The mechanics' institute movement of the British Isles has been underrated by some historians, who have argued that many of the institutes were attended by the middle and upper classes. In any case, they state that by the 1850s, they were declining in both popularity and usefulness. This paper questions these assumptions, concentrating on the…

This article presents a perspective on the relationship between adult education and human resource development of the past two decades and the subsequent emergence of workforce development. The lesson taken from the article should be more than simply a recounting of events related to these fields of study. Instead, the more general lesson may be…

Various science education researchers believe that science tuition should include some discussion about how science has developed over time. Therefore, deliberations about the nature of science should be integrated in the science curriculum. Many researchers argue that teaching the history of science is a good way to place the nature of science in…

This article chronicles the key challenges facing Ethiopia as it embarks on an ambitious, ideologically-driven and aggressive expansion of its higher education system in an effort to address its national goals of economic growth and poverty reduction. It is argued that the urge for higher education expansion has placed undue pressures particularly…

In this paper I use a general philosophy of science perspective in looking at the problem of justifying action research. First I try to clarify the concept of justification, by contrasting it with the concept of validity, which seems to be used almost as a synonym in some parts of the literature. I discuss the need for taking a stand in relation…

Over the past few decades, Korea has made great accomplishments in the quality of its education as well as the quantitative expansion of education in spite of many obstacles. Facing the new challenges of globalization and social polarization, Korea has prepared to make a road to the second leap toward "world class" education. However,…

Knowledge of the outcome of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs in school development in developing countries such as Malaysia is limited. This article examines types of CSR programs and the outcome on school development from the perspective of teachers. Data from a survey involving 273 teachers of schools that have participated in CSR…

Since the concept of nationalism first emerged on the world stage, universities have played a key role in its collective formation and dissemination to the masses. Established under challenging circumstances and subjected to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the wake of the 1967 war, Palestinian institutions of higher…

This article explores the current inclusive education system in Kenya, and how those practices relate to Article 24 of the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Local laws and international instruments are presented to shed light on the extent to which students with disabilities have a right to inclusive…

C. Michael Nelson began his special education career as a teacher of adolescents with learning and behavior disorders. He has worked as a child psychologist and as a professor with the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling at the University of Kentucky. He coordinated the graduate Personnel Preparation Program for Teachers…

Navigating learning, formal or informal, can be overwhelming, confusing, and impersonal. With more options than ever, the process of deciding what, where, and when can be overwhelming to a learner. The concept of Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) was to bring organization, purpose, and personalization of learning caused by vast resources…

This paper provides a history of academic development by examining how a South African institution coped with the potent social forces confronting it before the collapse of apartheid. Theoretically, it draws on the framework of Pierre Bourdieu and engages with a paper written a decade ago by Naidoo, who also used Bourdieu to understand…

Once societies embarked on programmes of mass education home schooling became essentially a middle-class project and remains so. This paper looks at the educational experiences of some lower middle class women at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for whom the resources of the middle-class home were simply not available. It…

The article explores Rabindranath Tagore's ideas on child education, focusing on Tagore's notion of the child, method and nonmethod in education, a deep understanding of education in relation to the child's surroundings, and the ways in which Tagore envisaged the relationship between the child and the teacher--the "guru-shishya"…

This article combines research results from a range of projects with two consistent themes. Firstly, we explore the potential for curation to offer a productive metaphor for the convergence of digital media learning across and between home/lifeworld and formal educational/system-world spaces--or between the public and private spheres. Secondly, we…