This piece considers a pivotal period in British social, political, cultural and educational history, the decades from 1945 to 1965. It reviews key policy documents (issued by the Board of Education in 1943 and 1944 and the Department of Education and Science in 1968) which can be said to "frame" the period and proceeds to examine the…

In this article, I draw parallels between the Arab countries of the Gulf region and Canada's First Nations, focusing on how dependence on unearned income may be linked to educational underachievement. The rentier dynamics in the Gulf region has weakened ties between state and society, constructing one-way patronage flows without benefit or need…

In June 1869, a coalition of 12 individuals and two businesses presented the Massachusetts state legislature with a carefully crafted petition. This document called for lawmakers to take action in requesting that the State Board of Education develop a plan to initiate drawing instruction in Massachusetts public schools, or to establish educational…

This essay argues that a sustained form can be located in the complicated history of populist rhetoric. Despite its chameleonic qualities, the advancement of populism is constituted by alterations in the focus and content, not the structure, of populist activism. This structure, or what I term its argumentative frame, positions a virtuous people…

In the simplest terms, academic freedom means unfettered scholarly inquiry, a scholar's fundamental right of research, publication, and instruction free of institutional constraint. This indispensable principle of scholarship is the precious gift of independent intellectual judgment--an endowment of open inquiry, free investigation, speculation,…

This study illustrates the special value of theater for conducting civic education. It begins by identifying the features of good citizenship in the United States. Citizenship in America includes rights, interests, affections, duties, and virtues. We focus on one duty, civic respect, and the virtue most necessary to meet that duty--civic…

In this article an attempt is made to examine the continuing implications of the operation and closure of London's Risinghill school, a co-educational comprehensive extant from 1960 to 1965. It is suggested that Risinghill's controversial headteacher, Michael Duane (1915-1997), was an educational celebrity and folk hero amongst teachers and in…

This article discusses models for religious education in school in (parts of) the Muslim world and the implied relation between self and other, confessional and national identity. The question of how current models and discussions respond to globalized issues in education is also discussed. The last part of the article identifies triggering…

Homeschooling is becoming increasingly popular in Canada. Drawing on a variety of secondary sources and our own data from the province of Ontario, we advance three arguments. First, homeschooling is gaining legitimacy from the increasingly pluralistic nature of educational politics. Second, the lobbying tactics of homeschool advocates increasingly…

The paper first introduces the national and local framework for compulsory-level "undervisning pa annat satt" [teaching/education otherwise than in school] education in Sweden. According to national statistics in Sweden, every year an average of 100 children are registered as receiving their education at home, arranged in some cases by…

Billion-dollar investments in public higher education do not come easily in the State of Connecticut--or anywhere in New England. So, when in 1995, Connecticut Gov. John Rowland and the state's General Assembly approved the $1 billion comprehensive infrastructure improvement and private support incentive program known as UConn 2000, this was…

A major policy objective of the Australian Government is to provide all young people with strong foundations in numeracy. This article reports on a national project coordinated by Deakin University. The project, entitled "Primary numeracy: A mapping, review and analysis of Australian research in numeracy learning at the primary school…

The convergence of several technological systems (especially nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and robotics) has now been adopted as a strategic goal by several countries, most notably the United States and those of the European Union. The anticipated benefits and related fears of competitive disadvantage have brought together…

School curriculum policy and politics in South Africa are discussed in this article as a means of highlighting the nature of Governmental power and functioning in a post-liberation developing country. The notion "policy networks" is used as a lens to understand the ways in which specific constellations of policy interests informed the…

Founded in 1991 by Yury N. Afanasyev and financed by a grant from businessman Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the Russian State University for the Humanities has quickly become one of the most prominent institutions of higher learning in Russia. This article discusses alleged governmental pressure against the university, its financial difficulties since…