The Center's policy and practice analyses have shone a light on how school improvement efforts deal with the various factors interfering with students having an equal opportunity to succeed at school. Unfortunately, the picture that has emerged is rather bleak. Given the continuing difficulties related to reducing dropout rates and closing the…

Pedagogical and scholarly representations of collaborative writing and knowledge construction in technical communication have traditionally recognized consensus as the logical outcome of collaborative work, even as scholars and teachers have acknowledged the value of conflict and "dissensus" in the process of collaborative knowledge…

In the present paper the authors will describe the development of school evaluation policies in the context of recent Japanese education reform. In doing so, the applicability of Neave's "Evaluative State" thesis shall be examined. And then they will move on to the discussion as to how the policies will work in schools. Drawing on the…

Family responsibilities discrimination--bias against workers based on their responsibilities to care for family members--is rapidly becoming a 21st-century workplace concern. Employers who harass, pass over for promotion, or terminate workers because such workers care for children, spouses, elderly parents, or family members with disabilities have…

Policy makers increasingly include provisions aimed at fostering professional community as part of reform initiatives. Yet little is known about the impact of policy on teachers' professional relations in schools. Drawing theoretically from social capital theory and methodologically from qualitative social network analysis, this article explores…

The article explores the transition from the linguistic imperialism of the colonial and postcolonial ages to the increasingly dominant role of English as a neoimperial language. It analyzes "global" English as a key dimension of the U.S. empire. U.S. expansionism is a fundamental principle of the foreign policy of the United States that can be…

The current dominant account of aid to education focuses on schooling and official development assistance and talks in terms of policy work, donor harmonisation and, increasingly, budgetary support. However, this approach is limited in a number of ways. The return of international policy interest in vocational education provides an opportunity to…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to such broad and fundamental questions of public…

The idea that services can be provided for young children within their families in a seamless way that serves the interests of children and families simultaneously is problematic. A theoretical flaw underpinning the ideal of integrated services is that families are assumed to be homogenous units. This article explores competing goals for children…

The Bologna Process is the most important recent development in higher education policy at the European level. Initially North America observed this reorganisation of Europe's higher education architecture with some scepticism and even mild irony--if not outright ignoring it. More recently, however, the obvious success of attempts to create a…

This article explores a "pedagogical" approach to education policy formulation in developing countries. This constitutes a process that shows promise in promoting the "ownership" necessary for sustainable policies and programs, especially when they rely on external financing. Based on case studies from 26 countries focused on "what works," the…

This article discusses the positive and negative consequences of large-scale testing on five key stakeholders of testing results: students, teachers, administrators, policymakers and parents. The factors that affect the nature of testing consequences are also discussed and means that may provide remedies for associated pitfalls are proposed.

The purpose of this article is to document the relationship in institutionalized policy choice and conditions of resource availability in a selected societal subsystem, the schools. (Author)

Article contrasted the traditional role of UNESCO as an international, intellectual, and cultural agency with its more recent role of paying attention to matters usually considered to be political. (Author/RK)

Discusses the role of the AAUP at present: (1) to provide a vehicle for the expression of faculty concerns on the level of state and federal policy; (2) to formulate the standards to govern the relationships of academic life; and (3) to provide a vehicle for collective bargaining. (Author/PG)