Reconciling broad educational goals of job-readiness with specific work task-related qualifications or competences poses challenges for vocational teachers. To assist efforts to address these challenges, this article explores knowledge practices of project-based vocational instruction in Swedish upper secondary vocational education and training,…

This article investigates how learning outcomes, a concept inspired by an Anglo-Saxon curriculum approach, are expressed in policy documents, with an emphasis on expectations articulated to teachers. Developments in education policy for the last two decades reflect a widespread expansion of learning outcome orientation in curricula and assessment…

Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland outlines a policy vision of a more progressive, integrated and holistic form of education; a commitment which contains an obligation for health and well-being (HWB) to be a responsibility of all teachers. A critical policy analysis approach was utilized in order to review school-level progress in different…

This article uses curriculum-making frameworks to analyse and reconstruct the Chinese curriculum-making model and unpack the dynamics, complexity and constraints of China's curriculum reform since the early 1990s. It argues that curriculum reform is China's main human capital development strategy for coping with the challenges of the 21st century,…

This is the first of six commentaries discussing Zongjie Wu's essay, "Interpretation, autonomy, and transformation". Wu's analyses of pedagogy have opened a new window for looking at the essence of education. The comparison of Confucius's pedagogy with contemporary teaching in China provides a striking contrast. However, perhaps it is…

Examines the extent to which the widely publicized changes in mathematics curricula and in methods of teaching mathematics since 1960 have resulted in observable change in classroom behavior of teachers, in content, and/or in student achievement in mathematics. Findings from several studies of mathematics education in British Columbia indicated…

Suggests that schools and society will both benefit from accountability programs if these programs stress continual cycles of studying problems and trying solutions. Further, accountability measures should be based on information which emanates from the schools and concerns transactions as well as outcomes. (DB)

Describes a study funded by the Science Council of Canada, to evaluate policies and practices of Canadian science education. Objectives of the study were to establish a documented basis for describing the state of Canadian science education, to conduct an historical analysis of science education in Canada, and to stimulate deliberation concerning…

Reviews educational trends in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s in schooling for children with handicaps, including learning disabled, mentally retarded, hard of hearing, deaf, partially sighted and blind, speech impaired, emotionally disturbed, crippled, and children with heart and respiratory disorders. (DB)

Questions the extent to which knowledge and the study of the good relate to and influence the performance of the good within the framework of Jewish education in the United States. Six Jewish educational programs are examined. Findings from this examination are presented and alternative responses to the relationship between study and moral action…

Discusses previous attempts to confront the issues of how to deal with the competing views of science. Suggests an alternative approach for integrating nature of science issues into the school science curriculum. States that educators must accept that no single nature of science exists. Includes references. (CMK)

Received conceptualizations of scientific literacy are grounded in (1) the notions of "knowledge", "concepts", and "skills" that science students have to "acquire", "appropriate", or "construct" or (2) the notion of "practices" to which they have to be "enculturated" so that they become part of a "community of practice". All such notions…

What constitutes literacy is not a single value-free standard but the product of the values of particular cultures at particular points in their histories. The history of literacy efforts in the United States and Canada is examined to discover their philosophical roots and ideological underpinnings. (IS)

If a major objective of general education is to make children capable of understanding their worlds and of solving technical problems, then mathematics instruction must be provided for all children. However, historical analyses suggest that educators cannot expect great success in implementing this "mathematics for all" orientation in…

Contends that juku schools (private, for-profit schools) have become increasingly important in Japanese education during the past decade. Compares the juku schools with the formal Japanese educational system and discusses admission procedure, the curriculum, teachers, and financial costs. (CFR)