Today an ever-increasing number of infants and young children with and without disabilities play and learn together in a variety of places--homes, early childhood programs, and neighborhoods, to name a few. Promoting development and belonging for every child is a widely held value among early education and intervention professionals and throughout…

The concepts important for creation of the common European higher education ("The Bologna declaration", 1999) and vocational education and training ("The Copenhagen declaration", 2002) areas and their relation are discussed in the article. The structure of ability, competency, learning/study outcome, qualification and…

There have been a number of recently published books and reports about the existence of a liberal bias in academia (e.g., ACTA 2005, ACTA 2006, Berube 2006, Black 2004, Horowitz 2006, Horowitz 2008, and Shapiro 2004). Sociology is one of the disciplines that is most frequently cited as "producers" of bias in two of these studies (ACTA 2006,…

A total of 75 individuals participated in 1 of either 5 parent or 4 early intervention therapist focus groups. Groups were held regionally in a large mid-Atlantic state to explore the ways in which each group interpreted the concept of natural environments and to identify any differences in perspectives among parents and therapists. Transcribed…

New terms were exploding early in the development of distance learning and virtual universities. Distance learning, online learning, e-learning, and distributed learning were applied to the various new forms of learning using online or Web-based materials and processes. However, largely thanks to the immediate popularity of the Western Governors'…

Emerging from recent mobile technologies, mobile learning, or m-learning, is beginning to offer "stunning new technical capabilities" in education (DiGiano et al., 2003). This new genre of learning is viewed as a revolutionary stage in educational technology. However, ubiquitous computing technologies have given rise to several issues. This…

Diagnostic assessment is currently an active research area in educational measurement. Literature related to diagnostic modeling has been in existence for several decades, but a great deal of research has been conducted within the last decade or so, especially within the last five years. The author summarizes the key components in the application…

Mentoring as a means of supporting young people perceived as having difficulties or being at risk of disaffection has become an important feature of pastoral support approaches in and around schools in recent years. The provision of support that is based upon a highly personalised relationship and founded upon principles of unconditional positive…

This article explores the history and development of interdisciplinarity within the Australian context. Conditions and circumstances for the emergence of interdisciplinary approaches are explored with discussion identifying how these approaches impact and shape national curriculum, teachers' practice and pedagogy. Policies, proposals, and debate…

A student-centered teaching methodology is an essential ingredient of a successful Pan-African literary course. In this article, the author defines Pan-Africanism and how to go about designing a Pan-African literature course. The author combines reading assignments with journals, film presentations, and lectures in a productive learning…

What is meant by the term "standards"? This article will use the definition of the National Academy of Sciences for their workshop on Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards, "generally used to refer to both content standards, which describe material that students should be expected to learn, and performance standards, which…

At present a new era has evolved in the education sector by means of ICTs. Different ICTs are now set to become instrumental to help expand access to education, strengthen the relevance of education to the increasingly digital workplace, and raise educational quality by, among others, helping make teaching and learning into an engaging, active…

Cultural competency training has been present in academic medicine for many years but interest has resurfaced when the Institute of Medicine released a report on health care disparity and called for curriculum improvement in medical education to eliminate the disparity in health care in the United States. This new interest, reinforced by medical…

When a baby is born with Down syndrome, his or her parents should know that there's a lot of help available--and immediately. Shortly after the diagnosis of Down syndrome is confirmed, parents will want to get in touch with the early intervention system in their community. Early intervention is a system of services designed to help infants and…

From the beginning of the use of the term, there have been struggles over the meaning of human resource development (HRD). In recent years, there has been increased attention to the field's definition. This paper moves this exploration one more step to an exploration of the dilemma of defining international and cross-national HRD. A beginning…