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Given the less mature homeschooling ecosystem in China, together with the similarity of purpose, the current study examined the lived experiences of curricular choice making in the USA and China and categories of respective families (homeschools), as a way of understanding curricular flexibility. In addressing these features, based on an updated model of curricular flexibility as it applies to homeschooling, the authors examined the aspects of who, what, when, where and how to see if this context offers new light. The authors then consider ways in which the model can be further updated for greater analytical clarity and accuracy. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

A descriptive case study was conducted in the Xi'an city of China and the Seattle metropolitan area of the USA. A survey and two rounds of semi-structured interview data were collected from ten homeschooling families in both contexts.

The study found families’ adjusted curricula for different motives, as they navigated differing societal contexts, and curricular flexibility in homeschooling contexts was theorized as standardization and structuring strategies and social dimensions, and family preference patterns were identified. Chinese homeschooling families had comparatively less variety of available resources and freedom to homeschools compared to American counterparts, and they operated with the awareness of a standard national curriculum and its social implications.

This study elaborates on a little-discussed topic – the overall curriculum of each homeschool and motives influencing changing curricular choices during the process of homeschooling. And it is the first paper to use the model to explicitly define curricular flexibility in the homeschooling context, thus extending the existing theoretical discussion of curricular flexibility.

This paper aims to review the undergraduate curricular structure of 36 self‐identified heterodox economic programs in the USA, Australia, UK and Canada.

The author gathers, summarizes, compares and contrasts the structure of 36 undergraduate heterodox departments. Departments are classified into traditional, plausibly pluralistic, and demonstrably heterodox programs. Specific examples illustrate each classification.

With notable exceptions described here, most heterodox economics programs are structured as traditional mainstream departments with a few pluralist or political economy electives available. However, 20 departments exist that require at least one heterodox course; eight require two or more.

A few programs have created imitable curricular structures that one would expect to significantly influence the depth and breadth of heterodox perspectives presented in the undergraduate economics major.

This is the first published analysis of undergraduate heterodox economics curricula. It highlights the creative structures characterizing some of the English‐speaking world's best programs and demonstrates that the curricula in most programs lack required courses in heterodox economics. The paper also provides examples of intentionally heterodox programs that may serve as models for others to emulate.

As sustainability teaching and learning rises in importance, an increasing number of higher education institutions (HEIs) are assessing the effectiveness of their approach to sustainability education. However, most assessments fall short in determining the impacts of curriculum plans on learning outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to assess the impact of curricula on undergraduate sustainability knowledge and assess opportunities for improving sustainability education in HEIs.

A campus-wide survey deployed at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, (Cal Poly) solicited data identifying students’ sustainability knowledge score (SKS). The survey collected responses from undergraduate student groups enrolled in different curriculum plans under different academic settings.

This study reveals that Cal Poly honors students enrolled in a structured sustainability curriculum have significantly higher SKS than general students (i.e. nonhonors students) enrolled in random sustainability courses. Further, taking at least three sustainability-related courses significantly distinguishes SKS for general students. The results also show that SKS does not significantly differ across colleges, suggesting that additional sustainability education can benefit all students.

Findings of this study provide statistical evidence to justify institutional efforts to integrate sustainability into existing courses, with the minimum requirement of three sustainability-related courses to make an impact on SKS for the general student population. Such efforts could represent the first steps toward developing sustainability education at a HEI and improving sustainability learning outcomes.

Design studio and technology subjects are two dominant parts of the architecture curriculum. How to integrate these different parts of the curriculum is one of the important challenges in architecture education around the world. With increasing internationalisation of both the profession and higher education, an understanding of similarities and differences across the globe is important. This paper illustrates two different approaches to such integration in two very different contexts: case studies at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia and the University of Tehran (UT) in Iran.

The study implemented a case study approach based on document analysis methods. This paper explores the integrated role of technology subjects in architecture education, followed by a critique of the teaching of technology within the design studio. The analysis is conducted across four significant features of the curriculum.

Overall, in both programmes, the aim is for students to develop architectural knowledge and skills; although the Iranian programme has a stronger focus on knowledge, the Australian programme has a stronger focus on the application of knowledge and skills, particularly within the design studio projects.

The comparative analysis of architectural education in these two different contexts offers an insight into alternative approaches to teaching technology. Such an insight may offer guidance in curriculum development to support the exploration of new hybrid approaches as well as supporting international student mobility.

Economics is catering to a diverse student cohort. This cohort needs to be equipped with transformative concepts that students can integrate beyond university. When a curriculum is content-driven, threshold concepts are a useful tool in guiding curriculum re-design. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The evidence for this pedagogic need can be seen in the UK’s higher education economics curriculum framework which is formulated around the threshold concepts of economics. Through a literature review of the application of threshold concepts in economics, the researcher has systematically re-designed an entry-level economics course. This research has been applied to the course structure, the learning and teaching activities, as well as the assessments. At the end of the semester, students students were surveyed on the student experience of the curriculum design and the course activities. The course grades noted the achievement of the students’ learning outcomes.

When comparing the survey responses and the student course results to the previous semesters, there is a significant improvement in student experience as well as student learning outcomes of the course curriculum.

This research provides curriculum developers with a benchmark and the tools required to transform economics curricula.

An engaging, transformative and integrative entry-level economics course is often the only exposure most business graduates have to the economics way of thinking and practice.

This is the first comprehensive study that applies a curriculum re-design based on threshold concepts across an entry-level economics course.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how well Chinese teacher education positions itself in preparing qualified teachers for its vast k‐12 education system, especially in the transition from examination‐oriented to that of future‐oriented education.

This paper looks at literature discussing background, strengths and weakness of current Chinese teacher training programs. It also employs the Delphi‐based scenario research method to explore plausible futures of curriculum design for teacher education.

The paper finds that, in order to ensure its astonishing economic development and present itself as a constructive force to the world betterment, it is crucial for China to carry on its ongoing educational reform, especially in the area of curriculum for its teacher training programs. It also concludes that the disciplinary curriculum currently employed in Chinese teacher education should be shifted to the trans‐disciplinary curriculum to produce future‐oriented and internationally‐prepared graduates the country demands in its effort to play an important role on the international stage.

This research, while meriting the structured instruction displayed by the Chinese education system, argues that the system should strive to provide students with such skills as creativity, flexibility, initiative, leadership, all necessary in the globally connected future world. The second part of this paper will focus on four scenarios as a result of his recent research among Chinese educators and administrators.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research into the challenges for leadership in implementation of a new curriculum in a remote region of Queensland, Australia.

Data for the research were gathered through an online survey and semi‐structured interviews with teachers and principals involved in the reforms.

Results show that there were substantial differences in the views of teachers and principals in their perceptions of the implementation process. The vast differences in the implementation strategies and leadership approaches between the schools suggested that the effect of the reform on leadership practices was more positive in schools in which elements of productive leadership were present.

This research highlights the importance of leadership throughout reform processes, particularly in terms of the different experiences and perceptions teachers and principals have during the policy implementation process. As a result, this paper offers an important perspective on the complex dynamics of leadership processes and how curriculum reform is enacted at the local level.

This paper provides a descriptive overview of the various curriculum, teaching, advising and assessment changes implemented in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock through a series of recommendations made by the American Sociological Association in their 1990 monograph, Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major, under the Re‐forming‐the‐Major project supported by a grant from the American Association of Colleges. Curriculum changes structured new coursework concentrations and linked them with other community and academic programs. New critical thinking and collaborative learning modules were incorporated within all courses with specific demands required of all faculty. Also discussed are the multifaceted efforts to create a sense of community among faculty, staff and students within our program. An integral part of this effort was a systematic overhaul of our advising system and a stronger substantive (financial) support of our Sociology/Anthropology Club. An important by‐product of the program assessment activities was to develop a mechansim to assist faculty to buy into this change inducing initative. An Annual Review Menu was established to reward faculty for participation in new efforts and is also briefly presented alomg with some attendant problems.

This paper seeks to discuss the rationale of the newly reformed health education curriculum in Cyprus, which aspires to enable not only teachers, but also all the school personnel, to work from the perspective of health promotion. It is a curriculum which moves from the traditional approach of health education focusing on individual lifestyle/behaviour modification into approaches that recognise and tackle the determinants of health.

The paper critically discusses the structure and the content of the learning objectives of this curriculum that encourages teachers to work in a health promoting way.

The central goal of this curriculum is to enable students and schools to act as health agents, addressing the structural determinants of health and promoting environmental changes. The optimum level for all topics of the curriculum is achieved through learning objectives, which concern three interconnected levels. These are: “investigating determinants of health”, “practising action competency skills for health” and “achieving changes in favour of health”. All levels are means as well as end products in terms of the curriculum objectives.

The outcome of the development of the health education curriculum acts as a guide for school interventions, through a methodological framework, which encourages participants to identify and promote environmental changes that facilitate healthy choices. This is of significance to those working in the field of health promotion and who seek to establish a new language of health promotion that goes beyond the pervasive discourse of individual lifestyles.

The implementation of the particular health education curriculum will promote not only health in the school community but also in the local community. This is because a key principle which underlies the curriculum is the involvement of the students, school staff, family and community in everyday health promotion practice. It also promotes the development of partnerships among them.

This is an innovative curriculum for Cyprus, based on health promotion and health education principles, but at the same time taking in account the local socio‐cultural and political perspective. This curriculum may be applicable to other European countries.

Based on the structural theory of tensions between bureaucratic and professional control, many analyses of recent educational reforms argue that teachers and administrators typically adhere to divergent views of governance. Others argue that conflict between administrators and teachers is not inevitable. The degree of competition among professions is affected by the nature of institutional and occupational differentiation and by particular cultural and historical forces in different societies. This study examines the way teachers and principals in a representative sample of Israeli schools view current and preferred control over school curricula in the wake of a decade and a half of decentralization reforms. Our findings show institutional variation in the degree of conflict between the perceptions and preferences of teachers and principals in secondary and elementary schools and major differences in perceptions and preferences by school level. These findings reflect the interplay of occupational segmentation, the functional differentiation of educational institutions, and government policies in Israeli society.