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Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Media-Based Cultural Diversity Education: Television as an Informal Actor in the Construction of Cultural Difference
Media-based cultural diversity education is approached here as an analytical synthesis that brings together established research traditions in media and communication studies, including mediatization, representation, and framing. It refers to the process through which media are understood to function as informal educational environments that shape how audiences learn about and interpret cultural differences. In contemporary mediatized societies, media institutions, including television and digital platforms, are understood to shape public understandings of diversity through the selection, framing, and visual representation of minority groups. Television is widely regarded as a particularly influential medium because of its wide reach and its institutional role in producing authoritative narratives about social reality. Through news reporting, documentaries, and other factual programming, television has been shown to circulate meanings about cultural diversity and provide audiences with interpretive frameworks through which minority groups are publicly understood. These communicative practices have been shown to influence how audiences perceive cultural difference, interpret social issues, and negotiate questions of belonging within society. By organizing narratives, frames, and visual repertoires through which cultural groups are portrayed, television has been shown to contribute to the formation of shared social knowledge about diversity and about relationships between majority and minority communities. In this sense, television can be understood not only as a channel of information but also as a cultural institution that shapes symbolic boundaries between social groups and influences perceptions of inclusion and exclusion. As an illustrative context, this entry also refers to representations of Roma communities in Central European media environments, where antigypsyism may be understood as a mediated cultural process embedded in everyday media communication.
  • 31
  • 27 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
The Apprenticeship of Observation in Teacher Learning
The apprenticeship of observation is a form of anticipatory socialization that is experienced by all individuals who attend K-12 schooling, and is particularly consequential for the subset of this population that eventually becomes professional educators. Based on extensive interviews with professional teachers, sociologist Dan C. Lortie found that the 13,000 h of experience teachers had spent watching their own K-12 teachers constituted a sort of apprenticeship in teaching. This prolonged period of observation is thought to have a profound impact on the work of teachers. By observing their own teachers across thousands of hours, professional educators are said to make decisions in the classroom and in their teaching based on their own individual personalities and preferences instead of pedagogical frameworks or theories; the teacher learning brought about by the apprenticeship of observation leads professional educators to identify teaching they liked and disliked. Teaching decisions made by these educators in the classroom are ultimately based on a binary choice between replicating or rejecting the teaching they previously witnessed as K-12 students. Over time, the apprenticeship of observation has, for some researchers and teacher educators, served as shorthand for describing the replication of traditional teaching approaches across time, in effect suggesting that teachers teach the way they were taught. The power and negative consequences of the apprenticeship of observation have led teacher educators to devise multiple interventions within teacher education programs and pedagogies, which have sought to challenge and overcome the apprenticeship of observation and its negative influence on professional educators’ teacher learning and practice.
  • 31
  • 07 Apr 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Artificial Intelligence in Smart Classrooms: A Systematic Literature Review of Applications, Dimensions, and Teacher Roles
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into smart classrooms (SCs) has accelerated in recent years, fostering new forms of interaction, personalization, and data-driven educational decision-making. Despite this growing interest, the literature remains conceptually fragmented, particularly regarding how AI is integrated across the technological, pedagogical, and environmental dimensions of SCs. This systematic literature review aims to provide a structured synthesis of how AI is integrated into SC contexts, their main functions, their relation to these three dimensions, and the teacher’s role in the system. Following PRISMA guidelines, peer-reviewed studies published between 2021 and 2026 were selected from Web of Science and Scopus, yielding a final corpus of 29 studies. The findings showed that AI integration is mostly concentrated in the technological dimension. The pedagogical dimension is linked to personalization, active learning, formative assessment, and instructional adaptation, while the environmental dimension is less developed. Teachers remain central actors who integrate technological tools, interpret the generated data, and mediate pedagogical decisions. Overall, AI-supported SCs are not only defined by technology but also by pedagogical use and teacher mediation.
  • 30
  • 22 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
From Obstacle to Catalyst: A Narrative Review of Learning from Errors in Science Education
Learning from errors (LFE) constitutes a complex, multilevel process whose pedagogical value depends on how errors are elicited, interpreted, and corrected. This narrative review critically synthesizes research on LFE and its implications for science instruction in school and higher education. The reporting of the purposive, non-exhaustive search was strengthened with reference to the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles (SANRA) criteria. The synthesis traces the historical transition from error avoidance to conditional error-as-resource perspectives and integrates five complementary lenses: error type, negative knowledge, cognitive load and prior knowledge, affective and self-regulatory processes, and the Generating Errors/Detecting and Correcting Errors model. It then evaluates instructional approaches including productive failure, erroneous examples, peer instruction, formative feedback, conceptual-change strategies, Predict–Observe–Explain, refutation texts, and gamification. Evidence is strongest when errors are embedded in structured cycles of manageable challenge, explanation, feedback, and revision; however, effects are heterogeneous and moderated by learner expertise, task demands, feedback design, classroom error climate, and safety constraints. Domain-specific evidence is most developed in physics, chemistry, biology, and health-professions simulation, whereas Earth and climate sciences and teacher professional development remain comparatively underexamined. The review concludes with an integrative framework and actionable design principles for science teacher education, while identifying methodological, cultural, and empirical gaps for future research.
  • 29
  • 03 Sep 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Successful School Leadership and Critical Pathways to Improve Student Learning
Since the late 1970s, scholars began to develop effective school leadership models that enhance student achievement. Recent research over the past three decades has consistently shown that school leadership influences student learning mainly through indirect mechanisms rather than direct effects. The purpose of this narrative review is to synthesize the major and emerging research on school leadership models and their indirect effects on student learning and to identify the critical pathways through which school leaders successfully improve student outcomes. This narrative review delineates and presents six key pathways by which school leaders promote student learning and counteract the negative effects of students’ socio-economic status. In addition, the review highlights what distinguishes successful school principals from others and the complexity of school leadership.
  • 28
  • 27 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Ethno Sense in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Ethno Sense is defined as a culturally mediated cognitive–perceptual capacity through which individuals discern, select, and interpret mathematically salient structures in socially situated practices. The increasing recognition of mathematics as a culturally situated practice has prompted growing interest in integrating cultural contexts into mathematics education. Approaches such as ethnomathematics and Realistic Mathematics Education emphasize the importance of culture and meaningful contexts; however, a critical gap remains in explaining how individuals perceive and recognize mathematical structures within culturally embedded experiences. This entry addresses this gap by introducing Ethno Sense as a novel conceptual construct. Conceptualized as a pre-formal layer of mathematical cognition, it explains how culturally conditioned perception, interpretive schemas, and value systems shape the recognition of mathematical meaning prior to formalization. It proposes a mechanism comprising contextual indexing, schema activation and selection, and value-informed interpretation. These processes operate dynamically to guide engagement with culturally meaningful phenomena and the identification of mathematical relevance. The entry further positions Ethno Sense as an epistemological foundation for Ethno-Realistic Mathematics Education, supporting authentic context selection and progressive mathematization. By foregrounding culturally mediated perception, it shifts attention from problem solving to recognizing situations as mathematically meaningful. This study contributes a unifying theoretical construct linking cultural experience and mathematical cognition, and outlines implications for practice and future research on culturally situated learning. Ultimately it offers a lens for understanding reciprocal relationships between culture and mathematics across educational contexts.
  • 28
  • 19 May 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Guiding Doctoral Students into Research Communities
Research communities refer to the learning and social environments within which members engage in scholarly activities. Consisting of diverse actors involved in research processes, research communities provide opportunities for doctoral students to become familiar with the shared norms, values and cultures that are particular to each group. Research communities not only allow members to access pertinent knowledge, information and resources, but also offer social support and foster a sense of belonging in academia, helping students to develop into independent scholars. During their studies, doctoral students often participate in various research communities, ranging from the research lab at their institution to international networks connecting researchers from different countries. This paper focuses on ways to guide doctoral students into research communities, both within and outside of their institutions. In addition, it examines the formal and informal processes that facilitate their integration into these communities.
  • 23
  • 15 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Discipline-Sensitive Generative AI in Higher Education
Generative artificial intelligence in higher education refers here to the use of computational systems that produce text, code, explanations, feedback-like responses, images, and other outputs from user prompts in university learning, coursework, assessment, and student study practices. This entry focuses on how students use generative AI while studying, preparing assignments, seeking explanations, revising work, programming, brainstorming, or responding to assessment tasks. It defines such use as a situated educational practice shaped by disciplinary expectations, assessment design, AI literacy, study habits, and academic integrity norms. From this perspective, the same AI-supported action may be acceptable as learning support in one course, ambiguous in another, and inappropriate when it conceals authorship, fabricates evidence, or substitutes for independent academic performance.
  • 23
  • 03 Jun 2026
Topic Review
Aesthetic Education
Aesthetic education is a field of educational theory and practice that designates structured learning processes in which aesthetic experience, perception, and judgment are treated as specific and systematically addressed components of education [1][2][3][4]. It refers to educational approaches that intentionally incorporate aesthetic categories—such as form, expression, sensuous appearance, and artistic representation—into curricula and pedagogical frameworks, so that these categories become defined objects of understanding rather than incidental aspects of other subjects [1][2]. Within this perspective, aesthetic education focuses on learners’ capacities to notice, interpret, and respond to aesthetic qualities in artistic and non‑artistic contexts through concepts and methods drawn from aesthetics and related disciplines [3][4]. The term delineates a dimension of education in which aesthetic experience and aesthetic judgment are considered distinct elements of learning, clearly differentiated from yet related to cognitive, moral, and practical aims in the curriculum [1][2][3].
  • 23
  • 11 Sep 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Furniture Arrangement as Pedagogical Mediation in Architecture Design Studios: A Review and the ASLE Framework
Architecture design studios are complex learning environments in which knowledge develops through critique, collaboration, individual reflection, material exploration, and increasingly digital forms of practice. Although the physical organization of these spaces influences how such activities unfold, research on furniture arrangement remains fragmented across ergonomics, learning environments, educational research, technology-enhanced education, and participatory design. This structured integrative review examined the mechanisms reported between furniture arrangement, related physical spatial configurations, and learning processes in architecture design studios and relevant adjacent educational settings. It also investigated the pedagogical, ergonomic, technological, and cultural conditions under which these mechanisms were reported as supportive or restrictive. Scopus, Web of Science All Databases, and ScienceDirect were searched on 7 August 2026. The searches identified 64 source-level records: 26 from Scopus, 19 from Web of Science, and 19 from ScienceDirect. Eight duplicate records were identified within the ScienceDirect results. Following cross-source deduplication, title and abstract screening, and full-text eligibility assessment, 15 publications were included in the integrative synthesis. Study characteristics, methodological quality, contextual relevance, furniture-related conditions, pedagogical activities, reported outcomes, explanatory mechanisms, evidentiary directness, and transferability were examined through an integrative, mechanism-oriented synthesis. The resulting relationships were subsequently organized through an abductive framework-development process into the provisional Adaptive Studio Learning Ecosystem (ASLE) framework. ASLE comprises five interrelated dimensions: spatial flexibility, ergonomic responsiveness, pedagogical mediation, technological support, and cultural–participatory fit. The synthesis supports activity–layout alignment rather than a universally optimal furniture configuration and indicates that spatial adaptability becomes educationally meaningful only when supported by appropriate pedagogical practices, ergonomic conditions, technological integration, and patterns of user participation. Because the evidence base includes a limited number of direct architecture-studio studies and relies partly on mechanisms transferred from adjacent settings, ASLE should be treated as a provisional, review-derived framework requiring empirical validation.
  • 22
  • 24 Aug 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Conceptual Boundaries and Terminological Variability in Scopus-Indexed Teacher Digital Competence Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Research on teacher digital competence has expanded sharply over the past decade. However, the field’s development, thematic structure, and underlying terminological characteristics have remained under-examined. The rapid integration of artificial intelligence has compounded this challenge, introducing new competence-related constructs and reshaping the field’s conceptual landscape. In the context of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets 4.4 (developing digital skills) and 4.c (ensuring a supply of qualified teachers), this raises the question of whether the knowledge base is developing coherently. To address this question, we analyse a corpus of 4097 Scopus-indexed publications retrieved through a broad search on teacher digital competence, published between 2015 and 2025, using longitudinal bibliometric analysis and science mapping. The analysis reveals marked terminological variability: a high Pielou’s evenness index (J′ = 0.86) indicates that occurrences are distributed relatively evenly across 8567 normalised terms, suggesting the absence of a strongly dominant terminological core at the corpus level, while singleton terms account for a large share of the vocabulary (76%), pointing to substantial fragmentation. Against this fragmented backdrop, an AI-oriented strand accounts for 10.4% of the corpus and rises to 26.1% of annual output by 2025; rather than displacing established competence-related concepts, AI-related concepts form an emerging technological layer within teacher digital competence research. These thematic patterns are accompanied by uneven publication activity and international collaboration. Taken together, these findings indicate that the conceptual boundaries of teacher digital competence research are shaped by substantial terminological variability and ongoing thematic expansion. They further highlight the importance of transparent search strategies and greater terminological clarity and consistency for improving the comparability, reproducibility, and cumulative development of research in this field.
  • 22
  • 31 Aug 2026
Topic Review
Compulsory Education
Compulsory education is the legally mandated part of an education system in which children or young people are required by law to attend school, or an equivalent recognized educational program, for a specified period usually defined by minimum and maximum ages [1][2][3][4]. It refers to the phase of schooling where enrolment, regular attendance, and participation are legal obligations associated with the right to education, and where parents or guardians and public authorities have corresponding duties to secure compliance [1][2]. Compulsory education is characterized by statutory rules that determine who must attend, for how long, and through which forms of provision, together with regulatory frameworks governing the organization and oversight of the institutions that provide such education [2][3]. Within the broader structure of education systems, compulsory education marks the segment of schooling that all eligible individuals are required to complete, distinguishing it from pre‑compulsory and post‑compulsory education, which are not generally subject to attendance laws [3][4].
  • 22
  • 10 Sep 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Systemic Educational Change in Colombia
Systemic educational change in Colombia refers to coordinated transformation across policy, teaching, curriculum, assessment, school leadership, teacher professionalization, data use, and community participation, oriented toward improving learning quality, equity, citizenship, and transitions to further study and work. This entry treats systemic change as a continuous, context-sensitive process rather than as a single reform event. Its success depends on the alignment of national direction, territorial implementation, institutional capacity, teacher agency, family and community engagement, and reliable feedback on whether students are developing the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and opportunities needed for social and labor participation.
  • 21
  • 02 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Doctoral Student Wellbeing: Conceptualization, Challenges and Pathways Forward
Doctoral student wellbeing refers to the perceived state of psychological, physical, and social health experienced by a person during the process of completing a doctoral thesis. From a eudaimonic and salutogenic perspective, this construct goes beyond the mere absence of distress and incorporates dimensions such as meaning and purpose in life, personal growth, autonomy, feelings of mattering, and the quality of academic and personal relationships. It is a multidimensional construct shaped by the interaction between personal variables, including prior psychological history, personality traits, and task motivation, among others, and contextual variables, such as funding conditions, quality of supervision, departmental culture, family and personal circumstances, and social and institutional support networks. Doctoral wellbeing is therefore dynamic: it evolves throughout the different phases of the doctoral process and is influenced by conditions specific to this population that distinguish it from other groups of students or workers. It has emerged as a critical concern in higher education research, driven by evidence of high rates of psychological difficulties among this population. This entry paper offers a narrative and conceptual review of the current state of knowledge on doctoral student wellbeing, identifying the main challenges facing this group, the factors that influence their wellbeing, and the pathways forward in terms of intervention and future research.
  • 20
  • 15 Jun 2026
Topic Review
Educational Disparities
Educational disparities are systematic differences in access to educational resources, learning opportunities, and measurable educational outcomes between individuals or groups within an education system [1][2][3]. It refers to patterned inequalities in dimensions such as school quality, instructional provision, curricular opportunities, and assessment results (for example, test scores, grades, or completion rates) that are associated with social, economic, demographic, or geographic characteristics rather than with random variation [1][2]. Educational disparities are characterized by persistent gaps in attainment, achievement, and progression that can be observed across categories such as socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, gender, language background, disability, or region [2][3]. These disparities represent structured differences in educational conditions and results, defining a state in which some groups systematically experience less favorable educational trajectories than others within the same institutional framework [1][3].
  • 20
  • 11 Sep 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Practical Argumentation in Teaching Reflection on Practice
Practical argumentation refers to a form of argumentation oriented towards action. Unlike theoretical argumentation, which primarily concerns the truth or acceptability of propositions, or mathematical argumentation, which is mainly concerned with the production, justification, and validation of mathematical claims, practical argumentation includes an action, decision, or course of conduct as a central component of the argument. Practical argumentation has attracted growing interest in fields such as political science, critical discourse analysis, argumentation theory, and education. In educational contexts, it is especially relevant for analysing how teachers justify pedagogical decisions in relation to learning objectives, classroom circumstances, available means, professional values, and anticipated consequences. Within mathematics education, analytical tools have been developed to structure and represent practical arguments made by prospective and practising teachers during episodes of teaching reflection on practice, for instance through schemes that connect argumentation models with didactical criteria for analysing mathematics teaching and learning. Practical argumentation thus provides a conceptual and analytical tool for making visible the reasons underlying teachers’ decision-making, particularly in situations characterised by tensions between mathematical, didactical, and classroom-management considerations.
  • 20
  • 31 Aug 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Multicultural Education in Teacher Preparation as an Integrative Framework: Culturally Responsive, Critical, and Democratic Approaches
Multicultural education remains a foundational yet contested area of teacher preparation in increasingly diverse, unequal, and politically polarized educational contexts. This conceptual review examines multicultural education through culturally responsive, critical, and democratic approaches by synthesizing foundational scholarship and recent research published between 2023 and 2026. Although these traditions have been widely examined, they are often treated as separate perspectives, limiting the development of a coherent framework for teacher preparation across diverse educational settings. Guided by the question of how multicultural education is conceptualized, enacted, and sustained within teacher preparation programs, the review argues that multicultural education is most effective when embedded throughout curriculum, assessment, clinical practice, and program design rather than confined to stand-alone diversity courses. The synthesis demonstrates that implementation remains predominantly fragmented or additive, acknowledging diversity without systematically advancing equity. To address this limitation, the article proposes an integrative conceptual framework organized around three complementary pedagogical orientations—culturally responsive, critical, and democratic—operationalized through reflective practice, curriculum transformation, community and contextual engagement, and pedagogical translation. The framework further incorporates contemporary scholarship on intercultural education, culturally sustaining pedagogy, democratic citizenship, Indigenous education, and decolonizing perspectives, extending existing conceptualizations of multicultural teacher preparation. The review concludes by identifying persistent challenges related to institutionalization, faculty capacity, policy contexts, and assessment while outlining directions for future research and program development across diverse national and sociocultural contexts. By integrating recent scholarship within a unified conceptual framework, the article offers teacher educators, researchers, and policymakers a comprehensive model for designing coherent, equity-oriented teacher preparation programs.
  • 19
  • 10 Jul 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Science Festivals: Evolution, Structures, Impacts and Challenges
Science Festivals are public events focused on showcasing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a celebratory and engaging setting similar in atmosphere to an arts or music event. Aimed at the general public, science festivals vary widely in form and duration, lasting from anywhere between a day and several weeks, and featuring interactive activities such as hands-on workshops, live demonstrations, lectures, and performances. Many include dedicated programming for schools, but they differ from school-based science fairs, which are aimed primarily at students and parents and are typically held on school premises. Their aims include sparking curiosity, promoting scientific literacy, enabling visitors to interact with working scientists, and making science fun and accessible. Festivals are distinct from other informal science engagement formats due to their temporary, joyful nature and diversity of offerings. The modern science festival concept originated in Edinburgh in 1989 and has since experienced rapid global spread. Hundreds of events now take place annually throughout Europe and North America, and to a lesser extent other parts of the world, supported by associations such as the UK Science Festivals Network, the European Science Engagement Association, and, in the USA and Canada, the Science Festival Alliance. Some of the largest festivals see attendance figures in the hundreds of thousands, and across the world, millions of people participate every year. An emerging body of research literature, situated within a variety of social science disciplines and lenses, suggests that festivals are greatly enjoyed by their attendees, and succeed in boosting science interest, increasing knowledge, and improving perceptions of science among visitors, making them a potential asset for societies that place a high value on scientific activity among the population. However, the events have also attracted criticism for their limited audience diversity, with visitors being disproportionately drawn from highly educated and affluent groups, prompting suggestions that they are ‘preaching to the converted’. In response, some festivals have introduced targeted initiatives such as community outreach and partnerships to attract audiences from underrepresented communities. Despite these ongoing challenges, science festivals continue to evolve and grow as platforms for inspiring curiosity and fostering meaningful public dialogue around key scientific topics.
  • 18
  • 22 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Democracy and the Pedagogy of the Possible in Schools
The terms democracy and the pedagogy of the possible name an approach imagining schools as sites where more just, inclusive and participatory collective life can be practised, particularly in early childhood. The entry brings three traditions into dialogue. (a) Critical pedagogy, particularly in its post-structuralist, Foucauldian, and post-Marxist readings, engages with Rancièrian critiques of pedagogical mastery and offers a vocabulary for examining how power, knowledge, subjectivity, and hegemony are produced and contested within educational life. (b) Freinet pedagogy, extended through Fernand Oury’s Institutional Pedagogy, contributes a politically grounded, practice-first repertoire of cooperative techniques, classroom institutions, and democratic forms of organisation. (c) Educational commons approaches frame knowledge, space, time, and pedagogical relations as shared goods, collectively produced, cared for, and democratically governed by a community of teachers, children, and families. In this perspective, the child is approached as a commoner and agent in the here and now. The educator, in turn, is understood as a fellow commoner and reflexive practitioner, capable of acting beyond the logics of both the state and the market. Together, they co-shape the everyday life of education. Eight shared dimensions, namely the relational, the political, praxis, agency, anti-enclosure, prefiguration, community, and the schoolized mind, traverse all three traditions, with care as their transversal thread. The framework is conceived as a hospitable theoretical and practical space, not as a self-contained doctrine. It is heuristic in orientation, bringing these traditions into conversation because each contributes a complementary layer to democratic educational life.
  • 17
  • 18 Jun 2026
Topic Review
Bilingual Education
Bilingual education is an educational approach in which instruction and learning activities are systematically organized to use two languages as media of teaching across part or all of the curriculum . It refers to programs where students receive content instruction (such as literacy, mathematics, or social studies) in both a primary language and a second or additional language, with planned distributions of time, subject matter, and language functions between the two languages [1][2][4]. Bilingual education is characterized by the structured use of both languages for academic learning, rather than treating one language solely as a subject and the other as the exclusive medium of instruction [2][3][4]. Within language education, bilingual education denotes a specific form of schooling in which bilingualism is an explicit organizational principle of curriculum and pedagogy, and where the two languages are maintained, developed, or acquired through formal, ongoing classroom use.
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  • 11 Sep 2026
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