Student dropout remains a persistent challenge in global education, with far-reaching consequences for individuals and societies. This literature review examines the role of student engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) in preventing dropout and promoting academic persistence. Drawing from peer-reviewed studies, the paper synthesizes key challenges to engagement, including socioeconomic disadvantage, cultural and linguistic barriers, mental health concerns, exclusionary school practices, and systemic inequities. It also reviews commonly cited strategies for strengthening engagement, such as supportive teacher-student relationships, early warning systems, culturally responsive pedagogy, and social-emotional learning. Because much of the existing literature originates from high-income, politically stable contexts, the review highlights gaps in the applicability of dominant frameworks to low-resource and marginalized settings. Overall, the review positions student engagement as both a predictor of early school leaving and a useful lens for organizing dropout prevention approaches in more context-sensitive and equity-oriented ways.

This study conducts a comparative analysis of narrative-based teaching approaches used in Grade 5 English education in South Korea and Sri Lanka, with particular emphasis on the role of communicative dialogue within narrative pedagogy. The survey examined teachers’ instructional practices, their perceptions of narrative-based pedagogy, and institutional factors influencing the integration of dialogic techniques in English classrooms. The findings revealed clear pedagogical differences between the two countries. Teachers in South Korea tended to use narrative activities within a structured, curriculum-centered, and assessment-oriented framework, whereas teachers in Sri Lanka showed greater flexibility in implementing narrative-based lessons. Based on these findings, the study proposes that effective implementation of narrative-based English education requires systematic teacher preparation, continuous support for instructional materials, and the introduction of a balanced instructional model integrating narrative elements with dialogic interaction. By revealing how differing curricular cultures influence the application of narrative pedagogy, this study contributes to comparative education research and is expected to provide evidence-based implications for strengthening communicative language teaching in primary English education.

In the context of increasing curricular complexity and ongoing educational reform, the professional learning of curriculum developers requires reconsideration beyond technical-rational models. This study explores curriculum developers’ professional growth based on Jerome Bruner's narrative theory, reconceptualizing professional learning as a narrative process of meaning-making and identity construction. Drawing on a literature review approach, the paper examines Bruner's narrative theory and reconstructs its implications for curriculum development. From this perspective, curriculum development is understood not merely as a technical design activity but as an interpretive and temporally structured practice through which educational purposes are envisioned, knowledge is organized, and professional identity is continuously reconstructed. Accordingly, the study underscores the significance of curriculum developer's narrative competency in enabling the ongoing reconstruction of curricular meaning and professional learning. By extending narrative thinking into curriculum studies, this research provides a theoretical foundation for understanding professional learning as an ongoing process of narrative reconstruction. It further suggests that cultivating curriculum developer's narrative competency is essential for sustaining reflective, context-sensitive, and meaning-oriented curriculum practice in complex educational environments.

This article is a book review that introduces Metaphors of Education. The book examines metaphors in educational discourse and their meanings, analyzing how metaphors in education influence understanding, educational thought, and pedagogical practice. Metaphors do not merely describe educational practices but actively constitute how education is conceptualized and enacted, particularly in relation to contemporary discussions of curriculum, discourse, and meaning-making. The review outlines the analyses of dominant educational metaphors offered by William Taylor and other contributors, and highlights their contributions to revealing the conceptual assumptions embedded in educational language. By situating Metaphors of Education within current curriculum and discourse studies, this review underscores its enduring relevance and theoretical significance.

This article critically examines the Korean translation of Jerome Bruner: Language, Culture, Self (2001), edited by David Bakhurst and Stuart G. Shanker, published in Korean under the title Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Bruner’s Educational Thought. Rather than a monograph authored by Bruner himself, the volume is a collection of essays in which scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds reinterpret and critically reassess his work. Accordingly, the book does not aim to systematize Bruner’s theory; instead, it highlights the philosophical presuppositions and theoretical tensions embedded in his thought. In particular, the volume illuminates Bruner’s intellectual shift from representational cognitivism to a culturally grounded theory of meaning, analyzing the tension between approaches that reduce the mind to an information-processing system and those that emphasize culturally and hermeneutically situated understandings of human action. Through discussions of language, normativity, memory, and narrative identity, the contributors explore Bruner’s broader intellectual project of reconfiguring the relationship between mind and culture. By synthesizing these discussions, this article argues that the volume should be understood not as an attempt to consolidate Bruner’s ideas into a fixed theoretical system, but rather as a significant scholarly intervention that invites renewed reflection on the philosophical foundations of psychology and education.