Assistive Technology

Considering the vicious cycle of exclusion that students with special needs are often trapped in— lacking the means for equal participation in education, society, and mainstream development programs—assistive technology has proven to have great potential in providing to all learners the ability to access the general education curriculum. Approaches in the use of assistive technology basically focus on facilitating individuals in their interaction with their environment. Assistive technology is a generic term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices that might be used to compensate for lack of certain abilities, in order to participate in the activities of daily life. With assistive technology individuals have the option of approaching and completing their tasks with greater ease and independence, since it helps in removing functional barriers that inhibit their individual performance. With the emergence of the social model of disability, it is increasingly being argued that inaccessible environments have been the greatest barrier to the inclusion of students with special needs. Research on the successful implementation of inclusive education in developing countries identifies the ineffective and inefficient use of assistive technologies, citing this as the major obstacle hindering inclusion. Since it has been widely acknowledged, that the success and applicability of an assistive device is governed by its acceptance and actual usage by its users considering their perception, expectations, satisfaction, and their level of access and success with the technology when interacting with their environment; approaches in the use of technology therefore have to be needs-based; inexpensive to produce, purchase, and maintain; and be easy to use and effective in addressing an identified need. This can be ensured by the direct involvement of potential users at each stage of the planning and implementation process to help overcome barriers that inhibit the efficient use and applicability of assistive technology devices in different contexts. Moreover, although assistive technology is seen to have a major role in remediating and compensating the performance deficits experienced by students with special needs, it should not be viewed merely within a rehabilitative or remediative context, but as a tool for accessing curriculum and exploring and drawing out means to help learners achieve positive outcomes. Researches on the use of assistive technology point toward the distinct need to identify ways to encourage the development of tools and strategies for effective technology integration, and to work together on issues surrounding the use of technology, ensuring that the same high standards of instruction and need-based assistance is available to all despite the difference in their functional abilities.

International Perspectives on Academic Freedom

The beginnings of academic freedom are testimony to internationalism. European universities in the Middle Ages were self-governing to a degree, but the Church or the state controlled them for centuries. As modern science emerged in 17th-century England and as partaking in research and scholarship began to spread in the 18th and 19th centuries throughout Europe, an interest in the protection of free inquiry intensified. Students who pursued advanced education did so in Europe where many of them became professors, and where, consequently, the idea of Lehrfreiheit emerged: the right of the university professor to freedom of inquiry and teaching. Modern notions of academic freedom began to coalesce in the 19th century and on into the early and mid-20th century with the ascendancy of the research role performed by academics. Yet the point should not be lost that a broader interest in freedom of thought and teaching predates this process of formalization. Assertions of scholarly freedom in the 13th and 14th centuries at the University of Paris constitute a legacy of protections in the pursuit of knowledge, and the term scholastic freedom is traceable to Pope Honorius III in the 13th century. Owing to its span across time and cultural contexts, it is unsurprising that understandings of academic freedom have evolved and are thereby also susceptible to misunderstanding and misapplication. That there might be simply one way to construe academic freedom is a modern paradox. More accurately, academic freedom is nestled in a constellation of cultural, social, and political settings and traditions and histories. Academic freedom is often assumed to be a necessary condition for an authentic academic profession wherever professors are employed. In only a limited number of national systems, particularly the United States, academic freedom is strongly associated with tenure. But globally, most systems of higher education do not have tenure. This fact begs the question of how academic freedom, however construed, can exist in an absence of tenure protections. Answers to the question are again conditioned by histories and traditions, long or limited, that situate professors’ work in a relationship between the state and higher education. The reality that academic freedom is understood differently in different parts of world makes comparison difficult. This likely accounts for the relative paucity of explicitly empirical treatment of academic freedom in international comparative focus. In actuality it is challenging to offer a universal definition of “academic freedom.”

Young Children and Spirituality

The term ‘spirituality’ is notoriously challenging to define, partly because it is reliant on translating inner feelings and experiences into words or other modes of expression, which will be interpreted in a multitude of ways depending on the audience’s own inner spiritual and cultural landscape. In describing spiritual concepts, we are reduced to using terminology such as ‘self-transcendent,’ ‘sacred,’ ‘awe-inspiring,’ or ‘connecting’ as we attempt to communicate ethereal experiences and beliefs. The difficulties with expressing spirituality are further compounded when applying the notion to young children. Typically, when we refer to ‘young children’ we mean children aged from birth to eight years. What then, is spirituality for this age group? The extant studies about young children’s spirituality are interested in how young children operate holistically. This makes an extremely important contribution as the spiritual dimension can be lacking in many studies about holism in which spirituality might be conflated with culture or well-being. Scholars of children’s spirituality contemporaneously understand this age group to primarily experience the world (and therefore potentially spiritual experiences) though their bodies. As such, readers are reliant on those scholars’ observations and interpretations of when and how children experience reverence and wonderment, and even the divine, based on young children’s nonverbal expression as much as what they say. Descriptive accounts are frequently the primary source of data and are often the only mechanism a reader can use to assess the credibility of a researcher’s claims. This makes for a field of research that is not without its challenges. A further challenge is untangling spirituality from religion or religious practice and understanding them each as constructs that are often interwoven but that can exist without the other. The intent in the present review brings together literature that has attempted to address the sticky terrain of children’s spirituality with three primary foci, which are (1) spirituality as distinct from religion, (2) young children as those aged eight years old or younger, and (3) enough descriptive detail for the reader to probe the authors’ assertions about children’s spirituality. While there are considerably more sources addressing spirituality in publication than what is represented here, there is a paucity which foregrounds these three factors. A final note is that two significant themes have not been addressed here: (1) ecospirituality and children’s relationships to nature, and (2) young children’s spiritual development. While many of the articles in the present review refer to these two themes, they have not been special foci as they are thoroughly addressed in a separate Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies article “Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence” by W. George Scarlett.

Education for Sustainable Development

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a concept referring to all teaching, learning and capacity building that seeks to develop a citizenry that can live more sustainably on the Earth. It focuses on learning processes and learning environments that can foster the qualities and competencies people need to contribute to more sustainable forms of being. Typically these qualities and related competencies include being caring, mindful, respectful, compassionate, and critical in the way we relate to each other to people elsewhere and future generations, but also to other species; systems thinking; dealing with uncertainty and (eco)anxiety; moral reasoning; anticipatory thinking; and the ability to make change. Within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, ESD became a component of one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 4 ‘Quality Education.’ Newly emerging strands in the context of ESD, also seeking to transcend ESD, include a critical transgressive strand emphasizing the important of not just developing agency and competence that citizens need to learn to live equitably and meaningfully within planetary boundaries, but also helping learners in critiquing and changing or even disrupting structures and systems that normalize unsustainability. Another emerging strand is a posthuman, relational strand that emphasizes the importance of decentering the human and becoming aware of our inevitable entanglement with nature and other species. While receiving much attention in international governance and policy contexts, enactment of ESD in practice lags behind, in part due to different priorities in education at the country level and a lack of understanding of its meaning and its potential significance in reforming education and learning in times of global sustainability challenges. At the same time some scholars critique ESD for being overly instrumental, anthropocentric, and having colonizing tendencies that ignore Indigenous and local perspectives on both education and sustainability.

Indigenous Learning Environments

A learning environment incorporates the physical location, context, and cultures in which students learn. The term implicitly acknowledges that learning takes place in a multitude of ways and locations. The implication is that certain learning environments are better suited for certain individuals, cultures, subjects, or content. Indigneous students are often underserved in higher education. Few educational institutions, outside of tribally controlled institutions, have a critical mass of Indigenous students, resulting in a lack of Indigenous courses, content, programs, dialogue, and space. An additional consequence is that research solely dedicated to Indigenous postsecondary education is limited. To account for this gap, it is necessary to pull from secondary, and sometimes primary, academic research. Cultural differences between dominant higher education models and traditional ways of learning work to widen the education gap and reduce Indigenous students’ future opportunities. In 2016, approximately, 20 percent of American Indians/Alaska Native and Pacific Islander students enrolled in higher education, yet their graduation rate was 39 percent and 51 percent, respectively, compared to 64 percent for white students. Creating an Indigenous learning environment can serve to improve Indigneous student knowledge acquisition, increase recruitment and retention, and facilitate increased on-campus intercultural dialogue. Curating a space where Indigneous students can thrive and where non-Indigenous students are able to learn about the unique sociohistorical relationship betwen Indigneous people and the United States facilitates the bridging of a cultural gap in larger society. After providing a General Overview, the literature is divided into five sub-themes: Curriculum, Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Pedagogy, Indigenous-Focused Assessment, and Culturally Appropriate Safe Space.

Sustainability Education in Early Childhood Education

Sustainability education is a comparatively new component of early childhood care and education. It has emerged in response to growing concerns about the state of humanity and the planet on which we depend, and in recognition of the early years as foundational in the establishment of dispositions related to ways of knowing, being, doing, and relating. Such dispositions can reflect key aspects of caring, learning, and acting in accordance to values that are life-enhancing for people and planet. UNESCO definitions of sustainability education recognize the interconnectedness of social, cultural, ecological, and economic justice as key dimensions in generating a world that sustains both human and more-than-human diversity. Sustainability education within the field of early childhood education similarly reflects the consideration that young children and their families are agentic and can act in ways that reflect a commitment to social justice and to protect planetary biodiversity at their local levels, as well as advocate for political changes in service of local and global well-being, such as policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. UNESCO, as the lead United Nations agency for education, science, and culture, has been mandated to lead education for sustainability since the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002. Within UNESCO discourse, the terminology used is “Education for Sustainable Development” in recognition of the tensions that exist between the “developed” and “developing” nations in that the former are over-utilizing the resources of the earth in an unsustainable manner, while many in the majority world struggle to live in ways that maintain their well-being. The current United Nations Sustainable Development Goals outline a program intended to address seventeen key areas, which include poverty, hunger, health and well-being, education, gender equality, life on land and in the water, climate action, and sustainable cities and communities. Goal 4.7 recognizes they key role that education plays in furthering the entire SDG agenda: “Target 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” (UNESCO 2017, p. 7, cited under UNESCO Guiding Documents). This signals that all educators, from the early years and beyond, should incorporate such key focuses within the programs they offer. Beginning with some key UNESCO documents, the sections below cover some key texts and articles that provide guidance for sustainability education in early childhood settings.

Teacher Beliefs and Epistemologies

Teacher beliefs are implicit and explicit suppositions held by educators which have relevance for their professional and instructional practices, interactions with students, and learning processes. They may include beliefs about students, self, learning, knowledge, and knowing. Beliefs about knowledge and knowing—teacher epistemologies—are a specific and important type of teacher belief. Teacher beliefs and epistemologies merit investigation given their influence on teaching practices and student learning, yet the form, nature, development, and propensity to change with respect to these constructs are open to question. Further, their expression in teachers’ practice is complex, not least because both the construct and content of “belief” and “epistemology” are equivocal, elaborate, and closely connected to other constructs. Much of the teacher beliefs and epistemology research has emerged from the field of educational psychology. This chapter describes five central issues related to teachers’ beliefs and epistemologies during recent decades. Similar core issues were identified in the Oxford Research Encyclopedias in Education article “Reviews of Teachers’ Beliefs.” Within each of five sections, which represent the core issues in the field, we first explore teacher beliefs in general followed by teacher epistemologies specifically. In the first section, we provide general overviews of teacher beliefs and epistemologies to introduce the reader to key texts in both fields. The second section is a review of conceptualizations of teacher beliefs and epistemologies, in which we highlight the ways in which beliefs and epistemologies are characterized. The third section explores relationships between teachers’ beliefs/epistemologies and teaching and learning practices. Measuring teachers’ beliefs and epistemologies is the focus of the fourth section, which explicates different ways in which beliefs and epistemologies have been studied. Finally, in the fifth section, we examine research and theorization about the ways in which teachers’ beliefs and epistemologies might undergo change.

Sustainability in Higher Education

Since sustainable development has emerged as a normative guiding idea at the global level, it has been perceived as a “moving target” that requires deliberation and social learning processes. Consequently, the notion of learning for sustainability figures prominently in both academia and policy, and learning and education are increasingly considered important features in this regard. Education for sustainable development was first introduced in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and has since developed into a well-established educational field. Additional momentum has been gained through the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014). This is even more so with the ongoing follow-up program “ESD for 2030” in which a direct link to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been made. While the implementation of this vision is supported in all educational sectors, it is higher education that has a key role to play in the overall process of striving for sustainable development. Universities generate and transfer relevant knowledge, as well as enable future change agents to contribute to a sustainable future. In addition, they act in their own organizational practice as a role model and contribute through societal outreach and service. This bibliography contains a selection of papers and volumes on themes discussed in the area of sustainability in higher education. It covers the Historical Context, various areas of universities activities and different disciplinary and regional approaches. Emphasis is given on educational activities and thus the research and practice of teaching and learning on the micro- level (courses) and the macro-level (programs).

Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand is a small island country located in the southern Pacific Ocean. Eastern Polynesian migrants came in canoe groups probably in the 13th century ce, and the first settlers and Indigenous people were Māori. In 2020, the population is nearly five million, and is ethnically diverse. Early childhood education (ECE) covers the period from birth to age 5 years. Recently, for policy purposes, ECE services have been categorized broadly as teacher-led and parent/whānau-led (extended family) to differentiate between how the services operate and are funded. A teacher-led service is one where one or more qualified teachers are responsible for the overall program in the service. They are required to have a person responsible who is a registered, early childhood education qualified teacher (equivalent to a three-year specialist degree or diploma) and meet the government’s regulation that 50 percent of required staff must hold this recognized qualification. There is now a funding incentive for teacher-led services to employ 80 percent or more of staff with this recognized qualification. In 2019, 96 percent of services had a teaching staff qualification rate of over 80 percent. In addition, there is a current policy shift toward teacher-led services employing 100 percent of staff with this qualification. Within the teacher-led grouping, education and care centers (childcare centers) cater to the largest number of children and offer full-day, sessional, or half-day provision. Home-based services (family daycare) provide for an educator to work with children in the educator’s home or the child’s home at hours to suit parents; 70 percent of education and care and 92 percent of home-based services are for-profit, owned, and managed by private companies or owners. Kindergartens mainly operate under a school-day or sessional provision and cater for children aged 2 to 5 years. The Correspondence School is a distance education service, and is directly provided by the state. Parent/whānau-led services have high levels of parent or whānau involvement in providing education and care for children. They do not have to meet teacher registration targets, but the licensed parent/whānau-led services have their own service specific–qualification requirements. Kōhanga reo (Māori immersion language nests) were established in 1982 and have been described as “the most vigorous and innovative educational movement in this country (dare I say in the world).” They offer total immersion in Māori and foster Māori language, cultural identity, and self-determination. Pacific Early Childhood Groups are total immersion or bilingual in their home Pacific language. They may be sessional or full day. In sessional playcenters, parents undertake curriculum implementation, management, and administration, and are trained through the Playcentre Federation. Sessional playgroups are also run by parents, but parents require no training.

Research–Practice Partnerships in Education Within The United States

Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) in education are long-term collaborations aimed at educational improvement and transformation through engagement with research, intentionally organized to connect diverse forms of expertise and to ensure that all partners have a say in the joint work. They have the potential to create conditions for research to inform practice more effectively than a one-way model that emphasizes translation of research into practice. After a description of systematic review methods and brief background on RPPs, this article is organzed into five focal RPP outcome areas: building trust and cultivating relationships, conducting rigorous and relevant research, supporting local improvement efforts, producing knowledge for the field more broadly, and building capacity for involved participants and organizations.