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.