South African Academic Development (AD) emerged as a liberatory educational and social movement in the 1980s. AD (often called educational development) has burgeoned as an international phenomenon, but with a focus on quality rather than on liberation. South African AD now seems to be struggling to construct its post-apartheid identity, if one…

In a recently published research article in this journal, Avramidis & Skidmore (2004) argued that it is time we placed issues of disability provision more in the context of provision for the generic student. They presented a study based on the Learning for All Questionnaire (LfAQ), which investigated certain implied issues. Findings indicated…

In the first U.S. Supreme Court case concerning affirmative action in higher education (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978), the splintered court decided that racial diversity serves a compelling state interest, allowing public institutions to count race as one of many diversity factors for admission. Due to the illusive…

Politics are a daily reality in the ministry. In order to identify how pastors develop their political knowledge, eleven pastors were interviewed using a qualitative form of the critical incidents technique. Analysis of the interviews revealed that formal education was seen as helpful, but limited in practical application for daily ministry. Four…

Although the premise of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is to improve schools by holding them accountable for student achievement the way a company is held accountable for the bottom line, as a strategy for school improvement it overlooks one simple truth: The business of public schools is not simply promoting student achievement. The…

This paper begins with the observation that in education today, partnership is ubiquitous, in that partnership is mentioned in virtually all policy documents emanating from the Department of Education and Science, Ireland. However the lack of a clear understanding of partnership may mean that its usage in educational debate may obscure more than…

After four years of failed attempts, lawmakers in the State of Florida sanctioned charter schools in 1996. This paper traces the political origins of the charter school movement in Florida and the USA as a whole. Examining legislation and reforms at the federal level, as well as state legislative proceedings, this paper identifies key political…

2003 was a tempestuous year for the formulation of higher education policy. After considerable delay, the White Paper "The Future of Higher Education" was published in January and this appeared to give a clear signal that government expected higher education institutions, particularly the pre-1992 universities, to do significantly more…

This paper uses three examples of educational innovation emerging in the contemporary context of market-liberal reform as a focus for exploring the patterns and possibilities of civic formation. The first part of the paper contextualises contemporary civic formation within the long historic struggle between capitalism and democracy, highlighting…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and their students played a pivotal part in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s. Private HBCUs, in particular, provided foot soldiers, intellectual leadership, and safe places to meet and plan civil disobedience. Their economic and political autonomy from the state enabled the…

Parents of a child who has Down syndrome often feel that the school years are--to paraphrase Charles Dickens' famous words--"the best of times, the worst of times." They are the best of times because mothers and fathers can count on having 12-15 years of legally mandated, familiar, continuous, programming for their son or daughter. These same…

This is the 2011 Yearbook of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA). This Yearbook contains five parts. Part I, Invited Chapters, includes: (1) NCPEA President's Message, 2011 (Gary W. Kinsey); (2) Shadows and Images II (Lloyd Duvall); and (3) Micropolitics in the School: Teacher Leaders' Use of Political Skill…

This article examines recent trends in childhood and youth policy, political socialization, and civic education in the USA and Canada since 2000. It examines some of the current trends (such as political socialization and education research findings on children and youth) as well as policy initiatives (such as the landmark federal legislation…

This paper offers a critical examination of an e-learning project in the context of a Distance Education training program delivered to teacher trainers in Rwanda. In examining the successes and failures of the project, it uses a framework based on ideas promulgated by Moore (1995) and strives to provide guidance and reference for future projects…

How does one become an effective superintendent of schools? There is no simple formula as the turnover rate reflects difficulty of the position. Some maintain that the job cannot be done well due to politics, financial constraints, and time demands. As a former superintendent, the author rejects this negative view. In this highly readable,…