The structure of the English school system has been the subject of almost continuous change since the late-1980s. The most recent was commenced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government, which was elected in May 2010. This policy set in train, very quickly, processes through which all schools have been encouraged, and in some cases…

The Chinese language movement was launched by the Chinese educationists to demand the recognition of Chinese as an official language to legitimise the status of Chinese education in the national education system in Malaysia. It began in 1952 as a response to the British attempt to establish national primary schools teaching in English and Malay to…

The lingua franca promoted at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar belongs to few as a first language. The implementation of an English-medium curriculum at Qatar's only medical school has proved a double-edged sword. Despite English being deployed out of necessity as part of a strategy geared to improve health care provision and medical…

The Arizona legislature passed HB 2281, which eliminated Tucson Unified School District's (TUSD's) Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, arguing the curriculum was too political. This program has been at the center of contentious debates, but a central question has not been thoroughly examined: Do the classes raise student achievement? The…

Student affairs, as an integral part of universities, has taken on a key position in contributing to social justice as one of the central imperatives of higher education in South Africa. This article sketches the development of this role and outlines some important tasks for contemporary student affairs. Three conceptual models within the social…

After nearly half a century of authoritarianism characterized by Chinese nationalism and Mandarin promotion, democratization in 1990s Taiwan was accompanied by a Taiwanization movement featuring calls for the revitalization of local languages and the promotion of linguistic equality. To that end, the government began planning for local language…

This article explores the legacy of John Dewey, reconsidered and reconstructed within the challenging context of neo-liberal globalization. A free-market approach to the delivery of public education and other social services has come to dominate public policy, with increasingly well-documented and potentially devastating consequences. As prospects…

This paper reviews the long attempt to transform teacher education in Thailand. Although a brief summary of educational systems and models of teacher preparation from 1892 to 1973 has been provided, the prime focus of the paper is on presenting changes in teacher education from 1974 to the present day, against the backdrop of key political and…

In this article, I explore the incongruence between the federal government's proposed First Nations Education Act and the approach of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) regarding language and culture education. I also examine research concerning potential outcomes of their approaches to determine what would be most beneficial to learners.…

In an earlier study of learning on a practice-based postgraduate programme participants indicated that certain artefacts were critically important in enabling them to gain "permission" to act differently in their schools. Picking up on this suggestion, this study begins to explore how looking at the composition of texts by teachers as a…

This research examines how the conservative movement has used both conservative think tanks and the media to gain entry into the field of education policy. The study examines how the conservative movement has attempted to use think tanks as legitimating organizations to enter the education policy arena by (a) measuring the historical growth in the…

This article considers the place of theory within education in two contexts -- Sweden and the UK -- and advances the argument that both governments and academics themselves have contributed to a 'theoryless' education. Examples are offered from the fate of education science in Sweden and, in the UK, from responses to the Research Excellence…

No Child Left Behind radically shifted the balance of power in American education policy-making from the states to the federal government, not because a new consensus had emerged to make such a shift, but because both Democrats and Republicans were angry with the nation's teachers, holding them responsible for a massive increase in the costs of…

The Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) flexibility program initiated in September 2011 holds several implications for special education accountability and, by extension, state education agencies and the technical assistance providers who support them. The U.S. Department of Education has approved ESEA waiver applications for a majority of…

The American adult education and literacy movement in the early twentieth century had its roots deep in the study and practice of democracy (Ramdeholl, Giordani, Heaney, Yanow, 2010). From Lindeman, Dewey, Laubach, Horton, to Heaney and Brookfield, a persistent theme is the indispensable relationship between democracy and adult education. For…