The United States has been swept up in the "Harry Potter" phenomenon, with film adaptations, companion readers, and literary critique and analysis following J. K. Rowling's books on the adolescent wizard's adventures. The book has also touched off a reaction from conservative Christian institutions seeking to ban the books in school…

Discusses the trend toward increased standardization in examining student learning and achievement. Maintains that the crux of middle-level curriculum reform involves a contextual notion of achievement. Asserts that working out conceptions of middle-level student learning and the work of teachers making professional judgments about what…

The present paper is part of a larger study carried out in North Queensland, Australia, between 1999 and 2001. The original study focused on the perceptions of 15 women who each have (or had) a child who was medically, educationally and socio-culturally constituted as having a disability. Qualitative methods were used for research design and to…

20 years of Sino-German cooperation in vocational training and education (VET) have produced a great many mutual benefits. This article outlines the stages underwent during the development of Sino-German cooperation in VET, describing certain experiences, in particular highlighting practices such as labour market oriented curricula, action based…

This article describes the Pathways to Prevention (PTP) infant mental health initiative conducted by Early Head Start (EHS). The authors note that staff members who want to build their early childhood programs' capacity in infant mental health are often at a loss about how to do it. They suggest establishing an intensive, ongoing relationship with…

This article examines issues related to graduate programs in agricultural and extension education for students from developing nations who are studying in developed countries. Implications are drawn for developing graduate programs that prepare individuals for their most likely career paths. Such programs may not be congruent given the current…

Agricultural development programs often produce unexpected results. This can be attributed to the fact that the target-farmers already have their own knowledge and competencies which, in turn, determine their practices. In order to be adopted, an innovation has first to be discussed, and then appropriated by a local group of farmers in their…

A key characteristic of debates on caring for children has been the distinction made between the public and the private or formal and informal sector of care. In particular, the impact on adult relationships of the material, emotional and moral dimensions of this division has been highlighted. What are the implications for children, however, of…

This paper discusses the increasing imperative for teachers who work in cultural settings other than their own to develop an understanding of their own world-view and the impact their assumptions about teachers, school, students, family and so on have on their teaching practice. The brief narrative of one cultural world-view provides an example of…

This paper relates a teacher's story about a classroom-based research project undertaken with a Year 3 to 7 Special Area Resource class, located in a Mainstream Primary School in the south west of Adelaide. The class consisted of 11 students verified as students with disabilities under the DECS disability criteria. The students' age range (from 8…

As curriculum objectives become more "standardized," pedagogical strategies that reach diverse populations become more important, not less as some practitioners might be prone to believe. Through the use of narratives, we have found that students achieve greater understandings of curriculum as well as find culturally relevant ways of applying…

Faced with the evident impossibility of providing free or significantly subsidized secondary and higher education to all, many poor and middle income countries choose to educate only those students who are most promising, using public examinations as means of distributing scarce resources. This paper investigates the inequality implications of…

Professional development practices in schools have been changing recently, particularly with the mandates regarding professional development through No Child Left Behind. In 2001, the National Staff Development Council revised its standards of professional development to shift thinking in this area and reflect the changing needs of schools,…

Researchers and educators acknowledge that early reading instruction is of critical importance, with interventions and remedial programming most effective in the primary grades. Integral to this programming are educators' abilities to assess students' reading strengths and needs, with inconsistent and/or inaccurate practices ultimately threatening…

This study was a pilot effort to examine the relationships among a series of factors within the practice of a teacher who is attempting to implement the Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) curriculum into his/her classroom. The factors included the content being taught, the pedagogical choices made, the "intentionality" of the efforts related to…