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In the research literature relevant to open educational practices (OEP), the terms “students” or “learners” often refer to individuals engaging in formal study. This study aims to broaden the conception of learners to include those who engage with continuing professional development or professional learning. The study focussed on one intersection of OEP with equity pedagogy for these learners.

Guided by transformative approaches to knowledge, the research is qualitative and draws upon nine focus group interviews about multicultural education professional learning needs conducted in November 2019 and July 2020 with 74 early years educators and staff. Data were analysed with theoretical thematic analysis to provide a rich overall description of the data set.

Early years educators and teachers aim to centre equity pedagogy in their practices but are constrained by a lack of opportunity to engage in professional development, and fragmented approaches to professional learning, issues which may potentially be addressed through OEP.

This paper extends understandings of OEP as a means of helping learners, broadly interpreted, to promote equity pedagogy. Specifically, it highlights the promise of OEP for addressing early years educators’ professional development and learning about reconciliation and multicultural education.

There is a need for cost-effective strategies to counteract mental health challenges among immigrant women. This study aims to identify how nature might improve the mental health status of immigrant women residing in Norway.

Qualitative data were gathered through individual interviews with 14 immigrant women from Iran (2), Poland (2), Palestine, Afghanistan, Congo, Kenya, Thailand, Russia, Portugal, Latvia, Colombia and Bulgaria.

The qualitative content analysis revealed that interaction with nature positively influenced the immigrant women’s mental health. This occurred because of the following: exposure to nature itself, leading to mood enhancements; familiarization with the new country’s culture, nature, climate and language, facilitating feelings of mastery, attachment and belonging; social interactions, promoting immediate well-being and future social support; interacting with nature in familiar ways, reducing feelings of alienation/loss; and physical activity, improving mood and stress-related conditions. These mental health improvements were a result of interactions with various types of natural environments.

This study supports the promotion of interaction with nature among immigrant women as part of low-cost public health work. Practitioners should consider multiple arenas for potential nature-related mental health gains.

We studied two eco-entrepreneurial companies to determine whether they had an internal focus on environmental protection. To answer this question, we surveyed employees to understand their predisposition toward the natural environment as well as their willingness to propose eco-initiatives aimed at improving the company's environmental performance and/or reducing its environmental impacts. We report our findings for these two case studies, and using our small sample of employee data, develop a conceptual model for the eco-entrepreneurial context. We suggest future research.

Environmental health disparities case studies are explored through a combination of lens including the naturome/nurturome, exposome [nature vs nurture] and multiple exposure-zone [place as predictor of health and wellbeing] concepts. This work places the educational program and experience within a theoretical framework using all these grounding theories. This provides an approach to experiential and transformative education in environmental equity/sustainability that we are calling transformative, trans-theoretical equity education, T²E². This paper aims to describe this model, its grounding theories and provide real-world examples of this model in action through PIEER.

The University of Northern Iowa’s environmental equity internship, Panther Initiative for Environmental Equity and Resilience, PIEER, engages students on multiple levels to view sustainability from an equity perspective. The experience seeks to immerse the student in an understanding of equity while also having a tangible impact in the community. Systems analysis of issues, through formal systems thinking approaches, inculcating practices that allow students to work through difficult equity and social justice implications, high vs. low context communication and leadership styles are discussed.

Findings of the first evaluation of program impact indicate long-lasting benefits to this immersive experience. Findings of an evaluation survey of current and past PIEER interns (N = 30, n = 22/21; response ∼0.73/72) indicate that participants consistently rank the experience in the upper 25th percentile of benefit for their personal growth in understanding equity and environmental issues. They also note that the experience has led them to be more likely to engage in behaviors supporting both social justice and environmental concerns.

This evaluation consists of a small sample size which prevents the use of a mixed methods approach to evaluate the consistencies among the data.

If society is to truly achieve equitable sustainability, we must accomplish this through both transformative theory and transformative experiences.

Providing both transformative theory and transformative experiences to students is an important foundational step in achieving equitable sustainability.

The University of Northern Iowa has a unique environmental equity internship which is training students to revision sustainability from an equity perspective.

“Virtuous women are seldom accosted by unwelcome sexual propositions or familiarities, obscene talk, or profane language,” proclaims Phyllis Schlafly. “Men hardly ever ask sexual favors of women from whom the certain answer is ‘no.’”

This paper explores four works of contemporary fiction to illuminate formal and informal regulation of sex. The paper’s co-authors frame analysis with the story of their creation of a transdisciplinary course, entitled “Regulating Sex: Historical and Cultural Encounters,” in which students mined literature for social critique, became immersed in the study of law and its limits, and developed increased sensitivity to power, its uses, and abuses. The paper demonstrates the value theoretically and pedagogically of third-wave feminisms, wild zones, and contact zones as analytic constructs and contends that including sex and sexualities in conversations transforms personal experience, education, society, and culture, including law.

This study aims to develop immersive scenarios (immersive videos) to foster generalization of learning while addressing social cognition, a factor associated to violence in schizophrenia. The authors sought to develop immersive videos that generate a sense of presence; are socially realistic; and can be misinterpreted and, if so, lead to anger.

A multiphase mixed method was used to develop and validate the immersive scenarios. The development phase consisted of preliminary interviews and co-design workshops with patients (n = 7) and mental health practitioners (n = 7). The validation phase was conducted with patients (n = 7) and individuals without mental disorders (n = 7).

The development phase led to the creation of five scenarios (S1, S2, S3, S4, S5); they included social cues which could lead to self-referential and intentional biases. Results of the validation phase showed that all scenarios generated a sense of presence and were considered highly realistic. Three scenarios elicited biases and, consequently, moderate levels of anger (annoyance).

Immersive videos represent a relevant and accessible technological solution to address social-cognitive domains such as self-reference bias.

No intervention using immersive technologies had been developed or studied yet for individuals with schizophrenia at risk of violence in secure settings. This project demonstrated the feasibility of creating immersive videos which have relevant attributes to foster generalization of learning in the remediation of social-cognitive deficits.