Environmental Education-related Policy Enactment in Japanese High Schools

Over the past decade, Japan’s rich tradition of environmental education-related policy has shifted to encompass international discourse concerning global competition and education for sustainable development. In view of this shift, this article explores environmental education-related policy enactment from the perspective of high school teachers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 experienced teachers and were analysed using the environmental education-related conceptual lenses of Lucas (1972) and Stevenson (1987, 2007). The findings suggest that the current policy enactment in Japanese high schools features a narrow interpretation of environmental education that emphasises knowledge acquisition and overlooks the development of practical skills, attitudes or democratic citizenship. This case study highlights the necessity that, for a progressive environmental education to become established, policymakers must find a way to balance local knowledge with the demands of international organizations, paying particular attention to curriculum ideology, policy competition and the teachers’ voice in policy creation.

Risky Choices

Achievement data from New Zealand secondary schools suggest that students from lower socio-economic communities have fewer opportunities to engage with complex content in subject English. This article examines this phenomenon by drawing on Foucault’s notion of governmentality and considers how a context of simultaneously increased autonomy and surveillance may shape curriculum and assessment choices. To explore these ideas, I use interview data from ten secondary English teachers in the wider Auckland region. I complement Foucault’s (1982) explanation of governmentality with Ball, Maguire, and Braun’s (2012) notion of policy enactment to explore spaces of both compliance and resistance.

The Effect of Online Learning Policy toward Indonesian Students’ Mental Health during Covid-19 Pandemic

Background: The determination of a health emergency has implications for an online learning policy enactment in Indonesia. After one year of implementing the online learning policy, it has broughtproblems for Indonesian students, especially mental health issued. Aim: This research aimed to further analyze the relationship between the implementation of online learning policies and the mental health of Indonesian students after one year of Covid-19 pandemic. Method: This research used non-doctrinal legal research methods with a qualitative approach. Conclusion: The implementation of online learning policies has an indirect effect on mental health for students aged 7-18 years. Stressful conditions, lack of interaction, potential to become introverted are problems after one year of the implementation of the online learning policy. However, this condition is different from students in higher education who are more ready and comfortable with online learning patterns. Keywords: Policy; online learning; mental health; Covid-19.

A community of practice approach to enhancing academic integrity policy translation: a case study

Introduction Academic integrity policy that is inaccessible, ambiguous or confusing is likely to result in inconsistent policy enactment. Additionally, policy analysis and development are often undertaken as top down processes requiring passive acceptance by users of policy that has been developed outside the context in which it is enacted. Both these factors can result in poor policy uptake, particularly where policy users are overworked, intellectually critical and capable, not prone to passive acceptance and hold valuable grass roots intelligence about policy enactment. Case description The case study presented in this paper describes the actions of a community of practice (CoP) at a regional Australian university to deconstruct and translate ambiguous academic integrity policy into a suite of accessible academic integrity resources that were intelligible to staff and students, and which assisted academic staff to consistently enact policy. The paper narrates the formation of the CoP, the tangible and intangible value it created, the social learning practices enacted by its members, its grassroots policy work and the material resources produced from that work. Discussion and evaluation An evaluation of the CoP was conducted using a value creation framework to explore its immediate value, potential value, applied value, realised value, and reframing value. These values were considered at each stages of the CoP’s lifespan. The evaluation was a useful process that demonstrated the wide-ranging value created by the CoP. Six insights were drawn from the evaluation which promote understanding of the value created for a university by a CoP, particularly in contributing to academic integrity culture over a sustained period of time. Conclusions This paper contributes to a research gap on specific examples of discretion within rule-based systems. It illustrates how academics and members of the CoP used their discretion to interpret and enact academic integrity policy within a higher education setting. Drawing from the evaluation of the CoP we argue for greater understanding of the grass-roots contribution of academic and professional staff to academic integrity policy translation and enactment.

Teacher Quality and Teacher Education: A Critical Policy Analysis of International and Australian Policies.

This article examines how the ‘teacher quality’ agenda, evident in the globalised discourse on education policy, constructs changes to teachers’ work and teacher education. We undertake a critical policy analysis of two reportsfrom the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), addressing three issues. First, we discuss the global and national context in which ‘teacher quality’ policies have emerged. We examine implications of policy enactment in Australia and analyse how the OECD documents construct understandings of teacher quality. We link our analysis to a recent government inquiry into the teaching profession in Australia, looking specifically at the impact of the teacher quality discourse on teacher education. The OECD documents constrain what is perceived as acceptable curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation in teacher education. We argue, with others, that changes in response to the teacher quality discourse are narrowing what it means to undertake quality teaching work,especially in contexts of disadvantage.