Open Access Education as Change is an internationally accredited, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original articles reflecting critically on issues of equality in education and on the ways in which educational practices contribute to transformation in non-formal, formal and informal contexts.
Whose Intelligence? Whose Music? Critical Reflections on AI in Music Education
This commentary critically examines the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into music education through two guiding questions: Whose intelligence is encoded within these systems? Whose music is legitimised and reproduced through them? While often promoted as neutral and innovative, AI systems are shaped by cultural biases, economic logics, and epistemological assumptions that privilege Western classical and commercial repertoires. In doing so, they risk narrowing definitions of intelligence, standardising musical practices, and reproducing existing inequalities. Drawing on critical pedagogy and decolonial perspectives, the commentary argues that AI in music education should be approached not as a technical solution but as a contested site of knowledge production. It highlights the dangers of epistemic erasure, technocratic pedagogy, and data colonialism, while outlining pathways for transformation: decolonising datasets, cultivating critical digital literacy, reclaiming pedagogy from the logic of efficiency, and fostering alliances across disciplines and communities. By reframing AI as an object of critique and dialogue, this commentary seeks to open possibilities for more inclusive, equitable, and transformative practices in music education.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jincheng Ma, Qiang Wan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
A Comparative Analysis of Military Education between Chinese Universities and the West
As global security dynamics intensify in the post-Cold War era, the ideological foundations of military education diverge sharply between China and the West. This article analyses the Chinese model in universities through the lens of the Marxist theory of war, arguing that its military education system, rooted in the proletariat’s revolutionary tradition, transcends the Western capitalist orientation. Not only does Chinese military education take on the task of military skills training, but it also fosters a strong identification with the national system and socialist core values among the younger generation by incorporating ideological education into the curriculum. By integrating political education with military skills training, Chinese universities cultivate national identity and socialist values, in contrast to Western military academies’ emphasis on individualised professionalism and imperialistic narratives. Despite the challenges of globalisation and civil-military integration, Chinese military education resists capitalist influence by reinforcing the Communist Party of China’s leadership and people-centred values. The study highlights the dual function of military courses as tools for ideological reproduction and strategic modernisation, providing critical insights into the structural tensions between socialism and global capitalism.
Copyright (c) 2025 Xu Yang, Liang Xue http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This commentary briefly reviews the intellectual history of macroeconomics in an informal way. It analyses mainstream economic theories and points out that they have failed to predict economic and financial crises because modern mainstream economics education is going astray. In response to the current crisis facing economics education, the commentary proposes reconstructing curriculum systems, innovating teaching methods, reforming evaluation systems, reshaping social responsibilities, and localising international experiences.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sherman Xie, Lu Dai , Lei Liu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
AI-Driven Paradigm Shift in Translation Education and Career Trajectories
This study examines the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on translation professions and pedagogical frameworks. Through systematic analysis of evolving occupational roles and educational requirements, six emerging career trajectories necessitated by artificial intelligence (AI) integration are identified: AI translation coordinators, human language specialists, content localisation experts, real-time translation mentors, multimedia translators, and neural network optimisation specialists. The research reveals a fundamental paradigm shift from conventional linguistic expertise to hybrid competencies combining technological proficiency with cultural intelligence. The study’s findings demonstrate that while AI excels in operational efficiency, human translators remain indispensable for cultural interpretation, creative adaptation, and quality supervision. The article proposes a dual-focused development strategy emphasising domain specialisation, strategic technology adoption, and enhanced business acumen. These insights provide a roadmap for educational institutions to redesign curricula and for professionals to cultivate adaptive skill sets in machine-augmented translation ecosystems, ensuring sustainable career development amidst rapid technological disruption.
Copyright (c) 2025 Meiping He http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Na-iem Dollie http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Workhorse or Precarity? Understanding the Contested Roles of Postdocs in Chinese Higher Education
With the increasing penetration of neoliberalism into higher education, the level of competition has intensified. Postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) have assumed increasingly significant roles within global higher education systems, contributing to scientific research, teaching, and societal service. However, instead of becoming the core force in research as intended, postdocs often face substantial challenges during their transition to tenured positions, including heavy research workloads, high stress, instability, and frequent mobility. These issues have contributed to the marginalisation of postdocs and led to severe distortions in their perception of their professional roles. In China, a focus on postdocs remains relatively scarce, with most studies concentrated at the macro level, particularly on postdoctoral policy. Drawing on role theory, this study conducts a comparative analysis of postdocs’ self-perceived roles and policymakers’ role expectations through semi-structured interviews and policy document analysis. The findings reveal a clear role conflict within the Chinese higher education system, characterised by the tension between being a “workhorse” and experiencing “precarity”. Policymakers regard the postdoctoral system as a pipeline for developing early career researchers into mature scholars and consider postdocs a critical force in driving scientific advancement. However, postdocs themselves perceive their position as unstable and marginalised, and their academic labour within higher education as insecure, unsteady, and exploitative. Furthermore, such competitive role conflicts differ by gender and academic discipline, potentially contributing to educational inequality. This article concludes with a critical reflection on the current postdoctoral system in China and calls for increased attention and responsive measures to address the marginalisation of scholars.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lei Jiao, Rui Wu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This article critically investigates the structural and experiential dimensions of precarity among postdoctoral researchers within the German higher education system. Drawing on the conceptual lens of neoliberalism, precaritisation, and intersectionality, the study examines how institutional policies, particularly the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act), have normalised short-term contracts, undermined academic freedom, and restructured knowledge production around market imperatives. Employing a qualitative methodology, the research integrates document analysis with seven in-depth interviews conducted with postdoctoral scholars at the University of Bayreuth and the University of Bonn. The thematic analysis reveals that postdoctoral precarity is experienced through intersecting dimensions of job insecurity, constrained career progression, dependency on external funding, lack of agency, and psychosocial distress. These conditions not only impact individual well-being and career sustainability but also erode the epistemic integrity and ethical foundations of the university. The study argues that academic precarity is not merely a labour issue but a systemic manifestation of neoliberal governance, operating through temporal, spatial, and affective mechanisms. It concludes by calling for a fundamental reimagining of academic labour and institutional responsibility, contending that confronting precarity is essential for safeguarding the future of higher education as a democratic, inclusive, and intellectually autonomous domain.
Copyright (c) 2025 Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Gender Barriers and Career Advancement Challenges
Female postdoctoral researchers in China’s higher education system face persistent gender-based barriers that hinder their career advancement. This study investigates these challenges through the lens of the glass ceiling theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 female postdoctoral researchers, aged 28 to 40, from diverse disciplines and institutions across China. The thematic analysis revealed that gender discrimination, limited access to leadership roles, and insufficient institutional support impede career progression. Cultural expectations often pressure women to juggle career goals and family duties, which makes it harder for them to advance in their academic careers. This study concludes that persistent barriers call for urgent policy reforms, including clear promotion standards and better support for work-life balance, to promote gender equality in academia. Addressing these issues can empower female researchers and enhance innovation within the higher education system.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lulua Wang, Hu Xinzhu, Zhang Jing, Ye Hedi, Ruyang Li http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Neoliberal discourses about students’ perceived skills deficit persist in higher education worldwide. In South Africa, these are particularly marked, as market discourses overwhelm democratic citizenship discourses in many universities. This can lead to the domination of deficit approaches to teaching, especially of academic writing. This interdisciplinary article conceptualises a law teacher’s and an academic literacies teacher’s experience of developing a programme for law students navigating the shift from undergraduate to postgraduate research writing in these contexts. The authors identify a blend of critical pedagogies emerging from scholarship in their respective fields and honed through iterative cycles of reflection with colleagues and students. They show how these Slow, deliberative, collaborative pedagogies have been used to develop a critical framework for resisting the deficit positioning of students and for reclaiming ways of engaging democratically and care-fully with students, and with research as a scholarly, thoughtful, transformative practice. They argue that this framework can facilitate the expansion of student agency, scholarly identity, and the development of research writing capacities in the disciplines.
Copyright (c) 2025 Desia Colgan, Jean Moore http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Patriarchal Bargains and Intergenerational Negotiations
This study focuses on the effect of economic constraints and patriarchal norms on the educational choices of rural girls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Using the theoretical framework of patriarchal relations developed by Deniz Kandiyoti, we examined the strategies employed by mothers, grandmothers, and young women against the backdrop of low educational levels and rigid gender relations. The study involved in-depth interviews and field-based observations with 40 participants, including fathers, mothers, grandparents, and young women. Thematic assessments were incorporated into the data validation protocols. Empirical data reveal that poverty, family pressures, and gender-constructed traditions impede women’s educational opportunities. The findings indicate that because of poverty, family, and gender stereotypes, there is low access to education among women. However, with the support of social and economic approaches, high-school girls will be able to challenge patriarchal practices. Therefore, empowering women and girls in families will eventually transform the customary traditions that forbid both education and educational opportunities for the next generations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Muhammad Suhail Khan, Zhang Biao http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Evolution of Language Knowledge in China’s Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards (1986–2022)
English as foreign language instruction (EFLI) in China has experienced an extended period of development and refinement, progressively advancing a higher level of sophistication. Due to the amplified global reach of English, China has instigated several educational policy reforms to enhance the quality of English instruction. This study identifies Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards (CEECS) documents in China from 1986 to 2022 as research materials to comprehensively discern the holistic trajectory and essential impetus of the evolution in language knowledge (LK). Through qualitative textual analysis, it adopts NVivo software to code diachronic and structural changes in LK requisites across diverse levels and curricula, discern thematic elements, and visualise the evolution. The findings indicate that, in response to societal changes, the CEECS have evolved in both content and structure, with a gradual shift in the focus of LK from mere knowledge acquisition to the practical use of language. Drawing extensively from official documents, this study seeks to elucidate the changes of LK across successive iterations of the CEECS, explore underlying considerations, and furnish insights that can steer future directions in curriculum reform and support the upgrading of EFLI in China.
Copyright (c) 2025 Qiong Chen, Pan Pan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This study challenges the technologically optimistic narrative that artificial intelligence (AI) naturally promotes educational democratisation by delving into systemic inequalities in AI education across urban, suburban, and rural primary schools in China. Utilising a constructivist grounded theory approach, the research conducted six months of qualitative fieldwork, including in-depth interviews with 15 students, five parents, and five teachers, along with classroom observations at three primary schools located in Shenzhen (urban), Anqing (suburban), and Shangluo (rural). The findings unveil four interconnected layers of inequality: policy-driven infrastructure disparities favouring elite urban schools, regional stratification exacerbating urban-rural divides under standardised policies, intergenerational transmission of cultural and economic capital reinforcing educational privilege, and individual disparities in AI literacy widening the “new digital divide”. These insights resonate with the maximally maintained inequality theory, highlighting how AI education policies may inadvertently perpetuate existing inequities. The study advocates for equity-oriented reforms in AI education, emphasising the necessity to address structural barriers such as unequal resource allocation, inadequate teacher training, and disparities rooted in family backgrounds. By illuminating the socio-technical dynamics of AI integration in education, this research not only contributes to theoretical understandings of educational inequality but also offers practical implications for policymakers and educators striving to achieve more equitable AI education outcomes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yunlai Liu, Yuwei Zhang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This mixed-methods study explores the credibility of responses generated by artificial intelligence (AI) in facilitating the learning of international politics by comparing students’ and faculty’s perspectives on using ChatGPT to learn international politics. A total of 207 students and five faculty members were recruited in this study. Results from sentiment analysis indicate that students usually trust ChatGPT as a credible source of information. They also consider it an effective tool for understanding complex political concepts. However, findings of thematic analysis show that faculty highlight significant limitations of using ChatGPT for learning international politics. These experts discuss a lack of depth in AI-generated responses, potential ideological biases, and insufficient critical analysis of nuanced issues. These differences indicate the need for cautious integration of AI tools in learning international politics. Overall, the findings suggest that while ChatGPT can serve as a valuable supplementary resource, it should not replace traditional learning methods or expert guidance.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hao Song http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Scholarly debate on South Africa’s unique research publication value chain focuses mainly on the Department of Higher Education’s incentive scheme, which financially rewards universities for accredited publications. However, this arrangement has sparked contradictions that have prompted a system review. Over the past decade, the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology, under contract with the Department of Higher Education and Training, has been monitoring publication outputs, practices, authorship patterns and metrics in South African and global research environments. This has culminated in the Publication Quality Framework Project. This article uses the concept of chirality to discuss the correlation between research quality and the publishing economy based on the Department of Higher Education and Training. It presents publishing quality and the South African national research economy as chiral concepts, based on the rationale that they are mirror copies of the same infrastructure: the country’s academic industry. They look similar when we observe them functionally: They are connected in the education policy governing higher education management and practices, which cannot do without, on one hand, research publications, and on the other, a proper accounting system for the resulting Department of Higher Education and Training incentive economy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Keyan Tomaselli http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
In South African higher education institutions, “community engagement” and the politics of knowledge production are highly contested. Intrinsic to the notion of “community engagement” is an ethical commitment to our participants (as co-producers of knowledge), although this does not necessarily mean that we should bow to communities and students at all costs. This article draws from my research and teaching and learning practices as these relate to my attempts at community outreach in Marikana in the North West province and in Thembelihle (an informal settlement in the Gauteng province). This approach is geared towards challenging top-down methods whereby scholars mainly extract from the people and write up their stories in publishing fora that are relatively inaccessible. The article argues that “community engagement” is never an exclusively one-way process even if researchers with relative access to resources seem at face value to define the terms of engagement with both students and research subjects.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luke Sinwell http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Biographic and Institutional Entanglements
Despite the inability of the higher education sector to address colonial apartheid, relegating the associated indigenous cultures and traditions to a submissive space, the fight for a more legitimate and transformed higher education system continues. The study examines how biography and institutional context deepen how co-authors engage pragmatically in a collective project and secondly theorises “thinking differently about difference”. Through a triadic lens of reflection, diffraction, and decoloniality, we address the research question: How can an understanding of each other’s lived experiences and institutional contexts guide us towards engaging differently with one another and with differences? We employed autobiographical narrative inquiry as the most appropriate methodology. Our argument is that collaborative constructions of “self” unfolding through time and across space must centre difference as a driver of transformation in a collaborative partnership and scholarship. We offer a number of guidelines and questions for collective reflection and reflective practice that can be adapted for various social work and educational settings. The study concludes that by engaging with difference differently, and through deepened individual/contextual awareness, socially just co-authorship and cross-institutional partnerships could be nurtured.
Copyright (c) 2025 Najma Agherdien, Roshini Pillay, Kim Schmidt, Agrippa Mabvira, Uwarren September, Nevashnee Perumal, Priscalia Khosa, Hlologelo Malatji, Mbongeni Sithole, Zibonele Zimba http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Challenges of Implementing a Humanising Pedagogy in Technical Vocational Education and Training Colleges in South Africa
This article explores the challenges of implementing a humanising pedagogy in South Africa’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges, with a focus on barriers to fostering critical consciousness and student empowerment. While grounded in Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, the study extends this framework by incorporating the capabilities approach, which emphasises education’s role in expanding freedoms and opportunities for human flourishing. Drawing on data from learning cycle group meetings—used both for data generation and critical reflection—the study identifies key structural, pedagogical, and socio-economic constraints. These include the rigid structure of the National Certificate (Vocational) (NC[V]) curriculum, insufficient teacher preparation for transformative pedagogies, and persistent inequalities that undermine student agency. By integrating Freirean praxis with the capabilities approach, the article calls for pedagogies that move beyond content delivery to support students’ well-being, aspirations, and agency. It argues that fostering epistemic justice and participatory learning in TVET can enhance students’ capabilities, equipping them not only with technical skills but also with the capacity to critically engage with and transform their socio-economic realities. The findings contribute to broader debates on socially just pedagogies and the developmental role of TVET.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ezekiel Majola, Deidre Geduld http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Exploring the Role of Emotional Intelligence in New Teachers’ Approaches to Educational Inequality in Low-Resource Schools
This study, conducted in a low-resource region of western China, examines the role of emotional intelligence in low-resource schools, where socio-economic challenges and limited resources hinder student engagement and academic achievement. Despite extensive research on emotional intelligence, its impact on educational equity in these contexts remains underexplored. Drawing on Goleman’s emotional intelligence framework, the study investigates how emotional intelligence shapes teacher-student interactions and emotional support. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and classroom observations with 30 teachers, analysed using thematic analysis. The findings show that emotional intelligence significantly enhances teacher-student relationships, emotional support, and student engagement, ultimately improving academic outcomes. This research contributes to the literature by extending the application of emotional intelligence to low-resource environments, highlighting its potential relevance in international and cross-cultural educational settings, and underscores the importance of emotional intelligence training for teachers to foster educational equity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yaping Wu , Zhao Bingzhi , Lixia Wang, Hedi Ye , Ruyang Li http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This study explores the experiences of students using a multimodal dialogue system to engage with sensitive historical content, specifically focusing on the challenges they face and how these challenges are addressed. Data were collected from 35 participants across six public and private schools in Semarang utilising qualitative methods, including interviews and focus group discussions. The findings reveal that students encounter various challenges, such as emotional discomfort and difficulty in articulating their thoughts on traumatic historical events. However, the multimodal dialogue system facilitates a supportive environment that encourages open discussion and reflection, allowing students to navigate these challenges effectively. The study highlights the importance of creating safe spaces for dialogue, where students can explore their identities and values in relation to traumatic history. Additionally, the research underscores the potential of technology to enhance student engagement and foster deeper understanding of sensitive topics. The implications for educators and curriculum developers are significant, suggesting that integrating multimodal dialogue systems can enrich history education and promote critical thinking. Limitations of the study include a small sample size and a focus on a specific geographic area, indicating the need for further research to generalise findings across diverse educational contexts.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ganda Febri Kurniawan, Arif Purnomo, Romadi Romadi http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Relationship between Ideological and Political Education and Students’ Social Responsibility
The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between ideological and political education and students’ social responsibility. Methodologically, the study involves 76 first-year Chinese undergraduate students who received ideological and political education. The study offers a theoretical substantiation of the features of students’ formation of social responsibility in the process of ideological and political education. This allows for an expansion of the understanding of the formation of an individual’s “I” in the process of socialisation. The practical significance of the research results is derived from their potential application to enhance the effectiveness of ideological and political education and to develop students’ social responsibility in the context of the digitalisation of the educational process, considering both personal and institutional factors within the Chinese educational system. In addition, the obtained research results can be used to harmonise the “I” concept of the individual in its interaction with the social environment. The implications underscore the correlation between students’ ideological and political education and their social responsibility and highlight the importance of ideological and political education in fostering personal social responsibility development and forming socially responsible attitudes towards academic pursuits and future professional activities.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jie Huang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Education is seen as a key vehicle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Teacher educators play a pivotal role in training teachers and UNESCO advocates that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is mainstreamed through teacher education to contribute towards achieving the SDGs. For education to contribute to a more sustainable future, a focus on root causes to inequality in society, such as structural racism, and how to dismantle these structures, should be central. Drawing on empirical data from reflective dialogue interviews with 10 teacher educators at three universities in South Africa, this article explores their pedagogical approaches to include the concept of structural racism in their praxis. Their strategies for critically examining structural racism, in the context of South Africa, are considered in relation to relevant literature on critical pedagogy. The article further reflects on how this work relates to ESD and its aim for education to contribute to transformation to a more equal and just world. Based on the empirical work, the article argues that pedagogies of discomfort (and love) are important approaches for education to contribute to societal transformation through critically examining the root causes of inequalities and injustices.
Copyright (c) 2025 Brita Phuthi http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This article documents curriculum and assessment policy changes over four years (2020 to 2024) in South Africa in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures. Early on, some changes were made to the national CAPS curriculum documents in the form of trimming content (2020), identifying “fundamental” knowledge (2020), and reviewing subject content (2022). The focus was on retaining the curriculum while allowing for flexibility in coverage through weakened controls over moderation, assessment, and promotion requirements, ceding most curriculum and assessment decisions to the school and classroom levels. Given a very unequal system, this meant that curriculum coverage and learning losses mapped onto and deepened pre-COVID-19 patterns of educational disadvantage. Post-COVID, a similar approach of devolution of curriculum decision-making to school and teacher level was taken. There were no attempts to recoup time in order to remediate learning losses, apart from later attempts in one province. Post-COVID, the Department of Basic Education tightened controls over coverage again but maintained leniency with respect to assessment and progression. During the pandemic the Department of Basic Education claimed remote solutions as a key mechanism for addressing curriculum coverage, despite very few learners having access to these. There were few mechanisms to address the severe educational impact of the pandemic, especially on learners in the poorest communities. The article argues that rather than address learning losses directly government strategies have masked them.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ursula Hoadley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Research Cultures in the Modern University
The university is traditionally mandated with training generations of scholars on knowledge production and maintaining the integrity of the knowledge production system. However, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and their wide adoption by researchers may challenge this mandate by altering research processes. This article discusses the changing research cultures arising from the use of AI tools in academic research and how these may occasion retrogressive research cultures. It uses exploratory methodology, engaging with literature and pertinent theories. The article’s main finding is that AI is widely used in various research stages. It also establishes the different viewpoints on AI usage, collating the wider African vision of scientific knowledge production. It concludes that AI affects cognitive-based learning and critical thinking, which may disrupt the succession of research cultures and divest the academe of its intellectual integrity. The article suggests an urgent review of AI use in universities to restore and maintain the integrity of knowledge production for the well-being of current and future societies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Addamms Mututa, Keyan Tomaselli http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Enhancing the Transition Phase in Lesson Planning Using AI Systems
Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) systems into education poses significant challenges for teachers during the transition phase of adapting technologies in lesson planning. We adopt a grounded theory approach to examine the characteristics, strategies, and outcomes of 51 K-12 teachers’ transition phases when utilising AI systems in China. Data including a 68,807-word transcription from two rounds of interviews with eight teachers revealed that K-12 teachers can be classified into technology followers, technology conservatives, technology pioneers, and technology disengagers. The study identifies three distinct phases of adaptation. The first phase is operation focusing on mastering AI system functionalities. The second is application integrating AI tools into pedagogical practices. The final is adaptation achieving stable and tailored usage. The outcomes are categorised into Basic Alignment meeting routine needs and Advanced Alignment enhancing instructional innovation. The outcome reflects different levels of openness, proactiveness, and effectiveness in developing strategies to overcome the challenges. The findings highlight that teachers’ perceptions of transition difficulties and external factors influence teachers’ AI adoption. Teachers’ perceptions of transition difficulties including valuing new methods and using AI tools matter. External factors such as training support, peer influence, and policy requirements significantly influence their strategies and outcomes. The study offers three recommendations on adapting policies to align with teachers’ stages of AI system adoption, balancing technical and pedagogical training, and fostering collaborative lesson planning through AI systems. Future research should explore the key metrics to quantify and track transition characteristics of the transition phase and long-term in-depth observation of K-12 teachers for a more comprehensive understanding.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yi Liu, Yafei Wang, Huixian Xia http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Achieving gender equity in education is essential for national development, yet history education often reinforces gender bias. This study examines gender mainstreaming in the curriculum of Indonesian history, comparing the 2013 Curriculum and the Merdeka Curriculum through Nancy Fraser’s social justice framework on redistribution, recognition, and representation. This study aims to: (1) analyse the paradigm of history education in both curricula, (2) evaluate how gender discourse is integrated, and (3) assess the shift in historical narrative towards gender inclusivity. This study examines curriculum documents and history textbooks using a qualitative content analysis approach. The findings reveal that although both curricula emphasise national identity, the Merdeka Curriculum adopts a more progressive attitude towards gender equality by integrating feminist historiography and multidimensional narratives. This marks a shift towards redistributive justice and recognition, ensuring increased visibility of women’s contributions in history education. However, the extent of curriculum implementation remains untested, raising concerns about teacher readiness and classroom implementation. The study highlights the need for ongoing curriculum reform to better integrate gender perspectives across subjects. In addition, teacher training is essential to prevent unintentional reinforcement of gender bias. Future research should explore how gender-inclusive history education affects student perceptions and how educators interpret and implement these curriculum changes. Although the Merdeka Curriculum reflects progress, achieving gender justice in education requires systemic reforms in pedagogy, teacher training, and policy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ardeti Jeni Abdilla, Sariyatun, Nur Arifah Drajati http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
This study examines the current state of primary education in Kazakhstan, where traditional teaching methods may be insufficient for comprehensive student development. The purpose is to develop proposals for improving the educational system of primary schools in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The study employs a mixed-methods approach combining systematic analysis, deduction, classification, and comparison methods, along with a survey of 71 participants (12 teachers, 26 parents, and 33 students) to evaluate Kazakhstan’s primary education system, with data synthesis used to formulate recommendations for improving educational didactics. The results reveal that while the education system has strengths in providing comprehensive subject coverage and clear learning outcomes, it faces challenges such as insufficient attention to individual student needs, limited integration of information and communication technologies, and gaps in critical thinking development. The survey findings indicate generally positive perceptions of the educational environment, though with varying levels of satisfaction among different stakeholder groups. The study concludes that structural changes are needed in Kazakhstan’s primary education system, particularly in integrating modern pedagogical approaches and technologies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aizhan Khassenova, Lyazat Syzdykova, Gulnaz Adylbek kyzy, Gulmira Karabalaeva http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
World Yearbook of Education 2025: The Teaching Profession in a Globalizing World: Governance, Career, Learning, edited by Xavier Dumay, Lynn Paine, and Tore Bernt Sorensen
The New Digital Education Policy Landscape
Copyright (c) 2025 Wenping Sun http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Institutional Fabric of Higher Education: Old Patterns, New Dynamics and Changing Rules?, edited by Rómulo Pinheiro, Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Pundy Pillay, and Akiyoshi Yonezawa
Copyright (c) 2025 Haiou Zou http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Language in Culture: Lectures on the Social Semiotics of Language, by Michael Silverstein, edited by E. Summerson Carr, Susan Gal, and Constantine V. Nakassis and Language Debates: Theory and Reality in Language Learning, Teaching and Research, edited by Ana de Medeiros and Debra Kelly
Copyright (c) 2025 Lijuan Hu, Yi Liu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0