This article examines processes of educational reform and change in a post-Communist Eastern European country. Focusing on the experiences and challenges facing one geographical community in Sibiu County, Romania, an attempt is made to understand some of the macro and micro factors, influences and external policy drivers, shaping the organization…

As curricular development in Scotland espoused the importance of pupil participation, the extent to which this has been embedded across teachers' pedagogy into assessment and reporting practices warranted investigation. This article reports a mixed-methods study with parents, pupils and teachers from three Scottish primary schools that…

The aim of this article is to study teachers' attitudes toward assessment of students' learning and their assessment practices in Georgia's general educational institutions. Georgia is a country in the South Caucasus with a population of 4.5 million people, with 2300 general educational institutions and about 559,400 students. The…

Based on qualitative data collected over a 6-month period, this article examines how teachers' experiences of principal leadership practice influence their capacity to engage in meaningful collegial interactions during structured collaboration. Similar to previous studies, our findings confirm the limitations of leadership that relies…

Recent research has produced evidence to suggest a strong reciprocal link between school context-specific language constructions that reflect a school's vision and schoolwide pedagogy, and the way that meaning making occurs, and a school's culture is characterized. This research was conducted within three diverse settings: one school in…

Using metaphor to clarify pedagogical understanding and to anchor teacher beliefs and knowledge to meaningful contextualized mental maps can have powerful consequences in schools. Frequent changes in school staff and clientele present schools with the challenge of how to share culturally specific messages quickly and effectively to those new to…

School premises make a difference to learning, but it is important to understand the relationship between setting and educational activities. Physical space has been found to entrench practice, making it harder to reflect and make changes. Yet changes made to the physical environment may not lead to changes in teaching or learning. This may be…

There has been much media speculation and general conversation about the crisis of masculinity, the lack of male role models--in particular, the lack of fathers, and how many boys are becoming a "lost" generation. An 2002 Australian House of Representatives report "Boys: Getting it right" investigated this issue in depth and made recommendations…

In the light of wide recognition that the traffic between home and school is traditionally one-way, this article reports on a deliberately counter-cultural project that involved teachers in researching children's everyday literacy practices and "funds of knowledge" (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) over a year. Eighteen primary teachers from 10…

Education policies tend to evoke mixed feelings: excitement amongst advocates of change or uncertainty and stress among teachers expected to implement them. Reactions to the Education White Paper 6: Special Needs Education--Building an Inclusive Education and Training System have been no different. Emanating from a PhD study, this article…

Scholars have proposed that "the path to change in the classroom lies within and through" more collaborative professional communities among teachers (McLaughlin and Talbert, 1993: 18). How do different approaches to developing collaborative professional communities impact experienced teachers and their ability to change? This article identifies…

This mixed-methods study examined elementary teachers' perceptions of teacher-student bullying. Grounded in previous research on peer bullying, the study posed several questions: to what extent did teachers perceive bullying of students by other teachers as a serious matter requiring intervention? Did they perceive teacher bullying as more serious…

Transition from primary to secondary school is an important but neglected topic. For this review, 88 studies were selected from 325 possible studies, as including substantive data related to transition. The teacher's perspective and the child's perspective were very different, the former principally concerned with attainment and the latter…

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), which applies to all children under the age of 18, established the overarching principles guiding pupil participation. In most European states, signatories to the Convention have enacted policies to promote the voice of the child or young person in decisions that affect them. In…

In exchange for the autonomy they have been granted, schools are required to evaluate the quality of the education they provide. Self-evaluation initiatives are a frequently chosen method. The present article reveals the underlying processes which have an impact on the results of such self-evaluations. It is based on research which demonstrates…