This article is an initial attempt to illustrate how patterns of academic mobility in the history of universities have been framed by the international politics of particular time periods. The article briefly looks at "the medieval period" and then at the emergent colonial and nationalist periods, including the ways that institutions as…

The schools' inspection regime in England has shifted in recent decades from a focus on external assessment of practice to a scrutiny of external data and schools' self-evaluation, culminating in a normative system based on self-surveillance by school senior managers. This model of inspection (characteristic of the performative approach to public…

"Higher Ambitions: The future of universities in a knowledge economy" has its own higher ambitions. It is a broad-ranging document, covering access to HE; research and innovation; student expectations and experience; university-business links; and community engagement. It is billed as a framework document, one which should structure…

This article offers a critical review of the historical literature on the National Education Association's (NEA) 1916 Committee on Social Studies (CSS) report, the document generally believed to have launched the social studies movement in American secondary schools. The review begins with a critical analysis of the four most pervasive…

It is essential to implement a development strategy of "looking abroad" for Chinese-foreign cooperation in higher education and for us to realize a scientific concept for development, deepen and diversify market access, and improve the quality and benefits of higher education in China. We can learn from developed nations' experience in…

Regardless of how voters cast their ballots in the 2010 elections, the nation will witness a sea change in state leadership--and, potentially, big changes in the direction of education policymaking. At least 20 governors will step down as of January 2011, based on those who are facing term limits or have decided to leave voluntarily. In all,…

This paper aims to explore the ways in which nursery workers are constructed through government discourse in England. This is done by offering a deconstruction of key policy texts. The discursive construction of "the nursery worker" within government discourses has shifted over time but currently occupies a highly politicised position.…

Teacher performance appraisal policies are a part of a global complex of accountability based teacher policies. This paper is a study of the Ontario teacher performance appraisal (TPA) system. First, the paper describes the education reform contexts associated with the origins and adoption of the TPA policy. Then the paper reports on the results…

In this essay, Jeff Duncan-Andrade explores the concept of hope, which was central to the Obama campaign, as essential for nurturing urban youth. He first identifies three forms of "false hope"--hokey hope, mythical hope, and hope deferred--pervasive in and peddled by many urban schools. Discussion of these false hopes then gives way to…

Planning for shared schooling in Northern Ireland requires a re-consideration of the decision-making processes that underpin the choices made by parents and a re-thinking of the nature and purpose of alternative modes of educating young people from the different communities together. The article provides evidence that demand for existing…

The need for education for (as opposed to about) sustainability is urged from many sides. Initiatives in this area tend to focus on formal education. Governmental, supra-governmental and non-governmental bodies all expect much of this kind of education, which is to transform children--and through them society--in the direction of sustainability.…

The use of narrative research is often informed by a commitment to social justice on the part of the researcher. An example of this literature, Morwenna Griffiths' Action for Social Justice in Education: Fairly Different (2003), is taken here to illustrate the understanding of power and the way in which the relationship between theory and practice…

Both in the United States and the United Kingdom there has been a recent resurgence of interest and support for "new localism" in response to the need to provide local solutions to national complex problems. In this paper, the authors begin by exploring the contextual framework in the U.S. and the UK, explaining recent policy reform and…

Members of organizations traditionally outside public school systems have begun to take on central, and in some cases internal, leadership roles and responsibilities in the implementation of ambitious educational improvement initiatives. How are these arrangements playing out in practice? This article explores that question with a 3-year…

It is often claimed that research on higher education has had little or no impact on HE policy-making, which is regarded as being largely driven by political ideology and the media and reinforced by little more than management consultancy. Recent higher education policy, it has been argued, is "a research-free zone" or at best…