The poor performance of the education sector in Nigeria has become very worrisome. What is the problem? Is the educational policy faulty or is it the implementation that is faulty? What are the implications for national development? These are the issues explored in this paper, based on a literature review approach. The findings blame the…

This paper revisits the value of and justification for histories of geographical education as a field of research endeavour within geographical education. Four potentially fruitful areas of research are identified. These are pressure groups, especially the International Geographical Union's Commission on Geographical Education; the influence of…

This paper considers the contribution to understanding educational inequalities offered by post-structural theories of power and the subject. The paper locates this consideration in the context of the ongoing endeavour in education studies to make sense of, and identify ways of interrupting, abiding educational exclusions and inequalities. The…

This essay unearths the educational and socio-political implications of Edward W. Said's work for our understanding of what a secular humanism might mean in the highly charged atmosphere of the post-Cold War and September 11 discourses that have pervaded the USA and, to varying degrees, other parts of the world. It asks what it means to move…

It is hard to win passage of a school construction bond--whether through a citizen referendum or the vote of a town council or general town meeting. Property owners' resistance to tax increases remains strong. Sizable segments of any local community--senior citizens, childless adults, parents who send their children to private school, and…

At a ministerial meeting held in Paris in 1996, the Ministers of Education from countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) invited this organization "to evaluate the implications of various visions of the school of the future." The work, undertaken over more than four years by the OECD's…

In this article, the authors pay tribute to Cecilia Braslavsky, a pedagogue who combined knowledge, reflection, and action. The authors focus on what she considered to be the third stage in her professional career, that is, her time at the Ministry of Education, participating actively in the application of the Federal Education Law passed in 1993.…

Current debate on higher education in Britain is focused on its instrumental functions and largely ignores its social and cultural value. This paper considers the "idea of the university" in an historical perspective and critically examines current policy discourse while identifying robust alternatives to the utilitarian argument. It…

Originating as counter normative pedagogies, both service-learning and critical pedagogies hold a common commitment to subvert and transform facets of school life that may alienate and oppress students. This article explores how critical pedagogies and service-learning might provide complementary benefits and become a more compelling emancipatory…

This article presents an interview with John I. Goodlad, the president of the nonprofit Institute for Educational Inquiry in Seattle and a founder of the Center for Educational Renewal at the University of Washington. He is the author of over thirty books on education (several of which have been translated into foreign languages), including the…

In 1850, in the frontier township of Brisbane, William Duncan argued articulately that National schools bestowed moral benefits to children more effectively than their denominational rivals, but the aloof and sometimes arrogant Brisbane Customs Officer lacked the skill to generate widespread support for his views. In contrast, the proprietor of…

Should evaluators care about the impact of evaluation on the public policy process? If the larger purpose of evaluation is social betterment, the public policy arena affords tremendous opportunities for evaluators to have both short- and long-term impact by influencing policy formulation, implementation, and outcomes. Working in the public policy…

In the two decades since Audre Lorde (1984) pointed out that we have no patterns for relating across our differences as equals (p. 115), struggles to transform higher education have come to focus on communication about and across differences. Despite these efforts, conversations in higher education about group difference and equity too often…

This essay addresses the topic of the state of qualitative research in education by asserting that qualitative research in education is in quite a state. Drawing heavily on Denzin and Lincoln's periodization of qualitative research as a guide, it outlines the various competing developments from within and outside that are vying to characterize the…

This article deals with an initiative embarked upon by the government of France one year after widespread youth violence broke out in many disadvantaged communities in France. The initiative is aimed at adapting its 25-year-old "priority education" program to a landscape that has dramatically changed. The initiative is the centerpiece of…