Culture, Education, and Future

Thriving after crisis: Mixed-method research of teacher resilience after COVID-19

2025-12-27T13:36:41+01:00

The aftermath of COVID-19 continues to significantly affect K-12 educators, resulting in heightened workloads and diminished commitment, well-being, and health. School leaders are still grappling with persistent concerns regarding post-pandemic teacher burnout and attrition. To address these challenges, some researchers advocate fostering resilience to help teachers. This paper delves into the post-pandemic resilience of K-12 teachers in Alberta, Canada. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-method research design, Wagnild’s Resilience Survey and Resilience Supporting Questionnaires yielded quantitative data (N=71) for descriptive statistical analysis, followed by in-person semi-structured interviews (N=6), providing qualitative insights into correlated teacher behaviors. For example, resilient teachers regularly use their time and skills to help and encourage others, learn new things, and take their responsibilities seriously. Findings revealed that highly resilient teachers emphasized maintaining balance, engaging meaningfully with others, and taking personal responsibility, suggesting that resilience emerged from coping strategies and purpose-driven behaviors. This study concludes that resilience is a multifaceted process, and fostering it requires coordinated efforts between individual practices and systemic administrative support. The results offer insights and recommendations to guide administrative decisions that strengthen personal and programmatic support, encouraging behavior that fortifies resilience and increases teacher commitment and well-being.

Geometric patterns in Albanian carpets: An ethnomathematical approach to cultural heritage and mathematics education

2025-12-27T13:36:40+01:00

This study examines the geometric patterns woven into traditional Albanian carpets from an ethnomathematics perspective, with the aim of uncovering the interplay between mathematics and cultural heritage. The use of symmetrical shapes, rhythmic repetitions, and geometric compositions in carpet motifs attests to an innate mathematical knowledge, developed and transmitted from generation to generation through oral tradition and artisanal practice. The analysis relies on visual documentation and measurement of decorative elements from different regional samples, highlighting features such as axial and rotational symmetry, proportional ratios, and simple fractal structures. The results show that Albanian artisans have intuitively applied advanced mathematical principles, which serve not only for aesthetic purposes but also to preserve cultural identity and stylistic coherence. By documenting these geometric structures, this research contributes to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in the face of globalization and industrialization. Furthermore, the findings provide a foundation for integrating artistic heritage into mathematics education, fostering meaningful connections between culture and science while enabling future generations to appreciate and preserve this rich tradition. This study enriches the ethnomathematics literature and demonstrates how cultural artifacts can serve as bridges between past knowledge and contemporary educational practice, ensuring the continuity of heritage for the future.

Two-eyed seeing: A respectful approach for K-12 learning beyond cross-cultural code switching

2025-12-27T13:36:38+01:00

Educators face challenges in identifying and implementing pedagogies that affirm students’ cultural identities, foster inclusivity, and support multiple ways of knowing. This paper explores the potential of Two-Eyed Seeing (TES), a framework introduced by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall that braids Indigenous and Western knowledge systems (Hatcher et al., 2009), as a respectful and holistic pedagogical approach that moves beyond traditional cross-cultural code switching. While code switching often requires students to shift behaviors or language to adapt to dominant cultural norms, TES offers a model that values both knowledge systems equally without requiring one to subsume the other. Through a comparative analysis of TES and code switching, and case studies in both early childhood and elementary settings, we investigate how TES promotes student engagement, identity development, and inclusive classroom environments. Findings suggest that TES supports students, especially those from non-dominant cultures, by affirming their worldviews, reducing the need for adaptive cultural shifts, and fostering deeper relationships with land, community, and curriculum. We also discuss implications for educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers, highlighting the growing need for systemic educational support and ethical community partnerships. Limitations and areas for further research are identified, including the adaptation of TES in urban, multicultural contexts and the development of culturally responsive assessment models.

AI in education, ChatGPT, and personalized learning: Measuring public attention in Pakistan through Google Trends

2025-12-27T13:36:39+01:00

This study examines public interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education, specifically analyzing the terms ‘AI in education,’ ‘ChatGPT in education,’ and ‘Personalized Learning’ in the Pakistani context from December 2019 to July 2025, utilizing data from Google Trends. Employing an infodemiological approach, the study tracks fluctuations in search volume to gauge societal attention to AI-driven educational technologies. The findings reveal a substantial increase in interest in AI and ChatGPT in education, starting in late 2023, with peak interest occurring in early 2025. In contrast, Personalized Learning exhibited a more modest growth pattern, marked by sporadic spikes in search interest. The regional analysis of search interest identified Islamabad and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) as the regions with the highest engagement with AI-related educational terms. Notably, Balochistan demonstrated the highest interest in AI in education, followed by Islamabad and AJK, while Sindh exhibited comparatively lower levels of engagement. It is essential to highlight that high search interest does not necessarily correlate with increased adoption or infrastructural capacity. The elevated RSV in Balochistan for AI in education may reflect heightened curiosity, media visibility, or policy discourse, rather than widespread implementation in educational settings. The results underscore the growing recognition of AI’s potential to revolutionize the education sector. However, challenges such as limited infrastructure and digital literacy remain significant barriers to broader adoption. The study advocates for the development of targeted policies, AI literacy programs, and region-specific initiatives to ensure equitable access to AI-enhanced educational solutions.

Student perceptions of their music education in Cyprus Music Schools: Future directions

2025-12-27T13:36:36+01:00

This study explores students’ perceptions, attitudes, and suggestions regarding music education in Cyprus Music Schools, highlighting the cultural context of their learning and the future directions they envision. As student voice becomes increasingly crucial in shaping curricula, understanding how students experience their musical studies is essential for designing relevant and meaningful educational practices. Qualitative data were collected through open-ended questionnaires from 128 upper-secondary students across the five Cyprus Music Schools. Thematic analysis showed that students highly value performance-based and collaborative subjects, such as individual lessons, ensembles, and concerts, which they see as central to their musical and personal growth. Experiences connected to Cyprus’s musical heritage, including Byzantine and traditional music, received mixed responses, suggesting a need to better integrate cultural content with students’ current interests. Students also expressed clear ideas for shaping the future of music education, including broader instrumental and genre options, more creative subjects, and greater inclusion of contemporary musical practices. These suggestions reflect a desire for a curriculum that both respects Cyprus’s cultural identity and supports students’ evolving musical aspirations. The findings offer guidance for culturally responsive and future-oriented curriculum development in Cyprus Music Schools, underscoring the importance of incorporating student perspectives into educational decision-making.

Authoritarianism and education

2025-12-27T13:36:35+01:00

This journal has thus far avoided focusing on the discussion of the effects of politics in education. Politics is a given in education. It tends to reflect the ideology of a dominant party about how and what students learn. The effects of the space race in the 1960s on curricula in Western nations exemplify. Politics today is different, much more existential and angrier, and it portends significant epistemological changes in education and in society itself.

Politics and education have always walked together, but the relationship has risen to new intensities. Educators have struggled for several years now to adapt to increasingly authoritarian pressures from political forces. Social scientists need to respond to these heightened realities and focus more intensely but impartially on how political dynamics affect the future of education.

I specifically address movements that are shifting Western society, in particular from liberal democracies to totalitarian governments. The movement is arguably most evident in the United States but is also strong in European nations (e.g., the Red Ladies in England or neo-Nazi-ism in other European countries). Liberal democracy is characterized by the rule of law rather than the preferences of people in power, by checks and balances that ensure such rule, and universal suffrage. Such societies are liberal because they emphasize the rights of individuals and the primacy of human welfare. Authoritarian governments emphasize the opposite, the subjugation of the rule of law and human welfare to preferences for power and control.