As the field of second language writing embraces the authenticity and meaningfulness of connecting writing with other skills, language teachers and testers require greater understanding of how writers respond to as well as compose for integrated tasks. Research on integrated tasks is critical in highlighting how integration impacts students and…

The purpose of this project was to initiate a program of research to explore how instructional designers around the world use design to make a social difference locally and globally. The central research question was, "Are there social and political purposes for design that are culturally based?" A growing body of research is concerned…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how public libraries in Ireland are using their websites to present local studies collections online. Design/methodology/approach: All the websites of public libraries in Ireland were evaluated against a checklist of 50 criteria by one of the authors. An analytic description was provided of the four…

Governing public schools is one of the most important responsibilities a citizen can undertake. School board members work on behalf of all the families in their community, with fellow board members and with other community partners, to ensure that each student has equal and ample opportunities to reach his or her greatest potential. This guide…

This study focuses on how school districts in Michigan are reacting to budgetary stress brought on by the downturn in the economic climate. It addresses the key factors school districts can implement to increase revenues or decrease expenditures and identifies which of these factors districts choose and the reasons why. This study also analyzes…

The Common Core of Standards project has strong national support, but it will not succeed if it doesn't involve teachers in grassroots development activities. The initiative should involve local consortia of schools in working with the new standards, assessments, and support tools. Local teachers would design teaching units and then share these…

The paper describes and analyses the issues that impacted on pre service Primary Education students' engagement with the subject "Aboriginal culture and history" at a rural university. The paper identifies how issues including pioneer identity and local "conversations" about race related strongly to this particular rural…

According to the results of LJ's latest annual referenda survey, covering measures held between December 1, 2006, and November 30, 2007, voters approved both operating and building referenda at very high rates. If a library reported a referendum this year, chances are they are in high spirits. Operating referenda, with 69% of measures succeeding,…

The town of Danville in Ohio was well known for its many turkey farms. Today there's barely a gobble to be heard around Danville, and the only talk of turkeys is at the annual Danville Turkey Festival, which has for decades celebrated the area's agricultural heritage. The local processing plant moved 200 miles north, into Michigan, in keeping with…

Recent concerns over global ecology have led to a renewed call for effective environmental education. Since traditional methods of teaching environmental education tend to focus on local issues and perspectives, educators are faced with the problem of providing a more global view of ecological issues. Little research exists exploring the…

Using a global-local dialectic approach, this paper traces the rise of the basic education programme in the 1980s and 1990s in Botswana and its subsequent attenuation in the 2000s. Amongst the local forces that led to the rise of BEP were Botswana's political project of nation-building; the country's dire human resources situation in the decades…

This article takes up the issue of the internationalisation of Vocational Education and Training (VET) reforms, expressed in the way policy instruments such as National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) are introduced in the European Training Foundation's (ETF) partner countries. There is an international debate and different perspectives regarding…

This paper examines the debate surrounding the inception of the Conservation Security Program (CSP) under the 2002 US Farm Bill as a possible expression of ecological modernization by examining the discursive contributions made by official actors, social movement organizations, and producer organizations. Based on this analysis, the CSP embodies…

Open educational resources (OER) have become new buzzwords in the glocalization of education. While OER are often espoused as enabling educational equity, the reality is not always the case. Looking only at the positives of new educational methods can mask perpetuating challenges, which makes the open aspect of OER a misnomer. Taking an…

This report was written out of a recognition that there has been little effort to systematically examine the value to anchor institutions of engaging in significant community investment. In the absence of such research, the authors believe that institutions tend to overestimate the costs and risks and underappreciate the potential benefits. In…