For the last 30 years international assessments have become more widespread and systematic, and their influence on education policy has increased: the OECD through the PISA tests has played a major role in this process. This article reflects on the case of the countries of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. It analyzes the…

Global development programs from Agenda 21 (1992) to Agenda 2030 (2015) inevitably promote the importance of education for all, ie they call for equality in access to educational resources. Recognizing the reality of the emergence of a growing category of "mobile population" in the world and the challenges of regular and new migration,…

Recent decades have witnessed a proliferation of nationally organized school reform interest groups like StudentsFirst. While historically active at the state and federal levels, these organizations are increasingly involving themselves in local school board elections by recruiting candidates, making donations, and offering policy advice. However,…

The [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] NCTM research committee made a recent, urgent call for mathematics education researchers to "examine and deeply reflect on our research practices through an equity lens." With this in mind, we use this paper to reflect on the ways in which Steffe's work has contributed to three facets of…

The realm of environmental education has generally lacked scholarly research tied to policy and collective-action strategies. This study examines the state- and federal-level roles in states' Environmental Literacy Plan (ELP) development and implementation by examining policy entrepreneur's actions using Paul Manna's Borrowing Strength Model…

At its annual joint board and commission meeting (Washington, DC, November 10-11, 2010), American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) focused attention on college completion by presenting two panel discussions on the completion agenda, followed by breakout sessions in which participants were assigned to focus groups tasked with providing…

This paper reviews existing literature to identify the changing nature of the Australian education policy field. Through this analysis, it is argued that an international paradigm of testing, propagated by comparative performance data, disseminated by multinational agencies and non-government organisations, is leading to a global audit culture,…

The purpose of this study was to review five initiatives in national curriculum collaboration, which have emerged since the move to national consistency arose in 2003, and to examine reports on these initiatives published by the news media and the education profession. Searches on web sites of education organisations, an electronic magazine, and…

This paper discusses the potential for advocacy in collegiate extemporaneous speaking. It argues that given the inherently civic nature of the event, extemporaneous speaking ought to address higher causes that transcend competitive restraints. Unfortunately, the potential of the event is generally hindered by stylistic trends and other competitive…

To identify a future research agenda with the goal of narrowing the achievement gap between underrepresented groups and their peers in gifted and talented education, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRC/GT) at the University of Connecticut convened a Needs Assessment Conference in January 2005 and commissioned four…

This paper reports on an interpretive study of block play in a class of 16 kindergartners. Over the course of a school year 16 hours of videotape of the children's block play was recorded and analyzed. A typology of block play with four domains of block construction, social interaction, negotiation, and scheme development is explained and…

Information has long been an essential in conducting human affairs, but it is surprising that informatics (information science) has not been established as a field of study within education. This paper attempts to formalize educational informatics through a needs assessment approach and to outline a research agenda. The four needs considered are…

Proposes a systematic approach to the analysis of states of the union speeches, based on Goffman's concept "footing." This concept allows making a distinction between several functional aspects of the roles speakers and listeners perform in speech situations, as exemplified in the case of the Dutch Queen addressing the Israeli…

Articles in this special issue attempt to address the most significant aspect of certification and licensing testing programs: validity. Although construct validity has become the prevailing model, the theoretical formulation of the construct of competence remains a topic of considerable debate. (SLD)

This paper considers political reasoning within a democracy and how mass media may affect that process, as well as how the perspective and method of critical thinking may be brought to bear on the subject of media and politics. Specifically, the paper (1) discusses some ways in which the mass media may affect political reasoning; (2) offers a…