Drawing on niche theory, I describe the resource dimensions that compose teachers unions' niche and explain how aspects of the current political landscape buttress or undermine teachers unions' realization of those resources. I also discuss teachers unions' strategies to oppose any threats that undermine the realization of the resource arrays that…

In the person of John Hayes, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, the coalition government has someone no less committed than was Labour's David Blunkett to the value of expansive and inclusive lifelong learning, as has been attested to by his various speeches and articles since first being appointed. Not…

Scholarly writing on college sports gets better as the problems of college sports get worse. This does not mean that the authors are causing the problems. Rather, the excesses and ills of college sports, past and present, provide such fertile data that historians of higher education enjoy a perverse embarrassment of research riches. This maxim is…

Coalition education policy threatens to transform the school system in England. A combination of public spending cuts, and the drive to making all schools Academies, represents a key moment in the restructuring of the education service along neo-liberal lines. This article argues that there is nothing distinctively "new" about Coalition…

This article considers how pervasive remains the idea of fixed innate ability in relation to state education, and criticises on ethical and other grounds the language of ability as currently heard.

Studies on northern desegregation have focused on political strategies, the role of the courts, the responsibility of the federal government (HEW), and barriers to northern desegregation. Some have conducted individual case studies and comparative studies, and others have examined a number of cities. This article examines the way school…

In this keynote address, the author shares his reflections on politics, economics, and testing. He focuses on assessment and accountability and begins with some data from large scale written educational testing, "circa 1840". The author argues that people's penchant for accountability and their appetite for standardized testing are, in…

Gender has long been implicated in geographic education, though generally implicitly until the late twentieth century. Emphasizing British and American examples, this paper examines gender representation among geographic educators, in student participation, and in learning. It then turns to pedagogical issues that arise as content and strategies…

This article considers how a contribution based on Rorty's philosophy can help in the understanding of quality and its assurance in higher education. The suggestion is that if quality has an edifying purpose, then it should be seen as an ongoing process and might be aptly judged as being just "good enough". This position is argued for it…

The charter school movement has been a major political success, but a civil rights failure. As the country moves steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates, the rapid growth of charter schools has expanded a sector that is even more segregated than…

Recent pronouncements on the benefits of enlisting civil society in educational development have so far not attracted adequate scholarly analyses. This paper therefore seeks to present a critical perspective on this new trend by providing a fine-grained look at three concrete cases of NGO involvement in educational policy-making in Nepal. It also…

College professors are evaluated for promotion and tenure on the basis of their accomplishments in three areas: teaching, research, and service. All too often, however, service is considered the poor cousin of the trio. In political science in particular, we believe that this imbalance is detrimental to the individual scholar, our students, the…

Women's Campaign School (WCS) is a non-partisan, non-formal three-day educational programme held annually in Vancouver, to empower and inspire women to enter politics and as a means towards socio-political change. Our findings show the WCS provides excellent practical and tactical skills and an experiential learning opportunity that is highly…

In the eyes of policy, the transformation of European education systems has become essential. Economically, education change is deemed vital to the successful emergence of knowledge economies. Politically, educational institutions and their cultures are seen as unhelpfully residual, providing a home to beliefs and practices that are not aligned…

This article analyses the discursive unities which make possible the current transformation of teacher training and our understanding of teaching as a profession, while focusing particularly on European educational policy and the situation in Slovakia. Using Foucault's archaeological method, we reconstruct the discursive link points between the…