This study examines the factors that shape secondary schools' offerings of academic curricula. While academic curricula provide many benefits to individuals and the larger society, inequalities in opportunities to study these subjects may exist between schools, even in comprehensive secondary education systems. We examine the Australian case as a…

This paper examines the potential negative consequences of the internationalisation of American higher education from the perspective of positional competition theory. This analysis suggests that internationalisation efforts undertaken by colleges and universities contribute to positional competition between students vying for admission, between…

This paper examines the main rationales for and possible implications of the policy of increasing international student numbers in higher education (HE). Drawing on critical discourse analysis, we map key themes emerging from two sets of data--university strategy documents and interviews with staff--collected at eight universities in four national…

In both China and in the United States, policies of "positive discrimination" were originally intended to lessen educational and economic inequalities, and to provide equal opportunities. As with affirmative action in the American context, China's "preferential policies" are broad-reaching, but are best known for taking ethnic…