necessary because reviewed studies use diverse terminology (e.g., attending, selective attention, gaze behaviour), especially in eye-tracking research (Jacobs et al., 2010; Stahnke et al., 2016).

The review is grounded in Goodwin’s (1994) sociocultural account of professional vision as socially shared expertise shaped by historically situated norms of practice. Because professional ways of seeing are not culturally neutral, teachers’ socially learned “ways of seeing” may not align with students’ culturally patterned participation, increasing the likelihood of bias in interpretation. Building on this account, the review applies the Perception-Interpretation-Decision model (PID) as an integrative framework (Blömeke et al., 2015), conceptualizing TPV as part of a competence continuum linking situation-specific skills with resources such as beliefs, self-efficacy, and experience. This framework supports international interpretation by making visible how cultural-contextual norms interact with teachers’ competence resources.

A multicultural classroom is defined as an instructional context in which cultural, linguistic, ethnic, or migratory diversity among students is substantively relevant to teaching and learning (Banks, 2004). The review addresses three research questions:
(RQ1) How is TPV analysed and operationalized in multicultural classroom research?
(RQ2) Which individual and contextual factors (e.g., beliefs, self-efficacy, teaching experience, cultural context) are associated with variation in TPV?
(RQ3) Which professional development designs and methodological approaches are used to support or examine TPV in culturally diverse contexts?

Analyzing evidence across European and international studies, this review contributes to conceptual clarity in TPV research, identification of methodological and contextual gaps, and guidance for teacher education and professional development. Practically, it informs European and international teacher-education agendas by highlighting the need for structured learning opportunities that support teachers’ culturally responsive interpretation and equitable instructional decision-making.

In a period of “poly-crisis”, including climate change, democratic backsliding, and rising nationalism, teacher education is expected to prepare future teachers to engage learners with global challenges. In this context, the concepts of agency and global citizenship are recognised as crucial capacities for pre-service teachers as they are expected to be globally conscious and socially responsible educators in diverse and interconnected settings (Goren & Yemini, 2017). Influenced by Bandura’s social cognitive theory, agency is conceptualised as a dynamic process, and it is shaped by perceived self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, and self-evaluative practices (Bandura, 1989). Global citizenship is defined as awareness of one’s role as a world citizen, valuing cultural diversity, understanding global interdependencies and interconnectedness, and further taking responsibility for action towards social justice and sustainability (Hartung, 2017; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013; UNESCO, 2015). Moreover, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) directly introduce global citizenship as SDG 4, Target 4.7 states that every learner should be provided with knowledge and skills required to foster sustainable development, and global citizenship is one of the associated competencies (United Nations, 2023). As a result, higher education institutions can be placed as key stakeholders in the achievement of SDG 4.7 by helping pre-service teachers to perceive themselves as a part of a broader global community and to use their pedagogical knowledge and skills in a manner that fosters global wellbeing and sustainability.

Building on this perspective, the present study examines whether pre-service teachers’ multi-measure agentic personality traits of self-esteem, purpose in life, internal focus of control, and self-efficacy predict their global citizenship, including social responsibility, global competence, and global civic engagement. Accordingly, the research aims to explore the structural relationships between pre-service teachers’ multi-measure agentic personality traits and their levels of global citizenship and its subdimensions. This study is significant because it adopts a structural approach to clarify whether pre-service teachers’ agency is a meaningful predictor of global citizenship, which has only been examined in a limited number of studies. By modelling these relationships, the study explains why some pre-service teachers can translate global awareness into social responsibility and civic engagement, while others are not. This study provides implications for teacher education curricula and support mechanisms. Particularly, the results on the predictive role of agentic personality can help teacher education programmes design targeted interventions to enhance both teacher development and outcomes of global citizenship education.

There has been an increase in the international mobility of teachers in recent decades (Caravatti et al. 2014) However, teacher certificates are often tied to national borders and are not (fully) recognized in other national contexts (Krause et al. 2023). This contribution suggests that the non-recognition results from the teaching profession being still a “national” profession, closely linked to the process of nation-building (Tröhler 2019).

Previous research on international teacher mobility in Germany has addressed many crucial aspects, e.g., the recognition in society (Terhart H. 2022), the acquisition of the professional language (Lialiou et al. 2024) and the recognition of their certificates (George 2021, Schüssler et al. 2023, Wojciechowicz & Vock 2024). So far, the recognition of certificates has mainly been considered from the perspective of teachers trained abroad, highlighting – amongst other things – the following aspects:

• Difficulty to provide the required documents (George 2021)
• Lack of transparency of the recognition procedure (George 2021, Wojciechowicz & Vock 2024)
• Structural differences in teacher education as decisive difference (Schüssler et al. 2023, Wojciechowicz & Vock 2024).

However, research lacks a comprehensive description of the recognition procedure from the perspective of the competent persons. This study focuses on the recognition procedure for teaching qualifications acquired abroad in Germany from the perspective of the responsible persons. This is highly relevant for two reasons: on the one hand, competent authorities have a margin of discretion when deciding about non-recognition – not only in the teaching profession (Rakhkochkine & Müller 2014, Sommer 2015). Hence, to gain a deeper understanding onto how the margin of discretion is exercised when deciding about the (non-)recognition of foreign teaching qualifications, the perspective of the responsible persons is decisive. On the other hand, since previous research suggests responsible persons’ understanding of the teaching profession is influential for the decision (Rakhkochkine & Müller 2014, Sommer 2015). However, how those responsible for recognition in Germany understand teacher professionalism remains unknown.

The study itself does not adopt one single definition of teacher professionalism but instead acknowledges the fact that there are different approaches to teacher professionalism (Terhart E. 2022), that can also be influenced by the (educational policy) context (Blömeke & Kaiser 2017; Tröhler 2019). Therefore, it is hardly possible to determine a universally valid definition. The study aims to describe the recognition practice and to reveal the understanding of teacher professionalism in the recognition procedure in Germany. In this study, the recognition procedure is characterized as a form of teacher assessment. Two strands of educational research on teacher assessment can be distinguished (König 2020): First, the identification of a teacher’s core task in relation to the (national) context and the focus on necessary competencies to fulfill these tasks. Secondly, the analysis of the assessment, which focuses i.a. the preparation of the assessors and, in particular, the underlying conceptions of teacher professionalism. The presentation is related to the later and addresses the following questions:

• “How is the recognition procedure carried out in practice?”
• “How is teacher professionalism understood by the recognizing persons in the recognition procedure?”

The research is expected to provide a description of the recognition process by outlining both the procedure for assessing foreign qualifications and the underlying understanding of teacher professionalism, thus providing information on how decisions on (non-)recognition is made. By focusing on the reasons for (non-)recognition, the study deepens the understanding of why international/European mobility is more complicated for teachers compared to other professions (e.g., doctors).

While globalisation has increased mobility and demographic developments, technological advancements bridge continents and creating arenas for cultural exchanges. Within the Finnish context, these developments have manifested growing demands for intercultural and linguistic competences as student cohorts and population has become increasingly diverse (e.g., Calenda et al., 2018; Hummelstedt-Djedou et al., 2018). This development can be also seen in the polarisation and populistic tendencies of public arenas and political interactions. Attempts to counter the precautions are slow, but our objectives, strategies, and expectations for higher education institutions call for cultural and linguistic competences understanding diversity.

Even though digital tools and solutions, including AI agents and automated translations, are beneficial in addressing various linguistic and even cultural challenges, there is an increased and almost overwhelming need for increased intercultural and linguistic awareness training in education and professional development (e.g. Helm, 2015). In Finland, the educational field and profession – including pedagogical qualifications – remains protected with restricted access typically granted only through rigorous application processes that have historically required proficiency in Finnish or Swedish (Saarinen, 2014). While importance of national languages has not diminished, quite on the contrary, this creates a dichotomy and division that separates competences and interests while the previously emphasised competences are no longer sufficient in the contemporary environment. For an attempt to create a sustainable society and educational system, we need something more.

Contemporary discussions and developments increasingly emphasise the need for internationalisation and home internationalisation (e.g. Weimer et al., 2019). This has created a slow development in options and offerings that have emerged and are often emphasised and called for in strategy, mission and vision statements of e.g. universities. But still, too many in student populations as well as staff still mistakenly conflate international, intercultural and linguistic competences as something not important for teachers. At times, internationalisation is simply conflated with exchange programs. In a performance-oriented culture, directing our attention, energy, and focus, we need to explicitly address and almost enforce our values and attitudes in policy papers. Especially, if we wish to fill the task to educate students to serve their country and humanity at large as the universities act directs.

As of November 21^st, 2025, the StudyInfo.fi portal lists eight programmes found with search term ‘pedagogical studies’ in English and twenty-four in Finnish. However, these initiatives are often separate and disconnected from one another and especially disconnected from Finnish-medium programmes creating a dichotomy of competences. We talk about diversity but cannot facilitate a genuine interaction and exchange to address and educate competences related to it. This has also been the situation at our university, where long tradition in providing pedagogical training in Finnish exists, but only lately, broader attempts to do same in other linguistic arrangements have emerged. It is important to make a deliberate attempt to critically reflect and rethink, rearrange and even unlearn existing conflated meanings and interpretations relating linguistic and intercultural competences relating internationalisation (e.g. Aarnikoivu et al., 2025).

This study investigates the experiences and interpretations of students in a year-long pedagogical intermediate studies programme that provides teachers qualification in Finland, which utilises a mix of bilingual (Finnish and English), flexible language, and monolingual practices and interactions within one programme. This marks the first occasion on which English-medium instruction and interaction have been introduced to the programme at this level. By employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), aim is to understand the lived experiences and interpretations of students (Hartman & Squires, 2024). The findings will contribute to the educational design and development of this teacher education programme, as well as further elaborate adult pedagogical theory and practice.

This study examines how subject-based instruction contributes to language development and tolerance formation in a multicultural upper secondary classroom within a trilingual educational context. The study addresses the following research questions: How does sustained subject teaching support students’ adaptation to Kazakh-medium instruction? In what ways do subject lessons contribute to the development of tolerance and intercultural understanding in a multilingual classroom?

The research is grounded in theoretical perspectives on content-based language learning and sociocultural theory. Content-based and subject-based language learning frameworks emphasise the integration of language development with disciplinary knowledge, suggesting that academic language emerges most effectively through meaningful engagement with subject content. From a sociocultural perspective, learning is understood as a socially mediated process in which interaction, collaboration, and guided participation play central roles in cognitive and linguistic development.

The study is further informed by theories of intercultural education and value-oriented pedagogy, which highlight the role of schooling in fostering mutual respect, civic responsibility, and inclusive social relations in culturally diverse contexts. Within this framework, tolerance is conceptualised not as a passive attitude but as an outcome of sustained pedagogical practice, reflective dialogue, and structured interaction among learners.

Empirically, the study draws on a longitudinal case study conducted at a Nazarbayev Intellectual School in Kazakhstan. The focal group consists of a Grade 11 class of 23 students from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Kazakh, Russian, Uyghur, Uzbek, Korean, and Chinese learners. A substantial proportion of the students had not previously studied academic subjects in Kazakh, which initially created linguistic and academic challenges in history, geography, and language lessons.

The European and international relevance of the study lies in its contribution to current debates on multilingual and multicultural education. Across European educational systems, schools increasingly face the challenge of integrating linguistically and culturally diverse learners into mainstream subject instruction. The study offers insights into how subject-based teaching can function as a bridge between language learning and value education, supporting both academic achievement and social cohesion.

By linking teachers’ instructional decisions to students’ evolving linguistic and social outcomes, the study aligns closely with the ECER 2026 theme “Knowing and Acting” and contributes to international discussions on teacher agency, inclusive education, and the transformative potential of subject teaching in multilingual learning environments.

The study presented in this paper is set in one of Europe’s linguistically most diverse regions: Germany’s Ruhr Area in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), where about half of all learners at school age speak a home language other than the language of instruction (LIT NRW 2024). Local demands and the discourse surrounding the necessity to prepare future teachers for multilingual learner groups differ immensely across the globe (Wernicke et al. 2021). In NRW, all pre-service teachers are obligated to attend courses on German as an additional language (GAL) and multilingualism during their university education. This paper addresses a programme for prospective middle school teachers, in which pre-service teachers attend two compulsory modules with an overall workload of 360 hours (12 CP/ECTS). The GAL module typically covers topics such as multilingual and second language acquisition, specialised language (e.g. BICS and CALP), language diagnostics, different approaches and methods of language education or linguistically-responsive teaching (amongst others).

The study is based on an inclusive understanding of multilingualism (Schroedler 2021), including the overall linguistic diversity of learning groups, for example migration related multilingualism, but also register differences within one language. Research shows that especially those learners who struggle to meet the monolingual norms of school systems experience educational inequality (Henschel et al. 2022).

We use Kaiser & König‘s (2019) model of teacher competence as the main reference to describe competence development. This model divides competence into cognitive, affective-motivational competence (beliefs are part of this category) and teaching practice. Borg (2001) describes beliefs as a mental state of propositions. Regarding the change of teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism, there are several studies that report a positive development of beliefs related to teacher education (Kirsch & Aleksić 2018, Schroedler et al. 2023). A number of studies point out that teachers’ beliefs depict a complex personal interweaving (Fives & Buehl 2012). This implies that the development of affective-motivational competence needs to be understood in a more precise manner. From the theoretical and empirical framework described above, we generate the following research question for this paper:

1. How do different facets of pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism develop throughout their university education?
2. Which background factors of their (professional) biography affect the development and how?

We assume that pre-service teachers’ competence concerning teaching in multilingual contexts, in particular professional beliefs, become more welcoming towards multilingualism across their teacher education programme. The study aims to create a better understanding of pre-service teachers’ affective-motivational competence development with regard to teaching in multilingual classroom settings. Furthermore, the systematic data collection provides evidence-based information on how the teacher education curriculum can be improved in terms of its components addressing linguistic diversity in education.

Two full cohorts of pre-service teachers (n=504) in a large German teacher education programme participated in four measurements across their five-year university course. Beliefs about multilingualism at school were measured with an instrument by Fischer (2018) that operationalises beliefs in three scales: 1) multilingualism in the home, 2) multilingualism in teaching and 3) teacher responsibility for providing language support (research question one). In addition, correlations between pre-service teachers’ competence development and their biography have been analysed (research question 2).

While all scales’ development between t1 and t3 turns out to be significant, development between t3 and t4 is only significant for scale 2 (question one). The most striking correlation lies between the students’ motivation at t1 and their development of beliefs in scale 2 and scale 3 (question two). The paper will present these results in further detail, critically discuss the findings and relate them to research on teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism in different international settings.

Effective teachers are capable of self-evaluation, a competence developed through heightened awareness of one’s own practices and clear self-assessment criteria (Dewey, 1933). Kolb (1984)’s Experiential Learning Theory posits that teachers construct their personal theories by reflecting on their experiences; thus, reflection activates essential skills such as planning, problem-solving, analysis, evaluation, and informed decision-making. Likewise, Roberts (2016) argues that experience alone is not adequate for meaningful learning unless it is interpreted through personal reflection and dialogue. Grounded in these perspectives, reflective practice has been regarded as one of the most effective tools for supporting prospective teachers’ professional development within the social constructivist framework of teacher education. In this view, learning is addressed as a dynamic, meaning-making process developed through experience, in which knowledge of teaching is constructed by examining one’s own instructional practices with the help of systematic thinking. In this regard, reflective practice has been highly recommended for teacher education programs to yield the necessary reflective skills to reflect on among students (Freeman, 2002). The use of reflection is also suggested to overcome the dichotomy of theory and practice (Lee, 2008), and studies examining the impacts of reflective practice on PSLT education have catered for numerous advantages on teacher development (e.g., Eröz-Tuğa, 2013; Liou, 2000). Despite their clear benefits, reflective skills are neither innate dispositions nor abilities that naturally develop through individual experience (Gelter, 2003). Rather, they need to be deliberately fostered through explicit instruction (Gelter, 2003). Learners should be guided in how to engage in reflection by means of authentic reflective tasks embedded within a structured reflective framework (Williams & Grudnoff, 2011).

In language teacher education, for pre-service language teachers (PSLT), systematically reviewing and evaluating their own classroom practices is also crucial for developing awareness of the multiple variables shaping teaching, as experience gains value only when critically examined. Accordingly, recalling incidents encountered during macro teaching enables PSLTs to analyze their experiences more directly and meaningfully. In that sense, integration of critical reflective practices in language teacher education programs, in particular, into practice teaching courses where PSLTs perform their macro teachings has been a necessity (Hamiloğlu, 2013).

In contrast to the widespread emphasis on reflection in language teacher education, language teacher education programs were criticized as they did not take the critical role of reflection on teaching practices in the knowledge production process (Freeman & Richards, 1993; Wallace, 1991). Rather, these programs focused on the development of abstract and decontextualized scientific knowledge (Bruner, 1990). Hitherto, studies indicated the lack of reflective skills among prospective teachers (Azeem, 2011; Khanam, 2015), and prospective teachers were not found to be successful while engaging in critical reflection on their experiences (Turhan & Kirkgoz, 2021). Likewise, the utilization of reflective tasks in the practicum process in the Turkish language teacher education context has been quite limited. Only a few intervention studies investigated their impacts on language teacher development (Bener & Yıldız, 2019; Eröz-Tuğa, 2013; Tavil, 2014), and these studies were far from suggesting reflective tasks for the use of language teacher education programs. In this regard, to address the need of structured, task-based reflective tools, this study designed and implemented a reflective task that PSLTs could make use of during the practicum process for their macro teaching experiences with a needs analysis-based research design. Followingly, the study evaluated the effectiveness of the task.

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is being approached on a multi-level scale, exploring its implementation on different educational contexts, including Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (e.g. Andersson, 2017). In Sweden, different curricular modifications have attempted to implement sustainability as a goal that pertains to all subject areas. In doing this, it is emphasized how the role of educators and teaching aims to contribute to students’ understanding on how the structure of societies and people’s work shapes sustainable development (Skolverket, 2022). Nevertheless, teachers face challenges rooted in the perception and interpretation they have about ESD on different subjects (e.g. Skolinspektion, 2023), and pre-service teacher education in Sweden struggles to motivate value-based and beyond-knowledge conversations that foster responsibility and positive attitudes towards sustainable development (SD) (Andersson et al., 2013; Cederqvist & Högström, 2025).

Responsibility has a central role in the transformation of educational approaches, moving from the individual action to the responsibility towards the social collective (Eschenbacher & Levine, 2022: Fleming, 2022). Fleming (2018) points out how transformative education as conceived by Mezirow (1997) and with Habermas’ influence (2008) is intended to address the “boundaries of systems to humanize and transform them so that they operate in the interest of all” (p.9). Responsibility not only pertains to the act of engaging in discourse critically, but also being able to modify one’s assumptions, biases or taken-for granted ideas, which constitutes the lifeworld in Habermas’ work in the face of someone else’s experiences or criticism.

Engaging in transformative educational practices could serve to disrupt dominant ways of thinking in education (Jickling & Sterling, 2017). An ever-growing body of research literature points out to the importance of providing pre-service teachers with learning experiences that connect to real-world sustainability issues (e.g. Tillmanns et al, 2017; Yavuzkaya et al., 2024). In this abstract, we highlight the opportunities that interactive visualization can provide to foster competencies connected to sustainability and enhance pro-environmental behaviours among young university students (see also González-Muñoz et al., 2024), founded upon the results of a previous study where we explored the implementation of a dialogical, interactive-visual-based intervention. The results of the first study revealed the complexity of navigating sustainability issues, the effect of interactive visualization in raising awareness and influencing affective responses, and pre-service teachers’ views on responsibility to deal with sustainability issues (Author 1).

More research needs to be done to explore how Swedish pre-service teacher education enables future science educators to address sustainability-related issues on from a transformative, critical perspective. The current paper explores visualization-based ‘disruptive’ opportunities for prospective Swedish science studies teachers to address responsibility regarding sustainability-related issues on a holistic level (Sterling, 2001; Tillmanns, 2020). We conducted a group case intervention that enables dialogue-driven interactions with visually communicated local and global sustainability issues. As stated earlier, this study builds up on the outcomes of earlier studies, particularly the different views on responsibility (Author 1) and approaches it through the lenses of the ‘disruptive learning theory’ (Tillmanns et al., 2017; Tillmanns, 2020), rooted in transformative learning (Mezirow, 1997) and deep learning or ‘third order learning’ (Sterling, 2001). Using Disruptive Learning as the lense through which we assess the features of interactive visualizations adds nuance and value to creating interventions for pre-service science teachers while encountering sustainability issues in their training. The study responds to the following research question:

How does ‘disruption’ through interactive visualization interventions in pre-service science teacher education influence pre-service teachers sense of ‘responsibility’ toward sustainability issues?

With the process of globalization, the rapid dissemination of scientific and technological developments has significantly transformed individuals’ lifestyles. While in the past individuals were required to expend greater physical and mental effort to meet their basic needs, today they are able to meet their physical needs more easily, access information rapidly and multidimensionally, and use this information functionally in their daily lives. Although scientific and technological developments facilitate a more productive and effective life, individuals also face various problems. Some of these problems have persisted throughout history, whereas others have emerged specifically in the 21st century. One of the most prominent of these problems is violence.

Violence, encountered daily through television, news media, internet platforms, films, streets, schools, workplaces, hospitals, and homes, is a phenomenon that undermines human dignity, restricts human rights and freedoms, disrupts social peace, and threatens human life. In Latin, the concept derives from violentia, which refers to hardness, cruelty, and power (Polat, 2001). In the literature, violence is defined in various ways. According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002), violence refers to the intentional use of physical force or power against oneself, another person, or a group or community that results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, deprivation, or impairment. As these definitions indicate, the primary purpose of violence is to cause physical or psychological harm to others. Among the various forms of violence discussed in the literature, peer bullying occupies a significant place.

Peer bullying, as a reflection of violence in schools, is defined as deliberate and intentional aggressive behavior based on an imbalance of power between peers. These aggressive behaviors may be carried out physically or verbally (Olweus, 1993). Studies on peer bullying indicate that it manifests in forms such as social exclusion (relational bullying), physical bullying, and verbal bullying (Küpeli, 2020). With the widespread use of the internet and the emergence of social media, cyberbullying has also been added to these forms of bullying.

Peer bullying differs from other forms of violence in several respects. These include the fact that both the perpetrator and the victim are peers, the perpetrator is more powerful than the victim, and the bullying behavior is intentional and repetitive (Pişkin, 2002). Children exposed to peer bullying may exhibit both physical and psychological symptoms, including school avoidance, decreased academic achievement, physical injuries, engaging in bullying behaviors themselves, and discomfort within the school environment. Teachers are among the most important stakeholders in preventing peer bullying. Schools are institutions where individuals receive systematic, planned, and scientific education after the family. Through teachers, individuals are prepared for subsequent educational stages and acquire fundamental knowledge, skills, values, and positive habits related to life.

Preschool teachers and primary school teachers, in particular, serve as significant role models for children. After family members, teachers are the first individuals whom children value and take as role models. Consequently, preschool and primary school teachers are professionals who are expected to encounter and intervene in cases of peer bullying. Therefore, the aim of this study is to reveal the experiences and responses of pre-service preschool teachers and pre-service primary school teachers regarding peer bullying.

Within this framework, the following research questions were addressed:

• How do pre-service primary school teachers and pre-service preschool teachers define the concept of peer bullying?
• According to pre-service teachers, how does peer bullying manifest in preschool institutions and primary schools?
• How do pre-service teachers respond to peer bullying scenarios?
• What types of intervention strategies do pre-service teachers employ in cases of peer bullying?
• What recommendations do pre-service teachers offer regarding peer bullying?

Governanve meeting

Quality assurance (QA) in higher education is important for maintaining academic standards, improving teaching and learning, and ensuring that education meets societal and labor-market needs (ENQA, 2015; Harvey & Green, 1993). QA is especially important for work-integrated learning (WIL) and cooperative education, as these programs depend on close cooperation between universities, industry, and other stakeholders (Khampirat & Rudzinska, 2025; Rowe & Zegwaard, 2017).

QA systems are usually developed based on national regulations and institutional priorities, with a focus on curricula, teaching and learning processes, and learning outcomes (Stensaker, 2008; Vlasceanu et al., 2007). Although higher education is becoming more international, many QA studies still focus on single-country contexts. Comparative research, particularly on quality culture and stakeholder involvement, remains limited (Alzafari & Ursin, 2019). This shows the need for studies that look beyond formal QA procedures and examine how stakeholders take part in QA processes (Leal et al., 2025).

In Europe, QA is often criticized for focusing more on accountability and compliance than on real quality improvement, which may limit its developmental role (Harvey, 2024; Deem et al., 2007). In contrast, studies from Asian higher education systems show that quality culture can support institutional improvement. Research from Taiwan and other Asian contexts suggests that shared values, collective responsibility, and continuous improvement can strengthen QA and complement external quality requirements (Hsu, 2023; Lim, 2018).

Against this background, this study compares QA culture and stakeholder involvement in higher education in Latvia and Thailand. The comparison helps explain how quality assurance is understood and practiced in different contexts, and how stakeholder engagement can be improved to support meaningful quality improvement.

Objectives

This study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of Quality Assurance (QA) systems and Quality Culture (QC) in the higher education in Thailand and Latvia, with particular attention to stakeholder involvement in QA processes.

Research Questions

RQ1 What are key similarities and differences between quality culture in higher education in Thailand and Latvia.

RQ2 How does stakeholder involvement in QA in higher education in Thailand and Latvia differ.

Theoretical Framework and Context

- This study is grounded in Quality Assurance (QA) theory, which emphasizes continuous improvement, stakeholder involvement, and accountability as core principles for enhancing educational quality (Tetteh et al., 2021). QA is viewed not only as a system of control but also as a developmental process that supports learning improvement and institutional effectiveness.

- In Latvia, as a member of the European Union, higher education quality assurance follows the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). The ESG promotes student-centered learning, internal quality culture, and periodic external quality reviews (Academic Information Centre, 2019; ENQA, 2015).

- In Thailand, quality assurance is guided by the Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF: HEd), which focuses on learning outcomes, curriculum alignment, and stakeholder engagement to support educational relevance and employability (Khampirat et al., 2020).

- This comparative study examines QA systems and quality culture in these two contexts to better understand how different frameworks shape stakeholder involvement and quality enhancement in higher education.

The Globe has witnessed a significant rise in violent conflicts in the past three decades (United Nations, 2019). Based on a report by the United Nations (2022), nearly a quarter of the world will be residing in conflict and war areas by the end of 2030. Given this outlook, policymakers and international organizations implement interventions in the education field to empower individuals in these situations to promote development and ultimately attain peace and conflict resolution (Burde et al., 2017). Nevertheless, the quality of the provided higher education in such contexts remains under-theorised. To elaborate, keeping high quality standards in higher education requires strong institutions, robust infrastructure, effective pedagogy, sustained academic governance, and clear progression pathways for students. Yet these basic requirements are violated during conflict, emergencies, and crises. The Inter‑Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Minimum Standards (2024) provides guide for education in crises, though most scholarship continues to focus on primary and secondary levels, rather than on higher education amid war (Burde et al., 2017; Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies, 2024). This gap is especially profound amid "educide" where infrastructure, staffing, and institutional stability are under direct assault (Alousi, 2022; Iriqat et al., 2025). The case of higher education in the Gaza strip exemplifies the severity of this gap. Since October 2023, this sector has faced relentless bombardment, mass displacement of students and faculty, and the collapse of essential services. Despite these conditions, universities in the Gaza strip resumed academic instruction online in May 2024. People in the Gaza strip see particular importance of education and higher education both for individuals whose aspirations are under threat and for societies striving to maintain the intellectual and professional capacity necessary for recovery (Aboudagga & Al-Mqadma, 2025; Al-Mqadma et al., 2024). There is limited literature available that have focused on the impact of war on higher education institutions, students, and academics in Gaza (Al-Mqadma et al., 2024; Iriqat et al., 2025; Junina, 2025), but none focused on how these institutions could maintain quality education during wartime.

This study addresses this gap by examining the experiences of two teachers (first and second authors) engaged in co-teaching a postgraduate course online during the 2024–2025 academic year. It further explores how these adaptations align with the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, ensuring that the educational response meets recognized international benchmarks for quality and accessibility. The current study is guided by the following research questions (RQs):

RQ1. To what extent do teaching and learning practices in wartime align with INEE Minimum Standards?

RQ2. How can wartime teaching and learning experiences inform the enhancement of INEE standards in higher education?

Digital Transformation (DT) in Higher Education (HE) has consolidated hybrid and flexible learning as core components of institutional strategies (De Bem Machado et al., 2024). This shift towards the adoption of intentional digital models is now challenging long-standing assumptions about teaching, learning and educational quality. While technological infrastructures and platforms have rapidly expanded, pedagogical practices have often evolved more slowly, resulting in a persistent misalignment between digitally mediated learning environments and the educational needs of contemporary students.

This tension reflects a broader challenge: quality in digital education is a multidimensional and debated construct, shaped by the interaction of pedagogical, technological, and institutional dimensions (Esfijani, 2018).

In practice, institutional approaches to quality tend to privilege evaluation, accreditation, and standardisation processes at the programme or organisational level. Although these mechanisms play an important role in accountability, they frequently remain disconnected from educators’ everyday teaching practices and from the lived learning experiences of students. As a result, quality is typically perceived as an external requirement rather than as a driver capable of supporting teaching innovation and professional growth.

At the same time, HEIs are increasingly expected to respond to social and economic demands for more flexible, inclusive, and relevant forms of learning. Students seek learning experiences that support not only academic achievement but also employability, continuous professional development, and lifelong learning. High-quality course design, therefore, extends beyond issues of engagement and retention; it becomes central to fostering learner agency, self-regulated learning, and meaningful connections between academic learning and real-world challenges (Lowenthal & Davidson-Shivers, 2019). Addressing these expectations requires a pedagogical reconfiguration of teaching practices.

Within this context, the DIGITAsia project positions course quality as a central and actionable lens through which digital transformation can be meaningfully enacted. Conceived as an international strategic partnership supporting DT in HE institutions in Asia, the project recognises the educators’ role as key agents in designing, enacting, and evaluating digitally enhanced learning environments (Singun, 2025).

Education 5.0 is established as the theoretical framework (Babu, 2024), understood as a human-centred vision of education that emphasizes the critical and meaningful use of technology in support of inclusion, personalisation and social impact. It reframes digital technologies as partners in addressing complex educational challenges. This vision informs both pedagogical design choices and the criteria through which course quality is explored, aligning quality enhancement with student-centred learning, accessibility, and real-world relevance.

It is within this conceptual space that we developed the Course Quality Scorecard (CQS). Conceived as a structured yet flexible reflective tool, the CQS is designed to support educators in examining and enhancing the quality of their course designs (Xie et al., 2025). This is a response to recent calls for quality instruments that move beyond standardisation toward capability-building and professional development (McInnes et al., 2024). The CQS translates the principles of Education 5.0 into a coherent set of operational dimensions, covering flexible learning, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), student-centred approaches, data-informed design, emerging AI-enhanced practices, and the development of employability skills. The CQS thus addresses the core domains of online quality that are essential for effective digital delivery (Esfijani, 2018), while avoiding the limitations of prescriptive checklists that often fail to capture the diversity of specific disciplinary contexts (McInnes et al., 2024).

Within DIGITAsia, the CQS is embedded in ​​a trainers’ programme for educators, along with a Capstone Project (CP) in which they redesign and pilot their courses.

Against this background, this study addresses the following research question: to what extent do educators perceive the CQS as providing a coherent, clear, and relevant framework for supporting reflection and decision-making on course quality in alignment with Education 5.0 principles.

How can bildung—conceived as a temporally structured process grounded in not knowing, not acting, and narrativity—provide a pedagogical response to contemporary conditions of acceleration and paralysis, and in doing so foster transformation and autonomy across diverse learning contexts?

The theoretical framework draws on philosophical and pedagogical traditions of bildung that have shaped European educational thought while also resonating with global debates on autonomy, temporality, and learning.

This article argues that learning is rooted in bildung, whose key conditions, not knowing, not acting, and narrativity, each introduce distinct temporal rhythms that create the pauses and openings through which genuine transformation becomes possible. Philosophically, bildung names a slow, inward process of self‑formation grounded in contemplation and openness. In a world marked by the simultaneous pressures of acceleration and the immobilizing effects of paralysis, bildung offers a third temporal mode: suspension, the temporal depth through which autonomy can develop. Pedagogically, bildung requires stepping out of familiar contexts and entering uncertain territory, a suspension between what is known and what is not yet understood. Narrativity’s timeliness lies in its capacity to create a reflective temporal space in which past, present, and future can be re‑interpreted and re‑oriented. Because our lives are shaped by unchosen fictions, bildung calls for reorientation, specifically, the intentional crafting of richer, chosen narratives that interrupt habitual assumptions and prepare us for change. The article concludes that openness to not knowing and not acting, experienced within a time shaped by both acceleration and paralysis, must be complemented by a fictional temporality that activates the specifically pedagogical time of learning as bildung.

This paper explores the paradox at the heart of Simone Weil’s notion of decreation—the act of ‘undoing the creature in us,’ emptying the self so that God may dwell in the void it leaves—and how such unmaking becomes the ground for genuine creation. In an age of the hyperactive ego, pressured to ceaselessly create self-production and addicted to hyperattention to stimuli, no void remains for decreation. Drawing on Anne Carson’s reading of Sappho, Marguerite Porete, and Weil, this paper traces the tension between decreation and a writer’s desire to create. For Weil, only desire—not will—makes real attention possible; creation is not striven for but given to the waiting void of decreation. The paper analyses the paradox of desire: though human longing naturally falls, like gravity, toward the temporal and selfish, only desire directed toward a pure object or prayer allows escape from the prison of the self. Finally, the paper proposes an Education through Decreation. Creations formed on the basis of pure desire, decreation, and the absolute attention that pierces the void of the emptying self awaken individuals trapped within their own shells; with pure attention they encounter such works, thus experiencing decreation and, further, giving birth to yet another Creation. This chain-like decreation becomes education in itself, like a drop of Light, against gravity, spreading across the whole world.

The notion of prefiguration—the practice of organizing and acting in ways that embody the future society one strives to create—has become increasingly dominant in the field of political philosophy in recent years (Cooper, 2017; Raekstad, 2020; Swain, 2019). Though it has originated in anarchist thought and initially was mainly associated with utopian perspectives (Franks 2018; Cooper 2014), it has gradually developed into a much more comprehensive framework for both the depiction of specific political struggles, and a broader understanding of political action in general (Monticelli, 2022). This transformation occurred to a large extent due to the recognition that prefiguration is a far more everyday practice than is commonly assumed. Many actors within the political field frequently behave as though they possess authorities and powers that, in practice, they do not yet hold, in order to render those authorities and powers effective in practice and socially recognized. An analysis of this prevalent phenomenon of prefiguration is therefore essential to political thought, as it enables a comprehensive account of our political reality, and a deeper understanding of many processes that, in practice, shape our life-in-common.

In light of this understanding, reflection on prefiguration appears no less important to the field of education. A substantial portion of educational practice operates precisely through prefigurative means, seeking to shape future reality by acting as if the world we aspire to see around us were already the world in which we in fact live. Education for democracy, education for the values of justice and equality, and education for responsible leadership are all frequently carried out by encouraging younger generations to behave as though social reality already corresponds to what we wish it to be, on the assumption that such action may ultimately bring that reality into being. For this reason, the relative scarcity of engagement with the phenomenon of prefiguration in educational thought is surprising. Aside from a small number of studies that analyze concrete phenomena through the use of this conceptual framework (e.g., McCowan, 2010; Fink, 2024; Ashar, 2022), there is little systematic research that addresses the deep relationship between prefiguration and education.

This paper seeks to address precisely this gap by offering a systematic reflection on the significance and potential contribution of examining education through a prefigurative perspective. It explores the new insights that a prefigurative standpoint may bring to an understanding of education itself as a field of knowledge and practice, and, equally importantly, how engagement with prefiguration enables a rethinking and reformulation of education’s relationship to various domains, including performativity, play, aesthetics, and political action. In order to illustrate the possibilities inherent in this renewed perspective, the study focuses on two examples of educational thought drawn from different intellectual traditions, demonstrating how the proposed perspective contributes to the discussion in each case. The first example is John Dewey’s educational thought, particularly as articulated in his seminal work Democracy and Education (Dewey, 1916). The second is the thought of Jacques Rancière, especially in The Ignorant Schoolmaster (Rancière, 1991), which offers an original and compelling account of education and its entanglement with the political space of our shared life.

To learn is to change what it means to know. Learning is not the acquisition of content but an individuation process in which the learner emerges with and within an environment (Sauvagnargues, 2012). Deleuze (2007) reminds us that individuation is not reducible to a subject or a form; it can be a landscape, an hour of the day, a fragment of life. Learning is therefore a rhythmic, vibrant multiplicity in which bodies, materials, affects and temporalities co‑compose. To learn with rather than from shifts pedagogy away from performance and mastery toward events of becoming.

Consider the room in which learning unfolds. Its walls, air ducts, chairs, acoustics and temperatures do not merely surround us; they participate in our becoming. They create openings and closures, proximities and distances, possibilities for belonging or withdrawal. When I meet your eyes, when a smile is exchanged, when a hand reaches out in greeting, these micro‑events are not social niceties but processes of learning to know, cracks through which imagination enters.

Guattari (2006) argues that desire is not the property of a subject but a production of signs within machinic assemblages. Entering a room is therefore an encounter with a field of signs: trust, risk, escape routes, invitations, tensions, potentials for collaboration. A classroom is not a neutral container but a relationscape in which bodies and materials co‑produce conditions for learning.

Rather than tracing evidence or seeking stable outcomes, pedagogy can be understood as the mapping of rhizomatic multiplicities, relational events that form machinic assemblages (Manning, 2009). A moving body enables thought in act; what moves as a body returns as the movement of thought. A smile, a voice, a gesture are not expressions of an inner state but forces that matter in the individuation of listeners, speakers and critical subjects. How a body perceives a room becomes part of what it is able to think.

Becoming emerges through intra‑actions when biogrammatic forces meet. Manning (2009) writes that we move not to occupy space but to create it; each step gathers force for becoming. Desire for individuation becomes desire to learn, not productivity but production, not representation but creation. To learn is to act as if nothing were self‑evident, to wonder that there is being (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994).

The room itself participates in this process. Heat, cold, echoes, muffled sounds, these tactile‑optical forces shape the event of learning. They are not background conditions but affective intensities that open or close possibilities for thought.

Deleuze (2003) distinguishes between probability, the calculable, and chance, which is a non‑scientific, non‑aesthetic choice. Concepts belong to this latter domain. They are not given but created; they posit themselves (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994). Conceptualisation is therefore inseparable from sensation. Sensations activate memories, embodied, implicit, unconscious, that become recollection‑images (Deleuze, 1997/1989). These images are virtual until actualised by perception; they do not deliver the past but recompose it in the present event.

Bodily memories emerge autobiographically and become implicit memories (Damis, 2022). They appear as sensations that actualise emotions, like fear, joy or sorrow, which in turn shape perception. Sensation affects thought diagrammatically (Williams, 2008). In this interplay of differentiation and connectivity, rhizomes of perception‑images resist, shift and emerge. Rhythm becomes differentiation; new thought‑images become possible.

Learning, then, is the creation of concepts and emotions as forces of recollection: a co‑composition of bodies, environments and events. To learn is to become with the world, to allow the environment to actualise new possibilities for thought.

In his criticism of the limitations of evidence-based education, Gert Biesta (2010) insisted on the need for a different view of educational professionalism; this view should not be based on an idolatry of the vocabulary of “efficacy” and “causal connections” but rather on the recognition of the “noncausal nature of educational interaction” (p. 36). While in later publications his stance increasingly moved towards an existential understanding (see the notion of “professional subjectification” [Biesta, 2014]), in Good Education in an Age of Measurement his position was still imbued with Deweyan motifs.

In this paper, I will resume this Deweyan thread and inflect it in the vindication of a non-reductionist mindset by focusing on a specific domain, that of inclusive education. While developing a theoretical argument, this paper also draws on my experience as a practitioner in a University Centre for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities, where I worked in an interdisciplinary team together with psychologists, bioengineers, and assistive technology specialists. In this sense, this contribution also offers an argument in favour of what I call the inclusion–interdisciplinarity chiasma.

My argument develops in two steps. First, I elicit a specific Deweyan understanding of inclusion, also with reference to its operational meaning. Although Dewey’s theorization of democracy still constitutes a fundamental horizon of meaning for reflection on inclusion, my inquiry does not take its point of departure from his canonical texts, such as Democracy and Education. Rather, it turns to an essay from his later work in which he investigates the notion of “the social” as “the inclusive philosophic idea,” as the title itself indicates. Notably, this is the only text in Dewey’s entire oeuvre whose title contains a term referring to inclusion, even when the titles of sections and chapters are taken into account.

The Deweyan paper engages with questions of “metaphysics” and philosophical method but this should not sound odd in the context of my contribution. Indeed, as Dewey repeatedly emphasized, even the most abstract and seemingly convoluted metaphysical speculations take their impetus from the context of experience and—if appropriately reinterpreted—can provide guidance for orientation at the level of lived practice.

By drawing upon his attack on empiricist and reductionist conceptions, there will emerge the idea of what I will call the logic of inclusive transaction, viz. the idea that reductionism is per se a factor of exclusion, even where it presents itself with the neutral gait of scientific démarche. If it is not a stage within a broader process of inquiry, it tends to sanction ontological rifts and chasms, to carve out a “reality” from the nexus of its relations and consign it to a substantively empty isolation.

As noted above, while starting at a purely theoretical level, my analysis refers to the activity of practitioners in the field of inclusive education, helping to define the role of expert knowledge and professional competences in interventions with people with disabilities, as well as to clarify both the limitations and the potential of the personalization of intervention.

Moreover, Dewey’s specific view of “the social”—which is, in some respects, Latourian avant la lettre—is mobilized to undergird the case for a transition from the classic social model of disability to the bio-psycho-social model. In addition, a Deweyan understanding of the latter (and of the related logic of the International Classification of Functioning [WHO, 2000]) is proposed. The Deweyan transactional–inclusive logic thus functions, it will be argued, as a device capable of strengthening certain achievements of the social model while avoiding some of its simplifying drifts.

Globally, the expansion of ‘Extended Education’ or ‘After-School Programs’ (ASP) is championed as a critical strategy to mitigate social inequality and support work-life balance for families. This policy trajectory resonates deeply with the Ganztagsschule (all-day school) movement in Europe and comparable initiatives across OECD countries. Within this global context, the Chinese government initiated the ‘Double Reduction’ policy in 2021 as a massive, state-led intervention designed to restore schools as the primary locus of education, thereby alleviating the dual academic and economic burdens placed on students and families.

However, drawing upon theories of educational equity and cultural capital, existing scholarship points to a persistent structural contradiction: despite policy intent to narrow gaps through standardized provision, stratification continues to be reproduced in differentiated forms. In terms of family context, urban households typically leverage superior cultural capital to provide systematic educational support, whereas rural families face ‘dual limitations’ regarding educational orientations and resource investment (Fang & Yang, 2023). Regarding school capacity, rural schools continue to suffer from structural deficits in teacher quality, pedagogical research efficacy, and leadership compared to their urban counterparts (Teng & Zhang, 2021). Consequently, without targeted intervention, after-school services may paradoxically exacerbate the urban-rural divide through differentiated Implementation Quality, despite their original mandate to function as compensatory mechanisms for narrowing developmental gaps (Fu & Guo, 2024).

Despite preliminary recognition of this emerging divide, current research remains predominantly focused on county-level case studies with limited representativeness and single-dimensional measures (often restricted to infrastructure or service quantity). Addressing this gap, this study employs a multidimensional analytical framework covering ‘Content–Governance–Effectiveness"’ and conducts a systematic empirical analysis drawing on large-scale data from ten provinces across Eastern, Central, and Western China. The study addresses the following core research questions: Under a unified national policy discourse, what distinct characteristics do urban and rural schools exhibit in the organization of extended education? How do these differences shape the realization of educational equity?

Beyond elucidating the implementation dilemma within the Chinese context, this study offers insights for the international dialogue on extended education by underscoring a shared global challenge: how to ensure that state-funded after-school programmes move beyond mere formal access to guarantee substantive quality equity, thereby preventing the reproduction of social stratification within public education systems.

Low literacy levels are estimated to cost the UK economy at least £20 billion annually (EEF, 2018, p.2). The attainment gap between economically disadvantaged students and their peers is well established, with disparities in reading ability identified as a major contributing factor (Lawton & Warren, 2015). Recent survey data show that in 2025 only one in three (32.7%) children aged 8–18 reported enjoying reading “very much” or “quite a lot,” with daily reading declining with age and lower among pupils receiving Free School Meals (FSM) (Clark et al., 2025).

Extensive research underscores the value of early intervention and sustained whole-school approaches to literacy (EEF, 2021). While primary schools in England have prioritised literacy teaching for nearly three decades, secondary schools have historically given less attention to identifying literacy needs and developing disciplinary literacy (Howell et al., 2021, p.2). This is now changing, with improving literacy in secondary education increasingly recognised as a national priority, especially for disadvantaged students.

This paper examines how secondary schools in remote, rural and coastal contexts enact whole-school and disciplinary literacy in ways that address persistent equity gaps. While literacy interventions often emphasise programme fidelity, our analysis foregrounds system fit—how leadership, institutional conditions, and place mediate the effectiveness and transfer of evidence-informed approaches. The study contributes to European and international debates on rurality, social inequality, and educational opportunity, where rural–urban disparities in attainment and reading engagement remain a policy concern across many OECD and EU systems.

Drawing on case studies of four secondary schools in Cumberland, England, we ask:

1. How do four secondary schools in a remote, rural and coastal area enact evidence‑informed, whole‑school literacy?
2. How do school leaders foster professional capital around literacy pedagogy and cultivate students’ social capital, particularly for disadvantaged learners?
3. How and why do approaches differ across schools, and what does this reveal about the interplays between institutional, professional and social capitals?

We conceptualise literacy improvement as a relational process shaped by the interaction of three forms of capital. Professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012) encompasses the human expertise, collaborative relationships and informed judgment that enable teachers to adapt evidence‑informed programmes such as Reciprocal Reading into meaningful, discipline‑specific practices in secondary subjects. Social capital, drawing on Bourdieu (1986), Coleman (1988) and Putnam (1993; 2000), refers to the networks, norms and bridging ties that broaden students’ aspirations, motivation and access to future opportunities an especially important dimension in rural and coastal communities marked by economic disadvantage and limited horizons. Institutional capital, informed by Bourdieu’s institutional forms and implementation scholarship, captures the organisational structures, governance arrangements, staffing, timetabling and data systems that support coherence, scalability and cumulative organisational learning. Together, these interdependent capitals shape how literacy initiatives are interpreted, enacted and sustained within schools.

*Please note that the exploration phase of this research was presented at ECER2023. This contribution will present its latest findings. As a result, the ECER2026 proposal is similar to the proposal submitted in 2023.*

Proposal Information

We examine the impact of the regulatory framework introduced to safeguard Scottish schools in 2010, focusing specifically on the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act (2010). Using Scottish state school datasets, we analyse changes in both the number and geographic distribution of schools between 2013 and 2024, and we consider the future distribution of small schools over the next two years. Our comparison allows us to highlight that (1) school closures have affected both primary and secondary schools, (2) closure is not only a “rural” feature, and (3) by 2024, “small” has become predominantly a rural characteristic.

School closures have long been controversial, and the closure process has been widely documented internationally, particularly in Europe. In rural contexts, small schools are often closed due to financial pressures linked to low enrolment numbers and difficulties in attracting and retaining staff (Fargas-Malet & Bagley, 2021; Gristy et al., 2020; Kvalsund & Hargreaves, 2009). The consequences of closures for pupils and communities are well established. For example, longer travel times can negatively affect pupils’ wellbeing, and the viability of rural communities can be undermined (Cannella, 2020; Beach et al., 2018; Kvalsund, 2009). More recently, however, deficit narratives have been challenged, and small schools have been shown to possess distinctive strengths associated with their scale. Literature highlights their capacity to enable high-quality learning experiences, innovative pedagogical approaches, and curriculum creativity (Raggl, 2020; Schafft, 2016; Gristy et al., 2020).

In Scotland, the increasing number of school closures at the turn of 2010s and how these closures were decided raised deep concerns among the public and rural communities (Redford, 2013). Safeguarding rural schools and communities became a key education policy in Scotland by the end of 2000s.

Between 1995 and 2013, 467 schools closed or merged in Scotland with the largest number of closures taking place in 2007, 2010 and 2011. The Act (2010) which details the consultation process which must be followed when a local authority proposes to close a school came into force and was amended in 2012 after consultations (Kidner, 2013). According to recent data, more than 200 schools closed between 2013 and 2024.

Our paper seeks to enhance understanding of (1) the regulatory system designed to safeguard schools, and (2) the effects of the Act on the closure of rural schools over the past decade. We conclude by discussing the lessons that Scottish communities—and rural communities elsewhere in Europe—can draw from this regulatory model.

It’s 10 years since the Vancouver Statement (Towle et al, 2016), a statement aimed at decision makers responsible for the education of health and social care which clearly articulates the need to involve patients and carers in the education of health and social care professionals. It’s timely to revisit the concept of partnership and education, with a focus on healthcare professions, but recognising the transferability to other professions. In the UK, health and social care professional education is formalised in Higher Education. We propose a workshop that brings lessons learned in health professions to other areas of higher education and education research.

Partnerships are not a static concept; they evolve over time and move from patient involvement to patient partnerships. This evolution takes time to nurture and face numerous challenges including shifting hierarchical structures, barriers in communication, curriculum redesign, in addition to staff and time resources. Appropriate support and organisational change are needed to reap the advantages of partnerships including diverse perspectives, knowledge exchange, learning from, with and about each other.

We argue it is essential to flatten hierarchical relationships, learning from patients, not just to advance health research but also to ensure education research does not become another tool to legitimise actions we have come to accept as the norm. Patient partners can help us generate new knowledge and challenge assumptions. In education research, there is a need for diverse stakeholder inclusion to challenge educational inequalities.

Building partnerships into education research starts with a partnership in education, where patient educators bring a unique skill set and positionality. In our context, undergraduate and post-graduate medicine and health professions professional programmes, partner with the Patient | Carer Community (PCC) who deliver teaching and mentor students.

We enhance education and research in education if we authentically engage with patients as partners. Ultimately, we want to support best practice in healthcare, which includes tackling health inequalities. This means valuing the patient experience and patient knowledge. Our PCC-educators also bring knowledge of teaching and learning. While academic and clinical educators are accountable to professional standards and Higher Education policy guidance, PCC-educators are guided by authentic learning goals that consider what the learner needs to best care for the patient in front of them.

Unfortunately, over the years, our PCC-educators have found they can operate outside the established practices and structures which positions them on the margins. This marginalisation is counter-productive to partnerships. In this workshop, we will trace the lack of perceived value experienced, to differences in how education and teaching philosophies are understood. A PCC-educator from Leeds will guide participants to reflect on a humanist teaching philosophy. Participants will work in groups to analyse the implications of teaching philosophies for conducting educational research. In this way, we explore how we move from positioning patients and caregivers as primarily providing lived experience to being partners in shaping research agendas (Richards et al , 2025). Partnerships can feel tokenistic with a tendency to defer to professional expertise.

On a practical level, partnership working means having a shared language to discuss our differences and commonalities, ideally learning from each other. Teaching someone the ‘language’ of education is education. Thus, on the one hand, we educate patients and carers to be educators, and on the other, patient-educators educate our future doctors. We believe the approach taken at the University of Leeds to empowering PCC-educators to teach our students can apply to partnership working in research and scholarship. Ultimately, through partnership with the PCC, and engaging with the PCC’s maxim of ‘person first, patient second,’ we challenge paradigmatic thinking that privileges scientific knowledge, objectivity and technology (e.g. AI).

This Network 16 symposium addresses the ECER 2026 theme “Education in Times of Uncertainty” by examining a critical turning point in European educational policy: the global shift toward restricting children’s digital device use. Drawing on Biesta’s (2013) notion of the ‘risk of education’, we question whether these new ‘disconnect’ policies attempt to eliminate the inherent uncertainty of digital socialization through control, or if they represent a necessary safeguarding of the pedagogical space.

Comparing four distinct European contexts (France, UK, Portugal, and Scandinavia), this session moves beyond simple “pro/anti-screen” binaries to analyze the underlying political and pedagogical rationales of these new regulations.

Paper 1 (France) opens the discussion with a longitudinal analysis of the French “prohibitionist turn” (2016-2026). Gabriel demonstrates how public policy has shifted from a health-based paradigm to a disciplinary one, culminating in the 2025 “Digital Pause”. The paper highlights the tension for teachers, now tasked with being “screen regulators” without adequate professional training in digital sociology.

Paper 2 (UK) provides a critical theoretical counterpoint. Costa. challenges the “misplaced accountability” of UK policies (like the Dorset Council ban), arguing that they offload systemic failures of platform governance onto young individuals. Using Honneth’s theory of recognition, she critiques these “pedagogies of fear” and calls for addressing the structural conditions of digital harm rather than simply removing devices.

Paper 3 (Portugal) offers a contrasting Southern European perspective. Freitas and colleagues examine how Portugal’s 2025 recommendations balance restriction with a framework of “ethical care”. By framing digital citizenship as a constellation of rights and duties, this contribution illustrates how schools can foster moral agency and participation, moving from prohibition to “ethical mediation”.

Paper 4 (Scandinavie) expands the scope to the Nordic model. Hillen’s systematic review questions whether recent regulations in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland align with traditional Scandinavian values of trust and democracy. It investigates whether these measures represent a “technological step back” or a necessary recalibration to protect children’s development within highly digitized welfare states.

Collectively, these contributions reveal a “European paradox”: while policymakers increasingly restrict access to protect youth, TALIS 2024 data (OECD, 2025) shows that teachers lack the “digital mediation competencies” required to navigate this landscape. The symposium concludes that moving beyond bans requires re-professionalizing teachers not as enforcers, but as critical mediators of a complex digital reality.

In a context where French children aged 6 to 17 spend an average of more than 4 hours a day in front of a screen (Esteban, 2020), France has radically changed its regulatory framework over the last decade. This contribution analyses how French public policies have shifted from a framework based on health protection (2016-2020) to one based on educational regulation and restriction (2024-2026). We explore the justification for these policies through scientific reports and their implementation in school and family contexts. We conducted a critical analysis of official texts and scientific reports published between 2016 and 2026. The initial phase (2019-2022) was justified by health authorities (ANSES, 2020; HCSP, 2020), which highlighted risks to sleep, physical inactivity, and mental health. These reports legitimised ‘soft law’ approaches (Plan 2022; DITP, 2022). A break occurred in 2024 with the Presidential Commission on Screens (2024). Beyond developmental threats, the commission highlighted systemic risks associated with exposure to unregulated content (pornography, algorithmic addiction), citing ARCOM (2023) on pornography exposure (30% of 11-18 year-olds) and ANSES (2024) on algorithmic addiction, paving the way for ‘hard law’. This transition culminated in the 2024 law aimed at securing and regulating the digital space (RF, 2024), and the 2025 ‘Digital Pause’, which imposes a ban on smartphones and restricts digital workspaces (ENT) to sanitize the learning environment. We analyze the tension between protection (interdiction) and education (digital citizenship). This regulatory hardening is not a panic reaction but a doctrinal build-up visible in institutional discourse since 2020, shifting from technical protection (filtering) to critical digital citizenship (AI, fake news, cyberbullying). While the “Digital Break” (2025) reduces immediate exposure, it poses challenges regarding social inequalities. Furthermore, drawing on the work of Roebroeck and Gabriel, we argue that this shift fundamentally alters the professionality of teachers. Educators are now required to navigate between the roles of “screen regulators”, “literacy builders“, and “critical mediators” against emerging threats (AI misuse, disinformation, foreign influence). However, this policy shift dramatically outpaces the training engineering necessary to support professionals, occurring amidst a stalled national teacher training reform that leaves educators in a state of uncertainty. Implicitly comparing the French “prohibitionist” turn with international trends, we conclude that regulation is necessary but risks ineffectiveness without massive investment in support and professional development. Keywords: Screen time regulation, Educational Policy, Digital well-being, Teacher Professionality, French Education System.

ANSES. (2025). Avis de l’Anses relatif aux « effets de l’usage des réseaux sociaux numériques sur la santé des adolescents ». Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire. ARCOM (2023). La fréquentation des sites « adultes » par les mineurs. Commission d’experts sur l’exposition des enfants aux écrans. (2024). Enfants et écrans : à la recherche du temps perdu. République française. Gabriel, P. et Roebroeck, E. (2025). Ingénierie de formation dans les milieux ruraux : Analyse des besoins, adaptation aux publics et aux territoires isolés, et intégration des outils numériques pour les formations médico-techniques. Dans S. Guillon, J.-Y. Causer et S. Zaouani-Denoux (dir.), L’accompagnement au temps des vulnérabilités : professionnaliser les espaces d’éducation et de formation. Peter Lang. Haut Conseil de la santé publique (HCSP). (2020). Analyse des données scientifiques : Effets de l'exposition des enfants et des jeunes aux écrans. Paris. Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale. (2025). Circulaire MENE2519904C: Promouvoir un numérique raisonné à l’École. Bulletin Officiel de l'Éducation Nationale. République Française (2024). Loi n° 2024-449 du 21 mai 2024 visant à sécuriser et à réguler l'espace numérique. Journal Officiel de la République Française. Santé publique France (2020 février). Étude de santé sur l'environnement, la biosurveillance, l'activité physique et la nutrition (Esteban 2014-2016) – 2ème éd.

Across the UK and internationally, governments are increasingly proposing or implementing restrictive measures on young people’s digital participation. Particularly smartphone bans in and around schools are framed as safeguarding and mental-health interventions (see Rahali, Kidron, and Livingstone,2024). This symposium contribution interrogates the assumptions underpinning these policy responses and their implications for digital well-being. It argues that such measures reflect a misplaced attribution of accountability, whereby young people are made to bear the consequences of systemic failures in platform governance, educational policy, and commercial digital infrastructures. Rather than addressing the social, cultural, and relational conditions that shape digital harm (Costa and Oliver, 2025), risk-management approaches reduce digital well-being to a technical problem solvable through prohibition. Focusing on the UK context, where local authorities such as Dorset Council (see Tappenden, 2026) as well as the House of Lords1 aim to introduce phone bans, the paper critically examines how these interventions obscure the ethical, pedagogical, and participatory dimensions of digital life (Costa et al., 2025). These policies not only curtail young people’s freedoms but also sit in direct conflict with national ambitions for a digitally skilled workforce. Moreover, they are often informed by psychological discourses of addiction that promote pedagogies of fear, restriction, and mistrust. In response, the paper advances a pedagogy of empowerment grounded in intersubjective understandings of digital life, drawing on Honneth's (1996) seminal work of interpersonal recognition. It reframes digital well-being as a collective ethical project, calling for nuanced policy approaches that move beyond digital bans and towards a pedagogy of empowerment and shared responsibility. Keywords: digital wellbeing; mobile phone bans; risk management; digital freedoms, recognition ____ 1. On the 20th January 2026, the UK Parliament debated banning phones or social media for under-16s. The House of Lords backed an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, but at the time of writing the government is still consulting on this matter. Driven by mental-health concerns, recommendations include age limits, curfews, and stronger age checks, inspired by the Australian ban.

Costa, C., Bhatia, P., Murphy, M., & Pereira, A. L. (2023). Digital Education Colonized by Design: Curriculum Reimagined. Education Sciences, 13(9), 895. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13090895 Costa, C., & Oliver, M. (2025). Young people and digital literacy learning: Co-producing critical citizenship practices. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 0(0), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2025.2593611 Honneth, A. (1996). Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (New Ed edition). Polity. Rahali, M., Kidron, B., and Livingstone, S. (2024). Smartphone policies in schools: What does the evidence say? Digital Futures for Children centre, LSE and 5Rights Foundation. Tappenden, R. (2026, January 14). Dorset Council encourages schools to ban smart phones. BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v0red888yo

ebates on children’s and adolescents’ digital media use increasingly oscillate between restrictive regulatory approaches and emancipatory educational responses [1]. Digital citizenship education, understood as a constellation of rights, duties, participation, and identity in relation to digital processes, environments, and artefacts [2], provides a useful lens for analysing national policy responses to young people’s digital lives. In Portugal, an internationally recognised legislative framework promoting inclusive education and curricular flexibility enables schools to address digital issues through both regulation and pedagogical-ethical reflection. Recent national recommendations on digital education and school wellbeing further develop this approach by combining measures that limit smartphone use in schools [3] with calls for critical, participatory, and formative engagement with students’ digital practices [4]. Situated within this context, this paper presents findings from an international literature review conducted as part of a mixed-methods exploratory research project examining digital ethics as a structural dimension of inclusive K-12 digital education. Acknowledging the complexities of researching children’s lived experiences [5], the review draws on systematic searches across EBSCO, Web of Science, and Scopus, identifying four core dimensions of digital ethics in compulsory education: responsible and safe technology use; values, virtues, and digital citizenship; moral reasoning and social interaction; and emerging and interactive technologies. Building on this framework, the analysis proposes six educational dimensions shaping students’ educational experiences and trajectories, including curricular integration of digital ethics; critical reflection on use, privacy, and rights; experiential learning through gamification and collaborative digital tools; engagement with concepts such as ethical hacking; the role of whole-school cultures and institutional policies; and the development of socio-emotional competencies such as empathy, collaboration, and harm prevention (e.g. cyberbullying and sexting). By foregrounding participation, responsibility, and moral imagination, the paper positions digital citizenship education as a form of political and ethical care, emphasising teachers as ethical mediators and schools as spaces for moral agency and collective responsibility in children’s and adolescents’ digital lives. Keywords: digital ethics; digital citizenship; k-12 education; students’ educational experiences; Portuguese policy

[1] Emejulu, A., & McGregor, C. (2019). Towards a radical digital citizenship in digital education. Critical Studies in Education, 60(1), 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1234494 [2] Richardson, J., & Milovidov, E. (2023). Digital citizenship education handbook: Being online, well-being online, rights online. Council of Europe Education Department. https://www.coe.int/en/web/education/-/digital-citizenship-education-handbook [3] Portuguese Government (2025). Recomendações às escolas para a operacionalização das regras e recomendações sobre o uso de smartphones nos espaços escolares [Recommendations to schools for the implementation of rules and guidance on the use of smartphones in school premises]. Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação - recomendação 2025-08-25. https://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/gc25/comunicacao/documento?i=recomendacoes-as-escolas-para-a-operacionalizacao-das-regras-e-recomendacoes-sobre-o-uso-de-smartphones-nos-espacos-escolares [4] Nada, C. et al. (2025). Recomendações para a promoção do bem-estar digital nas escolas [Recommendations for the promotion of digital wellbeing in schools]. Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação - Direção-Geral da Educação. https://www.dge.mec.pt/noticias/divulgacao-das-recomendacoes-para-promocao-do-bem-estar-digital-nas-escolas [5] Freitas, A., & Frangella, R. (2026). Resistance, creativity, and critique in researching with children through arts-based narrative inquiry: Aporetics of subalternity as methodological knowledge in education. European Journal of Education, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.70486

Trust, equality and democracy are important pillars of Scandinavian educational systems. Recently, Scandinavian countries have introduced guidelines to regulate the use of digital tools in education. Examples include banning phones, reducing screen time and teaching critical digital literacy. Are these policies intended to free, protect or hinder technological development for the sake of children’s development, or are they seen as safeguards for educational systems? To what extent will these trends affect the previous concept of digitalization in education (Olofsson & Lindberg, 2021)? The research question is: How do education policies in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland regulate the use of digital tools in compulsory school, and what educational, social, and wellbeing intentions and rationales are behind these regulations? A systematic review (Bearman et al., 2012) will be conducted based on white-papers, national curricula, regulation and laws will be conducted. The sub-research questions will address the following: Is there a Nordic policy trend visible? Do individual nations address these concerns differently, yielding different objectives? Are there already empirical results or effects of these kinds of measures? Keywords: digital policies, Scandinavian education, digital use regulations, literature review

Bearman, M., Smith, C. D., Carbone, A., Slade, S., Baik, C., Hughes-Warrington, M., & Neumann, D. L. (2012). Systematic review methodology in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(5), 625–640. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.702735 Finnish Government. (2024). Government Bill HE 212/2024 vp: Amendment of the Basic Education Act. https://www.eduskunta.fi/FI/vaski/HallituksenEsitys/Sivut/HE_212+2024.aspx Government Offices of Sweden. (2024). Investing in more reading time and less screen time in school. https://www.government.se/articles/2024/02/government-investing-in-more-reading-time-and-less-screen-time/ Ministry of Children and Education, Denmark. (2025). Agreement on mobile-free primary schools and after-school care. https://www.uvm.dk/aktuelt/nyheder/uvm/2025/september/250930-ny-aftale-om-mobilfrie-folkeskoler-og-fritidstilbud Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. (2024). NOU 2024:20 – Screen use by children and young people. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/nou-2024-20/id3073644/ Olofsson, A. D., & Lindberg, J. O. (2021). A glimpse of a Nordic model? Policy and practice in the digitalisation of the K-12 school and teacher education in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden: Editorial introduction. Education Inquiry, 12(4), 311–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2021.1988451

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly shaping educational practice by supporting personalized learning, assisting instructional planning, and automating routine tasks. Alongside these opportunities, GenAI introduces pedagogical, ethical, and organizational challenges, including issues of academic integrity, the reliability and bias of generated outputs, data privacy, and transparency in decision-making (Altinay et al., 2024; Eden et al., 2024). Given that GenAI can influence core teaching activities, its integration requires careful consideration of both classroom practice and institutional policy.

Teachers, as the primary agents of change within classrooms, play a decisive role in determining the success of GenAI integration. Their perceptions, acceptance, and preparedness directly influence the extent to which GenAI tools are meaningfully integrated into classroom practice (Eden et al., 2024; Zhai, 2024). In practice, teachers must decide when GenAI can support learning, how to validate outputs, and how to manage student use while maintaining fairness and accountability. These demands make it important to identify the factors that influence teachers’ acceptance and intention to use GenAI, rather than focusing on adoption as a purely technical choice.

The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) provide a well-established framework for examining such factors (Venkatesh et al., 2003). UTAUT proposes that technology adoption is shaped by four main determinants: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Applied to GenAI, performance expectancy concerns whether teachers believe GenAI improves teaching effectiveness, instructional quality, or efficiency. Effort expectancy refers to perceived ease of learning and using GenAI tools. Social influence reflects perceived expectations and support from colleagues, school leadership, and professional communities. Facilitating conditions include access to infrastructure, clear guidelines, and professional development that enable teachers to implement GenAI effectively (Xue et al., 2024; Zhai, 2024).

While UTAUT has been widely used to study teachers’ adoption of educational technologies (Benicio et al., 2024; Pérez, 2024), empirical research addressing GenAI is still emerging. Most of the existing studies focus on digital tools in general, whereas GenAI presents distinct features—generative outputs, uncertainty in responses, and implications for authorship and assessment—that may alter the relative importance of UTAUT constructs. In addition, schools vary in their level of guidance, training provision, and access to approved tools, which may create substantial differences in teachers’ experiences and intentions. These conditions highlight the need for targeted evidence on how teachers evaluate GenAI and what predicts their willingness to integrate it into instruction.

To address this gap, the present study aims to examine teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding the use of GenAI tools in education. Specifically, the study aims to analyze these perceptions through the lens of the UTAUT, and to identify the key factors that predict teachers’ behavioral intention to integrate GenAI tools into their instructional practices. This goal raised the following research questions:

1. How do teachers perceive and use GenAI tools in their educational practice?

2. How do teachers utilize GenAI tools in education, as reflected in the five dimensions of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)

3. What are the key predictors of teachers’ behavioral intention to use GenAI tools in teaching, as defined by the UTAUT model?

Three years passed since the irruption of Generative AI (GenAI) and its impact on all aspects of our society, especially in education. Since the early stages of its appearance, experts have envisioned that knowledge, communication and information will change forever, labelling this phenomenon as the 4^th industrial revolution. Regarding education, teachers incorporated some changes to their pedagogical practices, either because they choose to take advantage of the new techniques or possibilities that GenAI offers (f.i. incorporating learning activities with AI), or because they felt forced due to students’ use of GenAI (f.i. going back to exams to prevent students from using AI in assessment).

Some studies have been carried out about the phenomenon, most of them analyzing local or institutional experiences. In these studies, researchers found that across higher education, GenAI is expanding unevenly: some university teachers recognize GenAI’s potential but use it only occasionally, citing limited training, support, and clear policies (Wang et al., 2025). However, these studies are focused on one part of the multidimensional phenomenon that GenAI is. Similarly as stated in the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) model (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), GenAI in education is affected by the knowledge, uses and stances that teachers have regarding it and to understand the phenomenon and to being able to explain why the teachers are doing what they are doing, a multidimensional study is needed. In this line, Spain funded a research project across the country to analyze the policies and practices of GenAI in universities (PID2023-149069OA-I00). This is a necessary foundation for continuing the work, as a lack of evidence on the present condition of the higher education system hinders the ability to formulate strategies and plan next steps, including those related to training, policy, human resources, and infrastructure.

Despite its massive potential, GenAI is a technological tool and, as it happened with previous technologies, it needs to be studied under the same paradigms. Previous studies about the use of technology in higher education have shown that, both the perception of usefulness of technology and its use, is different according to the academic discipline of faculty members (Mercader & Gairín, 2020). But, what about GenAI? Is the discipline related to the teachers’ knowledge, use and stance? Research so far suggests that GenAI is being used unevenly by faculty across different disciplines: engineering teachers tend to use GenAI more than health, and both more than humanities faculty (Mahmoud, 2025). Some of these reported uses include intelligent tutoring systems, automated assessment, virtual patients/simulators, diagnostic reasoning tutors and personalized feedback for health faculty; and writing feedback, language support, chatbots as conversation partners and inclusive support for diverse learners for social sciences and humanities teachers (Almasri, 2024; Mahmoud, 2025; Velázquez-García, 2025; Wang, 2025). Even though some studies suggest uneven use of GenAI among disciplines, evidence exploring actual potential differences according to the academic disciplines are scarce. The aim of this paper is to analyze the differences of knowledge, use and stances regarding GenAI in university settings depending on the academic discipline of the teachers. To do so, the research questions are:

- What knowledge do university teachers for each academic discipline have on GenAI?

- What are the differences between academic discipline regarding the knowledge of university teachers on GenAI?

- How do university teachers use GenAI for pedagogical purposes in each academic discipline?

- What are the differences in the university teachers’ use of GenAI for pedagogical purposes depending on the academic discipline?

- What are the stances of university teachers regarding GenAI in each academic discipline?

- What are the differences between university teachers’ stances depending on academic discipline?

AI in education is classified as high‑risk under the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (2024). This classification places significant responsibility on schools and teacher education institutions to provide transparent, ethical, and pedagogically grounded AI use. Norway is a relevant case because it is set on becoming the world's most digital country by 2030 (The Norwegian Government, 2025).

This paper explores how pre‑service teachers in Norway navigate the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their studies and early teaching practice. While generative AI is rapidly transforming educational landscapes across Europe, teacher education institutions vary widely in readiness, strategic direction, and pedagogical integration. This creates an urgent need to understand how future teachers perceive, adopt, resist, and make sense of AI tools—both as learners and as professionals expected to guide pupils in responsible and effective use.

Our study focuses on three research questions:

1. How and why do pre‑service teachers use generative AI during their studies?
2. How do they perceive their teacher educators’ attitudes and approaches toward AI?
3. How do they expect to use or avoid AI during school practicum?

In the study, we draw primarily on the dual role of the pre-service teacher (See Dolin, Ellebæk & Daugbjerg, 2022). The role in the use of AI changes drastically from teacher to student. For students, the purpose is to use it as a learning tool. For teachers, it is a tool to help them do their job. In our theory section, we will discuss how these two roles may interplay in students' relationship with AI.

For these reasons, we believe that the teacher students may have different approaches and thoughts toward AI than students who are not studying education. This is furthermore interesting in that it might reflect how teachers in the future will (or not) adapt these tools in their teaching.

In recent years, educators, policymakers, families, and society at large have become increasingly cognisant of the importance of creating inclusive learning environments within schools (Florian, 2015). A strong body of international research highlights that inclusive classrooms can foster belonging, enhance engagement, and promote richer learning opportunities by valuing the diverse knowledge, identities, and experiences that students bring (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2020). Developing the mindsets and pedagogical tools needed for inclusive teaching starts at the level of Initial Teacher Education (ITE), where structured preparation can support new teachers in adopting inclusive approaches from the outset of their careers (Ainscow, 2020). However, evidence indicates that many pre‑service teachers (PSTs) struggle to translate their conceptual understanding of inclusion into teaching practice and thus, ITE programmes often encounter difficulties in structuring practicum experiences that meaningfully support the development of inclusive pedagogy as core teaching practice (Rowan et al., 2021).
Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as one solution to assist in addressing these challenges. For instance, Perinpasingam et al.’s (2023) study of Malaysian PSTs’ participation in VR‑based role‑playing micro‑teaching activities demonstrated that immersive simulation provided an engaging and innovative space for them to practise interacting with diverse learners in a virtual classroom setting, while Karadayı and Evin‑Gencel (2024) report that VR‑supported experiential learning can help PSTs tailor instruction to individual learner differences and thereby strengthen the foundations of inclusive education. Approaches to the provision of VR classroom simulations range from those where an instructor or facilitator directly controls the virtual avatars in what they say and how they act (Finn et al., 2020), to fully automated VR classroom simulations where PSTs engage directly with pre-programmed scenarios and avatars (Huang et al., 2023). Both approaches offer different affordances and constraints; for instance, instructor controlled approaches offer greater flexibility and personalisation to each PST and for the teaching simulation that unfolds, but can be more labour and time-intensive in provision, while automated VR approaches offer greater potential for scaled deployment and more independent usage, but by their pre-programmed nature can be more limited in responsiveness and pedagogical flexibility of the experience.
Recently, Artificial intelligence-enabled Virtual Reality classrooms have emerged as a new avenue of investigation with the potential to bridge the afore-mentioned constraints and affordances of earlier VR classrooms. These virtual classrooms combine immersive VR simulation with artificial intelligence (AI) to create more responsive, adaptive, and unscripted learning environments that go beyond the capabilities of earlier, non‑AI VR systems. For those VR classrooms that relied on pre‑programmed avatars and fixed scenario pathways, for instance, AI‑driven VR now integrates natural‑language processing, real‑time behavioural modelling, and generative pedagogical agents, enabling virtual students to respond dynamically to PSTs’ questions, instructions, and teaching strategies (Docter et al., 2024). These affordances also decrease the need for instructor-controlled VR interventions to provide variety and variation in each individual teaching simulation, thus offering potential for more independent usage by PSTs and scaled deployment across larger cohorts of student-teachers. These systems can provide automated assessment and feedback, allowing PSTs to rehearse and develop complex skills, as King et al. (2025) illustrate in their investigation of functional communication skills development.
Overall, early investigations of AI‑enabled VR classrooms indicate that they can offer increased realism, adaptability, and scalability. In this regard, they hold much potential to provide richer opportunities for PSTs to develop and practice inclusive teaching than has been possible in earlier VR iterations.

This panel takes up the invitation of the NW17 call to critically reflect on ‘the extent to which our knowledge of the past can and should inform our understandings of the present’. There is a strong warrant as well as broad consensus across scholarly and policy domains regarding the value of thinking more historically about the present (Miles & Keynes 2025). Yet what is involved in doing so, and specifically what it means to historicise the educational present, is far less clear and requires more sustained and critical attention. Informed by methodologies and concepts from across historical sociology, genealogical studies and philosophy, the three papers in this symposium illustrate different ways of approaching these questions. Uniting them is a shared focus on exploring how traces of the past haunt contemporary educational policies as well as the key concepts that animate them. In various ways, they also look to the multi-faceted ways in which conceptions of the past can activate visions of and for educational futures.

In asking how the past influences the present, there is a risk is positioning the past as if it were a fixed context, a seemingly stable, already-known time/space that simply serves as an orienting backdrop to the present. It also risks ignoring how past/present relations are interwined with the future, positioning the future as disconnected from the past. This is significant in relation to education where the prospect of the future impels much education reform (Robertson & Beech 2023), often as (implied) critique of the present and what has come before, providing a habitual rationale for reform, with interventions justified in service of working to imagined better worlds to come.

In contrast, the concept of temporality underlines the non-linear, messy and productive ways in which past, present and future intersect (McLeod 2017). This is especially valuable for understanding the trajectories of education reform agendas. By foregrounding temporality, rather than attending only to the present in relation to the past, ‘makes it possible to think about encounters with the spectres of a past and a future, where historical memory and future-oriented imagination colour story-telling in the present”. (Seddon et al 2018, p.8). This framing underscores movements across temporal registers but importantly it also brings into view the affective force of memory and imagination, and their significance in understanding attachments to particular policy narratives or anticipated movements of education reforms. Jordheim’s concept of ‘multiple temporalities’ (Jordheim 2014) offers a way into understanding the overlay of these dynamic relations. He proposes that ‘it might be more useful to imagine different temporalities existing in a plane, as parallel lines, paths, tracks, or courses, zigzagging, sometimes touching or even crossing one another, but all equally visible, tangible, and with direct consequences for our lives’ (2014, 508).

While there has been some exploration of these concepts in relation to education research (McLeod 2017; Warren 2025), there is considerable scope to engage the questions they raise for more genealogical and historically oriented studies of education. With these debates as backdrop, each of the three papers offers a different angle onto questions of temporality, futures and historicising the educational present: Paper 1 takes a genealogical approach to consider the future of the university, looking at historical antecedents to current transformations and crises; Paper 2 explores the history and philosophy of a key educational concept, ‘pedagogical autonomy’ and how it is mobilised today; and Paper 3 examines shifts over time in how concepts of the future are framed in global education policies and the impact of the reparative turn in policy to address historical harms.

Across diverse higher education systems, the university is undergoing a profound qualitative transformation. Longstanding civic and democratic imaginaries of the university—as institutions of public knowledge, critique, and scholarly autonomy—have been unsettled by successive waves of marketisation, managerialism, behavioural governance, and, in some contexts, increasingly authoritarian forms of state intervention (Bennett & Burke 2018; Nehring & Brunila 2023; Zembylas 2023). These pressures have reshaped higher education governance, academic labour, and the very meaning and purpose of scholarship. While such developments have often been analysed through the concept of the “neoliberal university,” recent crises suggest that higher education may be entering a phase that exceeds familiar analytical frames (Angiolillo & al. 2025; Braw 2024; Brunila & Nehring 2023). In this presentation, we draw on After the University (link below), a 15-week international essay series that brought together scholars from different regions, disciplines, and career stages to reflect on contemporary transformations of higher education and their historical genealogies. Contributors engaged with the present through the past, tracing how current crises echo, rework, and diverge from earlier moments in the history of universities. Rather than treating the present as unprecedented, the series foregrounds how higher education has been shaped by tensions between public purpose and political power, autonomy and governance, critique and control. The series demonstrates that contemporary transformations are not only institutional or structural but also deeply affective, temporal, and subjective (see also Zembylas 2023; Gravett & Lygo-Baker 2024; Valero & al. 2019). Contributors explore how current modes of governance reshape academic selfhood, moral responsibility, political agency, and imaginaries of the future, often narrowing what can be hoped for, imagined, or claimed within the university. From a historical perspective, this raises critical questions about how past educational ideals such as Bildung, academic freedom, and the university as a space of collective intellectual life are selectively remembered, emptied of substance, or mobilised in technocratic and managerial forms in the present. We argue that analysing the present moment requires more than institutional critique or policy analysis: it demands historically grounded rethinking of what universities have been, whose interests they have served, and what kinds of futures they have enabled or foreclosed. The After the University series functions not only as a diagnosis of crisis, but as an invitation to reclaim historical imagination as a resource for thinking otherwise about higher education futures, beyond nostalgia, inevitability, or managerial realism. https://aftertheuniversity.wordpress.com/

Angiolillo, F., God, A., Nord, M. and Staffan I. Lindberg, S. (2025). Democracy Report 2025: 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped? V-Dem Institute (Gothenburg). Bennett, A., & Burke, P. J. (2018). Re/Conceptualising Time and Temporality: An Exploration of Time in Higher Education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(6), 913–925. Braw, E. (2024). Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World. New Haven, Yale University Press. Brunila, K & Daniel N. (2023). Precision education governance and the high risks of fabrication of future-oriented learning human kinds. Research Papers in Education38 (5): 727-742. Gravett, K., & Lygo-Baker, S. (2024). Affective encounters in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 50(2), 228–238. Nehring, D., & Brunila, K. (2023). Affective Capitalism in Academia: Revealing Public Secrets. Policy Press. Zembylas, M. (2023). Time-as-affect in neoliberal academy: theorizing chronopolitics as affective milieus in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 49(3), 493–504. Valero, P., Jørgensen, K. M., & Brunila, K. (2019). Affective Subjectivation in the Precarious Neoliberal Academia. In D. Bottrell, & C. Manathunga (Eds.), Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume I: Seeing Through the Cracks (Vol. 1, pp. 135-154). (Palgrave Macmillan

Educational policy reforms over the last 30 years have instigated fundamental changes for educators and educational institutions (e.g. privatization of educational institutions, global comparability), creating significant professional conflicts for many teachers. To analyse these, Nordic researchers often use frameworks from Freidson 2001 or Fredriksson 2010 and distinguish between bureaucratic, professional, market-oriented or user-oriented logic. Many such studies focus on the challenges teachers face in navigating between bureaucratic rule management, market-oriented customer satisfaction, and their own professional pride and autonomy (e.g. Lundström & Parding 2011). However, the paper argues that such conflicts are secondary. Taking a closer look at the history of the concept of educational autonomy, I argue that the market adaptation of pedagogical work creates ethical and existential conflicts of loyalty that corrupt the purpose of education; the “soul of teachers” (Ball 2003; even: Løvlie 2020, Giroux 2004). The paper revisits Weniger’s (1929) distinction between three levels of pedagogical autonomy: a) pedagogical praxis itself, b) pedagogical institutions and the teaching profession, and c) pedagogical science (Weniger 1929/1975). Autonomy in these areas is internally related, but most fundamental is the educator's autonomy in their concrete pedagogical relation with students. According to Weniger, pedagogical autonomy expresses the teacher's responsibility to protect students’ integrity from possible external interests that try to gain power over young people, seeing autonomy as "the ultimate means of preserving human freedom and dignity in the face of absolutist power claims" (ibid. p. 12f). He further argues that pedagogical autonomy in educational praxis is both possible and necessary, even in situations which pressure the educator to instrumentalize the student for the interests of others. Today’s threats to teachers’ autonomy are thus less about the problem of not being able to exercise their professional right to determine course methods and content or navigate between bureaucratic and market logics. Instead, market driven work-environments are forcing teachers to choose between the interests of their employer and responsibility towards their students, putting at risk trust in educational relationships. This points to existential and ethical dimensions that are not captured by dominant explanations of the challenges to pedagogical autonomy (Løvlie 2020). Finally, the paper argues that many contemporary critiques of declines in teacher autonomy do not take sufficient account of the historical and philosophical context of the concept, yet this is essential for building a fuller understanding of the dilemmas for pedagogical autonomy today and for envisaging autonomy differently for the future.

Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268093022000043065 Fredriksson (2010). Marknaden och lärarna. Hur organiseringen av skolan påverkar lärares offentliga tjänstemannaskap, Göteborgs universitet. Freidson (2001). Professionalism, the Third Logic, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001 Giroux (2004). Terror of Neoliberalism: Authoritarianism and the Eclipse of Democracy, Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers Lundström; Parding (2011). Marknadslogikens inflytande på lärares arbete och villkor: Lärares uppfattningar om effekter av skolvalsreformerna. In: Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv, ISSN 1400-9692, Vol. 17, no 4, p. 59-77 Løvlie (2020). Politisering og pedagogisk motstand. Veien til en barneorientert praksis. Fagbokförlaget. Weniger (1929/1975). Die Autonomie der Pädagogik. I: Weniger, Ausgewählte Schriften zur geisteswissenschaftlichen Pädagogik. Weinheim: Beltz.

This paper posits a ‘reparative turn’ in global education policy as symptomatic of broader transformations in how human societies orient themselves in relation to past, present, and future. We argue that recent UNESCO education policy (2021) reflects shifting modes of historicity—that is, socially produced meanings of historical change—which have become increasingly disjointed in the context of intensifying social, ecological, and political crises. Drawing on theories of historicity and historical change (e.g. Simon & Tamm 2023), the paper situates UNESCO’s 2021 ‘Futures of Education’ report within this wider reorientation of historicity. We surface tensions in how education policy is positioned to manage ‘unruly’ legacies of unjust pasts (Miles & Keynes 2025) alongside anticipations of an increasingly risky and undesirable future (Robinson & Beech 2023). We argue that this policymaking illustrates how international organisations such as UNESCO are seeking to restore their legitimacy in the face of past policy failures to deliver the futures they promised. Central to this reassertion is a growing emphasis on repair: a turn towards anti-racist, anti-colonial, and justice-oriented forms of historical thinking as a means of addressing historical harms (Sriprakash 2023). While this reparative orientation opens new possibilities for redressing unjust pasts within global education policy, it also generates tensions with the humanistic ideals of education and future-making that have long underpinned UNESCO’s raison d’être (Elfert 2018). The paper therefore interrogates whether, and how, reparative orientations to history sit alongside UNESCO’s enduring commitments to human flourishing and attendant conceptions of historical change. Empirically, we present a preliminary analysis of UNESCO’s three major futures-oriented education reports: the 1972 Faure report, the 1996 Delors report, and the 2021 Futures of Education report. Through comparative textual analysis, we examine how each report constructs relations between past, present, and future, and consider how education is positioned within these shifting orientations to historical change. In doing so, the paper considers some of the affordances and limits of the reparative turn for global education policymaking.

UNESCO. (1972). Learning to be. Paris: UNESCO UNESCO. (1996). Learning: The treasure within. Paris: UNESCO UNESCO. (2021). Reimagining our Futures Together. Paris: UNESCO Miles, J., & Keynes, M. R. (2025). Education and Historical Justice: Redress, Reparations and Reconciliation in the Classroom. Bloomsbury. Elfert, M. (2018). UNESCO’s Utopia of Lifelong Learning: An Intellectual History. (2017). Routledge. Robertson, S. L., & Beech, J. (2023). ‘Promises promises’. Comparative Education 60(3), 423–440 Simon, Z. B., & Tamm, M. (2023). The Fabric of Historical Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Football in Sweden boasts the highest membership of any sport, with just over 1,700,000 members, constituting approximately a quarter of all sports members (Swedish Sports Confederation, 2024). Moreover, among adolescents, football has the highest participation rate in Sweden (Fröberg et al., 2020) and Europe (Hulteen et al., 2017). Similar to the leisure context, football is also observed during the school context, such as during recess (Pawlowski et al., 2015) and physical education (Larsson & Karlefors, 2015). Football during recess is an activity that has been suggested to uphold gender norms and exclusion among European pupils, predominantly benefiting boys (González-Calvo et al., 2025; Pawlowski et al., 2015). Furthermore, Pawlowski et al. (2018) reported that in some schools, football is the only activity available during recess, limiting girls’ participation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, little research in Sweden has examined football as a physical activity during school time. While existing European studies on football as a physical activity during school time have primarily emphasised power relations in isolation (González-Calvo et al., 2025; Martínez-García & Rodríguez-Menéndez, 2020; Pawlowski et al., 2015; Pawlowski et al., 2018), there is a need to move beyond this single-axis perspective and adopt an intersectional perspective. Unlike a single-axis perspective that treats social categories in isolation (Collins, 2019), an intersectional perspective examines the intersections of social categories and their systems of oppression (Crenshaw, 1991). This study will examine the interaction of power relations concerning gender and age, considering how these social categories have among European pupils been reported to relate to norms and power dynamics in football as a physical activity during school time (Martínez-García & Rodríguez-Menéndez, 2020; Pawlowski et al., 2015).

Additionally, no study has intersectionally examined how power relations within football during school time operate across various levels. Patricia Hill Collins, a prominent researcher in intersectionality, has introduced the concept of the Matrix of Domination, which examines how power operates at various levels. The Matrix of Domination, as outlined by Collins (2000), consists of four domains, namely a) structural domain (organisation of power), b) disciplinary domain (management of power), c) hegemonic domain (justification of power), and d) interpersonal domain (influences daily experiences and individual awareness).

Using an intersectional perspective and the Matrix of Domination as a theoretical framework, this study examines how power relations related to gender and age are structured within football during school time in two municipally operated schools in Sweden. The research question is as follows: How are power relations related to gender and age organised across the individual, institutional, and structural levels within football during school time?

Although many children and young people participate in sport after school-hours, large differences are reported among different groups of young people (Strandbu & Bakken, 2024). Importantly, there are great demographic differences in relation to gender and ethnicity (Strandbu & Bakken, 2024). This inequality is also persistent when factors like socioeconomic resources is taken into account (Bakken, 2019).

In a society where sport participation has become increasingly based on parental influence and economic resources (Strandbu et al., 2020), school is a consistent meeting point for young people with diverse background. This paper reports on research conducted in Norway, a country where school and sport traditionally are divided, and the research question for this poster is “How do CARM girls experience the role of schools in promoting sport participation?”

This research adopts an intersectional and decolonial lens. Literature indicates that the lower sport participation among CARM girls results from intersecting factors rather than a single cause (Strandbu et al., 2020). To avoid a one-sided focus on individual factors and to have a more comprehensive understanding of CARM girls' participation in sports, an intersectional perspective has been central to understand the research question. Intersectionality is a concept that is used to explain how several individual factors interact and overlap to shape the individual’s unique experience of discrimination or privilege (Anthias, 1998).

Decoloniality, the second theoretical perspective underpinning this research, describes how modernity is deeply connected with the European colonial domination over the world (Quijano, 2007). When applying a decolonial lens, the research is challenging ‘who, when, why and where’ knowledge is generated (Mignolo, 2009, p. 160). Furthermore, a decolonial feminist perspective has been presented as means of enabling alternative modes of thinking and being in the world, and as a way of delinking knowledge from Western premises (Lugones, 2010). When adapting this perspective to the CARM girls participating in this project, it is important to let them be the active agents in the knowledge developed, and to use methods that align with this approach.

Introduction

The word ‘academy’ traditionally refers to a higher education institution. Nowadays, the term is also commonly used for more advanced youth sports training, and academies exist across various sports (Karlsson, 2022). he focus of sports academies is on developing children and youth into high-performance athletes (Baker et al, 2018). Therefore, the youth involved in academy programs are considered the most talented, making these programs prestigious and sought-after. As such, they are often held up as exemplary and positive entities. However, their practices contain controversial elements that have been debated for years, such as early specialization and the selection of young players. Academies thus seem to be value-laden entities.

Parallel with the emergence of academies, studies continue to show that the path to sporting success is characterised by late specialisation (Gülich et al, 2022; Söderström & Garn, 2022). Still, the notion of talent and talent identification is prominent in most athlete development models. Early identification and selection are even described as “the modus operandi of high-performance sport“ (Baker et al, 2018, p 48). In Scandinavia, where a ‘sport for all’ policy has traditionally been the “modus operandi” of children’s and youth sport, there is also an increased interest in early talent identification and the fostering of top athletes. Not least football academies are on the rise, and on the webpage of the Swedish Football Federation, it says: “we are seeing a football academy boom in Sweden”. According to the same source, this boom started with the certified academies, which are run by elite clubs in the highest male leagues. Then it spread to elite female leagues and to large grassroots clubs when they started to convert their first junior teams into academy teams.

Some academies, the certified ones, seem to influence and set the standard also for how local grassroots clubs organise sport for children and youth. To certify, classify or audit academies is common within the global elite sector of football (Roe & Parker, 2016). How the content of such audit or classification resonates with other values relating to youth sports, has caught some attention. Skille et al (2023), for example, mean that the classification system of academies in Norway has a performance-driven orientation that “may conflict with longstanding commitments to egalitarianism, inclusion, and the broader social value of youth sport”. In Sweden, the guidelines for youth sport have a child rights perspective as a starting point, and the idea is that sport should be conducted in the best interest of the child (Agergaard, 2024).

Aim and research questions

The interest association of the male elite football clubs (SEF) in the highest leagues has developed a specific certification and scoring system for youth academies. The stated purpose of this system is to “certify” or assure the quality of the approximately 40 academies directed at young players aged 10–19. This study aims to critically review and analyse the ascribed values in this certification system from a child rights perspective. Key research questions are: What is valued as good practice and a developmental environment? Which aspects that are assessed can be related to children’s rights? What is not valued? The purpose is to contribute knowledge about different value systems in Swedish child and youth sport.

Theoretical framework

A two-fold theoretical framework guides this analysis. First, we adopt a children’s rights perspective to examine whether the categories of children’s rights are reflected in the academy certification model. Second, we will employ the concepts of symbolic capital, doxa, and illusio, introduced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1989; 1990), as analytical tools.

Children have always been the most affected by migration. According to data from the UN (2025) the number of international migrants worldwide stood at 304 million. Europe hosted more international migrants than other regions with 94 million in 2024. Therefore, the integration of refugee children (28 million -1.4% of the world's children) into society is a crucial issue. The global refugee crisis also presents a significant socio-economic challenge for host societies.

Yeh et al. (2008) found that the cultural shock experienced by young immigrants after leaving their families and homelands can lead to traumatic problems such as inability to communicate, feelings of helplessness and vulnerability, and the emergence of unexpected fears in the host country. Young people experience difficulties with conflicting cultural values ​​and are resistant to the host country's culture despite socio-emotional support. Young people and children need very good support during this process (Kaya et al., 2021). However, it is also important to note that if newly arrived refugee youth are properly guided with education during the transition period, they can develop a sense of belonging and achievement for the community they join, and can turn their multicultural and multilingual characteristics into strengths of the society they adapt to (Olliff, 2008).

Sport alone may not magically solve complex problems like refugee integration. However, many scientists consider sport to be a shining symbol of justice, teamwork, and respect in the process of adapting to a new country where loss, prejudice, and exclusion may prevail. Therefore, making sport a part of this complex puzzle suggests that many problems can be solved more easily (Doidge et al.).

Sport plays a very important role in the daily lives of many young people. This role is even more significant for refugee children. The most important reason for this is that sport provides young people with an environment where they can be together and socialize. Through the body language they use during sports, people can express themselves nonverbally, build relationships, and more easily achieve their goals. Although there is little research on the impact of sport on people from different cultures within the same society, studies conducted so far indicate that sport is used as a tool for reconciliation and social identity building in areas of cultural conflict, helping individuals adapt to their new countries and develop social and cultural skills (Stura & Johnston, 2018; Spaaij, 2015). Studies on trauma mitigation have suggested that sports or physical activities can influence the integration process of newcomers, such as refugees or migrants, within a host society (Ha & Lyras, 2013).

Countries receiving migrants use sport as a tool for the adaptation and social development of migrants in refugee regions. This research investigates whether sport plays a role in the adaptation of Syrian children migrating to Turkey, and if so, what kind of role it plays.

Studies show that acculturation and integration are multi-dimensional processes. It is stated that in this process, individuals as well as the host society play a decisive role, and that with the support of the community, one can become part of the system and achieve social cohesion. The European Commission also acknowledges the important role of sport in integration into a community. Furthermore, it has been shown that sport has a significant impact on migrants establishing relationships with the local population, reducing social isolation in the country of residence, and increasing contact between groups. The results also indicate that physical activity programs support the positive and successful adaptation of refugee children and young people to their new country (Flensner et al., 2021).

In modernity, human-nature relations have been characterized by separation, hierarchy, and the exceptionalism of human agency. Accordingly, the position of other than human animals has been shaped by subordination and otherness in relation to human species. Currently, the human-induced environmental crisis is introducing profound changes in the ways these positions and divisions are perceived. The porosity, transcorporeality and entanglement of humans with the rest of the nature, as implicated in the debates around the concept of the Anthropocene (Lorimer, 2017), requires an ontology capable of grasping the blending of the natural with the human-constructed, the biological with the cultural, genes with their environments, and the material with the semiotic (Massumi, 2009). This “interactionist ontology” (Tuana 2008) becomes visible especially in environmental catastrophes. Furthermore, threatening and looming environmental catastrophes illustrate how affects are indistinguishable from the generalised crisis environment (Massumi, 2009).

We invited groups of children and young people to collectively examine the changing human-nature relations in two informal educational settings, a natural history museum and a zoo. We engaged in multispecies ethnography, expert-led excursions and art-based workshops to enhance attentiveness to various aspects of human-animal relations. Across all these activities, we employed the concept of atmosphere (xx) to focus on the ways in which affect and ontology come together in these contexts, their representations, narratives and stagings. The questions we examined were: How is the human/animal distinction made in the natural history museum and in the zoo? What kinds of atmospheres are emerging and how are atmospheres used around this ontological distinction?

Atmosphere, or affective atmosphere (Anderson & Ash, 2015) is a concept that builds on the dynamic notion of collective and prepersonal affects (Massumi, 2009). As phenomena, atmospheres can be seen as affective assemblages (see Tsing, 2015), in which openness, heterogeneity, movement and change foreground. However, atmospheres also help us approach the other-than-human and nonhuman worlds, as myriad crucially significant atmospheres exist outside the human sensory and semiotic capacities (Lorimer et al., 2019). Importantly, in our research, the atmospheric ethnographic approach (Schroer & Schmitt, 2018) fuelled ontological sensitivity to exploration of educational assemblages involving humans, legacies of science, nonhuman animals, and various materials and architectures.

The ethnographic, atmospheric, and arts-based approaches and materials allowed us to analyse the material and affective making of the human/animal distinction: the making of scientific subjects and objects; the atmospheres of conservation and their ruptures; the co-existence of different, frictional atmospheres around the animal closures and dioramas. In the end of the empirical phase in the natural history museum, we conducted discussions with the young people to revisit their experiences during the research. In particular, the atmospheres around extinction led us to reflect on human exceptionalism and the related existential loneliness (Rose, 2011), and the possibilities of change related to these.

The study highlighted the interrelated affective and ontological dimensions of the environmental crisis, focusing on the ways these shape and are shaped by young humans and other than human animals. In the course of the research, being human in a human-induced environmental crisis became seen as an issue related in various ways to the modernist human/animal distinction maintained in educational practices. However, this same distinction appeared as one that can be ruptured and unlearned. The discussions also highlighted a space of agency, in which the young people pondered various, even conflicting modes of action within the environmental crisis. However, in particular in the zoo context, other than human animals’ worlds, agencies, and atmospheres were made visible, ones that easily are hidden behind normative educational accounts and human exceptionalist storylines.