How teachers can use such materials as parallel-text editions, graphic novels, and film adaptations to increase students' understanding of and interest in Shakespeare was the impetus for a classroom action research project that examined the effects of teaching methods on student comprehension and engagement. The author of this article…

Internationally, quality assurance schemes persist despite long-standing dissatisfaction and critique of their impact and outcomes. Adopting a critical systems perspective, the article explores the relationships between the knowledge, power and meanings that stakeholder groups bring to the design and implementation of quality assurance systems.…

In this paper, I argue that aesthetic music education philosophy, which undergirds many current music teacher education programs, textbooks, practices, and networks, fosters assumptions that are not applicable to rural settings. I outline and critique the main principles of this philosophy and demonstrate the ways in which music teachers' habits…

This article provides an overview and critical policy analysis of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) international Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) project which is currently under way. It briefly describes the purpose, components and participants of the AHELO project. Informed by a…

In this critical discourse analysis of six high-school world geography textbooks, we explore how constructions and representations of North Africa and Southwest Asia have served to reinforce Orientalist discourse in formal curriculum. Visual and written representations in these textbooks were overwhelmingly confounded by a traditional/modern…

I want to use this essay -- basically a commentary -- as a context for some political reflections on what is happening to the governance and the labour processes at universities internationally. In the process, in addition to my critical reflections on the neoliberal impulses affecting universities, I want to do two other things. First, I shall…

The author seeks to revitalize the interests of social educators in the value of using critical, postmodern discourses for rich comprehension of and productive scholarly research in our field. These discourses (a) challenge existing understanding within social education and the knowledge and knower they help produce; and (b) imagine more complex,…

This study provides a discursive analysis of World Bank policy documents in order to reveal the stark omission of a rights-based approach to education, while highlighting instead the support of an economic-instrumentalist approach. Plausible explanations are provided to shed light on this exclusion, including the feasibility critique of education…

In the spring of 2013, the "Harvard Educational Review" ("HER") published a special issue entitled "Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education" (Vol. 83, No. 1). Following a variety of forward-looking essays and arts learner reflections concerning the potential of the arts in education, the issue concluded with a…

This paper explores the work of teacher education in England and Scotland. It seeks to locate this work within conflicting sociocultural views of professional practice and academic work. Drawing on an activity theory framework that integrates the analysis of these seemingly contradictory discourses with a study of teacher educators' practical…

A theoretical model of metacognition in complex modeling activities has been developed based on existing frameworks, by synthesizing the re-conceptualization of metacognition at multiple levels by looking at the three sources that trigger metacognition. Using the theoretical model as a framework, this study was designed to explore how students'…

This study investigated the effects of two cognitive strategies, rote memorization and semantic mapping, on L2 vocabulary acquisition. Thirty-eight intermediate female EFL learners divided into two experimental groups participated in this study. Each experimental group used one of the strategies for vocabulary acquisition. After the four-month…

In response to the tendency for music to be under-represented in the discourse of medical humanities, we framed the question "how can music heal?" We answered it by exploring the lived experiences of musicians with lay or professional interests in health. Two medical students and a medically qualified educationalist, all musicians, conducted a…

Market forces are being introduced in public spheres such as higher education and public health, which hitherto were closed to such forces. Ironically, it is the state that is responsible for this process of marketisation. Some see this state action as leading to a growing influence of the state in public policy while others see an attenuation of…

Comparative Religion is seen as an important curricula because it could serve as a mechanism for enhancing cross-cultural religious communication. The authors seek to examine the role of Comparative Religion as an important science for enhancing dialogue skills. Such a communication skill, however, must be developed from both intra- and…