The main focus of the present paper is to answer two different questions: From the perspective of Austrian education policy, which core areas of schooling are linked to the demand for equal opportunity? Can these reform efforts sustain the current state of research, and what are the consequences for schooling? The paper draws on an analysis by…

The controversial video documentary "Waiting for Superman," released in 2010, has helped to ignite a firestorm of national debate on current educational reforms in the United States. The purpose of this study is to determine the possible impacts of the video documentary "Waiting for Superman" potentially influencing pre-service…

This article deals with the features of the Philippine educational system. Additionally, brief and concise information will be given on how the educational system came into existence, the organization and the structure of the system itself. This paper also tackles the obstacles and problems observed in the past and up to the present, and gives…

Education is often seen as the key agency in international development and poverty reduction. Frequently the emphasis is on the economic and social role of education in development. This book, on the other hand, is unusual in explicitly examining the political role of education in development. In particular, it sets out the theories, evidence and…

Drawing from rich data, "International Struggles for Critical Democratic Education" profiles teachers, students, and schools struggling to interrupt the reproduction of social inequalities from one generation to the next. International in its nature, the work collected here illustrates how forces of globalization create greater inequalities, and…

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife," wrote John Dewey in his classic work "The School and Society." In "School, Society, and State", Tracy Steffes places that idea at the center of her exploration of the connections between public school reform in the early twentieth century and American political…

The Century Foundation released The Future of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity as an Education Reform Strategy, edited by senior fellow Richard D. Kahlenberg. The volume seeks to answer important questions about how socioeconomic integration plans are faring and to provide guidance for how they can be sustained and expanded in the…

District-led, dramatic change efforts in failing schools--including turnarounds and school closures--often face strong resistance from families and communities. Resistance may be based on years of tension and distrust between districts and communities, failed past school improvement efforts, or a lack of understanding about the chasm between a…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) "The Digital Learning Imperative": New Alliance Report Shows How Digital Learning Connects Technology and Teaching to Meet…

This article examines the uptake of "suzhi"--roughly glossed as "quality"--in China's recent curriculum reform called "suzhi jiaoyu" (Education for Quality) in the rural ethnic context of Qiandongnan. It engages with three layers of analysis. First is a brief etymological overview of "suzhi" to map out its…

This article re-assesses the methodological difficulties involved in researching the powerful in education. It reviews the major areas and issues that researchers focused on: problems of access, different types of interviewing, interpretation of data generated through interviews and ethical issues. It argues that in most aspects researching…

The main point of this article is that the task of critical educators in the age of massive globalised immigration is to move beyond national essentialism and cultural purism. They have to transgress the restraints of methodological nationalism, omnipresent in the diverse aspects of education including the action of many educators. This implies…

In this article, I take a creative and autoethnographic approach to reflect upon processes of decolonisation in Indigenous Australian studies classrooms. Positioning myself as a non-Indigenous educator, I take the reader on a journey through my search for pedagogy which makes space for the colonial, difficult and messy politics of race, whiteness…

Language policies in any country exist within socio-historical contexts--embedded in history and influenced by socio-political factors. In Canada, such factors were the impetus to the formation of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which was grounded in an English/French partnership and recommended that Canada become an…

A problematic trend in the nature of work in educational settings has been the declining emphasis on a professional orientation to work and a growing emphasis on more technocratic approaches. This international trend has led to increased attention on skills and competencies and lessened attention to values, beliefs, motivations, energy, and…