The recognition of children's social agency and active participation in research has significantly changed children's position within the human and social sciences and led to a weakening of taken-for-granted assumptions found in more conventional approaches to child research. In order to hear the voices of children in the representation of their…

Leadership must always be suspect in a radical tradition, not because it is unnecessary or unimportant, but because it too readily re-enforces the status quo, even when it tries hard not to. Helen Gunter argues that leadership needs to re-engage with learning, not merely focus on performance, and that we need to have the courage to exercise…

The rise of standardization signals that Paulo Freire's critique of the banking concept of education continues to be relevant today. But Freire's theory of critical pedagogy has not gone without its critiques. On the one hand, the fact that these criticisms exist should not blind us to the fact that Freire's intention was to formulate an…

This article examines the policy cycle and vernacular globalization in the context of higher education reform in Vietnam. Through an analysis of the development of the Vietnam National University--Hochiminh City as part of the post-1986 reconstruction of Vietnamese higher education, the article considers the complex interrelationship between…

From the perspective of lecturers in English and Humanities, this paper addresses the current crisis of managerialism in higher education, grounding the discussion in the realities of smaller institutions in Northern Ireland. It begins with the premise that the language of auditing, bureaucracy and accountability has achieved hegemony within such…

Participation of the "target group" is a key concept in working on empowerment in health education. However, it raises many questions and is not without struggle. I will discuss the findings from a study into the state of the art of empowerment in health education, which includes a literature review and the analysis of eight Dutch…

Drawing on a critical incident, the practice of administrators mandating mediation as a means to resolve institutional conflicts is explored. The case is made that in relegating conceptual critique and disagreement to a psychologized space, individuals become the sites for change instead of the institution. The analysis is in keeping with…

This article looks into the workings of educational authority. While scholarly debate in education usually promotes authority as either good or bad, the same debate seldom asks questions about how authority works. This article is, then, an answer to the question "How?" How does educational authority operate? It operates, it is suggested, in much…

A study at a community college undergoing renewal provided an opportunity to explore how members of various institutional subsystems differ in the ways they make meaning of organizational climate conditions. The researcher identifies and describes competing discourses relating to the signs and symbols of power, collaboration, technology, and…

In this paper the online construction of disability is investigated and the implications for educators working in virtual worlds are considered. Based on the analysis of data collected through interviews with deaf residents of "Second Life", it is argued that research into online identity, disability and education needs to allow room for…

In this article, I advance the argument for a listening pedagogy that attends to the voices of children and brings attention to multicultural and power issues. I focus on the need to nurture a student-centered educational system within the constraints of the high-stakes standards and accountability model. Embedded within an ethic of care and…

Out-of-school time programs provide intervention and prevention services to young people who are deemed "at-risk" with the goal of improving their social, emotional, and academic development. However, research indicates that children and youth who are most "at-risk" are less likely to participate in out-of-school time programs, and do so less…

In a previous ethnographic study (Sebrant, 2000) a social constructionist view of how social identity is produced among professional groups in Swedish healthcare was developed. Looking at the workplace as an important environment for identity construction suggested that these processes were conditions for learning. The purpose of this paper is to…

A substantial body of literature considers excessive corruption an indicator of a weak state. However, in nondemocratic societies, corruption--whether informally approved, imposed, or regulated by public authorities--is often an indicator of a vertical power rather than an indicator of a weak state. This article explores the interrelations between…

A key feature of recent curriculum reform in post-industrialised liberal economies has been the ascendancy of outcomes-based education policies. A 1995 review conducted in Western Australia (WA) recommended an outcomes-based approach, and in response, the Curriculum Framework (CF) was released in 1998. The same year, the WA State government…