Culturally competent schools are successful in both meeting the challenges and seizing the opportunities associated with multiculturalism and diversity. This article explores collaboration between school counselors and school psychologists for promoting such schools. The complementary nature of the roles of these professionals emerging from…

Half-way through this first decade of the 21st century, educators are working diligently to ensure that all students learn and schools demonstrate annual yearly progress. Schools are scrambling to find ways to reach students who are struggling. Once again professional development is being seen as a major tool to support improved practice and to…

Teacher commitment has been found to be a critical predictor of teachers' work performance, absenteeism, retention, burnout and turnover, as well as having an important influence on students' motivation, achievement, attitudes towards learning and being at school (Firestone (1996). Educational Administration Quarterly, 32(2), 209-235; Graham…

An increasing number of studies are concerned with the international comparison of the results that different education systems achieve. For example, TIMSS, PIRLS and PISA publish the results from different countries in mathematics, science and literacy. The European Commission has also published indicators and benchmarks relating to the quality…

Reacts to articles by Charles Bidwell, Paul Kingston, and Carolyn Riehl in the 2001 theme issue of Sociology of Education. Argues that Bidwell and Kingston's articles show the strengths that the educational sociology field has exhibited over the years. Evaluates Riehl's article as a movement toward examination of the current intellectually…

Koreans form the largest ethnic minority group in Japan. The present study explores the situation of Korean pupils in Japanese schools by analyzing recent changes in four areas:(1) governmental and school-level policies, (2) school level programs targeted at Korean children, (3) Korean pupils' academic achievements and (4) their micro-level…

George Packer, a New Yorker staff writer, points to the danger of clarity, observing that seemingly simple and tough-minded words blow out as much smoke as the jargon of the Pentagon of decades past. Nowhere is this smoke thicker and trickier than in the lingo the corporate-politico-media squad uses when talking about public schools. At first…

The use of complex value-added models that attempt to isolate the contributions of teachers or schools to student development is increasing. Several variations on these models are being applied in the research literature, and policy makers have expressed interest in using these models for evaluating teachers and schools. In this article, we…

This paper explores what lessons we can learn from the experiences of states that instituted NCLB-like accountability systems prior to 2001 (here called first-generation accountability systems). We looked at the experiences of three smaller states (Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina), four larger ones (California, Florida, New York, Texas), and…

There has been an increasing emphasis in educational policies, practices and professional development on the capacity of educational leadership to exert a causal impact on student cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. If the strict criteria of counterfactual causality are adhered to no causal inference could be made about the effects of…

Branding efforts have typically focused on external promotional strategies to develop brand image. Recently, the brand messages conveyed to employees of an organization have been recognized as being equally as important as the brand messages sent to external stakeholders. This study investigates the internal communication of the university brand…

This paper examines the use of "league tables", based upon "performance data", by the Government to distinguish between primary schools. Data concerning one Northern Local Education Authority, were analysed. It was found that the position of a school in the League Tables of unadjusted scores tended to reflect the background…

Inspection and performance data show that the schools identified as least effective in England (in special measures) are more likely to sustain the improvement they make after inspection than those that are relatively more effective, although still causing concern (identified as having serious weaknesses). We compare the progress of these two…

Research is increasingly highlighting the influence of school contexts on school processes and student achievement. This article reviews a range of social justice rationales for taking school contexts into better account, and highlights the challenges contextualisation currently poses for practice and for policy. It notes important constraints on…

This paper argues that international studies in the area of educational effectiveness are important for different reasons. It will increase the variation with respect to input process and output and it will show contextual differences between countries with respect to educational effectiveness. Furthermore, in international studies knowledge and…