In the Netherlands, crossing borders to study comprehensive schools was an important strategy in the 1970s, a decisive period for the start and the end of the innovation. According to policy-borrowing theory, actors that engage in debating educational issues are framing foreign examples of comprehensive schooling to convince their audiences.…

Dramatic changes occurred in the international economy in the latter part of the twentieth century. CERI, the Centre for Education Research and Innovation at the OECD, was an important contributor to the understanding of the nature and implications of these developments, and in foreshadowing the central policy challenges which would arise. Jarl…

In this article, the educative value of scientific biographies will be explored, especially for non-science major college students. During the "Scientist's life and thought" course, 66 college students read nine scientific biographies including five biologists, covering the canonical scientific achievements in Western scientific history.…

This article reports from an empirical study on the affordances and constraints for using staged socio-political debates for authentic summative assessment of scientific literacy. The article focuses on conditions for student participation and what purposes emerge in student interaction in a socio-political debate. As part of the research project,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how learning technology could be applied to the development of educational tools for global climate change. The task to be performed in an informed dialogue is to assess the causes and drivers for global climate change and to produce an improved basis of scientific understanding for the…

This paper presents a debate between two faculty members regarding the teaching of the legacy programming course (COBOL) in a Computer Science (CS) program. Among the two faculty members, one calls for the continuation of teaching this language and the other calls for replacing it with another modern language. Although CS programs are notorious…

After a brief review of some milestones in the story of how schools contribute to inequalities in student achievement, more recent work on how experience of collaboration between schools can help to narrow the gap is shown to underpin the new concept of a self-improving school system. The main focus is then on the principal features of a…

In the public discussion of genetically modified (GM) food the representations of science as a social good, conducted in the public interest to solve major problems are being subjected to intense scrutiny and questioning. Scientists working in these areas have been seen to struggle for the position of science in society. However few in situ…

In this article, Bryan R. Warnick explores parents' authority to make educational decisions for their children. In philosophical debates, three types of arguments are typically invoked to justify parents' rights: arguments based on the welfare interests of children, arguments based on the expressive interests of parents, and arguments based on the…

This article contextualizes recent developments around issues of language and the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in terms of the classic distinction between literates and non-literates in the Great Divide debate. Using a social practices perspective to frame the issues, the authors argue that the CCSS reiterate the debate, and reflect an…

Concerns about academic standards, whether created by states from scratch or adopted by states under the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) banner, have drawn widespread media attention and are at the top of many state policymakers' priority lists. Recently, a number of legislatures have required additional steps, such as waiting periods for…

This article explores historical debates over the relationship of composition to rhetoric, arguing that these debates resonate with contemporary arguments about first year writing and undergraduate and graduate programs in writing and rhetoric. Analyzing early scholars' articulations of the differing aims of undergraduate and graduate studies,…

A comprehensive literature review that integrates and synthesizes peer-reviewed research surrounding a problem is a prerequisite for making an original contribution to a field and profession. The literature review in a doctoral dissertation is a required component, but most of these reviews suffer from bounded, linear thinking, limited scope, and…

Through its analysis of the rhetorical means by which the US Congress overcame jurisdictional objections to federal action on the issue of woman suffrage, this essay argues that the stasis of jurisdiction operates as a mode of assemblage of discourses, institutions, and populations. In Congress, the woman suffrage issue helped re-organize federal…

One of the striking differences between massive open online courses (MOOCs) and previous innovations in the education technology field is the unprecedented interest and involvement of the general public. As MOOCs address pressing problems in higher education and the broader educational practice, awareness of the general public debate around MOOCs…