Low and stagnant teacher pay has been a perennial issue in the United States public school system since the early decades of the nineteenth century. Women teachers, then as now, confronted the issue head-on by organizing together. For example, women primary school teachers in Boston, Massachusetts successfully petitioned for more pay in 1835, but an emerging policy to pay women less ensured that such victories would be few and far between. Nevertheless, we can draw two critical lessons from these women teachers and their petition. First, a broader understanding of historical context and gendered narratives about labor is necessary to confront the teacher pay crisis today. Second, sharing teachers’ stories from the past now can help shape policy debates on teacher pay, turning a crisis into a new vision for the teaching profession.

This qualitative study focused on educators’ perspectives of teaching students with dysgraphia. Dysgraphia can be referred to as a specific learning disorder (SLD) in writing and includes difficulties with handwriting, spelling, and/or composition skills. To explore the educators’ experiences, an interpretative phenomenological analysis method was implemented. This involved generating semistructured interviews and locating key concepts from these interviews, in tandem with researcher reflections. The results indicated that educators developed their self-efficacy in supporting students with dysgraphia on the job, augmented by self-guided and external searches for information about dysgraphia. The participants described their colleagues as generally unable to provide them with dysgraphia-specific knowledge due to a lack of awareness of dysgraphia within schools. Two of the three educators pursued Multisensory Structured Language training, departing the classroom to work in private tuition. Three teachers offered strategies for supporting students with dysgraphia, such as explicit, systematic, scaffolded, and repetitive instruction coupled with assistive technologies or lined paper and slant boards. The study concluded that dysgraphia-specific professional learning, coupled with collective efficacy, could proactively build teachers’ capacity and self-efficacy in supporting dysgraphia within an inclusive education context. These measures would more aptly support students with dysgraphia to reach their potential.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 is underpinned by the provision of quality inclusive education for all young persons, including persons with disabilities. The universal design for learning (UDL) framework provides the basis for establishing an inclusive pedagogical learning environment in classrooms. However, implementing such an inclusive pedagogical framework continues to be profoundly challenging across all countries, including Australia. Teacher attitude is the most important construct in efforts to create inclusive educational contexts. The aim of this study was to examine secondary school teachers’ attitudes towards the UDL framework in Australia. One hundred and twenty mainstream secondary classroom teachers in Sydney completed an online survey. The mean values and standard deviations of a self-designed UDL framework were calculated to examine teacher attitudes. Correlations and multiple regressions were conducted to verify the relationship between teachers’ attitudes and their background variables. The main results indicated that Australian secondary school teacher attitudes towards the UDL framework were generally positive, although they still had some practical concerns, such as having inflexible ideas about how to provide instructions. The findings provide useful insights for developing professional teacher training to promote inclusive education, where the UDL framework is a lens for interpreting inclusive education.

It is the purpose of this study to examine the effects of the unionisation status of US school districts on teacher job satisfaction. Using an ordered probit analysis and a sample of public school teachers, results of the present study suggest that teachers working in unionised districts are, overall, less satisfied with their jobs than are teachers in non-unionised districts. However, teachers in unionised districts were less likely to leave for better pay and were more enthusiastic about teaching than teachers in non-unionised districts. Hence, even though teachers in unionised districts were generally less satisfied with their jobs, they were more satisfied with regards to certain specific aspects of their positions.

Teachers can contribute to preventing and solving cyberbullying situations. Therefore, it is relevant to investigate what may influence their involvement and actions concerning this phenomenon. A first study analyze teachers’ definitions of cyberbullying, how they would intervene and feel morally implicated with the phenomenon. A second study aimed to investigate the association between teachers’ being aware of cyberbullying and their perceived severity, moral disengagement with the phenomenon, perceived performance to solve such situations and their acquired knowledge about cyberbullying. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted in the first study with 25 to 65-year-old teachers. An online inventory was answered in study two by 541 middle and high school teachers (Mage = 50, SD = 7). A thematic analysis from the first study revealed that most teachers did not report repetition of behavior, power imbalance, intentionality to harm, and occurrence among peers as defining features of cyberbullying. Also, strategies they would use to intervene mainly focused on reporting the incident. Moreover, moral disengagement mechanisms were found in teachers’ discourse, which contribute to displacing responsibility for intervening and perceiving cyberbullying as less severe. In the second study, path analysis revealed that teachers’ awareness of cyberbullying among their students was positively associated with moral disengagement and acquired knowledge of the phenomenon. The mediating role of acquired knowledge of cyberbullying was significant between being aware of cyberbullying and teachers’ perceived severity of the situation, moral disengagement, and perceived performance to solve these situations. These findings highlight the relevance of developing cyberbullying training actions involving teachers.

Since Kenya's independence in 1963, ethnicity has been an important factor in Kenyan politics and everyday life. While recent research has shown that ethnic favouritism impacted the allocation of educational resources in the past, so far, no systematic research has been conducted on how teachers exacerbate, mitigate or countervail the political culture of ethnicity and ethnic favouritism. As agents of socialisation, teachers’ attitudes and behaviour can, consciously or unconsciously, convey the message that ethnic favouritism is normal and socially acceptable, or conversely delegitimise such practices. Based on a list experiment among 894 secondary school teachers in the county of Nairobi, we find that at least 25% of teachers have already favoured coethnic pupils. Interviews indicate that such favours are seldom blatant in nature and mainly serve to show solidarity with one's kin. Still, even small – frequently well-intentioned – favours may damage inter-group attitudes, trust and relations, and may even contribute to the persistence of ethnic politics.

School represents an important context for children’s social, moral, and identity development. Research indicates that supportive teacher-student relationships are significantly related to positive student academic achievement. Unfortunately, teacher bias as well as peer exclusion based on group identity (gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality) pervade many school contexts. The presence of these biases in the classroom is negatively related to students’ academic development, especially for children who are minoritized and marginalized. Very little research has connected teacher bias and children’s reasoning about bias and inequalities in the classroom context. The classroom is a complex environment in which to examine children’s social and moral reasoning about bias, given teachers’ position of authority which often includes power, status, and prestige. We propose that understanding both teacher bias and peer intergroup exclusion are essential for promoting more fair classrooms. This paper reviews foundational theory as well as the social reasoning developmental model as a framework for studying how children think about fairness and bias in the classroom context. We then discuss current research on children’s social-cognitive and moral capacities, particularly in the contexts of societal inequality and social inclusion or exclusion. Finally, this article proposes new directions for research to promote fairness and inclusivity in schools and suggests how these new lines of research might inform school-based interventions.

This small-scale mixed methods study sought to explore the nature of the musical learning in the Reception year. Research data from the questionnaires (n = 39) provide some evidence that little has changed over the last two decades in some aspects of the music provision for children aged 4 and 5 years. However, interviews with eight Reception teachers revealed some unexpected findings on account of some contemporary barriers. Qualitative data suggest that children’s entitlement to develop their innate musicality within the Foundation stage curriculum may be at risk, as some teachers find the challenges of ‘fitting it all’ is difficult to accomplish.