The author claims that the UK coalition government's White Paper, entitled the Importance of Teaching, continues to polarise curriculum and pedagogical thinking in England into subject-centred versus child-centred camps and in doing so takes sides with the former. He argues that government reports--such as Hadow, Spens and Norwood--have been…

Professional mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) are one of the policy instruments employed in global and regional trade agreements to facilitate the mobility of skilled labour. While such agreements have been noted in the literature examining cross-border academic mobility, little is known about how they impact higher education. This paper…

Evidence-based policy-making and other recent reforms in public steering emphasize the role systematic evidence can play in improving decision making and public policies. Increasing deficits heighten the pressure on public authorities to legitimate public spending and to find savings. Existing studies show that the influence of research-based…

Beginning with an analysis of the manifesto commitments of the two Coalition partners the author proceeds to set their subsequent policies as they are understood by June 2011 in the context of successive new "frameworks" for UK higher education since the Robbins Report of 1963. This analysis is developed in relation to: the relative…

This paper considers the "policy work" of teacher actors in schools. It focuses on the "problem of meaning" and offers a typology of roles and positions through which teachers engage with policy and with which policies get "enacted". It argues that "policy work" is made up of a set of complex and…

Teachers of political science have increasingly recognized the utility of classroom simulations to provide students with an active-learning experience to enhance learning outcomes. Our article builds on this growing trend by proposing a congressional simulation to help students understand the complexities and nuances of the lawmaking process.…

On September 22, 2009, The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final rule on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reporting. The informational literature that EPA has published to support the rule clearly states that EPA believes the vast majority of smaller GHG-emitting facilities, such as educational facilities, will not be…

Food allergy in children is a growing public health problem that carries a significant risk of anaphylaxis such that schools and child care facilities have enacted emergency preparedness policies for anaphylaxis and methods to prevent the inadvertent consumption of allergens. However, studies indicate that many facilities are poorly prepared to…

This study examines gender differences in the work-family interface across six family life stages using a global sample of IBM employees in 79 countries (N = 41,813). Family life stage was constructed using the age of respondent and age of youngest child. Results revealed that having young children at home was the critical catalyst for gender…

This article describes the Development, Relief, and Educational for Alien Minors Act of 2009 or the "DREAM Act of 2009." The authors of the bill aim to amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to permit States to determine State residency for higher education purposes and to authorize the cancellation…

This article uses disability studies and the social model of disability as theoretical foundations for policy activism in postsecondary education. The social model is discussed and a model for policy activism is described. A case study of how disability studies and policy activism can be applied is provided utilizing the "3C Project to Provide…

In their dealings with educators in the Southern Cape region of South Africa, the researchers observed among them a degree of negativity and pessimism about the implementation of the Further Education and Training (FET) policy and curriculum during 2006. Exploratory discussions supported the surmise that a gap existed between policy formulation…

This paper presents the annual report of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for 2011. This past year represented a new level of achievement for FIRE and its cause on campus. Not only did FIRE secure more victories than ever, but it also succeeded in bringing liberty to thousands more students by welcoming Arizona State…

The quality of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) instruction in elementary schools worldwide is an issue of concern for language policy and planning (LPP) scholars, as are examinations of power and ideologies operating in policy creation and implementation. This critical, exploratory study blends these two strands of inquiry by examining…

Over 21% of children in the United States today are poor, and the income gap between our nation's richest and poorest children has widened dramatically over time. This article considers children's self-regulation as a key mediating mechanism through which poverty has deleterious consequences for their later life outcomes. Evidence from field…