Discusses the current situation in educational systems based on a consideration of scientific concepts including chaos theory, complexity, and dynamical social systems. Highlights include systemic change in education; perturbation; self-organization; dissipation of rigid structures; sensitivity to initial conditions; entropy; bifurcations; and…

The world environmental regime has encouraged nations to adopt new environmental policies and laws worldwide. But, scholars question the impact on the environment, suggesting that national policies may be "decoupled" from outcomes. We fill a gap in neoinstitutional theory by specifying the circumstances in which institutions will affect…

We explored Nakayama and Krizek's (1995) notion of strategic rhetorics--i.e., the persuasive discourses that function hegemonically to continually re-secure the power of institutions by permeating the mundane talk of individuals--in relation to a series of focus group interviews with university undergraduates and instructors about the nature of…

This chapter explores the connection between consumerism, consumption, and adult education, arguing for a more critical form of consumer education for adults.

This article traces the role of the non-communist, late Tsarist, "new education" movement in shaping early Soviet views of teacher-training. Comparing the teacher-training approach of one of the leaders of this Tsarist educational movement--Stanislav Shatskii--with that of the Soviet Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros), the…

The Chinese nationality is a great one, possessing a glorious tradition of patriotism. Patriotism is the banner that mobilizes and inspires the Chinese people to unite and struggle, a great force that moves the social history of the nation forward, and a common spiritual component of all of the country's nationalities. Now, the nation's people are…

This paper is an attempt to review the state of environmental education from the viewpoint of one involved in international and national strategies for its development. It relates environment and education to the whole system of human environment relationships and sees environmental education not as a separable package but as a movement for…

A middle school teacher describes about his community-building exercise and he also teaches AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) tutorial to seventh and eight graders. He clarifies about his communist propaganda projects in which his students create a poster encapsulating their understanding of an allegorical story that is read in the…

The argument of this paper is that the learning society, as presented by the dominant discourse, has emphasised scientific rationality and work-life learning to the exclusion of both a comprehensive understanding of lifelong learning and also the breadth of human experience and knowledge. This is because global capitalism has emphasised scientific…

Many of the cultural items that are associated with globalization started out as American cultural products, for example, McDonalds hamburgers, Jeans, Coca-Cola, and Rock-and-Roll. Canada, next-door neighbour to the United States, was the first country to be subjected to this onslaught early in the 20th century, as American cultural and economic…

The Chinese Communist Party's Fifteenth Congress established Deng Xiaoping Theory as the guiding school of thought and propelled China's construction of socialist modernization into the 21st century. Comrade Deng Xiaoping's breakthroughs in the theory of economic construction have pushed research on the relationship between education and economic…

The computerization of Russian society is a dynamic, complex, goal-directed, innovative process of the creation, dissemination, and use of information and communication technologies [ICT]. This process entails a transition to a qualitatively new and different state of society, the emergence of new group communities and a revision of traditional or…

This paper analyses the take-up of proposals for a national quality assurance system in South Africa using different approaches to quality assurance to classify stakeholder responses to survey and interview questions. The context of the study was the introduction of an external quality assurance system for South African higher education by an…

Prospective graduate students from Sub-Saharan Africa continue to choose the United States as their destination for higher education. This choice has always been somewhat of a mixed blessing for African nations; some students return to share the benefits of their education but many stay on in the West. This "brain drain" effect has…

With the emergence of a global economy, it is imperative that faculty have an increased understanding of variables or factors affecting the welfare and health care systems of different countries. In addition, they must become knowledgeable about how the European Union plays a part in the evolution of these systems and be aware of the business…