Language can provide an entree into an academic discipline, but can also serve as a barrier to exclude newcomers. How does this apply to academic developers trying to promote teaching and learning on their campuses? Using an online survey, academics at two institutions in the UK and USA were asked to describe their typical and ideal reading in…

More than four decades ago, Philip J. Foster (1927-2008) published an essay on the "The vocational school fallacy in development planning," drawing on research on schools in Ghana. That essay has been reprinted in numerous texts and remains frequently quoted in recent research literature. What were his main general insights about vocational…

For more than a decade, Florida's legislators and governors--first Jeb Bush and then Charles Crist--have pushed one of the nation's most ambitious education reform agendas: grading the performance of schools before No Child Left Behind was even an idea. Florida may be more known to outsiders for everything from its Indian River citrus crop to the…

As communities respond to challenges, threats and opportunities, organisations are changing in significant ways--new organisational designs, new communities of practice, new skills and new forms of human capital are sought. Yet K-12 school systems appear to be permanently failing organisations, not changing despite being shrouded by the rhetoric…

Linguistic minority students have been both under-researched and underserved in the context of research on minority students' access to and retention in higher education. The labels ascribed to them have typically failed to capture the complexity of their identities. Additionally, much of the literature in higher education on minority students'…

As a result of globalization and transnational migration, many countries are becoming increasingly ethno-culturally diverse. Unfortunately, lifelong learning has failed to integrate cultural difference and diversity into educational environments. Rather than facilitating immigrants' adaptation, lifelong learning has become a vehicle for…

This study attempts to examine implications of political conflicts in social work with clients from the rival group. Using an anonymous, open-ended questionnaire, this study examines responses of 78 Jewish Israeli social work students to the hypothetical prospect of treating an Israeli Arab client. The vast majority expected cultural and political…

This article uses the lens of contemporary visual art as a counternarrative to explore the racialization of immigration in the United States and its relationship to education. Drawing on critical race theory, I argue that today several artists use their artistic practice to intervene strategically in the immigration debates. These artistic…

In introducing the articles in this issue, Black and McCormick are struck by two features. The first is that they comprise a rich set of resources for stimulating further thinking about tertiary education. The second, which follows from the first, is that they raise possibilities for further development of this field. They draw attention, in…

Research shows that an oppressive classroom environment impairs learning and academic performance for students with oppressed identities. Less research examines faculty perceptions of their classroom, but such research could reveal whether an oppressive environment impairs teaching effectiveness. Although the literature shows that women faculty of…

A special issue of the "British Journal of Sociology of Education" has been devoted to an examination of Disability and Inclusive Education. The authors of the papers in this issue have all made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in these fields of study. Overall, they have provided a comprehensive, valuable…

This article explores the meaning of community and perceptions of disability in Rwanda, as revealed through a community-based ethnographic study. This study took place in Rwanda in an educational policy context driven by international rhetoric about human rights, inclusion and the arguably unachievable Education for All targets. We argue that the…

The former Associate Head of Access and Delivery Services of the North Carolina State University Libraries reports on successful use of matrix management techniques for the Circulation and Reserves unit of the department. Despite their having fallen out of favor in much of the management literature, matrix management principles are useful for…

Institutions of higher education (HE), public and private, are moving through a crisis period of tapped-out states, funding cuts, tuition increases and layoffs. It makes good sense to rise to meet these new realities with new ways of doing things, and the places that succeed will be the ones that do. A holistic approach is necessary whereby…

This study investigated the issues that families consider when making decisions regarding post-secondary education (PSE) for young adults with intellectual disabilities. Survey respondents were 108 family members of transition-aged students with intellectual disabilities. Although respondents were generally positive about PSE programs, they…