Development of the concept of quality within higher education, at both government and institutional levels, is traced, focusing on differences in state and institutional approaches and concerns in the pursuit of quality. Miami-Dade Community College (Florida) illustrates one approach. Relative impact of different approaches on the public interest…

Provides an annotated bibliography of the 39 best science and technology books from 1993 in the areas of animal life, astronomy, biography, chemistry, earth science, environmental sciences, evolution, mathematics, medical sciences, natural history, paleontology, philosophy of science, physics, psychology, general science, and technology. Ethical…

Examines John Dewey's remarks about the interrelationship between democracy and education in light of historic conditions in Czechoslovakia and postcommunist realities. Suggests that the world often has little in common with Dewey's social framework which conceived education as a means of guiding children toward active citizenship. (MAB)

Describes the school governance and student behavior policies at a private K-12 school in Massachusetts. Maintains that students, faculty, and staff have well-defined responsibilities. Provides recommendations for changes that would lead to enhanced student learning. (CFR)

Reviews three books that encourage practioners to be researchers of their own practice. Discusses absolutist and relativist approaches to research by examining assumptions related to questions the research generates. Recommends unification of practitioner and researcher roles through a dialectic, critical, reflective orientation that strives for…

Asserts that social studies practitioners and researchers often misinterpret their history as an extension of the present. Discusses issues and progress in the small, but growing, field of research into the history of social studies education. Concludes that the field's history has been neglected. (CFR)

This essay explores "modernity's" influence on school art and on educators and researchers. It argues that the deep channels of modernity have cut fine arts away from the curriculum, isolating it on an island of professional practice and specialized study. A new approach would reinterpret art as popular, political, site-specific, communal, and…

Education for gifted students in China is discussed, with attention to societal and philosophical influences, creative environments among the very young, differences in educational practices at various educational levels, limited resources, education of teachers for the gifted, and prospects for the 21st century. (SW)

The average university curriculum is based on a mistaken form of rationality. Universities have failed to critically examine the rational world view, including its fundamental assumptions and their consequences. Negative social effects of the rational assumptions in biology and economics suggest the need for a better definition of rationality and…

Discusses how Ralph Waldo Emerson and Stanley Cavell can help Americans learn from one another by practicing the art of reception and finding ways to acknowledge what they possess in common rather than artificially recreating common culture. The article examines Emerson's poetics of reception and Cavell's philosophy of adult education. (SM)

Outlines the philosophy and goals of Connecticut College's Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA), an undergraduate certificate program founded in 1989 with the goal of "internationalizing" every major. Also discusses how the liberal arts tradition can help conceptualize international studies. (Contains five…

This article uses discourse theory in arguing that learning disabilities, by explaining several contradictions and anomalies of schooling, function to sustain dominant assumptions of schooling and society and to maintain inequitable distribution of social goods. Educators are urged to actively confront the inequities of schooling and society.…

Maintains that ability-group tracking focuses on two issues: (1) whether tracking is more effective in promoting student learning; and (2) whether all students benefit from tracking to the same degree. Concludes that tracking, as currently practiced, tends to be both inequitable and, at least for some students, ineffective. (CFR)

The use of cellular automata to analyze several pre-Socratic hypotheses about the evolution of the physical world is discussed. These hypotheses combine characteristics of both rigorous and metaphoric language. Since the computer demands explicit instructions for each step in the evolution of the automaton, such models can reveal conceptual…

Contends that postmodernism has influenced profoundly the direction of visual art in contemporary society. However, art education has not been affected by these social and philosophical changes. Summarizes components of postmodernism and defines connections between them and the art education field. (CFR)