A human right to higher education was included in the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which came into force in 1976. Yet the world has changed significantly since the ICESCR was drafted. State legislation and policies have generally followed a neoliberal trajectory, shifting the perception of higher…

This book brings the voices of teachers into the fierce debates about language ideologies and cultural pedagogies in English language teaching. Through interviews and classroom observations in Chile and California, this study compares the controversies around English as a global language with the similar cultural tensions in programs for…

In the early nineteenth century, governments began to develop specialized educational programs--kindergartens and infant or nursery schools--to give children a head start in life. These programs hinged on new visions of childhood that originated in England and Europe, but what happened when they were transported to the colonies? This book unwinds…

Research evidence indicates that formative assessment is one of the most effective ways of enhancing student learning. It is, however, difficult to implement successfully, principally because what is tested through summative assessment has such a powerful influence on teacher and student actions. This book scrutinizes the relationship between…

Literacy for Life is the second report from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey. It presents additional results on the nature and magnitude of the literacy gaps faced by OECD countries and how these gaps have evolved over the medium term. It offers new insights into the factors that influence the formation of adult skills in various…

Education-Based Incarceration and Recidivism: The Ultimate Social Justice Crime Fighting Tool takes a penetrating look at the needs and challenges of society's disenfranchised jail populations. It is incumbent to encourage public awareness of the causes that underlie the destructive cycles plaguing these populations, including the abuse and…

In most PISA-participating countries and economies, the average socio-economic background of students who attend privately managed schools is more advantaged than that of those who attend public schools. Yet in some countries, there is little difference in the socio-economic profiles between public and private schools. Why? An analysis of PISA…

Western and East Asian people hold fundamentally different beliefs about learning that influence how they approach child rearing and education. Reviewing decades of research, Dr. Jin Li presents an important conceptual distinction between the Western mind model and the East Asian virtue model of learning. The former aims to cultivate the mind to…

"Policy and Performance in American Higher Education" presents a new approach to understanding how public policy influences institutional performance, with practical insight for those charged with crafting and implementing higher education policy. Public institutions of higher learning are called upon by state governments to provide…

This groundbreaking work examines teacher quality, work norms, and professional learning opportunities, using data from 15 countries. The authors compare and contrast the United States with two high-achieving countries--Japan and Australia--that have implemented very different approaches to improving teacher quality. Drawing on both large…

Noting that patterns of childrearing are highly variable across the human species, this book explores the developmental processes of infancy over a wide range of cultural and social environments. By presenting multiple alternative examples of the context of infant development, the book attempts to stimulate continued discussion on the ways in…

Breaking with conventional wisdom, this book integrates a wealth of perspectives and research-- biological, sociocultural, developmental--to explore the nature and extent of gender differences in emotional expression and the question of how such differences come about. In the book, nurture rather than nature emerges as the stronger force in…

Global student mobility is one of the fastest growing phenomena in higher education in the twenty-first century. Over three million students are currently mobile, crossing geographic, cultural, digital, and educational borders in the pursuit of an international education--a movement that has significant consequences for higher education…

Investigating the role and characterization of the American Indian as depicted in the Western comic book, a study was conducted wherein 44 comics containing at least two Indians were randomly selected from a list of 207 for analyzation. Utilizing three outside readers (a Canadian nurse, housewife, and Indian student), modified procedures of…

Using a comparative-cultural perspective, this collection of essays examines the co-constructivist nature of human development in culturally organized environments. The contributions also cover a large age span--infancy to adulthood. Chapters in part 1 cover two different directions in the study of early adult-infant interaction from a comparative…