Reviews three books on welfare reform: "The Poverty of Welfare Reform" (Joel F. Handler); "The Politics of Welfare Reform" (Donald F. Norris, Lyke Thompson, editors); and "Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America" (Mark Robert Rank). (JOW)

Argues that the National Council of Teachers of English's Standards for English Arts serves corporate unreality rather than the reality of America's children, and that NCTE is pursuing someone else's agenda, diminishing its potential impact on schools and society. Suggests that the standards are part of a coordinated effort by corporations in…

Evaluates presidential candidate Al Gore's priorities for higher education, noting criticism by some educators of his emphasis on benefits for the middle class and the large number of specific proposals he has offered, including the College Opportunity Tax Cut, 21st Century Teachers' Corps, 401(j) Educational Savings Accounts, the National Tuition…

Discusses the Asmara Declaration, a declaration about linguistic rights of African languages and their speakers drafted by African scholars and writers at a conference in Asmara, Eritrea. Suggests that there is a problem in the quality of much of the work committed to language rights. (Author/VWL)

Describes four lessons that educators can learn from their mistakes. (PKP)

Uses metaphors to describes roles needed in civil society: the Knight embodies vocational virtues, the Queen is a person learning to act a citizen of a nation-state, and the Archangel seeks to fulfill the moral qualities of a human being. (SK)

Analyzed Norwegian party platforms from 1945 to 1997 for their content related to education. Findings indicate that the basic ideas of social democratic progessivism have been carried forward, but that there has been a shift to the right emphasizing freedom, competition, different alternatives, and more consideration of the interests of business…

Explores politics and issues of knowledge, power, and member participation involving the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education, the Commission of Adult Basic Education, and the Commission of Professors of Adult Education. (SK)

Reflects on how the modern naturalist, having a high regard for objectivity, deals with spiritual issues and emotional responses to environmental devastation; the role of field experience in a naturalist's judgments on politically sensitive environmental issues; the great time needed to acquire first-hand knowledge, such as that held by indigenous…

Includes a review by Malcolm of the new Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education and proceedings of a symposium on the handbook from the Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults (31st, London, England, July 2001). Addresses issues of knowledge production in the education of adults. (Contains 23…

When the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, one of its stated intentions was to inaugurate an era of Iraqi politics in which new kinds of democratic parties would emerge. However, one of the most dramatic effects of the U.S. invasion has been the boost it has given to the Islamist parties and movements that were banned under Saddam Hussein.…

Australia once enjoyed the highest union density in the world but is now facing a "crisis of membership". Trade union membership and density have been in decline in Australia since the late 1970s with a 50 percent decrease in density since 1990. The Australian Bureau of Statistics currently puts trade union density at around 25 percent…

Profiles of Yetta Goodman, Maxine Greene, Louise Rosenblatt, and Margaret Meek Spencer are given. They are the members of International Scholars' Forums in Literacy Studies at Hofstra, whose focus is language, literacy, politics and education.

During the Constitutional Convention of 1890, one delegate characterized the history of county formation in Kentucky as a process whereby "fifteen or thirty or forty people" created "outrageous special legislation" to make laws that "were not for the benefit of the people at large, but only for the benefit of people who…

A troubling reality in today's political climate is that many political leaders actually believe that the best way to change schools is through an "end of a gun barrel" approach, rather than by building consensus. In this article, the author examines the reality of high-stakes testing from several perspectives, including the politics of coercion,…