This report offers a brief account of Iraq's recent mass literacy initiative, considered within the broader context of illiteracy problems throughout the Arab world. The Iraqi experience is noteworthy for both the size and the unique character of the campaign launched by that nation's Arab Ba'ath Socialist regime. (Author/SJL)

The educational programs of the Great Leap Forward (GLF) represented the first organized attempt by the Chinese government to restructure and align the educational system with the national economy. The educational policies of the GLF ultimately foundered because of patterned inertia within the educational system.(Author)

This article explores some of the conceptual and strategic problems of truly comparative research. Addressing the study of national educational policies, the author considers the uses of theory in defining units of analysis and compares the costs and utility of research strategies based on differing compositions within the research team.…

This article describes the scope and content of the Nicaraguan National Literacy Crusade of 1980, its organization, workings, and outcomes. Special attention is given to those aspects of the crusade that relate to the goals of integrating previously excluded groups and transforming the political culture of the country. (Author)

Two questions provide the focus for this paper: (l) Does England have a policy in regard to multicultural education, and, if so, what is it? (2) If it does have a policy, how and when did this policy get formulated? "Multicultural" is used here to mean Black-White. (Author)

Noting that, as a developing socialist society, China requires an educational system which develops in the individual both political loyalty and technical skill, the author surveys China's efforts, from 1949 to the present, to implement these two potentially conflicting educational objectives. (SJL)

Briefly describes South Korea's Air-Correspondence High School (ACHS), an alternative radio/correspondence study program for adolescents and employed adults. Evaluative data is presented comparing ACHS to the regular high school on efficiency, achievement, costs, cost-effectiveness, and social equity. Comparisons are also made to other distance…

This study attempts to evaluate Mexico's television-based secondary education system, Telesecundaria, by comparing the mathematics and language achievement of Telesecundaria students with that of students receiving traditional instruction. Student background and ability, community, teacher, and classroom variables are considered.…

The first part of this paper challenges the traditional dichotomy between formal and informal education. Part two discusses a variety of nonformal education programs in the United States. The concluding section highlights the biases in favor of more affluent youngsters and the national character of much nonformal education. (Author/SJL)

Since Israel has a centralized educational system, a nationwide, comprehensive strategy was adopted in 1968 to attack ethnic segregation. This case study is mainly concerned with the process of implementing, through administrative procedures and organizational frameworks, the goal of school integration. (Author/SJL)

Reviewing international school attendance statistics, the author notes that, while the United States is the pioneer of mass schooling, it too has school attendance problems, particularly relating to the exclusion of handicapped and delinquent youth. He looks at the techniques other nations are using to deal with these problems. (SJL)

Resumption of democratic politics in Brazil has had mixed consequences for basic education. Although the "Education for All" program aims to improve access to basic education for poor children, politically powerful groups oppose reallocation of resources at their expense and ensure that educational reform remains rhetoric. Contains 85…

Discusses problems associated with reform of secondary school curricula in Kenya in the period immediately after independence. Follows the course of two innovations--School Mathematics of East Africa (SMEA) and the Africanization of the literature curriculum--and discusses various reasons for their failure and for Kenya's continued dependence on…

An analysis of national programs for monitoring student achievement in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia found that political considerations in all three countries have inhibited the clarification of program objectives and the implementation of the technology required to generate meaningful information capable of reliable…