Education

The ongoing Russian war against Ukraine has brought many new challenges to the teaching of international relations (IR). Ukrainian and international universities have had to rethink their curricula and pedagogies, both content- and format-wise, to adapt to new realities. The new challenges varied greatly, from delivering lectures from the bomb shelter or even from the frontline to rethinking of the IR curricula across the field.

This volume explores the experiences of Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian academics who have taught IR courses during the Russian war against Ukraine and covers a wide range of issues, from enabling resilience during work within Ukraine to embracing the psychological effects of the war on teaching and learning to the amendment of course syllabi.

To what extent have universities in post-Communist states adopted the practices and habits of their branded and consumer-oriented equivalents in the English-speaking world? While not assuming that university education in those states reflects in any mechanistic way the regulated, business-led system long established in places such as the U.S. and now being dramatically realized in countries like Britain, this edited collection identifies some marked shifts in the direction of what might best be described as “neoliberalization,” examining its particularities in local situations where establishment ideologies were, until the early 1990s, deeply alien to all kinds of commercially driven entities. Many of the authors are concerned not only with the linked issues of commercialism, instrumentalism, bureaucracy, and managerialism, framed locally and nationally, but also with the meaning and purpose of universities outside or against their status as efficient gatherers of income. The collection makes specific reference to Lithuania, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia, and takes in both theoretical and empirical studies of diverse but connected subjects, including the marketization of the academy, regional reactions to globalization as expressed in the representational rhetoric of specific curricula, the role and place of civic education, comparisons between educational settings, pedagogies for a critical and ethical consciousness, corporate and state demands and their effects on academic freedom, and the positive potential of new communication technologies. In all these cases, the system of neoliberalism, or rather an uneven process of neoliberalization, forms a backdrop to the particular issues discussed.

This book offers a long overdue account of the vast corruption and cheating practices in Russian higher education, including bribery, financial fraud, clientelism, plagiarism, and exam cheating. Serghei Golunov ruthlessly uncovers the recent social trends that have created a favorable ground for such malpractices and evaluates the efficiency of measures taken against corruption and fraud by various actors. Although corruption and cheating are so widespread the value of most Russian diplomas is in doubt, these problems are prioritized neither by higher education managers nor by foreign actors such as partner universities, participants of the Bologna process, or the authors of global university rankings.

This indispensable guide for both parents and professionals offers fascinating ways to better understand the emotional world of children and what is important to them as represented by their drawings. It presents cases of children and adolescents coping with a variety of life challenges and clinical issues by way of interpreting their artwork. Parents, educators, clinicians, and doctors will find this practical guide highly beneficial for understanding children's strengths, weaknesses, and the reasons for their behavior in cases of ADHD, fears and anxiety, coping with divorce, stubbornness and power struggles, sibling rivalry, difficulties with weaning, tantrums, a new baby in the family, learning disabilities, obesity, a lack of emotional intelligence, and many more. The book can also effectively aid them in initiating a fruitful emotional dialogue based on specific insights from the drawings.

The wisdom in this book is based on extensive psychological studies, innovative independent research, and vast clinical experience. Using over 250 real-life examples of children's drawings, Wimmer offers more than 100 effective coping tools and solutions inspired by this artwork that can be extremely useful in enhancing children's self-confidence and family relationships.

Michal Bogin Feinberg presents a new way of perceiving children’s drawings. In a language suitable for everyone, she exposes the reader to the secret of the fixed order of the development of children's drawing, of all its steps and meanings. Understanding the stages of the motor and emotional development of children's drawings and unraveling the encounter as well as the connection between them generates a new way to look at observing children's drawings and provides one with the tools to better understand their emotional world.

This book is an essential tool for every therapist, educator, or parent.

The scope of multilingualism and multiculturalism within societies is increasing on a global scale. As this is happening, discussions are emerging concerning the significance of including a variety of perspectives in classroom discourse as well as the imperative of ridding it of a prevailing monocultural straitjacket. Against the backdrop of these changing realities, authors have advocated for a revision and adaptation of current teaching methodology and classroom materials in order to do greater justice to an increasingly diverse student population.

This book presents the findings from a qualitative research project conducted in Australia, a country acclaimed for its linguistic and cultural diversity. Specifically, the study investigated the educational context of Indigenous Australian learners by shedding light on the incorporation of First Nations perspectives in teaching materials and methodology. Additionally, the project identified therewith-related challenges and possibilities for improvement. The results provide insights into the multifacetedness of language- as well as culture-related factors, which prove vital for learning processes. Moreover, the results reveal the complexities arising in connection with the incorporation of First Nations perspectives in classroom discourse. The data also point towards dimensions for improvement and recommendations for action for educators working in diverse classroom settings.

As growing linguistic and cultural diversity has become a global reality, this volume, addressing Australian First Nations perspectives, offers an important contribution to the field of contemporary education.