Suchergebnisse

Public education in the United States has been crippled by a combination of entrenched bureaucratic governance and special-interest politics. To remedy these failings, school districts, states, and the federal Education Department have adopted education reforms characterized by rigorous outcome-focused standards and assessments and the empowering of public schools, charter or otherwise, to meet the standards. Despite promising initial results, however, the reforms have been widely criticized, including by the populations they most seek to help. To explain this paradox, this Article first tries to assimilate the new education reforms to the most frequently proposed alternatives to bureaucratic governance — marketization, managerialism, professionalism and craft. It concludes, however, that none of these models adequately elucidates the reforms or provides an attractive alternative to special-interest politics, a crucial concomitant of bureaucracy. The Article claims that another governance model, democratic experimentalism, better explains the recent reforms and provides a richly participatory alternative to special-interest politics, which directly engages stakeholders — families and teachers, in this case — into its collaborative governance mechanisms. The Article finds, however, that the new education reforms have largely omitted the "democratic" part of experimentalism, resulting in the backlash by special interest groups and the constituents the reforms help the most, parents and students. The Article concludes by proposing a more fully democratic version of the reforms designed to improve student outcomes, powerfully engage key stakeholders, and diminish objections.

Digital media and information and communication technology (ICT) are being used more and more in international contexts at universities. In her English-language dissertation, the author examines how this technological potential can be used strategically to expand internationalization. The data basis of the thesis is a content analysis of contributions to international conferences on university internationalization, online and distance learning, university management and research, and ICT and internationalization. The selected abstracts were analyzed based on the model of "Comprehensive Internationalization" (CI). From the results, the author outlines a model for Virtual Internationalization (VI) that considers curricula, international cooperation, and distance learning as well as the roles of university strategy, administration, management, and teaching staff. The highly topical dissertation closes a gap in university research and offers universities valuable starting points in research and practice of internationalization.

The question of the state has come to occupy a central place in recent debates on subaltern politics in contemporary India. Against those critical voices that have claimed that the emancipation of subaltern groups can only proceed by challenging and moving beyond the modern Indian state, a range of scholars and commentators have asserted that it is precisely by seeking to harness the state that social movements can hope to advance their oppositional projects. Intervening in this debate, this article argues that although these new perspectives constitute a decisive advance in terms of developing a relational understanding of subaltern politics in India, questions pertaining to the structural constraints that social movements face in advancing their oppositional projects through the institutions and discourses of the state are still neglected. The article addresses these questions through a detailed exploration of the ways in and extent to which Adivasi movements have managed to democratize local state-society relationships in western Madhya Pradesh, and discusses the conceptual and political lessons that can be drawn from these experiences. Drawing on recent advances in Marxian state theory, the article argues that it is necessary to move beyond the theoretical impasses of both anti-statism and state-centrism and toward a politically enabling engagement with contemporary Adivasi mobilization in India. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

There is a widely held belief that we have entered a new age – an age defined by terms such as the global economy, the global village, and the information age. As the political and business world act and react to this new age, these sectors seek to influence higher education by demanding positivistic and pragmatic approaches to planning, pedagogy, and curriculum development. As institutions of higher education respond to the demands arising from the knowledge society and as the uncritical use of new technologies multiplies, it is incumbent upon teacher educators to clarify their purposes and procedures. The authors argue that exhilarating and empowering ways of thinking and doing in teacher education could arise out of the convergence of the metaphorical application of chaos theory and the type of historical thinking proposed by Robin George Collingwood. To demonstrate how these ways of thinking might come together to counteract the dominant mythologies of positivism, they provide brief outlines of the salient features of chaos theory and of Collingwoodian thought and then explore how these ways of thinking could be utilized to shape teacher education.

The text of our manifesto will introduce posthumanism to a curriculum studies audience and propose new directions for curriculum theory and educational research more broadly. Following a description of what is variously called the "posthuman condition" or the "posthuman era," our manifesto outlines the main theoretical features of posthumanism with particular attention to how it challenges or problematizes the nearly ubiquitous assumptions of humanism. In particular, we focus on how posthumanism responds to the history of Western humanism's justification and encouragement of colonialism, slavery, the objectification of women, the thoughtless slaughter of non-human animals, and ecological devastation. We dwell on the question of how posthumanism may alter our understanding of the claim "education is political," since humanism has shaped our very notions of "education" and "politics." After outlining posthumanist discourse generally, and detailing the conceptual challenges it poses for education, we propose a list of possible new avenues for curriculum studies research opened up by posthumanism.

This book is centered on the history of the girl from the medieval period through to the early twenty-first century. Authored by an international team of scholars, the volume explores the transition from adolescent girlhood to young womanhood, the formation and education of girls in the home and in school, and paid work undertaken by girls in different parts of the world and at different times. It highlights the value of a comparative approach to the history of the girl, as the contributors point to shared attitudes to girlhood and the similarity of the experiences of girls in workplaces across the world. Contributions to the volume also emphasise the central role of girls in the global economy, from their participation in the textile industry in the eighteenth century, through to the migration of girls to urban centres in twentieth-century Africa and China.

Provenance: Inscribed on half-title "With the author's compliments" ; Mode of access: Internet. ; Talbot collection of British pamphlets.

The role English language plays in human development in Nigeria is the focal point of this paper. Basically, language is the most frequently used and the most highly developed form of human communication. Through language, people interact, share ideas and express their feelings. Without language, man would be incapable of a sustained and result oriented thinking. Education is unarguably an essential instrument for change and human development. At different levels of schooling in formal education, students are equipped with life-long knowledge and skills that would enable them realize their full potentials as human beings. However, all forms of education (formal, informal and non-formal) are realized through language; hence, language and education are inseparable. In the Nigerian polity, English language plays the role of a second language, considering the multilingual nature of the country. English is also the language of instruction in the Nigeria education system. Not only is it the language of instruction, it is also a compulsory subject and a yardstick for evaluating a learner's school performance. The normal teachinglearning process thrives on effective communication between the teacher and the learner. No matter how expertly, learning experiences are selected and organized, the ultimate objective of the teaching-learning exercise would not be achieved if the language of instruction is unfamiliar to the leaner. This is where English language comes in. English language is indispensable to education in Nigeria, thus, it is a veritable tool for human development.Keywords: English Language, Veritable tool, Human Development, Education, and Nigeria