This book reports on the outcomes of an international policy-research project concerned with how power is used in education to construct and discharge obligations among stakeholders. The collection of articles suggests how such processes might better serve educational ends. The research examines how the politics of education at the site and…

Noting that the English-Only movement (which advocates that English be the official and only language used in the United States) dramatically influences the lives of language minority children, this Digest first examines the ideologies undergirding the English-Only movement. It then reviews the consequences of imposing this legislation on the…

More research is needed to explore the ways in which education reform can be considered an international as opposed to a national phenomenon. To meet this need, an examination of the language of recent large-scale education reform in Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States is presented. The research looks at the main official…

Many countries' reform efforts are government-directed programs that are driven by the government rather than by educators or bureaucrats. A comparative analysis of this type of reform, with a focus on Canada, is presented here. The paper raises questions about the international character of education reform by comparing the Canadian experience…

The international trend of shifting educational management responsibilities to the schools themselves has exerted a powerful influence on education over the past 20 years. Many reasons have been given for the emergence of the self-managing school, and an analysis of the most important reasons are examined here. The paper focuses on education in…

Issues pertinent to the coordination of educational policies with those in other fields for innovative policy formation are presented in this synthesis. The first section details objectives of the interdisciplinary approach, of which the development of common frameworks and methodological tools that are adaptable to specific countries or regions…

This paper examines the scientific basis of teaching, the logic of science, the politics of teaching-as-a-science (TAS), and the application of teaching method. It argues that teachers have neither the time while in school nor the prerequisite training in scientific methodologies with which to study their own teaching scientifically, analyze the…

This conference address, which originally concerned "gender issues in the schools," was modified at the last minute to contain arguments that counter and criticize a federal program for education put forth by President Ronald Reagan in a speech delivered earlier at the same conference, and the text of which is included here. The key…

This 3- to 5-day currriculum unit for secondary students centers around four possible directions for U.S. foreign policy during the 1990s. Designed as a culminating exercise at the end of the year or as an introductory activity to open the semester, this unit, and the possible futures it presents, should be thought of as a vehicle for guiding…

Current efforts of curriculum reform within the federal systems of Australia and the Federal Republic of Germany are examined in this paper. The hypothesis is that the federal systems of government, in which the allocation of powers is granted to subnational governments, create independent authorities and prevent the development of national…

Findings of a study that explored problems in the development of two newly created metropolitan middle schools are presented in this paper. Based on a framework of organizational change, the main premise contends that as new organizations, schools are also inherently vulnerable to the generic problems that face all organizations undergoing change.…

This bulletin reviews the 1990-91 term of the U.S. Supreme Court in terms of its impact on public schools, finding that the Court tended to decline to review decisions by lower courts that gave school districts discretion to resolve questions of student and employee rights. Court opinions that were handed down are discussed, and the impact of…

This special theme issue of "Educational Foundations" contains five articles on the theme of "The Politics of Education." In Marie E. Wirsing's "Academic Freedom and Teaching Foundations of Education: A Personal Memoir," the history of academic freedom, including the constant struggles to preserve it and examples of significant infringement, are…

Findings from a historical case study that analyzed a school board decision making process during a crisis situation are presented in this paper. Criminal allegations made against the superintendent of a midwestern school system in 1984 created a crisis for the board of education. The superintendent of schools was charged with third degree sexual…

Because it has been overworked, underanalyzed, and undefined, critical thinking has come to mean anything or nothing. The best work on critical thinking imagines it as an act of composing and revising. Definitions of critical thinking have undergone a historical evolution--from general problem-solving "skills" to a complex of…