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Quality educational leadership preparation has positive influences on practices of graduates. In the Finnish decentralized education system, little is yet known about the sources of principals’ practices. This research explores the sources of principals’ self- assessed leadership practices in Central Finland and identifies areas for more emphasis. Respondents were selected by purposive sampling. This multiple case study employed eight semi-structured individual interviews as means of data collection. Inductive content analysis was performed. From the findings, besides personal experiences, knowledge from course, and field work, leadership and networking are also major sources of principals' practices. Training positively enhances the practices of principals as they engage in more collaboration and trust. Notwithstanding, professional development is essential for principals to stay relevant to the contemporary world of today and to be confident to face future challenges. Methods of course delivery, management of human and financial resources, as well as creating and sustaining local and international collaborations with other training institutions should be prioritized to improve on training.

With the advancement of novel forms of text mining techniques, new possibilities have opened up to conduct large-scale content analysis of educational research from an international and comparative perspective. Since educational research tends to convey great variation based on country-specific circumstances it constitutes a good testbed for context-rich depictions of the knowledge formation within a given research field.

In this article, the authors compare the educational research that has been produced by scholars in Singapore and Sweden. The article begins by providing a rich overview of what has characterised the formation and institutionalization of educational research in public policy. After this background they map the knowledge formation of education by means of a comparative bibliometric approach using words from abstracts, titles and keywords published in 9017 peer-reviewed articles between 2000 and 2020. First, the authors describe the dominant topics in each country using topic modelling techniques. Secondly, the authors identify the most distinguishing discourses when comparing the two countries.

The findings illustrate two ideal-types for conducting educational research: Singapore being more centralised, practically-oriented, quantitative and uncritical, whereas Sweden is decentralised, pluralistic, qualitative and critical in orientation. After having mapped out the prevailing topics among researchers working in these locations, the authors connect these findings to larger debates on rivalling knowledge traditions in educational scholarship, the role of the state and the degree of autonomy within higher education.

Through large scale text mining techniques, researchers have begun to explore the semantic composition of various research fields such as higher education research, research on lifelong learning, or social science studies. However, the bibliometric method has also been criticised for creating “mega-national comparisons” that suffer from a lack of understanding of the national ramifications of various research pursuits. The authors’ study addresses these shortcomings and provides a rich depiction of educational research in Singapore and Sweden. It zooms in on the relationship between each country's institutional histories, research priorities and semantic output.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of design of e-servicescapes on student engagement in distance education (DE), and examine whether this impact is mediated by student experience quality.

Quantitative research approach based on cross-sectional survey design was adapted where data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Sample consisted of 252 undergraduates registered in the DE platform in Sri Lanka and was drawn using a simple random sampling technique. Collected data were analysed using the structural equation modelling.

Data analysis revealed that there is a direct significant impact of e-servicescapes on student engagement while this impact is partially mediated by student experience quality in the Sri Lankan context. Meantime, the social presence feature of e-servicescapes has the highest impact on student engagement.

Findings of the study provide an empirically validated model to boost up the student engagement and significantly contribute to the designing of the e-servicescapes of the DE institutes in order to offer a superior service to a wide array of stakeholders.

Even though e-servicescapes have been recognised as a driver of customer behaviour, the concept is fairly unexplored in the educational context. Due to its practical applicability in the DE context, this study contributes to the existing knowledge by presenting a novel conceptual model developed based on multiple theories to identify its impact on student behaviour.

In recent decades, childhood in Japan has undergone significant transformations. Government policies geared at boosting women's labor force participation, a declining fertility rate, rising costs of having children on the one hand, and increased spending on public childcare and support measures for families, on the other hand, contribute to these ongoing changes. Having only one child is becoming the norm while mothers' role in society is shifting. The traditional family structure is moving from the previously predominant male breadwinner model to more dual-earner families. Children now spend significant amounts of time in care and education institutions.

In this chapter, we analyze current configurations of early childhood in institutions and the family from a policy perspective and regarding children's predominant education and care arrangements. Drawing on various survey data sets and evidence from demographic statistics to pedagogical ethnographies, we look at how childcare policies and families reshape the organization of children's lives and outline how institutions and educators create learning experiences aligned with the values of a collectivist society. However, despite being deeply rooted in traditional child-rearing goals, many parents also subscribe to rigorous educational arrangements from early childhood onwards to prepare children for success in a competitive education system. The chapter finishes with an outlook on future directions of how policymakers and the ongoing institutionalization of childhood continue to change children's lives.

Kerala is one of India's most advanced states in human development and other social indices. This study aims to look at the management education scenario in Kerala from a macro-perspective and examines the existing trends, major issues and present challenges facing the sector.

The study is driven by previously unexplored secondary data published by India's apex technical education regulator–All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Qualitative and quantitative assessments are assimilated from the organization, dissection and categorization of unit-level data.

Business schools (B-schools) in the state are facing acute distress in enrolments. There are intra-regional variations in institution count and occupancy rates. The vast majority of the institutions have no accreditation at all. The entire sector is facing a protracted decline.

The study has relied primarily on descriptive statistics considering a single discipline within the higher education sector in Kerala. Future studies should look at other disciplines (engineering, medicine) simultaneously. Use of statistical methods like panel data regression would be beneficial to find hidden trends in cross-sectional and longitudinal time-series data.

Management education in Kerala is facing an existential crisis. This has implications for the state's economic development. The paper creates strong imperatives for government policymaking to forestall the complete decline of the sector.

A highly literate state with advanced human development indices need not be a suitable location for building a knowledge-based economy. Government policy has strong implications for the development and sustenance of higher education. The relationship between government and business schools are symbiotic.

The paper maps the progression of B-schools from local to global. A typology of privately funded B-schools is proposed. The conceptual framework advanced in this study can contribute to further literature development. The suggested policy initiatives are applicable not only to Kerala but also to other tightly regulated markets.