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This chapter discusses teaching strategies designed to help students develop an open-minded and critically self-reflective worldview. By attending to the perceptual dimension of global citizenship education, students and instructors begin the important work of reflecting on the deeper influences that consciously or unconsciously influence one’s global perspective. Research suggests that these goals are best achieved through cross-cultural learning experiences that involve people of different backgrounds. The cross-cultural learning experiences discussed in this chapter include meeting with local residents who moved to the United States within the last decade and who now send their children to the schools that students enrolled in teacher education courses would teach in. Additionally, technology was used to connect graduate students seeking their teaching license in the United States with graduate students and teachers in Durban, South Africa as part of an ongoing reflection on how one develops perspective consciousness. The learning activities described below align with the tenets of global education because they are not specific to one discipline or content area but rather focus on ways to develop habits of mind, perspective consciousness, cross-cultural learning opportunities, and a sense of responsibility as aspiring educators that are applicable across the sciences, arts, and humanities.

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the literature on individuals in cultural transitions in higher education, namely, international students in culturally unfamiliar contexts; teachers of international students and culturally more diverse classrooms; and local students in increasingly culturally diverse classes. All these individuals are actors exposed to new and shifting cultural experiences expected to impact their motivation and engagement. Two broad perspectives emerging from the literature were used to organize the chapter: a perspective of adaptation representing research grounded in unilateral, bilateral or reciprocal conceptualizations, and a perspective of transformation, capturing experiential learning research leading to personal and academic development. The analysis highlights how motivation is a critical, yet under-examined construct. This leads to numerous suggestions for future research including: addressing the neglected role of agency in research on international students' sociocultural adaptation and the lack of research on successful processes of adaptation; examining the confounding issue of socialization into new cultural-educational environments and level of proficiency in the medium of instruction, which impacts on engagement; and scrutinizing the posited link between deep-level motivated engagement in cultural transitions and the emergence of transformative experiences. A case is made for research on individuals' engagement and motivation in cultural transitions to be conceptually and methodologically stronger and broader, moving from studies of single groups of individuals in need of adaptation, to investigations of the co-regulated, reciprocal adaptations of actors and agents operating in complex sociocultural contexts where power dynamics related to knowledge and language affect participation and engagement with cultural 'others'.

The aim of this chapter is to critically analyse multiple stakeholders’ self-perceptions of the value, nature, success and impact of core Aboriginal Studies subjects in primary teacher education university courses.

Participants were drawn from two universities in New South Wales which taught a core Aboriginal Studies subject as part of their primary teacher education degree. The methodology was informed by Yin’s (2003) multiple-case study replication design. This replication presents a picture of the perceptions and events which have impacted on the participants in the study.

The findings have important implications for theory, research and practice. The results of this study demonstrate that core Aboriginal Studies subjects in primary teacher education courses can make a positive difference in changing the perceptions of many pre-service teachers about Aboriginal people.

The purpose of this study was to assemble an evidence-based rationale, which includes the voices of multiple stakeholders, to test the extent to which core Aboriginal Studies subjects in primary teacher education courses are vital to improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal children, advancing reconciliation and creating a more socially just Australian society.

Undertaking professional training through a core Aboriginal Studies subject builds pre-service teachers’ self-concepts, attitudes, commitment, knowledge and skills, and ability and understandings to teach Aboriginal Studies, incorporate Aboriginal perspectives and to be committed to effectively teaching Aboriginal students.

The study supports the need for the inclusion of core Aboriginal Studies subjects in all universities with teacher education courses.

Research on Indigenous students has mostly adopted a deficiency model. In contrast, this study takes an explicitly positive perspective on Indigenous student success by focusing on the active psychological ingredients that facilitate successful learning.

Purpose – Prior research suggests that high school experiences shape young adult political behaviors, particularly among immigrant youth. The U.S. social studies classroom, focused on democratic citizenship education, proves an interesting socializing institution.Methods – Through qualitative inquiry, we interviewed Latino immigrant young adults and their former teachers regarding their high school social studies experiences and evolving political and civic engagement.Findings – Armed with experience bridging the worlds of the school and home, immigrant students respond and relate to the content and pedagogy of the social studies classroom in such a way that they (1) participate in civic discourse and (2) nurture a disposition toward leadership through teachers’ civic expectations of them and instructional emphasis on critical thinking skills.Social implications – The ability to engage in civic discourse and a disposition toward leadership are both necessary to foster America's democratic ideals, and to take on leadership roles during adulthood. With focused effort on the unique perspective of immigrant youth, high school social studies teachers can nurture in these students the ability to become leaders in young adulthood, broadening the potential leadership pool.Originality – This study highlights how the social studies curriculum may be particularly salient to Latino immigrant youth as they transition from adolescence to young adulthood and develop their political and civic identities.

Explore perceptions of the importance of information literacy among different stakeholders, and gain a better understanding of its role in the accounting curriculum.

Literature review, stakeholder surveys, and written feedback.

The perceptions of academics, employers, and alumni uniformly highlighted the importance of information literacy for continuous learning in an evolving environment. The feedback included open-ended questions where the alumni emphasized the importance of the area over the different stages of their careers. While there may be differences in perspectives of academics and employers/alumni on information literacy, with the latter more likely to hold a pragmatic perspective related to career advancement, the overall consensus highlights the need for a systematic approach to the area. Student feedback suggested that the learning process occurred over stages in the college curriculum. Overall, the results of this exploratory study indicate the value of planning the course curriculum systematically to enable students to develop information literacy skills incrementally and in relation to their specific areas of specialization.

Highlights the value of information literacy in deeper and lifelong learning.

Students are better equipped for continuous learning to meet the challenges of changing environment.

Although information literacy is an important pedagogic area, accounting academic research does not appear to have addressed its implications for student learning.

Given the complexity of societal, technological, and economic challenges encountered by schools and teachers, one may wonder whether and how teachers can still optimally motivate their students. To adopt a motivating role in today’s ever-changing, even stormy, educational landscape, teachers need more than a checklist of motivating practices. They also need a fundamental theoretical perspective that can serve as a general source of inspiration for their everyday classroom practices across various situations and in interaction with different students. Herein, we argue that self-determination theory represents such a valuable perspective. In Part I, we discuss the satisfaction of learners’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as a source of student motivation, engagement, and resilience. We also present a recently developed circular model involving a broad variety of motivating (i.e., need-supportive) and demotivating (i.e., need-thwarting) teaching practices appealing to these three needs. In Part II, we discuss several implications of this circular model, thereby discussing the diverse pathways that lead to student need satisfaction, motivation, and engagement as well as highlighting teachers’ capacity for calibration to deal with uncertainty and change. We conclude that school principals and teachers do well to invest in both students’ and teachers’ psychological need experiences, such that they become skilled in flexibly adjusting themselves to diversity, uncertainty, and change.

The purpose of this study is to explore rural children’s own perspectives on health, well-being, and nutrition to better understand how they approach, navigate, and make sense of these topics.

This study uses a qualitative ethnographic research design theoretically informed by the “new” Sociology of Childhood and methodologically informed by constructivist grounded theory. This ongoing study with fifth-grade students in an elementary school in a small rural school district in central Illinois consists of ethnographic observations conducted at the school, in-depth interviews with students, and participatory tools that seek to involve students more fully in the process of data collection.

Preliminary findings of this pilot study suggest that many aspects often discussed in the context of childhood obesity, especially in rural settings, including knowledge or education about healthy eating, increasing physical activity levels, or access to healthy foods, are complex and multifaceted and do not easily lend themselves to standard interventions. Findings also indicate that children’s ideas about healthy eating deviate from their own eating practices.

Conceptualized as a grounded theory study, the research is not intended to be generalizable or reproducible. Instead, the study seeks to develop hypotheses directly from the field and study participants’ views and voices. These perspectives will inform a more in-depth study of childhood obesity in rural settings planned for 2019.

Findings from this pilot study will inform innovative, informed interventions that are guided by children’s own experiences and perspectives. Study findings will also be of benefit to practicing pediatricians and other child health professionals as they understand how to better think about and address challenges of health and weight management of patients and their families.

The methodological discourse of mixed-methods research offers general procedures to combine quantitative and qualitative methods for investigating complex fields of research such as higher education. However, integrating different methods still poses considerable challenges. To move beyond general recommendations for mixed-methods research, this chapter proposes to discuss methodological issues with respect to a particular research domain. Taking current studies on the transition to higher education as an example, the authors first provide an overview of the potentials and limitations of quantitative and qualitative methods in the research domain. Second, they show the need for a conceptual framework grounded in the theory of the research object to guide the integration of different methods and findings. Finally, an example study that investigates transition with regard to the interplay of the individual student and the institutional context serves to illustrate the guiding role of theory. The framework integrates different theoretical perspectives on transition, informs the selection of the research methods, and defines the nexus of the two strands that constitute the mixed-methods design. As the interplay of individual and context is of concern for teaching and learning in general, the example presented may be fruitful for the wider field of higher education research.

The chapter presents findings from five qualitative reports from educators within the compulsory education sector who have partnered with a United Nations-recognized, nongovernmental organization (NGO), Global Education Motivators (GEM), in order to either introduce or expand curricular support for their students or to engage in professional dialogue with fellow educators facilitated through international videoconferencing programs. Through a long-standing collaboration between these educators, GEM has jointly developed programming which educates students on the United Nations and global issues including sustainability, human rights, child labor, poverty, and peace and conflict studies. Using an email-based survey questionnaire, the reported cases aim to explore the educators’ motivations to introduce and expand their students’ global engagement through the media of videoconferencing. The chapter highlights the potential outcomes of international videoconferencing for educators as a classroom tool or a professional development resource, as well as detailing a case study of an NGO–college partnership in which the NGO provides expertise, student internships, and noncredit professional development opportunities to its campus community and beyond.

A thematic focus on identity has for years been a mainstay of secondary school literature curricula. Typical curricular units engage students in questions related to what it means to come of age and to develop an integrated sense of individual identity in the face of societal pressures toward conformity. This common thematic focus relies on conventional theories of identity as static, located in the individual, and linked to an autonomous self. Further, this focus positions adolescents as incomplete people, lacking fully formed identities. Current sociocultural theories of identity, however, understand identity as multiple, fluid, performed, and shaped by cultural histories and social contexts. Identity, in this view is always in process. Adolescents are fully formed people with identities that are no more or less complete than those of anyone else. Such a view of identity requires a more complex and nuanced conceptualization of adolescents, their capabilities, and their interactions with texts than does an individual view of identity. In this chapter, we outline a framework for identity focused literature instruction that relies on sociocultural understandings of identity, then draw on illustrations from classroom research to explore three key ways that an identity-focused approach challenges current approaches to pre-service teacher education related to literature instruction. Specifically, we explore challenges to the ways that we teach teachers to select and evaluate literary texts, plan literature instruction, and engage in inquiry and dialogue with students.