The context of this study is the Danish upper secondary school, which has undergone remarkable changes during the past ten years. Cross-disciplinary activities have been introduced as a teaching principle in order to create new skills for future generations in the knowledge society, while team organization among teachers has become obligatory in…

A research panel asked to frame the discussion for a new Teaching Quality Standard in Alberta assumes this task requires a paradigm shift away from the status quo efficiency movement. As a member of the panel, the author provides an analysis of paradigm shifts in education and recounts important lessons to be learned. The author challenges the…

Mentors' perceptions of factors associated with educational change were identified following an individualized mentoring program about constructivist curriculum for early childhood educators. A qualitative case study analysis of the mentors' journals of six classrooms was conducted to review their perceptions of change. Classroom…

Constructing a policy web of relationships is proposed as a useful way to identify and understand complex relationships between policies and their contexts. In Canada, the province of Ontario's "Character Development Initiative" (CDI) and its relationships to student achievement, citizenship education, and safe schools policies provide an…

This article describes a recent study that investigated the physical education (PE) beliefs of a particular population of students (i.e., female and male students in Grades 4 through 10 from a single school stream). Through their completion of an adapted survey, students (N = 506) were able to share their PE beliefs in relation to five separate…

We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of Struggling Schools, a user-generated approach to Comprehensive School Reform implemented in 100 low achieving schools serving disadvantaged students in a Canadian province. The results show that while Struggling Schools had a statistically significant positive effect on Grade 3 Reading achievement, d = 0.48…

The learning ministries in Ontario have made a concerted effort to underscore Aboriginal learners' needs and preferences in publicly-funded and assisted schools and training services throughout the province. Through a trilogy of policy documents, the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU)…

Teachers play a vital role in the implementation of new programs. This article discusses how best to support teachers in the face of such change. Specifically, we describe the perspectives of teachers who participated in a pilot project of the responsiveness to intervention model. Through focus group data, the researchers explored the barriers…

There is an inconsistency between a growing need for national research on issues of child and adolescent health and the wide range of diverse curriculum responses to health issues undertaken by individual provinces and territories in Canada. Measuring the effect of interventions is more difficult in this contradiction. In this study, the authors…

This report describes the effect of cooperative learning in low-track and regular classrooms, using the dimensions of student alienation, academic self-esteem, willingness to cooperate, and academic supportiveness. The investigators examined the influence of student agency in choosing peers for the cooperative groups in a high school science…

Drawing on Gideonse's (1993) distinction between political, institutional, and professional modes of governance, this article examines changes in the governance of initial teacher preparation in Canada over the last three decades. With data collected from a review of provincial documents and key informant interviews, the article uses Quebec,…

From October 2004 to June 2006, I worked as a curriculum leader across 18 elementary schools as part of an Alberta Incentive for School Improvement project focused on the reform question: How does inquiry transform learning environments? As a curriculum leader, my role included, but was not limited to, the introduction, articulation, and…

The dual Ontario graduating class of 2003, commonly referred to as the Double Cohort, was the product of that provincial government's initiative to eliminate the long entrenched practice of requiring a fifth year of secondary school for university-bound students. The new, more "rigorous" four-year curriculum, the Ministry of Education asserted,…

In Zimbabwe the need to incorporate indigenous knowledge in science education to reflect local cultural settings cannot be overemphasized. Current policies on science are situated in Western cultural definitions, thus marginalizing indigenous knowledge, which is misconceived as irrational and illogical. This study used qualitative research…

Accountability structures and processes have become such an integral part of education policy development and implementation that Ranson (2003) argues, "accountability is no longer merely an important instrument or component within the system, but constitutes the system itself" (p. 459). This argument is supported by the growth of an orientation…