Suchergebnisse

The ways in which vocational education and training (VET) systems are structured vary significantly from country to country, both because different countries have different objectives for their VET systems and because VET is differently embedded within the education and labour market systems of any individual country. International research in this area makes use of a range of existing typologies to characterise and compare VET systems. However, many of these typologies have weaknesses, for example in relation to the consistency of their descriptive criteria or the extent to which the typology is able to tackle more complex VET systems. This paper therefore takes a multi-perspective approach to developing a new typology that builds on existing approaches from a range of disciplines, justifies a specific combination of these approaches, and substantially expands on them. Specifically, it combines a skill formation approach with both a stratification approach and a standardisation approach. It also explicitly acknowledges the practice of learning as a criterion. This new typology enables VET systems in a range of countries to be categorised systematically across the different levels involved, including in relation to aspects as varied as government regulation, curriculum design, and teaching practices. This will be illustrated using six countries - China, France, Germany, India, Japan and the USA - as case studies. These case studies demonstrate substantial differences but also partial convergences between these countries. The typology offers both a framework for further explanatory approaches in individual country contexts and an opportunity for international comparison of key aspects of VET systems, such as the value attached to vocational qualifications and the possible transfer of VET models from one country to another.

Over the years, there have been several attempts to spread the "Swedish model" of popular education, i.e. study circles and folk high schools, to countries in other parts of the world. In this article, we analyze the large-scale project of establishing Folk Development Colleges (FDCs) in Tanzania in the 1970s and 1980s, by emphasizing the ways in which Swedish popular educators have described the FDC project. Theoretically, the article is based on a postcolonial framework, highlighting the continuing importance of the legacies of colonialism in today's society. One of the main conclusions in the article is that in the process of "exporting" the idea of popular education to other parts of the world, there is an on-going formation of national selfimages in contrast to images of the Other, where there is a constant risk of reproducing ideas from a colonial past. ; Accepted March 29, 2010Original Publication:Magnus Dahlstedt and Henrik Nordvall, Paradoxes of Solidarity: Democracy and Colonial Legacies in Swedish Popular Education, 2011, Adult Education Quarterly, (61), 3, 244-261.http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0741713610380445Copyright: Aaace -- American Assoc for Continuing Educationhttp://www.uk.sagepub.com/

Part of the Volume on Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital MediaTo paraphrase a Native elder, any road will get you somewhere. The question for Native America is, where will the information highway take them? As Native Americans continue to face challenges from the legacy of colonialism, new media provide both an opportunity and crises in education. Standardized education policy such as No Child Left Behind and funding cuts in social services inadvertently impact Net access and Indian education, yet alternative programs and approaches exist. It is necessary that programs conceptualize new media learning strategies within a historical context by being sensitive to the political and cultural connotations of literacy and technology in Native American communities. By encouraging the use of new media as a tool for grassroots community media and locally relevant storytelling, this chapter asks educators to consider an alternative epistemology that incorporates non-Western approaches to ecology and knowledge.

Purpose
This special issue aims to address the complexities and dynamics in contemporary China's citizen-making processes, with a focus on the educational dimension.


Design/methodology/approach
The four articles in this special issue present citizen-making processes in both educational and cultural arenas. Based on the rich, first-hand data collected inside and outside China, the researchers revealed the dynamics of the educative processes, as the interplay of different mechanisms produces new understandings of citizenship practice.


Findings
This special issue sheds light on the rise of new types of citizens, who are emerging at the grassroots level in China, beyond the state's strict direct regulations, along with the rise of market forces and multicultural communities in Chinese society today. Contributors to this special issue have captured an ongoing change, in that the diversified citizen-making mechanisms are, to a certain extent, mitigating the party-state's definitive monopoly on forging citizens and are creating new spaces for individuals to develop fresh forms of political subjectivity and citizenship practice. In this sense, we argue for the unpacking of the citizen-making processes in present-day China not only from the lens of state-dominated, top-down initiatives but also from that of participatory, bottom-up initiatives performed by grassroots groups with differentiated socio-economic statuses and cultural traditions.


Originality/value
This special issue can be regarded as a contribution to the growing field of Chinese citizenship studies, which constitutes an integral part of the unfinished project of citizenship after orientalism.

The recent declarations and measures enacted by President Jair Bolsonaro in regard to Brazilian higher education and science have caused great concern and created considerable confusion. This article summarizes the main events taking place since January 2019, as well as their possible implications for the future. Given the importance of public universities and federally funded public agencies for the country's social and economic demands, budget cuts and hostility toward academic institutions effectively "cut the government's own throat."

This comprehensive, three-volume set explores the ways the United States has interpreted affirmative action and probes the effects of the policy from the perspectives of economics, law, philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, and race relations. Expert contributors tackle a host of knotty issues, ranging from the history of affirmative action to the theories underpinning it. They show how affirmative action has been implemented over the years, discuss its legality and constitutionality, and speculate about its future. Volume one traces the origin and evolution of affirmative action. Volume two discusses modern applications and debates, and volume three delves into such areas as international practices and critical race theory. Standalone essays link cause and effect and past and present as they tackle intriguing—and important—questions. When does "affirmative action" become "reverse discrimination"? How many decades are too many for a "temporary" policy to remain in existence? Does race- or gender-based affirmative action violate the equal protection of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment? In raising such issues, the work encourages readers to come to their own conclusions about the policy and its future application.

Economic modeling provides academic administrators with a logical
framework for analyzing costs associated with the processes involved in the delivery
of social work education. The specific costs associated with activities such as teaching,
research, and service may be determined for a school of social work as a whole or
for specific responsibility centers (e.g., programs and services within the school).
Economic modeling utilizes modern spreadsheet software that can be configured in
relation to the idiosyncratic needs and budgeting strategies that exist in virtually all
colleges and universities. As a versatile planning tool, it enables managers to identify
specific "cost-drivers" that cause the occurrence of real costs in relation to designated
programmatic initiatives. In addition, economic modeling provides academic planners
and decision-makers a useful vehicle for considering the economic impact of
various projected ("what if") scenarios.

The main focus of this article is on comparing the centralisation and decentralisation in higher education in Hungary and Germany. This study explores trends in implementing quality assurance measures in higher education. It employs the methodology of document analysis to identify differences between the two nations in the level of autonomy they accord to higher education institutions in regulating quality assurance standards. Data collected from these documents demonstrate that the two countries have divergent approaches to higher education governance. In the Hungarian higher education system, management is centralised and monitored by the national government. This state control indicates limited autonomy amongst higher education institutions to organise academic programs. In contrast, the German legal documents examined in this study indicate a belief in the need to guarantee the quality of learning, teaching, research, academic freedom, gender equality, and institutional autonomy. The data collected reveal the close relationship between governance and quality assurance in discourses regarding the accountability, transparency, and freedom of stakeholders.