In current times, the increasing demands of principalship and the complexities facing schools have led to the emergence of distributive forms of leadership in schools. The dissatisfaction with traditional models has resulted in a paradigm shift where leadership focus on the position of individuals in the hierarchy has been rejected in favour of…

School inspection, school self-evaluation and the relationship between them are important themes in current educational policy debates. Many education systems are seeking to find a balance between the, at times, conflicting demands for a robust, transparent and effective system of school evaluation that at the same time allows for professional…

Underpinning many of the ongoing debates over the means and ends of teacher education are serious differences about the purposes of education in general and about the relationship between schooling and a democratic society in particular. At stake in these debates is the nature of what counts as "democracy," a word with multiple political meanings.…

Comments on a article by Blass (January 2009) who pointed out his historical perspective on human welfare problems facing a democratic society. The author would like to add some information from the cognitive-developmental framework that seems most pertinent to these larger issues of obedience and disobedience. It is relevant to note that a number…

Drawing primarily on the work of John Dewey, Kathy Hytten argues that rethinking democracy can help us to respond more productively to the challenges of globalization. Dewey maintained that democracy is much more than a political system; instead it is a personal way of life, a mode of associated living, and a moral ideal. Yet this is not the…

In 1864, when Americans were enduring the daily miseries of the Civil War, Emily Dickinson, perhaps with the nationwide crisis in mind, wrote "A nearness to Tremendousness--/An Agony procures." The author suggests that perhaps Dickinson's poetry may be applied to the current economic downturn, when financial comfort is fleeting and many ponder…

In this article, I add to the critique of the myth of the American Dream by examining ethnographically the ways its dominant discourse is circulated to Khmer American middle school children of migratory agricultural workers. Drawing on social theories of discourse, I juxtapose the ideology embedded in the American Dream Discourse with the…

Chilean youth are currently demanding access to better-quality education for all: greater democracy and curricula that respect the country's indigenous cultural roots form part of their petitions. This article puts forward a twofold pedagogical proposal for English Language Teaching intended to foster intrinsic motivation and democratic…

A phenomenological approach examined the stories of ten women transitioning from childhood poverty to adult life. Women were chosen from a pool of participants in an Upward Bound program designed to assist low-income and/or first-generation college students in the Midwestern United States. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to…

Vocational Technical Education is any kind of education which has the main purpose of preparing one for employment in recognized occupation. The foundation of vocational technical education is based on philosophy which was mainly established for self-employment and self-reliance of the individual(s) who partake in it. Viewing the philosophy and…

One of the most persistent criticisms of John Dewey is his failure to provide definite ends for education. This essay reconstructs Dewey's educational thought to provide more guidance on the nature of educational ends. Rather than impose external ends and a rigid curriculum, Dewey provides evaluative criteria so that citizens themselves can assess…

Purpose: Web 2.0 is a collaborative web development platform that has had tremendous usage in building effective, interactive, and collaborative virtual societies at home and abroad. Multicultural study is another trend that has tremendous possibilities to help people in the fight against racism and enables them to become active members of a…

"Saved!" is the first Hollywood movie to focus on private religious education and is therefore a significant milestone in popular culture. The movie is critical of the school along the very dimensions of concern to Brighouse (2006): undermining personal autonomy, fostering social divisiveness, and promoting anti-democratic values. This article is…

Canadian public school board trustees are generally chosen by way of public ballot in civic elections. A comparison of board governance literature to a local narrative account of public school board elections exposes several gaps between espoused democratic ideals and the realities of public engagement in trustee selection. I investigate the…

Free schools are new state-funded but privately-run schools set up under the academies legislation. Free schools represent the most overtly market-oriented policy within the Conservative-led Coalition government's school reform programme in England and have provoked intense controversy, centering on issues of pupil attainment, social equality,…