Low-income individuals and families experience a great deal of financial hardship that impacts virtually every dimension of their lives. This chronic financial instability not only imposes high degrees of day-to-day stress but may also limit the ability to save and invest, constraining prospects for a more secure future. Across the country,…

This article examines the case of Roma inclusion in education as a study of the ways in which international policy can and cannot bring change at the local level. I first reflect on the numerous international organizations and initiatives to improve the educational outcomes of Roma, and to reduce segregation and other non-inclusionary practices.…

Whereas short-term plasticity involves covalent modifications that are generally restricted to either presynaptic or postsynaptic structures, long-term plasticity involves the growth of new synapses, which by its nature involves both pre- and postsynaptic alterations. In addition, an intermediate-term stage of plasticity has been identified that…

Facing a collection of challenges, how can the Shanghai cooperation organisation (SCO) use technology to help improve cohesion, cope with enlargement, manage relations better with external parties, develop resources, advance economic cooperation between members, improve their speed of decision making and upgrade their quality of decision…

In recent years, "continuous improvement" has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education. This white paper attempts…

This paper presents a framework for evaluating efforts by organizations to share research as exemplified on their websites, then reports the result of an evaluation of these efforts in 100 organizations. The result shows that the overall research sharing efforts of these organizations are modest and not well aligned to evidence on effective…

As the definition of organization has evolved, so have the approaches used to evaluate organizational performance. During the past 60 years, organizational theorists and management scholars have developed a comprehensive line of thinking with respect to organizational assessment that serves to inform and be informed by the evaluation discipline.…

Introduction: In recent years, major progress has been made in understanding the human visual system because of new investigative techniques. These developments often contradict older concepts about visual function. Methods: A detailed literature search and interprofessional discussions. Results: Recent innovative neurological tests are described…

Growth factor (GF) signaling is critically important for developmental plasticity. It also plays a crucial role in adult plasticity, such as that required for memory formation. Although different GFs interact with receptors containing distinct types of kinase domains, they typically signal through converging intracellular cascades (e.g.,…

Recent research indicates that epigenetic mechanisms and, in particular, the post-translational modification (PTM) of histones may contribute to memory encoding and storage. Among the dozens of possible histone PTMs, the methylation/demethylation of lysines in the N-terminal tail of histone H3 exhibits particularly strong links with cognitive…

Of late, teachers unions have worked together with district management in new and notable ways. This paper examines the role of teachers unions in shaping the Together Initiative (TI), which seeks to increase autonomy and broaden decision making in urban schools in one northeastern state. In general, state-level union leaders have taken more…

In this essay, Jal Mehta examines the challenges faced by American schooling and the reasons for persistent failure of American school reforms to achieve successful educational outcomes at scale. He concludes that many of the problems faced by American schools are artifacts of the bureaucratic form in which the education sector as a whole was…

The authors provide a framework for understanding the process of legitimation and the status of legitimacy as it applies to civic engagement and community-based initiatives. They apply their own case study experience with a social circus organization as an example of how legitimation occurs during the practice of civic engagement. The authors…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide organizations in the Chinese cultural context with a conceptual model for an integrated adoption of existing knowledge management (KM) methods and to improve the effectiveness of their KM activities. Design/methodology/approaches: A comparative analysis is conducted between China and the western…

As groups representing local and state education players struggle to remain relevant in a policy conversation often dominated by foundations, think tanks, new advocacy groups, and political and business figures, a shift in leadership has been under way at major associations. Most of the changes have come as part of the natural churn; former…