Quality assurance is a key component of higher education systems around the world, and questions about its purpose and functions should be understood in both global and local contexts.

This article makes contributions to questions of why international transfers of programmes do not lead to the outcomes that nations engaging in them expect to gain. Using Bahrain as an example, it is argued that tensions arising from policy borrowing are rooted in the complexities of the political incoherence between the new teaching policies, the…

This article examines national conservative political advocacy groups' growing interest in local politics, and analyzes how they form alliances and gain political power. Following efforts to restrict collective bargaining for Wisconsin public employees, Kenosha school board members' attempts to legally protect teachers' rights provoked concern…

This article examines why we should continue to teach based upon cosmopolitan ideals, despite the shortfalls of global citizenship as a concept. The author first defines and critically engages with both cosmopolitanism and global citizenship, before identifying where these concepts originate from and tracking their progression throughout time. The…

This article analyzes the use of research evidence in school-board deliberations in three school districts in Wisconsin. In these settings, the circulation, meaning, and function of research depended importantly on the interests and backgrounds of advocates, the composition of audiences, and the values and contexts of decision-making. Board…

The paper opens with a discussion of some of the methodological difficulties inherent in comparative educational research, and outlines ways in which systemic inequalities in doing comparative work can be reduced. The social circumstances in Thanet and Lille are delineated, and the paper then considers structural differences in denominational…

Theory and practice in intercultural education remain problematic as they continue to reflect the tensions between universalistic and particularistic agendas. Particularism is manifested in a culturalist narrative which is mired in a failure to subject relativistic postmodernism to adequate critique. At the same time, universalism is frequently…

This article investigates the dynamic overall picture concerning the development of local curriculum in Thailand through action research conducted by 27 Thai elementary school teachers in three private schools in Fang District, Chiang Mai Province. This was the teachers' first experience with action research. The article examines the following…

The "drop-out" of working-class students from universities has been identified as one of the most pressing issues for the higher education (HE) sector in the United Kingdom. This article draws on the initial findings of a major research project that explores the meanings and implications of such withdrawal from HE amongst young…