This article enters the debate about the complex and dynamical nature of second language acquisition (SLA) by discussing and commenting on Pallotti's critique of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). Pallotti's critique brings to the fore the argument that, due to its anti-reductionist stance, CDST research fails to observe three fundamental…

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in…

Environmental education owes its very existence to a particular interpretation of reality. The author's purpose in this article is to examine critically the "selected fictions" on which that view of reality is based--to examine the ways in which perceptions of environmental problems and issues are "conditioned by our position in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical reflection on ideas that have been published in the "Journal of Educational Administration" over the last 50 years that present perspectives on the nature of educational administration and its various aspects, that are alternatives to the mainstream systems-scientific view of…

Assessment has been dominated by Classical Test Theory for the last half century although the radically different approach known as Rasch measurement briefly blossomed in England during the 1960s and 1970s. Its open development was stopped dead in the 1980s, whilst some work has continued almost surreptitiously. Elsewhere Rasch has assumed…

This paper assesses the engagement of family therapy and family practice with families with children, who are living in poverty. It analyzes four promising models from two perspectives. The first perspective relates to critiques, which have been made of the practice of family therapy with families living in poverty; and the second relates to the…

Burkina Faso is among the largest recipients of development aid in West Africa. The new aid terminology emphasizes partnership and a sectoral approach. Yet, recent research suggests more continuity than change in the aid relationship. Projects persist. Funding and technical assistance agencies cooperate more but adhere to their interests,…

In higher education, a university is typically loosely coupled with its suprasystems, but its various schools or colleges tend to be tightly coupled with the university, as are departments with their respective schools or colleges. Similarly, in the corporate sector, a training department is typically tightly coupled with the company management…