Written by two leading international experts, "Early Childhood in the Anglosphere" offers a unique comparison of early childhood education and care services, and parenting leave, across seven high-income Anglophone countries. Peter Moss and Linda Mitchell explore what these systems have in common, including the dominance of 'childcare'…

Within developed countries child poverty is a social problem with significant negative effects. With a backdrop of austerity, the UK's first child poverty strategy was released in 2011. Pervaded by neo-liberal ideology this strategy identifies preschool services as key to remediating the negative effects of child poverty on children and families…

Mass higher education, a characteristic recently unique to the United States of America, is now almost universal in scope in developed countries. This article contrasts the relative ease with which American higher education accommodated the rapid expansion of its student base with the difficulties that the United Kingdom, more particularly…

In the United States, developing "human capital" for both economic and social benefit is an idea as old as the nation itself and led to the emergence of world's first mass higher education system. Now most other nations are racing to expand access to universities and colleges and to expand their role in society. Higher education is…

This report describes a course sponsored by the Workers' Educational Association in England that is intended to fill a gap between informal discussion groups and access courses for higher education. Section 1 describes this intensive course, which occupies five hours per week and uses team teaching, one-to-one tutorials, formative evaluation, and…

This book examines modularization in the German system of initial vocational education and training. After examining the underlying concept of modularization (providing training through self-contained units that can be combined in different ways), the book presents an overview of modularization as it occurs in Spain, Scotland, France, and the…

A study of three Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) traced development of the skills element of their RES [Regional Economic Strategy] and their progress toward an action plan for skills to implement their strategic objectives. The process involved creating a forum on skills; producing a consultation draft skills strategy; and producing a final…

This paper offers a theoretical critique of the curriculum model adopted by Northamptonshire Local Education Authority (LEA) for its Lower Attaining Pupils Programme. It evaluates the way in which Northamptonshire chose to interpret the requirements of the original Department of Education and Science brief at the LEA level. The background section…

In developed countries like the United States and Britain, the continuing challenge for educators is to sort through the choices of an all-you-can-eat school system and teach the basic skills. Despite so-called universal education, an alarming number of people still fail to reach even basic levels of literacy. The "literacy hour" was…

A series of articles examine management education and training for library and information professionals. The discussions include management needs of library administrators, the implications of a British educational reform bill on qualification requirements for librarians, the relationship between learning styles and training, and experiences of…

This book encompasses a systematic, comparative study of change in educational stratification in 13 industrialized countries, exploring which societal conditions help reduce existing inequalities in educational opportunity. The contributors show that in most industrialized countries inequalities in educational opportunity among students from…

This paper examines the extent, nature, and implications of spatial variations in skill levels across England. Section 2 sets out reasons why skill levels should be important to localities and their economic potential by outlining their growing importance and the way in which they are connected to economic well-being. Section 3 sets out the extent…

An evaluation investigated the effectiveness of midwifery education in preparing midwives to care for clients likely to experience inequalities in health and/or inequalities in health care provision in England. The study was undertaken in these three phases: (1) literature review of midwifery and relevant social policy literature; (2) national…

A National Strategy for Adult Basic Skills has been proposed to deal with the English situation in which about one adult in five is not functionally literate and far more people have problems with numeracy. The National Strategy has these 10 main elements: national targets; an entitlement to learn; guidance, assessment, and publicity; better…

This report addresses key questions concerning the effectiveness of midwifery education in preparing midwives to meet the needs of women from minority or disadvantaged groups in England. Chapter 1 sets out the methodological context within which the work was undertaken and provides an overview of data sources and sample sizes. Chapters 3 and 4…