Since the early 1980s, several Muslim communities have attempted to create indigenous Muslim American institutions of higher learning. Many of the first attempts failed to sustain their operations beyond a few years; and until recently, none could attain accreditation. Since early 2000, a second wave of Islamic postsecondary institutions has…

Purpose: Representing both "central university administration" and academics, deans are increasingly being confronted with the competing managerial and academic values. Being able to manage the competing values is pivotal to the success of a dean. However, there is dearth of research studying this. Considering the for-profit private…

This paper relates most closely to David Raffe's writing on "policy borrowing" across countries and across time and his illumination for policy purposes of transition concepts such as "pathways". The discussion makes the point that concepts can both illuminate empirical reality as well as distort it. The paper then moves on to…

The purpose of this multiple case study was to identify threshold concepts in the careers of educational developers. Twenty-one common threshold concepts emerged, with one threshold concept common among all participants: Facilitating a change process. The remaining 20 threshold concepts were captured in the following three categories: (1) Ways of…

There has been a debate as to how local universities have been influenced by international forces. There is a concern that local or domestic cultures and values might be eroded or undermined. Therefore, it would be meaningful to examine such dynamics and explore how hybridity could be formed through these interactions. It is against such a wider…

Many European countries are currently witnessing an increased development and expansion of continuing higher education at universities. In Germany, this development has until now been rather modest in comparison to countries such as England, France, Finland and the United States. The status of continuing education still seems just as unclear as…

In Germany, it can be observed that schools increasingly take advantage of experts from the outside in their further pedagogical and organizational development. Regarding their profession and the area of content to which they are assigned, these experts represent a heterogeneous group. This contribution assumes that several patterns can be…

Purpose: The study aims to review the entrepreneurial and educational innovations in technology-enabled distance education in practical legal education (PLE) accomplished by a unit "on the periphery" of a strong research-led university. It also aims to examine the learning organisation (LO) attributes associated with this initiative.…

Since the late nineteenth century, China, as a latecomer to modernization, has prioritized Western learning. The first modern university was created in China in 1895 to serve such a purpose with little linkage to China's rich indigenous cultural traditions. Modelled on European and North American experiences and operating in a Confucian…

This paper argues for innovation diffusion as a "becoming" process in the context of lateral and vertical moves. The context of these innovations involves technology-mediated innovations and their diffusion trajectories in the Singapore education system. Embedded in a centralized-decentralized dialectics, this paper traces particular…

Many higher education institutions are adopting learning and teaching approaches that embrace "students as partners". This can be met with trepidation by academic staff and students. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, through two UK-based institutional case studies, that a partnership approach provides an opportunity for staff…

The article focuses on school inspections as an instrument for school development and aims to clarify how schools cope with the results which are generated by it. It is based on the assumption that the specific situation of a school has an impact on how and in what way the results are received and dealt with in schools. In order to support this…

Largely unknown to most of the world, Kyrgyzstan has a flourishing higher education (HE) sector, with more universities per head than other countries with similar populations. Kyrgyzstan is also a major regional importer of international students in Central Asia. This paper opens up this understudied country in three ways: first, through a brief…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of societal and cultural factors on the practices and perceptions of school principals in Kazakhstan. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on empirical data collected in Kazakhstan over two years in the course of an international, collaborative, multi-stranded project. Findings:…

Social network perspectives acknowledge the influence of disciplinary cultures on academics' teaching beliefs and practices with implications for academic developers. The contribution of academic developers in 18 scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects situated in the sciences are explored by drawing on data from a two-year national…