Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of principals in light of public management reforms taking place in the German educational system and in reference to the empirical patterns uncovered by the papers contained in the Special Issue. Policy makers have created new expectations and new technologies that seem to suggest to…

In almost any conversation about accountability for private schools, accountability for public schools is assumed. This is a dangerous myth. By assuming that the edifice that states and the federal government have created over the past several decades actually holds schools accountable, school choice advocates immediately find themselves in an…

This report compares average rates of frequent teacher absence (more than 10 days) for teachers with and without union or union-like contracts in traditional public schools and charter schools. The study's rationale is that such absences substantively harm students and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. It finds that teachers contractually…

The commentaries on Downey and Condron found in this issue help advance an overdue conversation about schools and inequality. This paper considers two questions that are prompted by the comments from the authors' colleagues: (1) Would we make more progress reducing socio-economic and racial achievement gaps by reforming schools or by reforming the…

A new report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), "Differences by Design?," compares differences in approaches and demographics between and among charter school models and local "traditional public schools." Using three national data sets, the report effectively captures the national universe of charter schools. It…

Christopher Jencks is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Here he comments that Downey and Condron (2016) (DC) argue that the sociology of education suffers from a one-sided view of schools' contribution to inequality. He agrees that most sociologists who study what goes on inside schools tend to portray…

From the "sexual behaviour of young people" in the 1960s to "youth and the great recession" in the 2000s a steady current running through the author's educational research career has been "youth". Although the early stages of his career supplied the foundations for the topic of this paper--starting in 1962 with a…

In thinking about how a just state should assess and respond to inequalities in the distribution of particular goods, such as health and education, attention should be paid, first, to the causes of inequality with respect to these goods, and second, to the question of whether it is possible, and, if possible, morally appropriate, to enact policy…

In her teaching, research, and community activities in Canada, the author has repeatedly confronted questions regarding equality, diversity, and power. In this article, the author discusses diversity and equal opportunity to achieve excellence in education. Reflecting on these issues should help everyone to understand the complexities involved in…

The aftermath of the international financial crisis of 2008/2009 and current economic downturn in the world economy has unsurprisingly put publicly-funded higher education (HE) systems under immense pressure in most parts of the world. Added to measures of the past 20 years, aiming at introducing cost effective management approaches imported from…

Researchers have paid scant attention to the opportunities and the barriers associated with across-state study of college-transition policies, although the American states comprise a social system especially well suited for comparative analysis. What sorts of questions should researchers ask about college-transition policies and programs? How…

The U.S. economy took a historic nosedive in 2007-2010. It was the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, evidence is emerging which suggests the country is in the midst of an economic recovery. In February 2010, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that GDP rose at a 5.9 percent annual rate in October through December…

In this essay, Bruce Maxwell, David Waddington, Kevin McDonough, Andree-Anne Cormier, and Marina Schwimmer compare two competing approaches to social integration policy, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism, from the perspective of the issue of the state funding and regulation of conservative religious schools. After identifying the key…

This article presents a collection of work that grew out of an international symposium sponsored by the History of Education Society UK and held in Hamburg in 2007. The symposium aimed to contribute to understandings of different approaches to researching the extent to which education has contributed historically to social change in respect of…

In Italian secondary schools, it is not literature that is studied but the history of literature; it is not philosophy that is studied but the history of philosophy. Similarly, in higher education, history students even have to take an exam in the history of historiography. This is to say that in Italy, history plays a key cultural role. That is…