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The Australian Government has long used its international scholarship programs as an instrument of soft power in international diplomacy. The paper examines an international scholarship program and its role in Australia’s soft power efforts during a period in recent history.

The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper of 2012 is used as a lens to reveal how the Australian Government viewed the role of international scholarship programs in international diplomacy at a specific point in the recent past, and compares it with research revealing what was contemporaneously happening with one key government-funded scholarship program.

This paper is based on a comprehensive case study of the Australian Government’s Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships program (2004–2019). Endeavour was an ambitious and expensive merit-based program with 6,600 recipients in numerous and diffuse sub-categories. The program was complex and cumbersome and lacked clear priorities, particularly in its lack of geographic focus. It missed opportunities to connect with the political zeitgeist, largely due to opaque priorities and inadequate evaluation regimes which focused entirely on outcomes for individual recipients rather than on relationships for Australia.

This research draws on the first academic study of the Endeavour program. Other scholarship programs (for example Australia Awards and the New Colombo Plan) have attracted considerable scholarly interest. The Endeavour research provides an additional counterpoint for studies of Australian scholarship programs and their contribution to international diplomacy. It is timely to consider this in 2024 when Australia is putting a new focus on its investment in international scholarships.

The purpose of our research is to better understand inquiry-based pedagogy in the context of leadership education. Specifically, we sought to learn about how leadership learning is characterized in an immersive inquiry course, and how inquiry-based pedagogy is experienced by students engaged in interdisciplinary leadership learning.

We used a case study approach as an overarching methodology. The research methods employed to collect data were World Cafe and episodic narrative interview. Further, we used collocation analysis and systematic text condensation as analytical strategies to interpret data.

Our findings led us to four primary conclusions: (1) inquiry-based learning helps to foster an inquiry mindset amongst leadership education students; (2) the challenges and tensions associated with inquiry-based learning are worth the learning gains for leadership students; (3) the opportunity to learn in relationship is beneficial for leadership development outcomes and (4) students’ experiences of inquiry-based learning in leadership education often included instances of transformation.

Limitations of the research were: (1) it is a case study situated within a unique, particular social and educational context; (2) demographic data were not collected from participants, so results cannot be disaggregated based on particular demographic markers and (3) the small sample size involved in the study makes it impossible to generalize across a broad population.

This research has enabled a deep understanding of structural and relational supports that can enable effective inquiry-based learning in leadership education. It also offers evidence to support institutional shifts to inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education.

Our research demonstrates that use of inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education has long-lasting positive effects on students' capacity for applied leadership practice. Consequently, participants in this type of leadership learning are better positioned to effectively lead social change that is pressing in our current global context.

There is scant (if any) published research that has focused on using inquiry-based pedagogies in leadership education. This research makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of leadership education.

The case describes a hypothetical hedge fund manager who is examining whether to invest in bitcoin. The case discusses potential risks and rewards of investing in bitcoin, the role of bitcoin and digital currencies more broadly, and financial innovation in the space, such as ICOs. It can be taught as part of a second-year MBA elective course in investments, financial institutions/capital markets, or fintech.

Our goals were to explore the pedagogies applied by instructors that supported Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) student learning in a leadership course and the leadership behaviors BIPOC students identified as being applicable after the course.

Through survey research and qualitative data analysis, three prominent themes emerged.

High-quality, purposeful pedagogy created opportunities for students to learn. Second, a supportive, interactive community engaged students with the instructor, each other and the course material to support participation in learning. As a result, students reported experiencing big shifts, new growth and increased confidence during their leadership courses.

We discuss our findings and offer specific recommendations for leadership educators to better support BIPOC students in their leadership courses and classrooms and for further research with BIPOC students.

This paper evaluates the risk-adjusted returns, selectivity, market timing skills and persistence of the performance of Nigerian pension funds.

Annual return data of 23 pension funds that operated in Nigeria between 2018 and 2022 were obtained from the National Pension Commission (PenCom). Risk-adjusted return was appraised using the Treynor ratio, Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha, while the Treynor–Mazuy and Henriksson–Merton multiple regression models were applied to decompose selective and timing skills. Performance persistence was assessed using the contingency table and rank correlation models.

Evidence shows that pension funds deliver excess risk-adjusted returns and exhibit selective skills. However, the evidence does not support the presence of timing skills, and there is overwhelming evidence that good (bad) performance does not repeat.

An evaluation of the investment performance of pension funds is crucial for ensuring the financial stability of retirees, maintaining economic stability and making informed investment decisions. It serves the interests of pensioners, pension fund managers, regulators and the broader economy. Our evidence that pension funds generate positive excess returns is a departure from most of the literature on managed funds. We recommend that more Nigerians should leverage the pension fund industry to grow their wealth and prepare for retirement.

This study, to our knowledge, is the first to appraise all the key facets of the investment performance of pension funds in the Nigerian context.

Drawing upon person–supervisor fit theory, a model is developed to illustrate how leader–member trait mindfulness (in)congruence may impact leader–member exchange (LMX) and how such trait mindfulness (in)congruence can indirectly influence taking charge.

Polynomial regression and response surface methodology are used to analyze 237 valid matched leader–member dyads.

LMX increases as leaders' and members' trait mindfulness become more aligned; LMX is higher when leader–member dyads are congruent at high levels (vs low levels). In the case of incongruence, LMX is higher when the member's trait mindfulness exceeds that of the leader. Furthermore, the relationship between leader–member trait mindfulness (in)congruence and taking charge is mediated by LMX.

The joint and interactive role of high trait mindfulness in leader–member dyads can help them to generate high-quality interpersonal exchange, as well as to cope with challenges posed by present and future changes.

The linear, nonlinear, simultaneous and interactive effects of dyadic trait mindfulness expand previous research, clarifying that the evaluation of leader–member congruence and incongruence at various degrees, and for various patterns of trait mindfulness, is more informative than examining the direct effect alone.

In this paper the co-authors, educators and organizers working together in a liberatory curriculum development organization (People's Education Movement Chicago), put forth a conceptualization of Critical Race Praxis (CRP) in education as it applies to K-12 curriculum and education writ large. They take Yamamoto's (1997) premise seriously in that they need to spend less time with abstract theorizing and more time in communities experiencing injustice.

The co-authors utilize critical race counterstory methodologies to analyze and (re)tell their experiences building and supporting justice-centered curriculum bound in CRP. In doing so, they share narratives that illuminate their individual and collective experiences navigating the gratuitous violence of white supremacy and other forms of structural oppression, and their work to center justice in and out of K-12 schools.

The findings provide examples of organizational praxes within the tenets of CRP (Conceptual, Material, Performative and Reflexive). For People’s Education Movement Chicago the conceptual conditions of their praxes begin with an intersectional analysis of schooling, education, and life. Within the CRP tenant of the material, the co-authors share experiences that detail their continuous political education and offer seven emergent ways of being and building to bound the material change they seek to create through their work. Next, the co-authors share their insights on the performative tenet, with a focus on curriculum, which creates learning experiences that support people to remember social movements and develop within them the curiosity and agency to act on their findings in ways that center justice and transformation. Finally, the findings related to reflexivity focus on the authors’ internal practices as a collective. The authors place process over product which, as they articulate, is a must if they are to produce a vital harvest for communities they work with and for.

The authors conclude the article with the following offerings useful to P-20 educators, researchers, school administrators and community members advancing more just educational futures: a commitment to the on the groundwork, situating social justice as an experiential phenomenon, the utilization of interdisciplinary approaches, collaborative work and capacity building, and a commitment to self and collective care.

As P-20 teachers, community workers, organizers, caregivers and education scholars of color building together in a K-12 curriculum development organization, the authors suggest that now is the moment to pivot away from the rhetoric of “we don't do CRT” and into work that constructs paths toward praxes bound in the tenets of CRP.