The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has strongly influenced European education policy and the entire global neo-liberally toned discourse that nowadays prevails in the implementation of national education policy and educational reforms. The educational policy governance of the OECD is based on overall and supranational…

A large portion of the early childhood literature in the area of cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity addresses the practices of institutions for young children, immigrant/refugee parents' understandings of their situation, and provides recommendations for more inclusive practices. This body of literature has proved very useful in bringing…

Charter laws have been the reform debate's path of least resistance. But the combination of regulatory barriers, open admissions, lack of consumer sovereignty, preferential funding of traditional public schools, and political control of prices means that charter laws may be irrelevant as reform catalysts, or worse. Even the strongest charter laws…

The circle of racial segregation in schools has completed itself based on the more recent Supreme Court cases pervasively weakening the welfare of African-American and other students of color as regards an appropriate education. The tenor of the federal courts, though at one ten year period in the 1960's and 1970's serving as a champion of equal…

Colorado's voucher law was declared unconstitutional by the Colorado Supreme Court on June 28, 2004. Voucher supporters have begun drafting revised legislation designed to address the legal problem. This article calls into question the key financial claim of revenue neutrality--a claim that was central to the promotion and passage of the departing…

Currently, 848 Georgia public elementary schools that house third- and fifth-grades in the same building use the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) accreditation as a school improvement model. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether elementary schools that are SACS accredited increased their levels of academic…

When co-principalships were initiated in Aotearoa/New Zealand during the 1990s, they encountered a range of issues around this country's new public management requirements for market, managerial and split governance/management accountabilities. This article draws on a case study of one initiative to discuss how elements of these requirements were…

This article draws upon a case study of a special school (Park Vale) participating in the Department for Education and Science (DfES) Transforming School Workforce (TSW) Pathfinder Pilot Project (2002-2003). The Project was developed as a response by the DfES: firstly, to growing difficulties in the recruitment and retention of teachers in the…

This article stems from recent policy research involving participants in an international higher education program. Story lines of the program from Thai and Australian policy makers and policy actors are interpreted from a poststructural stance. Through the multiple and shifting positionings of the participants, agency and identity within this…

This article reports findings related to race, ethnicity and institutional type from a more extensive study on the perceptions of South African academics on academic workload. An attempt in a South African university department to distribute workload fairly indicated this task involved personal and sensitive concerns, which often had to do with…

The German dual apprenticeship system has traditionally been viewed as an effective system for generating a highly skilled workforce in the trades, crafts and service sectors. In addition, countries and systems looking to improve their own approaches to vocational education and training (VET) have considered as exemplary the main features of the…

This article traces the legal challenges and contestations embedded in five recent cases of higher education mergers in South Africa. I am aware that there are a number of forms of mergers. For the purposes of this article I use the term as one that is descriptive of a policy decision. Where necessary I make a brief distinction between a merger…

Decentralized regulation has become increasingly important in many areas; examples range from school vouchers to workplace safety committees to alternative dispute resolution procedures replacing courts. Consistent with this trend, in 1993 California permitted construction unions and employers to "carve out" their own workers'…

This article discusses the ten-year plan for the development of basic education in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso has to meet a major challenge, which consists of reducing poverty among the population, reducing exposure to crises of all kinds, and reducing inequality between regions and between different socio-economic sectors. In order to achieve…

Questions about the relationship between religion and politics are discussed with particular focus on the consequences for religious education. Norway is taken as an example of a country where increasing cultural diversity challenges traditional politics of religion. In the present climate of conflicting views on the role of religion in politics,…