This note claims that contracting in education can be employed for initiatives of varying sizes and across a range of services. For policy-makers, contracting represents an effective means of introducing accountability in the education system. Contracting can also insulate governments from some of the criticism leveled at privatization. Moreover,…

In this article, we take a critical look at the growing interest in U.S. political participation as it exists in the youth civic engagement literature. Our critique draws from principles of liberation and developmental psychology, and from the incisive writings of experts in youth organizing. Youth Organizing evolved from the Positive Youth…

This article discusses the Greek Parliament's controversial education bill passed recently that sparked riots and unrest in Athens. The government's controversial education package includes measures that would limit the number of years students can take to complete a university degree and would curtail university asylum laws. A separate proposal…

Narrative construction is an approach to social research in which data are configured into any of a variety of diachronic, or storied, formats. Having recently gained popularity, this approach is now in danger of marginalization (along with other qualitative and quantitative forms of social research) as a result of politically charged attempts to…

In this paper I ask whether the University has a special role to play in democratic societies. I argue that the modern University can no longer lay claim to a research monopoly since nowadays research is conducted in many places outside of the University. The University can, however, still lay claim to a kind of knowledge monopoly which has to…

The author's examination of Indigenous Theology and the indigenous pastoral is based on several periods of research over the past ten years in both rural and urban areas of Oaxaca state in Mexico, including participant-observation in several different kinds of church-directed settings and activities, and extensive interviews with clergy and…

When the author read the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) "Statements of Belief", he was surprised to see that heading the list was "We respect the enduring values and traditions of Australia's cultural heritage." It struck him as odd, that here was a statement very much of these Kemp/Nelson/Bishop…

In this article I respond to the analyses of "Educating the 'Right' Way" and "The State and the Politics of Knowledge" that were given by Stephen Ball, Russell Fox and Antonio Novoa. I situate the development of the kinds of argument that these books make, in the larger corpus of my work and in the growth of neoliberal, neoconservative,…

This article takes the inquiry into "nativeness" and "non-nativeness" to the level of developing an ethical framework for professional practice in English language education. In so doing, our aim is firstly to use the "sociology of the stranger" as a framework to problematize discourses on the Other and Othering. We shall argue that these…

Creativity is seen as important to society by the current Prime Minister and the Department for Education and Skills and is present in curriculum documents applying from birth to 16 years old but with various shades of meaning. Unfortunately, the term creativity is used in English education and the larger society without a clear definition. The…

In this article, the author presents a case of a professor who, in electing to teach a special-topics course on human sex differences, discovers an entire program in the College of Arts and Sciences--Women's Studies (WMST)--whose criteria for course inclusion are in direct violation of several major rules and regulations governing academics at…

In an age of greater government control and direction of schools, and yet simultaneously a greater devolution of responsibility, there is an international literature suggesting that many in leadership positions feel so pressured that they are seeking early retirement, or simply not coming forward in the first place (e.g. Gronn, 2003; Fullan,…

For all the debate over the effectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act, researchers and policymakers say that, despite the law's flaws, it has successfully identified 1,200 public schools that need help, some of them desperately so. Now the question is: How can the federal law be changed to make sure such schools get that help? As Congress…

While the demand in Australia for youth workers is growing, the education of youth workers in universities is being "rationalised" because these institutions have been fiscally squeezed by successive federal governments. What are the consequences for youth workers, young people and society as a whole if the move towards…

Integrative curriculum design promises much for middle level teachers who wish to develop classroom programmes that will encourage early adolescents to actively engage in their learning (Beane 1990, 1997). Beane's model is highly responsive to the educational and developmental needs of young people. In contrast, multidisciplinary curriculum design…