Describes the development of low-cost multimedia courses and materials for use on the Internet, as well as virtual laboratories, at the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (Costa Rica). Explains how simultaneous production of traditional printed materials and online courses, outsourcing, and the use of HTML and Java can reduce costs for developing…

It seems to be accepted in educational debate that class size has a negative impact on teaching and learning. However, how much do we know about the impact that class size has on teaching and learning, particularly in developing country contexts? This article will engage with this question. It will review the research evidence on teaching large…

Increasing international cooperation and interdependence are important features of the contemporary globalized world. In the present age, foreign aid is a very peculiar type of transaction in the sense that its focus is to satisfy the objectives of the donor and the recipient, which are not always the same. This paper attempts to analyse the…

This article looks at how far educational approaches to gender equity can be packaged and exported to developing countries. I analyze current discourses on women's education at international, national and local levels. Drawing on detailed ethnographic data from Nepal, I argue that issues around gender and education need to be addressed as…

The accepted wisdom is that private schools serve the privileged. Everyone else, especially the poor, requires public school. The poor, so this logic goes, needs government assistance if they are to get a good education, which helps explain why, in the United States, many school choice enthusiasts believe that the only way the poor can get the…

Now in its fourth decade, Supplemental Instruction (SI) is an internationally acclaimed academic support model. Communication and critical thinking skills developed through collaborative learning are the hallmarks of the program. SI has enjoyed thirty-some years of robust success in the world of the academy. It has proven itself to be an…

This paper adds to debates about international influences on education policies in developing countries by shifting focus onto the particular experiences of South Africa. This provides a valuable new perspective in at least two ways. First, the study considers the typically neglected area of skills development policy (constructed in this case by a…

In this paper we argue that the primary force behind the large drop in real exchange rates that occurs after large devaluations is the slow adjustment in the prices of nontradable goods and services. Our empirical analysis uses data from five large devaluation episodes: Argentina (2002), Brazil (1999), Korea (1997), Mexico (1994), and Thailand…

This study presents quantitative, sociological models designed to account for cross-national variation in child mortality. We consider variables linked to five different theoretical perspectives that include the economic modernization, social modernization, political modernization, ecological-evolutionary, and dependency perspectives. The study is…

During the early decades of the 20th century in the American Midwest young farming families achieved social mobility by moving up an 'agricultural ladder' through a series of rungs, from unpaid family work, to wage labor, to tenant farming, to a mortgaged farm, and, finally, to full ownership of a farm. In this paper we use the concept of an…

Political governance and quality management are often contested concepts, meaning different things to different people; and often their meanings have shifted historically. The collapse of the governance system behind the iron curtain countries triggered an avalanche in international politics and instituted new governance and management system to…

The global nature of the new information and communication network has been questioned because of the obvious exclusion of developing countries in the development of the contemporary structure. Leaving aside the troublesome term "developing countries", it is still very obvious that the poorer southern countries are in a different…

How do political forces come together to influence merger forms and outcomes? This question is posed in a context of an analysis of the forms and outcomes of three "case studies" of mergers that took place in South Africa in the past decade. The theoretical stance, borne out by the data under review, places political actors at the centre…

An emerging global phenomenon of significant proportions, the mobility of high-level personnel affects the socioeconomic and sociocultural progress of a nation and the world. The information era has conquered the barriers of distance and space, opening up a whole array of opportunities and challenges affecting the mode in which the world interacts…

Infant hearing screening is emerging rapidly as a silent global revolution for the early detection of children with congenital or early onset hearing loss to ensure timely enrollment in family-oriented intervention programs for the development of spoken language. This article examines the overriding and interrelated scientific, ethical and…