The paper argues that the policy concept of social equity cannot be adequately understood in a generalised abstract manner, but is better viewed as an assemblage that brings together a number of contrasting, and sometimes competing, values. Our use of assemblage is somewhat eclectic and is designed to underscore the performative character of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to encourage a discourse aiming to better understand the "psycho-social situation" of many people--from a global perspective. The following "first hypotheses" are formulated; pointing to crucial "hidden agendas" which shall be "named" in order to focus attention towards…

This paper presents data gathered in interviews with 29 informants in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan, China--an administrative region with Theravada Buddhist religious identity. The data highlight tensions between the traditional faith-based education provided by Theravada Buddhist temple schools and secular state education. The…

Creativity is a complex and contested notion but is now widely recognised as a feature of learning across the curriculum. This article explores how primary geography teaching can be enriched by creative practice. It goes beyond simply suggesting imaginative ways to devise geography lessons, to outline a pedagogy which places children at the heart…

During the 1960s a paradigm shift occurred within Irish education thanks to the penetration of the Republic's system by the OECD-sponsored economics of education. The 1965 publication of "Investment in Education" was the key event in this change. The document reproduced and contextualised here demonstrates how this penetration process…

National campaigns promoting the use of the term intellectual disability (ID) have culminated in the recent U.S. congressional passing of Rosa's Law. Rosa's Law changes how ID is referred to in federal disability programs by removing all references to the term, "mental retardation" (U.S Government Printing Office, October, 2010). Little is known…

This paper explores the considerations of sexualisation and gender stereotyping in the recent UK government report "Letting Children be Children". This report, the "Bailey Review", claimed to represent the views of parents. However, closer reading reveals that, while the parents who were consulted were concerned about both the…

The imperative of transforming education continues to permeate the discourse of UK education reform. Although the Coalition government's publications herald a "new school system", they reveal the same neo-liberal thinking as their New Labour predecessors. The context of the national budget deficit is now being brought to bear to promote…

This paper gathers descriptions on the use of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and essential skills cross Canada. IALS was developed as a population measure to lay out the distribution of skills and their relationship to other social and economic attributes. The information was taken from federal, provincial, and territorial…

This chapter discusses the use of electronic government sources and documents for school media specialists, teachers, and children in K-12 education. Ninety-seven percent of all government information is online, resulting in rich and free source of authoritative material that can enrich the electronic sources of the school media center (GPO,…

Teaching the Declaration of Independence can be a challenge. This article presents a lesson plan based on an explication of the title and the first three lines of the Declaration intended to make the American founding era relevant to today's college students. Assuming civic education is a major goal of teaching American Government, assuming…

In Canada, cultural diversity has always been a contested cornerstone of citizenship and of citizenship education. In the last decade, a number of provinces, including Alberta and Ontario, have published citizenship and character education documents and social studies curricula in which ideas of cultural diversity are central and shape dominant…

Recent scholarship in genre studies has extended its focus from studying single genres to multiple genres, as well as how these genres interact with one another. This essay seeks to contribute to this growing scholarship by adding a new concept, "intermediary genre". That is, a genre that facilitates the "uptake" of a genre by…

This paper examines whether the Swedish steering documents for English-language education are ethnically biased, that is, whether Swedish culture and language or "Swedishness" are used as norms when teaching and assessing students. To examine whether such bias exists, the central curricula and syllabi from 1994 and 2000, as well as local…

For more than 150 years, the United States Government Printing Office (GPO), along with its Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), has supported an informed citizenry and democracy by ensuring access and preservation to a broad swath of federal government information. This collaborative national public information program between local…