Background: South Africa's long-standing reading crisis is well recognised. At various stages since 2000, national government has presented the inculcation of a culture of reading as a solution to this crisis. Objectives: This article critically interrogated the term 'culture of reading' as used in national government discourse with reference to…

The state of Florida has taken an unprecedented approach to teacher professional development in its Race to the Top (RTTT) Program application by proposing to promote an international innovation that originates in Japan, "lesson study," as a statewide teacher professional development model. Since winning the US$700 million RTTT funding…

In Djibouti, extreme poverty was 41.9% and relative poverty 79.4% according to the poverty profile elaborated by the national statistical office (DISED) in 2012. Malnutrition remains high in Djibouti, and comparable to Sub-Saharan countries, with 29.7% of children under the age of five chronically malnourished, 29.6% underweight, and over 17.8% of…

In the twenty-first century, the use of standardized tests as the primary means to evaluate schools and teachers in the United States has contributed to severe dilemmas, including misleading information on what students know, lower-level instruction, cheating, less collaboration, unfair treatment of teachers, and biased teaching. This article…

Learning is critical to both economic prosperity and social cohesion. E-government learning, which refers to the government's use of web-based technologies to facilitate learning about subjects that are useful to citizens, is relatively new, relevant, and potentially cost-effective. This work proposes and verifies that the technology acceptance…

Mexico is a multiethnic country with large groups of indigenous populations that experience disadvantages in education due to a quadruple burden of poverty, indigeneity, rurality, and gender. This policy brief proposes alternative practices for improving the educational opportunities for indigenous Maya girls living in the Yucatán peninsula in…

Examines the role of scientific and technical information in national development in Nigeria and establishes a framework that could enhance the use of this information for development purposes. Factors such as national information policies, government support of research projects, and the role of international organizations in technology transfer…

A pooled cross-section time series model is used to evaluate the effect of the 1977 Canadian firearms legislation on the provincial homicide rate between 1969 and 1989. Results agree with most studies that indicate no significant effect of this legislation on homicide rates. (SLD)

This paper describes an evaluation model developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education and illustrates how it was adapted to meet local and provincial needs of the Scarborough School System for accountability data and direction for change. The basic Cooperative Evaluation and Development of School Systems (CEDSS) model includes five stages of…

This article argues that the U.S. dissemination system in education is unresponsive to organizational improvement needs, and that development of this bias is exacerbated by political, organizational, and programmatic thrusts in federal agencies. It is suggested that systems in the Netherlands and Denmark could provide useful models for adapting…

Experts tell us that 4-year-olds have much to gain from a stimulating and nurturing preschool experience, and mounting evidence suggests that these benefits accrue to society on a much larger scale as well. Although numerous proposals acknowledge the benefits of and need for improved early childhood education, few contain specific recommendations…

This document contains eight papers on adult learning and literacy research and practice. "The Year 1999 in Review" (Dave Speights) presents an overview of adult learning and literacy research funding, policy, and activities in 1999. "Making Sense of Critical Pedagogy in Adult Literacy Education" (Sophie C. Degener) details a…