In this paper, we address the implementation of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Flanders, a sub-national entity of Belgium. Our analysis shows how the policy-making process in Flanders is inextricably intertwined with three developments in environmental and educational policy: the increasing impact of ESD policy and…

This essay responds to and develops ideas set out in Robert Davis' 1999 essay "Can there be a Catholic curriculum?" It takes the measure of far-reaching changes that have taken place in curriculum studies and strategic educational thought in the intervening period as the process of globalisation has intensified. It re-engages with the…

Sustainable development is a central concern of today's politics across the world. Different political agendas have been developed to promote sustainability and make it a political goal worldwide. As stated in Agenda 21, the political debate seems to agree that education has to play a key role in achieving sustainability. But practices focusing on…

Curriculum content is an essential component of the field of special education for students with moderate and severe disabilities. This study updates the twenty-year curriculum content review by Nietupski, Hamre-Nietupski, Curtin, and Shrikanth (1997) and provides an overview of the last 15 years of research on this topic. A hand search of ten…

In modern society, individuals are having to assume increasing responsibility for their own career trajectories. One of the key ways in which individuals can engage in such "career self-management" is by taking up learning opportunities through further study. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to explore, using the conceptual…

This paper empirically examines associations between female labor force participation (FLFP) and democracy. Using a cross-country, time series (1980-2005) data set, we find evidence that FLFP is lower in democracies. One possible explanation is that dictators promote FLFP above what traditional norms would dictate and so a greater freedom to…

The World Bank is clearly one of the most influential global intergovernmental operators for international development assistance. In recent decades, the Bank and other agencies have invested immense technical and financial resources in a troubled and unprecedented mission of revitalizing and restructuring the development of education in Africa. A…

Historically Black colleges and universities are a unique institutional cohort in American higher education. These colleges have been celebrated for their achievements and critiqued for their composition at differing points during their collective history. This article addresses contemporary ebbs and flows of their relevance and reputation in the…

Our fixed-effects panel data analysis of state spending on higher education fills a near void of studies examining capital expenditures on higher education. In our study, we found that political characteristics (e.g., interest group activity, organizational structure, and formal powers) largely account for differences between general fund and…

From the 1990s the professional preparation of intending teachers in Scotland moved from monotechnic colleges to seven university schools of education. "Universitisation" (Menter et al. 2006) created new opportunities for the creative adaptation of work cultures to value teaching and research. New appointments are expected to demonstrate…

During the early catalanization of schooling in the Barcelona area in the 1980s, Castilian-speaking teenagers of working-class immigrant descent often struggled against Catalan language and identity. This longitudinal study followed a group of high-school classmates and found that as young adults, some but not all of the resistant working-class…

Extant evaluation studies of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 have focused primarily on its effects on the pace of innovation and on the norms and practices of academic research but neglected other public values. Seeking to redress this shortcoming, I begin by examining Bayh-Dole with respect to other relevant public values following the "Public Value…

In 1987, the government of Ghana embarked on a process to decentralise education management to districts as part of wider social and democratic governance reforms. A central part of this reform was the prescription of active community participation in the affairs of schools within their locality. This paper explores the different meanings…

In this paper I embrace the thinking that writing on one's experiences in the use of qualitative educational research strategies and principles could potentially contribute to furthering knowledge in the field. In adopting an action research framework to guide collaborative work in a policy review exercise in Botswana, I found that collaborative…

This article challenges the assumption underlying most education reforms that constructivism is politically neutral and intrinsically democratic. It makes this argument by examining the curriculum reform in Spain during the 1980s and 1990s in light of the neoliberal politics that the country was experiencing at that time. This study employs the…