Written corrective feedback (WCF) is a ubiquitous pedagogical activity in second language (L2) classrooms and has become a key area of inquiry in L2 writing research. While there have been several reviews on experimental WCF research, there is not yet a synthesis of naturalistic classroom studies where the type and amount of feedback provided on students' writing performance is not manipulated or controlled. This state-of-the-art article intends to fill the gap by providing a comprehensive and critical review of naturalistic WCF studies in L2 writing, with significant implications for practice and research. A systematic search generated 50 empirical studies that met our inclusion criteria for the current review, which revealed four major themes: (1) teacher WCF practices in L2 writing classrooms, (2) L2 learner responses to WCF, (3) stakeholders’ beliefs and perspectives on WCF, and (4) WCF-related motivation and emotions. Based on the reviewed evidence, we propose pedagogical implications for enhancing teacher WCF practices and student learning, as well as potential avenues for further exploration. This article contributes to a nuanced understanding of current empirical advances in naturalistic research on WCF in L2 writing, providing insights to inform WCF pedagogy and new lines of inquiry.

A pioneering book on an important novel subject, Memory Activism and Digital Practices after Conflict presents a thorough and detailed overview of memory activism in Serbia over the last 20 years, across two generations. First of all, the book traces the transition from anti-war and human rights activism to ‘first-generation memory activism’, by examining the trajectory of the NGO Women in Black created in the 1990s to protest against Serbian nationalism, Milošević's war policy and Serb war crimes in the Yugoslav wars. The turn to what could be defined as memory activism grew organically out of this initial anti-nationalist and anti-war struggle, gaining traction following the deep disappointment felt by many in the Serbian alternative with the continuities in Serbia's institutions and social structures after the fall of Milošević in 2000, the official silence and denial of war crimes, and the unfulfilled promises of transitional justice in the region.

This paper explores the movement of the New York City Interborough Association of Women Teachers (IAWT) for “equal pay for equal work” in teaching salaries, which it won in 1911. The IAWT’s success sheds light on the possibilities and limits of women teachers advocating for change within a feminized profession. Leading the movement were of a group of women teachers, organizing before woman’s suffrage and in an era of sex-differentiated work and pay, who convinced the city’s public and state’s legislators that they deserved pay equal to what men teachers received. They did so by strategic maneuvering in city and state politics and making equal pay look reasonable. And they did so by narrowly defining their goals and leaning on their identities as women to push a theoretically sex-neutral claim of justice. Their success, though limited, was nonetheless a victory in shifting ideas about women’s societal and professional status in New York City and the state.

This paper uses the writings of European teachers and Chinese students at St. Stephen’s Girls’ College in Hong Kong—published in English periodicals of its school magazine and local English newspapers—to examine how the school tactically positioned itself as an educational site for the “useful women of China” during a period in Republican China that was simultaneously defined as a time of “cosmopolitan modernity” and “national rebuilding.” St. Stephen’s brand of usefulness responded to the “New Woman” phenomenon in Republican China, and it was defined through the narrative of science learning and a sense of service. Through its progressive science curriculum and social service branch, the school helped prepare a class of “career women” for China. It was in educating this class that St. Stephen’s, in resonance with the colonial state, envisioned its role in the shaping of modern China.

Public education, at least as it has been known for the past several generations in the US, is under threat. Conservative state legislatures from Arizona to Florida have enacted sweeping voucher legislation, channeling taxpayer dollars to private schools. At the same time, a vicious culture war has engulfed the public education system in controversy, creating new political opportunities for ideologues and opponents. In this context, the editorial team at HEQ felt it important to reflect on why we have public schools in the first place. What are they good for and what should be taught? Whom should they serve, and who should govern them?

For this policy dialogue, we asked Carol Burris and Johann Neem to discuss the past, present, and future of open-enrollment, taxpayer-supported public schools. Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education Foundation and the author of several books. Prior to that role, Dr. Burris was a classroom teacher and a high school principal, earning educator of the year and principal of the year awards. Johann Neem is a professor at Western Washington University and a historian of the early American republic. The author of several books, including Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, Dr. Neem is also a member of HEQ’s editorial board.

HEQ policy dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. At the end of the exchange, we offer a list of references for readers who wish to follow up on sources relevant to the discussion.

This essay recontextualizes the Yale Report of 1828, arguing that the report’s advocacy for classical liberal education should be understood alongside the racial concerns of its authors, some of whom were well-known colonizationists who viewed African American education as a threat to New Haven’s social and economic stability. The Yale Report’s vision for leadership and economic success not only excluded African Americans by default, but created a lasting binary that defined Black educational opportunities in the nineteenth century and beyond. The essay considers the near overlap between the writing of the Yale Report and the failed proposal to establish an African American men’s college in New Haven in 1831, placing the document within a key period in the history of American higher education in which education became highly commodified and racialized. Building upon scholarship on the Yale Report that has already considered its neorepublican aims, this essay opens the possibility of viewing the document beyond its immediate concerns with curricular reform and contemplating the elusive connections between American higher education, race, and power.