This case study reports how three high-school teachers from two state schools in Colombia enacted the National English Suggested Curriculum by the Ministry of Education. The teachers' trajectories of action were analyzed through semi-structured interviews, teachers' narratives, and lesson observations. Using the ecological model of agency as a…

This study analyses how discourses in regional contexts affect the development of curriculum-based literacy standards for adolescents in schooling. A comparative case-study research design enabled the influences of discourses at the regional level to be analysed. The case studies include the development of curricula to define a minimum literacy…

Policy enactment is a dynamic process, which invites agents to uniquely create and recreate policy as an ongoing process. Few policies arrive in school fully formed and the process of policy enactment involves teachers navigating policy frameworks in a way that provides success for each individual pupil. This research examines the complexities…

History has much to offer education in emergencies scholars and practitioners. Most research in this field comprises qualitative case studies and, to a lesser extent, quantitative experimental studies, both of which tend to focus on either the impact of interventions or whether education processes or structures are a cause or effect of conflict. I…

In this article we focus on constraints to post-apartheid transformation in the higher education sector of South Africa via a case study of an attempt to introduce a new curriculum for the Bachelor of Education. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were the main data-gathering method. We use Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, habitus…

This case study examines the methods I used to carry out my PhD field research in 2010 and 2011 on the modernization of the educational system in Bhutan. Distinguishing educational modernization in Bhutan is the state policy of Gross National Happiness, which shows powerful aspirations toward conserving 'traditional' knowledge and values while…

This article examines the participation of "third-sector" organisations in public education in England. These organisations act as a cross-sectoral policy network made up of new kinds of policy experts: mediators and brokers with entrepreneurial careers in ideas. They have sought to make education reform thinkable, intelligible and…

In this paper, the authors explore the implementation of the government mandate in Hong Kong to move from three-year to four-year undergraduate degree programs which include studies in general education (GE), through an analysis of policies and activities related to the curriculum reform. While the authors are interested in the substance of these…

The article used Unisa Framework for the implementation of a team approach to curriculum and learning development to explore and analyse the views and experiences of academic lecturers and curriculum and learning development experts on the conceptualisation and development of the said framework and its subsequent implementation thereof. I used a…

This case study describes the process education faculty went through to craft a response to a school-wide international experience initiative. Analysis revealed three competing frames that shaped individual faculty members' expectations. This made developing an internationalization requirement in graduate teacher education multifaceted, often…

The Michigan English Language Arts Framework (MELAF) offers an illustrative case of top-down and bottom-up confluences in curriculum policymaking. In several distinct ways, state policy met local initiatives to create dynamic partnerships to spread change. State systematic reformers looked to the grass roots for ideas and percolating initiatives.…

Increasingly over the past decade there have appeared in the press bar graphs comparing the performance of U.S. students with their counterparts in other countries. Usually these graphs have been accompanied by dire warnings and pointing fingers. The main source of the data on international comparisons has been the International Association for…

In this end piece, the authors argue that while this special issue shifts debates on the digital divide to address students' capacity to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for productive social purposes, access to ICT remains a major challenge in countries like Uganda, in which less than 1% of the population has access to the…

This book is the second in a two-volume series of studies of educational change organized around three themes--systemic change, the transformation of policy into practice, and curriculum contexts. The book presents case studies from Australia, Great Britain, Israel, the United States, and New Zealand to illustrate the cross-cultural complexity of…

A sex education program in Kentucky's Jefferson County schools, although mandated by the state, was challenged by a small group of parents and virtually disappeared. Later, helped by newspaper articles and recognized organizations, the program is gradually being reinstated. (MLF)