Educational leaders’ effectiveness in solving problems is vital to school and system-level efforts to address macrosystem problems of educational inequity and social injustice. Leaders’ problem-solving conversation attempts are typically influenced by three types of beliefs—beliefs about the nature of the problem, about what causes it, and about how to solve it. Effective problem solving demands testing the validity of these beliefs—the focus of our investigation. We analyzed 43 conversations between leaders and staff about equity related problems including teaching effectiveness. We first determined the types of beliefs held and the validity testing behaviors employed drawing on fine-grained coding frameworks. The quantification of these allowed us to use cross tabs and chi-square tests of independence to explore the relationship between leaders’ use of validity testing behaviors (those identified as more routine or more robust, and those relating to both advocacy and inquiry) and belief type. Leaders tended to avoid discussion of problem causes, advocate more than inquire, bypass disagreements, and rarely explore logic between solutions and problem causes. There was a significant relationship between belief type and the likelihood that leaders will test the validity of those beliefs—beliefs about problem causes were the least likely to be tested. The patterns found here are likely to impact whether micro and mesosystem problems, and ultimately exo and macrosystem problems, are solved. Capability building in belief validity testing is vital for leadership professional learning to ensure curriculum, social justice and equity policy aspirations are realized in practice.

In response to calls for more research to assess the effects of translanguaging on substantive learning outcomes, this systematic review begins that process by synthesising existing research on pedagogical translanguaging approaches that have been formally assessed for effectiveness in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. A systematic process of searching and selecting the literature found 10 eligible studies. Data were extracted for narrative synthesis and quality appraisal. Results showed that pedagogical translanguaging was most frequently used to teach reading and writing rather than other domains. Five studies favoured translanguaging over English-only approaches, four of which were rated as having a high risk of bias. The remaining studies either detected no statistically significant differences between these approaches or favoured translanguaging in a small number of highly specific measures. We conclude that pedagogical translanguaging may be helpful in teaching in some circumstances, but that the low methodological quality of the literature on average makes it difficult to draw firm causal inferences. This systematic review provides the relevant background on what is already known about the effects of pedagogical translanguaging in EFL contexts to inform the work of researchers wishing to act on recommendations for more intervention research to establish the effects of the approach on English language outcomes.

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The International Database of Education Systematic Reviews (IDESR.org) contains summary records of published systematic reviews in education and protocols for unpublished reviews and reviews in preparation. During its pilot phase, IDESR is concentrating exclusively on curating systematic reviews in language education. IDESR makes ready access to extant evidence syntheses for researchers, who can use this information to assess the strength of the warrant for any proposed new primary research and/or additional evidence syntheses. By using IDESR to publish review protocols prospectively, review authors commit to high standards of transparency and rigour in producing their research. We have used the data held in IDESR to assess the topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in the language education literature. We found (i) that language education has seen exponential growth in systematic reviews of research; (ii) that a variety of topics have been addressed, but those related to educational technology have dominated; (iii) that reviews are published in a wide range of outlets, going beyond language education journals; and (iv) that there is room for improvement in the quality of reporting evidence syntheses in language education.

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