Notes that school-aged children need to make their own decisions and that allowing students to plan their own activities in child care centers works best. Suggests the following learning centers be included for school-aged children: discovery table, book center, dramatic play area, photography and floral centers, blocks and art. Also notes…

Discusses a study that examines department chairs' beliefs about the role of faculty in departmental governance and the characteristics of an ideal governance structure. Concludes that faculty's key role is helping clarify the administrators' responsibilities, and that faculty members should be rewarded for their participation and empowered to…

As the participation of children and young people in policy decision-making has spread in the UK, participation work is facing hard questions on its translation from principle to effective practice. The participation literature has been largely self-referential in its consideration of policy influence. This paper considers the potential usefulness…

The public has developed a powerful voice over the past two decades, calling for involvement in school decision making and creating the conditions for schools to pay attention to engaging the public in more meaningful ways. Lessons for all schools can be learned from charter school efforts to engage their public effectively. This article presents…

The construct of enabling school structure is empirically analyzed in this qualitative study of high schools. First, the theoretical underpinning of enabling school structure is developed. Then, six high schools, which were determined to have enabling structures in a large quantitative study of Ohio schools, were analyzed in depth using…

Interdisciplinary teaming in middle schools has increased dramatically over the past few decades (McEwin, Dickinson & Jensen, 2003); nevertheless, students have rarely been consulted as important sources of insight into this practice (Dickinson & Erb, 1997) of two or more teachers sharing the responsibility for instruction, curriculum, and…

Upon leaving school, young people are expected to play an active part as citizens in a democratic society. Are schools providing them with the tools to do this? Citizenship is taught in schools, but to what extent is it practised? Many safety issues concerning student behaviour and student conflict confront school authorities. In what ways are…

Effective evaluation of educational software is a key issue for successful introduction of advanced tools in the curriculum. This paper details to developing and evaluating a tool for computer assisted learning of science laboratory courses. The process was based on the generic instructional system design model. Various categories of educational…

In the positive theory of public bureaucracy, the prevailing view is that the structure of public agencies is designed from the top down by political superiors. Faced with bureaucrats who may disagree with them on policy and who are advantaged by private information, superiors choose rules and procedures to try to ensure that agencies do what they…

Smyth introduces this special issue with the claim that the question of "how to pursue forms of leadership that listen to and attend to the voices of...young people" is the "most urgent issue of our times". Dana Mitra's article describes what seem to be serious and elaborate attempts to involve students in school…

Our examination of three schools demonstrates how students can be involved in school reform by giving input about problems, helping design the reform, and sharing implementation responsibilities with adult leaders. Their involvement affects both the reform--as students leave their fingerprints on it--and the students themselves, who show signs of…

This paper explores some of the outcomes at a local level arising from the policy and service delivery changes to special education in New Zealand. Aspects of "Special Education 2000" (1996) are critically discussed and two problems arising from the policy components are pinpointed. The first is the failure of the discourse of…

Lifelong learning has come to be internationally recognized as a framework in the development of sustainable education. However, in spite of rhetoric and its endorsement in some nations' policy documents, lifelong learning is not operationalized and Africa continues to be plagued by social maladies such as HIV/AIDS, capacity poverty, low quality…

Because federal law offers little guidance for continually-failing schools, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) conducted a study from August 2006 to January 2007 in Michigan to explore questions of what happens after restructuring, particularly to schools that continue to fail to meet achievement targets. Because it had an accountability system…

This study explored the question of how teacher collaboration programs impact the sense of trust and respect between cooperating professionals. Ten elementary school teachers constituting five collaborating dyads volunteered to participate in a three-phase clinical supervision cycle, including a pre-observation goal-setting conference, classroom…