When political knowledge is scarce, affective attitudes, which can consist of emotion-driven feelings regarding political figures, government, country, and foreign nations, often assist policy judgment. Based on pre- and post-surveys administered in Introduction to American Politics courses, fall 2003-fall 2005, this study examines how political…

This article considers policies and strategies employed to professionalise the early childhood workforce in England since the Labour government took office in 1997. The term "professionalisation" is associated here with moves towards creating a graduate early years workforce, which could have implications for training, pay and employment…

Jeb Bush campaigned for governor on a clear and bracing set of education reforms in 1998. Having won office, he immediately pursued a dual-track strategy for reforming Florida's K-12 education system: standards and accountability for public schools, choice and options for parents. Florida lawmakers followed those reforms with additional measures.…

Digital learning makes possible the "unbundling" of school provisions--that is, it allows children to be served by providers from almost anywhere, in new and more customized ways. At the same time, because it destandardizes and decentralizes educational delivery, digital education is far harder to bring under the yoke of the…

This qualitative case study examines the rationales of the relationship between Arizona State University (ASU)--an American public research university--and Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM), a Mexican private not for profit research university. The focus of the study is to document the different meanings participants attached to the rationales of…

"Politics and the Primary Teacher" is an accessible introduction to some of the thorniest aspects of a primary teacher's role. It aims to support your understanding of the constant changes in education policy, give you confidence to engage critically with current political debates, and consider how you might shape your response accordingly.…

The need for education to help every child rather than focus on average attainment has become a more central part of the policy agenda in the US and the UK. Remedial programmes are often difficult to evaluate because participation is usually based on pupil characteristics that are largely unobservable to the analyst. In this paper we evaluate…

This study provides an objective look at the education policies adopted by the State of Arizona since 2000, describes participants in the policy-making process, and identifies policy options for the future. The framework of the study uses a typology of educational policies with seven categories: school building and facilities, curriculum…

Students who take classes in education departments at universities receive significantly higher grades than students who take classes in other academic departments. The higher grades awarded by education departments cannot be explained by differences in student quality or by structural differences across departments (i.e., differences in class…

Children of immigrant backgrounds--children who are immigrants themselves or were born to immigrant parents--are the largest segment of growth in the U.S. school population. In this exploratory interdisciplinary analysis, Filindra, Blanding, and Garcia Coll ask whether the context of policy and political receptivity, even when they are not…

Just over a decade ago, the Australian Government introduced funding mechanisms which aimed at reducing doctoral candidates' attrition rate and completion times, and increasing reported student satisfaction. Publicly available documents from six universities of three different classifications of universities in five Australian states were analysed…

From the 1980s to the present, educational accountability in the United States has grown dramatically. Such accountability in U.S. school districts, although driven primarily by external demands, has internal manifestations as well. The chapter traces the historical development of internal evaluation in American school districts, then highlights…

In recent years, the rigor and quality of educational research have drawn much attention. This increased interest has been driven by state efforts to collect student achievement data, the creation of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the explicit call for"scientifically based research" written into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act,…

This article explores the policy implications of internationalisation of higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. It uses several of the country's policy documents and analyses what they infer about the process of internationalisation and its role in the transformation of South African higher education and society. The particular policy…

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country. The causes for the large number of prisoners can be traced, in part, to a politicized war on crime that resulted in harsh sentencing and high recidivism rates. Prisoner education provides the potential for slowing the revolving door of prison by helping to create engaged…