Discourses of love, care and maternalism affect the everyday lives of children enrolled in early childhood education. These discourses bear witness to the ontological transformation that has occurred since the Romantic era that birthed the kindergarten movement to today. Reflecting on historical discourses of love, care and maternalism from the…

All children have the right to education that meets their needs and aims to enable them full integration in their society. Education should guarantee all children an equal chance to actively participate in society regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or disability (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). Yet sophisticated mechanisms within…

This paper (1) explores the reasons why philosophy was accorded a special role in Catholic higher education in the United States in the decades prior to Vatican II; (2) explains why many of those reasons are now widely seen as attenuated or obsolete; (3) briefly discusses recent changes to the environment of Catholic higher education that have led…

The religion of Islam is often portrayed with false and negative stereotypes. If we expect our students to understand and participate in the global world and to be informed and engaged citizens in a democratic America, then it is essential that they develop a basic and sound understanding of Islam. Furthermore, learning about Islam can facilitate…

A laboratory experiment is described in which a simple characterization of a historical lime mortar is made by the determination of its approximate composition by a gravimetric method. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) are also used for the qualitative characterization of the lime mortar components. These…

Though guided-inquiry learning, discovery learning, student-centered learning, and problem-based learning are commonly believed to be recent new approaches to the teaching of chemistry, in fact, the concept dates back to the late 19th century. Here, we will show that it was the British chemist, Henry Armstrong, who pioneered this technique,…

This article takes its retrospective lead from the oppressive schooling years during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to reflect on the educational significance of artistic activities through considering aesthetic virtues and moral agency cultivated in these activities. Describing an unconventional educational milieu where schooling was…

The purpose of this article is to introduce a potentially new and exciting group of activities that can be taught in physical education. Activities based on Scottish Highland Games can be an interesting way to incorporate history and literature into the curriculum, as well as introduce students to a variety of unique physical activities. This…

Sudbury schools, which originated in the USA in the 1960s, are radical alternatives to traditional public schooling that promote egalitarian relationships between children and adults. Given that the Sudbury model has been largely overlooked in educational anthropology, this paper presents findings from a 1.5-year critical ethnographic study of a…

Soldiers deserve respect for their courageous sacrifices, and a strong military is necessary to the safety of any nation, but militarism--excessive emphasis on the military and its interests--threatens the cultural balance of society. Militarism endangers the quality of school music education due to its tendencies to (1) encourage allocation of a…

The author discusses the benefits of nontraditional assessments and shares how she has used them in her 5th-grade classroom in rural South Carolina. The examples include doing a Gallery Walk, writing poetry, integrating the arts into other subjects, having students reenact historical scenes, using social media, and rewriting popular songs with…

For centuries, teachers have complained about their salaries. In the Stapfer inquiry of 1799, some teachers made remarks about financial issues, particularly their low incomes. This inquiry is the main source for the arguments presented here regarding teachers' low salary during this period of the Helvetic Republic. The disparity between the…

Biology is a science that involves study of the diversity of living organisms. This diversity has always generated questions and has motivated cultures to seek plausible explanations for the differences and similarities between types of organisms. In biology teaching, these issues are addressed by adopting an evolutionary approach. The aim of this…

This article responds to a question put forward approximately a decade ago by the history of education research group at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven: Did the child-centred ideas of New Education, as promoted by Ovide Decroly, influence the education policy in the former Belgian colony of Congo? Naturally, ideas were circulating that could…

Developing inclusion in schools has been an objective for many countries in recent decades, giving rise to a variety of definitions, policy-making activities and school practices. This paper focuses on the attempts made towards inclusion of students with disabilities in Turkey. We start by introducing inclusive education and its parameters, and…