Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education Vol. 20, no. 1, 2025, Regular Issue https://doi.org/10.20355/jcie29757  Editorial Introduction Maren Elfert King  s College London maren.elfert@kcl.ac.uk Carrie Karsgaard University of Cape Breton carrie_karsgaard@cbu.ca Bathseba Opini University of British Columbia bathseba.opini@ubc.ca  We are delighted to publish this issue that includes nine articles on topics related to the professional role of teachers, issues of social justice in schools and higher education, theoretical approaches to social and educational inequality and the study of AI, and the professional ethics of researchers. We would like to dedicate this issue to Dr. Lynette Shultz, who was a dedicated editor of JCIE from 2015 to 2024. Lynette provided strong guidance to JCIE, creating a community around JCIE  s critical and justice-oriented aims. Her vision and relational way of working invited a diversity of scholars    including early career researchers and those situated in the Global South    to contribute their research to conversations about emergent issues in education. As the current team of editors, each of us has benefited from her mentorship, and we are thankful that our work is grounded on the solid foundations she and the colleagues before her have provided. She is editing a forthcoming special issue of JCIE on   Human Rights, Education, and a Culture of Repair, Regeneration, and Counter-Colonial Relations   (winter 2025), and we look forward to her contributions through this piece. Many thanks, Lynette! The article   Students   Well-Being Since the Pandemic: An Ongoing Concern   by Cathia Papi examines the continuing impact of the Covid-related disruptions and measures on students. An online survey conducted with elementary and high school principals in Québec reveals that students continue to experience cognitive, social, methodological, affective, and psychological difficulties. The study further found a correlation between high school students   problems with increased screen  time and their parents   difficulties and distress and disruptions of family life following the pandemic. Overall, Papi  s article raises significant concerns with regard to the accumulation of psycho-social-emotional problems and academic challenges. In   Chinese International Secondary Students   Experiences with Racism:   It Was the Same Before and After COVID  It Was Just Something Really Normal  ,   Helen Liu and Roopa Desai-Trilokekar examine instances of racism and discrimination experienced by Chinese students in secondary schools in Canada during the Covid19 pandemic. The authors argue that educational institutions in Canada need to increase their efforts to promote an inclusive and supportive environment for international students. From a theoretical perspective, the article highlights the strengths and limitations of Critical Race Theory and Asian Critical Theory (AsianCrit). Liu and Roopa Desai-Trilokekar argue that   neo-racism, co-ethnic racism and new geopolitics offer additional lenses to analyze what shapes and defines international students   experiences.   The article   School Leadership in Crisis: A Job Demands-Resources Model of Saskatchewan School Administrators   Work, Stress, and Burnout   by Donna H. Swapp and Pamela Osmond-Johnson addresses a concerning situation in schools, characterized by stress and burnout among school administrators. Drawing on data from a longitudinal study of Saskatchewan school administrators (20202024), Swapp and Osmond-Johnson take a critical look at work and wellbeing inequities in contemporary school administration, with an emphasis on the chronic demands of the role and the lack of resources to support leadership success in the province. The authors situate   this troubling context within an overarching neoliberal era, where accountability, austerity, and productivity are prioritized at the expense of resources to support educators   wellbeing   (p. 100). Neoliberalism is also a key concept in the next article,   Neoliberal White Corporate Saviourism in Public Education Outsourcing: A Critical Examination of Project 11   by Christine Mayor, Melanie Janzen, and Hafizat Sanni-Anibire. The authors explore how neoliberal privatization infiltrates schools under the guise of goodwill, using Project 11 - a mental health non-profit program in Winnipeg - as an example. Using the   white saviour   metaphor, the authors caution against the infiltration of private organizations into public schools and show that,   although seemingly well-intended and benevolent, white corporate saviourism does not recognize, identify, or challenge the defunding and other neoliberal reforms that have created the need for greater mental health support in schools   (p. 127). The article by Jason Abram and Kelli Rushek,   Educators   Perceptions of Human Trafficking and Implications for Professional Development,   discusses the role of school-based educators in learning about, preventing, and identifying human trafficking. Drawing on findings of a survey with teachers in Florida, Abram and Rushek revealed that human trafficking training is neither widely available nor effectively implemented in many K-12 schools, indicating a need for more training to prevent human trafficking. In   Employable Wealth: Reframing Community Cultural Wealth as Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education 2025, 20(1), p. 1-4. ©Author(s), Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/JCIE  2  Employability for Students of Color in Higher Education  , Christopher Burnett and Zachary Taylor explore Yosso  s (2005) model of Community Cultural Wealth as an appropriate approach to reconceptualize employability for people of Color. The authors examine ways institutions of higher education and employers can better acknowledge the value of the lived experience that students of Color bring to higher education and to the workforce, which are often misunderstood and underappreciated. The next article,   Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater? Revisiting Debates around Educational Inequalities, Social Capital, and Solutions,   by Kevin Gosine relates to Burnett and Taylor  s article insofar as it critically discusses the   cultural wealth   approach. Gosine reviews explanatory perspectives on social and educational inequality, focusing on the   culture of poverty,   the resistance, and the   cultural wealth   perspectives. Gosine challenges some of the scholarship that views structural discrimination as the primary cause of inequalities based on race and class. He argues that the   us vs them   outlook of this scholarship that rejects capital-building strategies, including educational attainment, as neoliberal and inherently White, risks reinforcing the insularity of marginalized urban communities. Minh Ngoc Hoang, in   Professionalism and Professional Ethics: Representative Perspectives of Social Researchers in Vietnam,   explores the perceptions of professionalism and professional ethics of the social research community in Vietnam. Her research reveals tensions between the modern ethics and standards of professionalism and local contexts, requiring socio-cultural sensitivity rather than universal applications. In   Postmodern Paradox: Artificial Intelligence, Pedagogy and the Return of Robot Slavery,   Jeremy Dennis defends postmodernism in light of the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots in our public and private lives. Dennis argues that postmodernism   is relevant and possibly indispensable for resolving the cultural, educational, and legal problems that advanced technology introduces in the twenty-first century   (p. 315). Drawing on the concept of simultaneity of differences, Dennis argues that postmodernist thinking can help us grapple with what AI and robots will mean for the future of teaching and learning. The issue also includes a tribute to the Kenyan writer and scholar Ngugi wa Thiong  o, who passed away in May this year, written by Bathseba Opini, as well as a review of the book Media Arts Education: Transforming Education Through Multimodal Cognition, Holistic Learning, and Techno-Embodiment by Dain Olsen, written by Jingyu Guo. We would like to thank our reviewers, without whom we could not have published this journal, and our colleagues at the University of Alberta Library Publishing team for their ongoing support. A special thanks goes to Malou Brouwer, who did a brilliant job copy-editing this issue. We are currently inviting special issue proposals (deadline of September 30) and book reviews. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education 2025, 20(1), p. 1-4. ©Author(s), Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/JCIE  3