In this article we argue, through a case study in a large, urban local authority in England, that local stakeholders in early years provision express a variety of perspectives on quality but are constrained by a national framework which promotes an "official" definition of quality. We offer a quality-defining model that captures the role…

A key characteristic of debates on caring for children has been the distinction made between the public and the private or formal and informal sector of care. In particular, the impact on adult relationships of the material, emotional and moral dimensions of this division has been highlighted. What are the implications for children, however, of…

Building a strategic direction for education ultimately rests on the extent, to which we resolve the key issue addressed by UNESCO's International Commission on Education for the 21st Century (the Delors Report): what kind of education is needed to create the kind of world, we want to emerge in the future? Certainly, globalisation brings with it…

In this age of heightened concern about teacher quality, calls for new policies and practices concerning recruitment, induction, and retention are familiar to many. The current enthusiasm for policies to recruit, support, and retain new teachers runs the risk of adding more clash and clang to an already cacophonous policy environment. In this…

If successful school reform rests largely on the capabilities of individual teachers and groups of teachers to deliver high-quality instruction, then a key component of teacher workforce development is teacher learning. One of the prominent ways in which educational leaders shape school conditions and teaching practices is through their beliefs…

How does a country undergo the extremely rapid change necessary to go from an emerging country to a major world power in a few short years? The answer is through education. While the world reads about the many economic changes taking place in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), an equally fundamental change is occurring in its educational…

Higher education systems all over the world are currently occupied with the crucial problems of equal opportunity and accessibility in the tertiary level. The paper focuses on the perennial issue of center and periphery in higher education. It takes Israel as a case in point. Like many other Western countries Israel is undergoing a speedy process…

Longitudinal analysis of early childhood education, such as that in Project Follow Through, shows the superiority of explicit skill instruction for the acquisition of basic reading skills. But these early gains do not eventuate in significant progress in reading achievement in later grades, especially among disadvantaged youth. This is not for…

Each of the articles included in this issue launched the author backward into nostalgia and reconsideration of her own work as they motivated her to ask new questions in current and future studies. The author's goal, therefore, is not to provide a linear road map through the articles but to point to themes and ideas that run through the project…

This article comments on Fullinwider and Lichtenberg's "Leveling the Playing Field". It reviews their central claims and comments on both their arguments and their reform proposals, and suggests alternative, bolder, egalitarian proposals which involve a higher degree of effective privatization than theirs. (Contains 1 note.)

To assist colleges and universities in becoming more supportive of transgender people, the authors, who work in campus LGBT student services, offer practical recommendations in areas where gender-variant students, staff, and faculty are likely to encounter discrimination. These areas include health care, residence halls, bathrooms, locker rooms,…

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to identify some determinants of rural-urban disparity in the implementation of decentralised educational management programmes in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: The study examines how political leadership's disposition to decentralised educational management, allocation of funds and physical…

Ulises Mejias examines how social software--information and communications technologies that facilitate the collaboration and exchange of ideas--enables students to participate in distributed research, an approach to learning in which knowledge is collectively constructed and shared. During Fall 2005, Mejias taught a graduate seminar that provided…

This article reviews the impact of broader policy change and practices on in-service teacher education (INSET) in the Limpopo province. The author argues that name changes from INSET to staff development to continuous teacher professional development or continuous professional development to capacity building and training tend to generalise…

It is fair to state that, until relatively recently, the British Armed Forces believed that they led the way in leadership development and training, and with some justification. However, the present New Labour administration and the Ministry of Defence "MoD" do not share that view, and have issued a direct challenge to the Armed Services…