This article takes a historical approach to the rise and fall of the public university, relating its fate to specific developments in public policy. Particular attention will be paid to the United Kingdom since it has developed an explicit drive towards the marketization of higher education in the context of an earlier commitment to public higher…

Behind the thin veil of the Conservative regime's rationale of deficit reduction hides the final demolition of public comprehensive education and Raymond Williams's more expansive long revolution unfolding over a century of creating a democratic state that affords opportunity, voice and justice for all. Restoring the politics of a pre-war or…

Many institutional cultures resist change, and within universities academic developers vary their response to such resistance, depending on the type of change, the institution and their own characteristic styles, working preferences and strategic judgements. Variables influencing the successful introduction of innovation in academic practice…

In a three-year ethnographic study of a selective U.S. liberal arts college, it was found that educational development efforts contributed not only to changes in teaching but also to cross-college collaboration and the development of a sense of community. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the college created a learning centre and new educational…

From a variation on community service to a discipline-specific strategy to a powerful pedagogy to a vehicle of democracy and the common good, community-based learning has proven itself to be an educational resource whose time has come. In this article, the authors trace the recent history of community-based teaching and learning and its symbiotic…

Interest in post-crisis education and concomitantly in education for democracy and citizenship, manifest in a large number of recent initiatives and publications, provides an opportunity to revisit the period of occupation in Germany after the Second World War, when there was concern--at least in the Western Zones--to create an awareness of the…

Language and education planning issues and democratic policy implementation in the post-apartheid era in South Africa encompass a range of language-related issues and dilemmas that have counterparts in many countries, within the emerging global education system. The issues in South Africa were and continue to be shaped by the historical legacy of…

While universal human rights frameworks and democratic models of government have gained global support and even adherence, they often exist in tension with local cultural and religious practices. In Kuwait, tensions arise between its constitution, legal system and Islam, with several groups consequently marginalised. These tensions extend into the…

This paper explores how civic engagement as an important dimension of public engagement in higher education has been slow to develop in the UK, despite an important history dating from the "civic universities" in the nineteenth century. I specifically consider the development of "service learning" as an important way in which…

The article discusses the question of student participation in higher education governance at the national and the institutional levels in Norway. Two ideal-type perspectives on governance are developed in order to illuminate the Norwegian case: a democratic perspective and a market perspective. The article provides a brief overview of the…

Vocational Technical Education is any kind of education which has the main purpose of preparing one for employment in recognized occupation. The foundation of vocational technical education is based on philosophy which was mainly established for self-employment and self-reliance of the individual(s) who partake in it. Viewing the philosophy and…

This article considers how to bridge the achievement gap by showing that reading methodology influenced American educational philosophy, primary-grade curricula, and American schools. It considers the impact of the romantic movement on progressive education and notes that the current academic achievement gap has two roots. The first can be traced,…

This article is an edited version of a speech delivered at the 2009 Mediterranean Association of International Schools (MAIS) Annual Conference in Florence, Italy. In the author's past speeches--in Seville and Rome--he had urged his listeners to use their distinctive power and influence as independent, international educators to advance…

Today, the U.S. Department of Education joins the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, the American Commonwealth Partnership, and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools in a new national call to action to infuse and enhance civic learning and democratic engagement for all students throughout the American…

Education development in South Africa emerged during the transition from apartheid to democracy, in a context especially marked by political and financial pressures. This case study of the University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal) demonstrates how a strategy combining equity with excellence aimed to facilitate increased access to…