Mobile learning has moved in the last decade from being a small, scattered research interest to being viewed by many international agencies as a way of delivering their humanitarian missions to the developing contexts of the global South. This paper explores and documents fundamental concepts and concerns that characterize or perhaps jeopardise…

The literature reviewed for this study revealed that the movement toward decentralizing responsibility of school governance to communities has become a global policy in the contemporary world. With the aim of enhancing greater community participation and retaining students in public schools, the Government of Nepal introduced two different…

Social inclusion policy in Australia has largely ignored key issues of communication for linguistic minorities, across communities and with the mainstream community. In the (now disbanded) Social Inclusion Board's reports (e.g., Social Inclusion Unit, 2009), the emphasis is on the economic aspects of inclusion, while little attention has been paid…

This paper discusses employing queer theory (QT) and queer legal theory (QLT) for critical policy analysis as applied to education. In doing so, the authors will highlight how both QT and QLT can empower analyses to look beyond the identity politics of a particular time period or space and toward potential reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and…

The authors show ways in which Jarl Bengtsson, a Swedish social scientist and policy analyst, has influenced international policy making. As a member and later director of the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation from the beginning of the 1970s to the end of the twentieth century, he has contributed to the international discussion…

What happens to race in public discussions about "race-neutral" college admissions policies? This article shows how race disappeared from elite political debate during hearings on Texas Senate Bill 175 (2009), the Top Ten Percent Plan (the Plan), which guaranteed college admissions to high school graduates from the top 10% of their…

The paper examines the Nigerian information technology policy and contends that the policy appears not to have sufficiently emphasized the integration of ICT in the nation's education system. It argues that the policy ignores critical elements of quality ICT application in education such as the need for integration into curricular and pedagogical…

It has been said that while history shapes the hand a state is dealt, public policy determines how the hand is played. State policy for K-12 education--and, by extension, for arts education--is shaped through the actions of various state governmental entities--governors, legislatures, courts, and commissioners and boards of education--in response…

The California Community College mission requires offering relevant Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. Due to program accretion and bureaucratic inertia, program discontinuance (PD) seems at odds with postsecondary culture. Yet, as a result of recent budget constrictions, community colleges are forced to identify effective PD…

Better School District introduced its assessment and evaluation policy and regulations in 2006. Three years later, the Director of Education learned that the policy was not fully implemented in all schools. The main issue was teacher noncompliance with the provision of interventions for students who miss assignments and tests or submit work late.…

In this era of hyper-accountability, teachers are under ever-increasing pressure to demonstrate their worth--often using evidence that is far removed from what seems to be in the best interests of the students. Terms such as "value-added," "evidence-based," and "data-driven" dominate discussions about teaching…

Institutional differentiation has frequently been an object of interest in higher education policymaking in Ontario. Occasionally this interest has motivated policy actions intended to increase differentiation, but more often government policy has aimed at limiting institutional differentiation -- or it has had that effect by default. The focus of…

The paper critically assesses the more turbulent period in agri-food since 2007- by applying a transitions perspective to a range of empirical data collected from key private and public stakeholders in the UK during that period. It argues that increased volatility and a series of interdependent landscape pressures on the dominant agri-food regime…

Over the last decades, policy trends have differentially and negatively affected women educators, defied, denied or repressed feminist values and missed opportunities for using feminist insights to reframe policy issues. This article provides a critical feminist analysis of educational and social policies with negative implications for women in…

In 2007, Washington adopted the Student Achievement Initiative, a statewide performance accountability system designed to improve retention rates and degree productivity among community colleges. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we found that the policy change has had little immediate effect on retention rates or associate's degree…