Since the 1990s, universities in South Korea have participated in an aggressive movement to globalize their institutions through the medium of English by hiring English-proficient faculty. To attain tenure, faculty must publish in international indexed journals (IIJs), which results in a de facto language policy of publishing in English because…

The success of some advocacy organizations in advancing their preferred policies despite questionable evidence of the effectiveness of these policies raises questions about what contributes to successful policy promotion. We hypothesize that some education-focused organizations are advancing their agendas by engaging media, with individuals who…

The importance of social capital as a resource for rural development, especially in the context of projects involving joint participation of state and civil society, is widely recognized today. This paper analyzes the obstacles confronted by local players--small farmers and government organizations--in the development of an irrigation area through…

Education is an area that is highly devolved in the UK, and the fact that all four constituent countries have pursued very different policies in the recent past provides a good testing ground to undertake a comparative review of the merits or otherwise of the education reforms that have taken place. There is, of course, an important policy context…

The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The "state" itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people--bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader--and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students…

Currently there are multiple teacher education reform policies being proposed, piloted, and debated at a variety of levels and by various interest groups, stakeholders, and policy-makers. Along with an unprecedented sense of urgency about these important goals, what most U.S. reforms have in common is increased accountability. Using a discourse…

This paper focuses on history in the New Zealand curriculum in light of its seemingly confused curriculum identity despite revision processes of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC; New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2007). Some thinking about curriculum as a socially constructed political process that teachers can actively engage with sets the scene…

This article is related to the impacts on teachers of the increasing marginalization of their voices in educational policy making and policy debates. Policy influences the nature of teaching and learning and if teachers are to re-centre teachers' voices and combat the neo-liberal agenda underpinning public education, they must construct their own…

Over the past three decades policymakers have been seeking new ways to secure improved performance from higher education institutions. One popular approach has been performance funding, which involves use of a formula to tie funding to institutional performance on specified indicators. This report reviews findings from studies on performance…

After the attacks of 9/11/2001 the federal government implemented new policies intended to protect people and institutions in the United States. A surprising policy requires education researchers conducting research under contract to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to obtain security clearances, sometimes known as security screenings.…

Higher education policy studies over the last decade have addressed the detrimental effects of neoliberalism, new public managerialism and audit cultures on the nature, organisation, form and meanings of higher education at a macro level. This article addresses the micro-practices through which the author, as doctoral candidate and knowledge…

The rhetoric surrounding the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in international education speaks of providing education access for all. However, an examination of actual policies reveals an emphasis not on creating an educated population, but on improving economic opportunities using discourses such as globalization,…

This paper studies the distribution of computer use in a comparison between two of the most dominant suppliers of low-cost computers for education in developing countries (partly because they involve diametrically opposite ways of tackling the problem). The comparison is made in the context of an analytical framework which traces the changing…

Background: By a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 declared that voluntary public school integration programs were unconstitutional. Citing the prospective harm that students and their families might incur from being denied admission to the high school of their choice, the…

For over a decade, professional learning communities (PLCs) have been touted as an effective way to build upon the knowledge and skills of experienced teachers, yet much of the evidence base is derived from self-reports by practitioners. Although several generations of school reform (the standards movement, No Child Left Behind, and now the Common…