The concept of "creativity" as a desirable attribute within education is long-standing. The fields of education and creativity have developed, and periodically intersected with, government reports, policies, commentaries, and advice. Recently, an increasing number of countries have emphasized creativity in their official curricula.…

This brief is an effort to explore the meaning of the word "curriculum" when applied to working with infants and toddlers. The idea for the brief emerged from the early childhood community--specifically two groups of applied researchers funded by the Administration for Children and Families, INQUIRE and NITR. [See insert box on page 12…

Despite decades of critiques and scores of innovations designed to abolish or weaken it, the school district remains a central institution of the American educational system. Yet, although the district remains the primary agent of local democratic control and serves as the main unit for educational decisions, relatively little attention has been…

Media education is difficult to achieve as it is aimed at understanding and interpreting of the greatest concentration of sources and contents which are located in the media institutions. On the other hand, forming in two different and zealously protecting territory fields - pedagogy and media studies, media education is not yet positioned…

There has been a long-standing debate about how 'English' can be defined. Educational policy changes have typically been driven by differing representations of the subject, and have ranged from broad 'aesthetic' definitions to more narrow 'functional' views. The present study aims to analyse areas of consensus and contention in stakeholders'…

Background: In this era of rapid technical advancement, there are growing debates around the idea of nanotechnology, which are both timely and controversial. Nanotechnology materials are being utilized in our daily lives in many ways, often without consumer knowledge. Due to the explosion of nanotechnology applications, there is a necessity to…

This study examines the usage and contexts of "wellbeing" in New Zealand's curriculum, a formal statement of education policy enacted by a democratically elected government. The analysis is guided by a current model of student wellbeing rooted in seven, interdependent domains: "Having," "Being," "Relating,"…

Over the last two decades, advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have contributed to the ideological construct of an emerging "knowledge society"--one which places a high value on knowledge and education and promises a better future for humanity. However, the severe economic--and by extension, social and…

The present study sought to compare and contrast educational policies on creativity education in four Asian Chinese societies, namely mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. It establishes five criteria on creativity education policy, including policies regarding legislation on creativity education, definitions of creativity, standard…

What is meant by the term "standards"? This article will use the definition of the National Academy of Sciences for their workshop on Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards, "generally used to refer to both content standards, which describe material that students should be expected to learn, and performance standards, which…

This paper offers a commentary upon a number of recent documents from different countries concerned with the reform of school science education. It identifies and considers in turn four issues drawn from the documents: the way in which science is defined; the reference to science as a whole rather than as discrete disciplines; the nature of…

This paper addresses changing meanings attached to the concept of "community" in languages education in the school setting in Australia. The change consists of a shift from "community" as a necessary definitional category, created in the mid 1970s to mark the recognition of languages other than English used in the Australian…

The university aims to define what it means to be a well-educated person and a responsible citizen both of the university and of the broader social and political world. A definition of the idea of a university and an analysis of the role and function of "general education" in a modern university are provided.(MLW)

The pursuit of curriculum and the role of tradition in curriculum development are explored for Norway at the national-political level. The contexts of influence and of policy text production are considered. In Norway there currently exists a new type of nationally mandated curriculum guideline, a general policy curriculum document calling for a…

Argues that multicultural education curricula neither address eliminating racism and its vestiges directly nor provide strategies for empowering minorities to counteract these phenomena. The multicultural education movement has brought some gains and may offer some hope if it manages to become linked to larger movements toward social change. (SLD)