Despite obvious and fundamental differences, contemporary library issues strikingly familiar to those of the west also beset the Soviet library world--issues that so far have been bridged in only technical apolitical areas. Governmental insistence on the centrality of ideology to library service remains an international stumbling block.…

Explores the development of videotex in Great Britain, west Germany, France, and the United States from 1968-90. Using the Social Construction of Technology framework, the interaction of social groups, problems, solutions, and technological artifacts in videotex development is discussed. Transmission, display, standards, and marketing problems are…

Uses France and England--because of their radically different institutional and ideological traditions in education--to illustrate common trends in educational accountability. Explains general trends affecting advanced capitalist societies at the present time, e.g., the use of corporate management approaches in education and the adoption of…

Discusses author's observations of poverty-related problems within rural Sri Lankan schools. Juxtaposes literature on Third World education problems at national, district, school, and individual levels. Concludes high educational expectations in developing world are tightly constrained by poverty, negative attitudes, and weaknesses of systems.…

Considers the origins and historical development of videotex over three decades, comparing various nationally sponsored and private systems in Europe and North America. Discusses problems, including the determination of transmission channels, display devices, standards, marketing strategies, and social, political, and economic elements in the…

Structural convergence theory seeks to determine whether as nations industrialize they move toward common ways of organizing, arranging, and defining the institutional subsystems in their social structures. A related concern is whether the characteristics of these institutional subsystems themselves promote or retard convergence. National…

Compares the primary existing documents about the competencies needed for school librarians at the international level and from four different countries. Official documents and statements available in each country are described and compared. The wider context in which school librarians are working is presented, and data about education for school…

Reviews science and technology policymaking in five countries with free-market economies: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Republic of Korea, and the United States. Implications for eastern European and other countries currently reorganizing toward domestic market economies and greater orientation toward world trade are discussed. (61…

This executive summary sets forth the findings from a study of adult education opportunities and policies in industrialized countries. Focus of the project is on programs for workers, older persons, women entering the labor force, parents, and undereducated adults in nine countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of…

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), a bill designed to replace the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), enlarges the role of state governments and private industry in federal job training programs, imposes sanctions based on performance standards, limits stipends and supportive services, creates a new program of retraining for…

Germany's Dual System, which consists of in-school and in-enterprise components, facilitates entry into 374 recognized technical, white-collar and blue-collar occupations listed in training regulations that are grounded in legislation. The Dual System's origins and development in Germany were examined along with several attempts to replicate the…

The first meeting of the National Literacy Summit 2000 convened 150 leaders from adult education and literacy and other related fields for a 2-day intensive working meeting to begin building a national consensus on how to move adult and family literacy forward in the 21st century. Comments and suggestions offered by summit participants were…