Effective education practice relies upon educators who embrace their responsibility to be critically reflective. This study, situated in the Saudi higher education context, explores the potential of reflective teaching to enhance professional learning by assessing the applicability of a widely adopted framework (Farrell and Kennedy, 2019; Mann and Walsh, 2017). This study responds to a broader shift in the Saudi context, including ‘Vision 2030’, which seeks to modernize a broad spectrum of social policy areas. Research aims relate specifically to how the goals and values can be applied in EFL instruction in ways that enhance the professional autonomy and status of practitioners. Traditionally, educators worked within a highly regulated system marked by standardized curricula, assessments, and longstanding pedagogical routines. The purpose of this study, recognising the expertise of teachers of English at the university level, is to engage with their perspectives on how reflective teaching and collaborative learning can contribute positively to the student experience and skills development, to fulfil visionary policy goals.

Using a qualitative, interpretive case study approach guided by phenomenological principles (Smith et al., 2022), this research examines instructors’ lived experiences and meaning-making processes. Drawing on a robust range of data sources, this study analysed thematically using NVivo in accordance with Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 2022), providing insight into the professional collaborations of a purposive sample of eight female instructors. Findings show that, similar to studies in other contexts (Mann and Walsh, 2017), instructors viewed reflection as a context-sensitive, ethically grounded, and relational process influenced by pedagogical responsiveness and institutional realities. Reflection functioned both as a practical way to improve teaching and as a means of navigating constraints, enabling teachers to balance professional values with expectations of a highly structured higher education setting. Although practitioners consistently engaged in informal or intuitive reflective activity, participation in the formalized professional learning environment developed during this study promoted collaboration, enhanced agency, and developed critical awareness (Henderson, Alsayeud and Collen, 2025). The contribution of this research is both empirical and theoretical. First, developing knowledge about and highlighting the potential contribution of reflective teaching in non-Western EFL/ESL settings and for educational transformation in Saudi Arabia. Second, demonstrating how the framework is adaptable to local sociocultural norms and institutional demands, highlighting the need for culturally responsive models of reflective practice. Significantly, the study underscores the value of teacher responsiveness and collaboration in building more autonomous, equitable, and future-oriented professional cultures.

This Research Ireland-funded PhD self-study explores how philosophical inquiry (PhI), situated within a critical pedagogy (CP) framework, can cultivate critical consciousness in preservice teachers engaged in Global Citizenship Education (GCE). The main objective of the research is to design, use and refine a method of PhI, as a CP that contributes to the cultivation of critical consciousness in preservice teachers in relation to GCE. The study therefore contributes to the intersecting fields of philosophy, CP and GCE by demonstrating how dialogical, problem-posing inquiry can engage learners with real-world issues and foster transformative GCE educators. It also aligns with the Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Strategy 2021–2025 by evaluating a participatory approach that deepens educators’ critical engagement with GCE.

Grounded in an action research design and informed by a critical realist paradigm (critical realist ontology, critical constructivist epistemology), the study embodies CP’s principle of collaboration between researcher and participants. Preservice teachers act as co-inquirers in a series of philosophical dialogues, first facilitated by the researcher and later by the participants themselves. Through critical exploration of complex and contested GCE concepts, such as teacher identity, power, privilege, responsibility, anti-racism and diversity, participants challenge dominant narratives and reflect on the ethical and political dimensions of teaching for global justice as well as their positionality. Drawing on the concept of negative capability, the study foregrounds openness to uncertainty and contradiction as a transformative stance in fostering critical consciousness.

Data sources include inquiry recordings, focus group interviews and the researcher’s reflective journal, triangulated through dialogue with critical friends. A thematic critical discourse analysis examines how power, ideology and knowledge are constructed and contested within these interactions.

Preliminary findings from Phase 1 of the research indicate that participants experienced PhI as an empowering, dialogical pedagogy that enabled them to become active co-constructors of knowledge. The inquiries reveal early shifts toward critical consciousness, including greater teacher agency, more autonomous thinking and movement from a non-racist to an explicitly anti-racist pedagogical stance. A more detailed critical discourse analysis of the Phase 1 data is currently underway and these expanded insights will be discussed in greater depth alongside the preliminary findings from Phase 2, which will commence in January 2026.

In the Irish context, key school-placement partners report that educational pressures, stress, anxiety, and limited resources are affecting school-placement provision (Farrell, 2023), leaving treoraí (cooperating teachers) feeling unprepared for their roles. Although a national report called for the development and implementation of a professional learning and development (PLD) programme, treoraí continue to await its delivery. In the absence of such a model, it is vital to note long-standing criticisms of professional learning design, which is often characterised as top-down, centrally produced, and one-size-fits-all, with limited grounding in key educational theories (King & Holland, 2022). Such shortcomings overlook the diverse contexts of schools and the needs of treoraí, leading to ineffective PLD that undermines reform sustainability and constrains meaningful transformation.

This paper examines how engagement in a meta-designed Participatory Action Learning Action Research (PALAR) Community of Practice shaped treoraí PLD within a specific school context, with particular attention to its influence on school-placement partnership cultures, structures, relationships, and processes.

Situated within a broader meta-design research framework, this paper focuses on the “use-time” and “in-use design” phases of the PL design phase (Fischer & Giaccardi, 2006), during which mismatches between participants’ (treoraithe) needs and supports are identified and addressed through the co-creation of meaningful PLD activities, underpinned by learning theories and the PALAR processes. A constructivist–interpretive case study design was adopted. A qualitative approach enabled an in-depth exploration of the perceptions of treoraí (n = 8) who engaged in, and co-designed elements of, four PALAR CoP workshops during the 2024–25 academic year. Data generated from co-constructed artefacts and workshop audio-visual recordings were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis.

Analysis found that engagement within the PALAR CoP impacted the school placement culture [e.g., clearer expectations], structures [e.g., more open lines of communication], relationships [e.g., feedback & observations: a two-way street] and processes [e.g., increased clarity on the treoraí’s role].

This research not only highlights the practical value of transparent communication but also, through the PALAR processes, provides a roadmap for establishing shared expectations, enabling the treoraí to embed student teachers meaningfully within the school context. From a policy enactment standpoint, it offers meaningful PLD activities that help treoraí understand their guideline-defined responsibilities, empowering them to provide collaborative feedback and observations and strengthening the mentoring experience for all partners. From a research standpoint, the study demonstrates how a meta-design approach, integrated with a PALAR CoP, facilitates bottom-up, context-responsive PLD that responds directly to treoraí needs.

Context: Health education curricular analysis is an emerging approach for a systems level understanding of health literacy (HL) development, with previous findings highlighting international curricula trends in HL promotion for primary school. A contemporary understanding of HL advancement during adolescent years would provide new knowledge and awareness of health behaviours during a critical time of transition in life. Analysing All-Island secondary level health education curricula in Ireland would encourage an understanding of needs and structure of HL, including Nubeam (2000) HL levels, providing a starting point for shared dialogue and learning.

Research aim: This research aims to appraise the current position of health education curricula for developing HL in secondary schools on the island of Ireland. Using the methodological procedures of curricular analysis previously employed by Evans et al., (2025), it is posited that analysis of health education curricula can determine how HL is developed within secondary level health curricula.

Methods: Using interpretive content analysis, a comparison of secondary level health curricula in the Island of Ireland was undertaken. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to evaluate HL and health education exposure.

Key findings/conclusions: There was a significant main effect of HL level (p < .05), indicating the percentage of HL changed depending on the level it was measured at. Overall HL level did not differ between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Limited functional HL development was found in a Northern Ireland health education context. Social health dominance was observed across the island, mirroring an international trend on HL development in schools. An All-Island emphasis on critical social HL in health education was observed.

Potential contribution of the research:

The development of social HL is an emerging trend across global health curricula with the development of social health, with interactive HL levels, seen to reflect the context of a school community. Specifically, the interaction with one’s environment for the development of health promoting behaviours offers a shared island context. An All-Island promotion of health education, with an emphasis on social health interactive HL, can empower youth in achieving lifelong health and wellbeing.

Evans, C., Kemp, N., Cruickshank, V., Kemp, J. and Nash, R. (2025), “Examining three primary school curricula for their ability to promote health literacy development”, Curriculum Perspectives

Nutbeam, D. (2000). Health literacy as a public health goal: A challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century. Health Promotion International, 15, 259–267.