in education Volume 30, Number 1, 2025 Winter

Editorial

Valerie Triggs and Gale Russell, University of Regina

The winter issue for 2025 conveys the work of authors who are passionate about improving the well-being, mental health, and engagement of students as well as supporting the commitments of teachers and community programs for doing so.

Maria Fjærestad and Constantinos Xenofontos share research data from a case-study involving semi-structured interviews with eleven teachers regarding the integration of digital tools in Norwegian primary school mathematics classrooms. Their article, Digital Tools in Mathematics Classrooms: Norwegian Primary Teachers’ Experiences, highlights ways in which digital tools enhance mathematics instruction through increasing student engagement and augmenting differentiated learning while also noting various challenges and limitations that arise in the practical realities that teachers encounter.

In their article title, Pathways to Healing and Thriving: Culturally Responsive Mental Health Programs for Black Youth in Toronto, Marcella R. J. Bollers and Ardavan Eizadirad, provide research findings from surveys and focus groups with 55 racialized youth who attended education programming offered by a non-profit organization, Generation Chosen, that aims to support under-resourced Black youth with mental health, emotional intelligence, as well as civic engagement. Using Critical Race Theory, the authors provide an analysis and synthesis of improvements to life skills, fostering of identity development, and enhanced coping mechanisms, through the youths’ participation in the organization’s culturally responsive and trauma-informed guidance and mentorship.

The third article in this issue is written by Jane P. Preston who provides an extensive literature review regarding educational experiences of international students enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the countries that are currently hosting the largest international populations: Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. In this article titled Experiences of International Students in Postsecondary Education: A Literature Review, key findings are shared regarding influences that promote well-being and academic success of international students. These findings include student capacity for English proficiency, navigating and adapting to unfamiliar pedagogical approaches, as well as issues of acceptance, integration, and discrimination. Preston’s review generates important observations regarding educational experiences that constitute barriers or discomforts for students, as well as recommendations for improvement and for areas of future research.

Michael Link and Will Burton share their research article, Teacher Perceptions of Teachers for Education for Sustainable Development: Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Possibilities for Education for Sustainable Development (EDS) have been narrowed due to the pandemic’s unpredictable learning environment that shifted back and forth between online and in-person contact, as well as its lack of opportunities for field trips and social interaction. Using semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers who integrate sustainability education into their teaching practice the authors found that the pandemic made teachers more aware of the central role that schools play in supporting social, emotional and academic well-being in youth, a role that may have previously been underestimated. The two authors also found that, despite difficulties in designing deep and immersive experiences as teachers had done prior to the pandemic, teachers remained determined to put Education for Sustainable Development foremost in their teaching and in their classrooms.

Our book review for this issue is written by Donna H. Swapp & Adeola S. Amos. This review provides a thoughtful and detailed response to the 2023 Canadian Scholars book by Ranjan Datta, titled Decolonization in Practice: Reflective Learning from Cross-cultural Perspectives. Swapp and Amos share how this edited book emphasizes individual responsibility for seeking knowledge about the places and spaces one occupies, as well as the collective responsibility of decolonization. The contributors to the edited book write from the perspectives of Indigenous peoples as well as from those of Black, Asian and European communities. As with the other authors in this issue Swapp and Amos elucidate challenges and commitments towards teaching and learning, and what these might mean for educational practice that promotes healing and co-flourishing with mutual respect and understanding. They recommend this book to in education readers.

We hope you enjoy this winter issue as you patiently wait for the coming arrival of spring.