Suchergebnisse

Japan's school curriculum, revised for the 2020s, introduces new subjects and, perhaps more importantly, a new vision for teaching referred to as 'active learning'. This book examines the social and political realities that provided space for this unprecedented curriculum reform; the policymaking process through which it was refined; its envisaged pedagogy, and the intended and unintended outcomes of the new requirements, both on the ground in each school subject and across the education system. Finally, the book steps back to consider the possible future of 'active learning' and direction of the course of study in this decade and the next. This book will be of interest to those researching contemporary Japanese education, education policy, curriculum studies and equality of educational opportunity.

Das International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) ist ein länderübergreifendes, fortlaufendes Umfrageprogramm, das jährlich Erhebungen zu Themen durchführt, die für die Sozialwissenschaften wichtig sind. Das Programm begann 1984 mit vier Gründungsmitgliedern - Australien, Deutschland, Großbritannien und den Vereinigten Staaten - und ist inzwischen auf fast 50 Mitgliedsländer aus aller Welt angewachsen. Da die Umfragen auf Replikationen ausgelegt sind, können die Daten sowohl für länder- als auch für zeitübergreifende Vergleiche genutzt werden. Jedes ISSP-Modul konzentriert sich auf ein bestimmtes Thema, das in regelmäßigen Zeitabständen wiederholt wird. Details zur Durchführung der nationalen ISSP-Umfragen entnehmen Sie bitte der Dokumentation. Die vorliegende Studie konzentriert sich auf Fragen zu nationalem Bewusstsein und nationaler Identität.

This article analyses the development and use of the concept 'job quality' in European Union (EU) employment policy. Using a set of complementary public policy theories, it examines how both political and conceptual factors contributed to the failure to achieve any significant progress in articulating job quality in the EU's policy objectives and guidelines. Conceptual clarity in defining what job quality is (and what it is not), from whose perspective it should be considered, and which direction of change indicates improvement, are vital prerequisites for an effective integration of job quality into the EU's employment strategy and into the elaboration of any successful social indicator. A constant political struggle between different stakeholders at EU level, and a need to reconcile the often-contradictory views of the social partners, has precluded the completion of this first step. Instead, attempts to include job quality into the policy formulation process were made without simultaneously adapting the overall narrative, which continued to give prominence to flexibility and deregulation. The outcome has been a rather cursory and inconsistent effort to implement policies and actions aimed at boosting job quality.

When it comes to education for mobile pastoralists, Mongolia is an exceptional case. Until fifty years ago, herders comprised the majority of the Mongolian population. Although a satellite of the Soviet Union, the Mongolian People's Republic was a state in which mobile pastoralism was not challenged, and herders were not constructed as social outcasts. Equally exceptional was the country's modernisation, witnessed in its decided alignment with equal opportunities. In Mongolia, it was not 'nomadism' that was associated with backwardness, but illiteracy. Policy-makers aimed to combine spatial with social mobility by building schools further and further out in the grasslands, employing locals as teachers, and fostering interplay between modern formal education and extensive animal husbandry. Yet after 1990, when development discourse pigeon-holed post-socialist Mongolia as a Third World country, the so-called shock therapy led to severe cuts in education. Herders were essentialised as 'nomads', which caused donor-driven policies of educational planning to construe pastoralists as challenges. Ironically, during the initial decade of Education for All, the younger generation had - for the first time in Mongolia's history - less educational opportunities than their parents. This article discusses narratives of inclusion and the political consequences of ascribed social identities. (author's abstract)

This article addresses the politics of genomics through three diagnoses: The first, diagnosing objectivity, discusses how researchers involved in a large-scale population mapping initiative distinguish genomics as relatively objective, compared to other forms of knowledge production. The second case, diagnosing nationality, examines an attempt by the UK Border Agency to use genetic ancestry testing to vet asylum claims. The third case, diagnosing indigeneity, considers how indigenous councils in southern Africa engage genomic science in their struggle for state recognition and rights. I argue that genomics' allure of objectivity lends itself to such diagnostic attempts among both powerful and subaltern social actors and suggest that developing "technologies of humility" may provide one safeguard against the increasing uptake of genomics as the authority on human difference.

This paper examines the institutional logics of migration policy making at local city level, comparing four Danish municipal approaches. Using a theoretical framework on political opportunity structures, policy frames, and institutional logics, the paper argues that divergences between national and local level can be explained not only as an unsuccessful transposition of nationally formulated policies, but also as an outcome of divergence in alternative and competing policy frames, political rationales, and institutional logics. Investigating factors such as size, economy, and organizational structure, the paper offers three interrelated explanations for divergences between national and local level and between different local approaches. The paper argues that the difference in national and local level political opportunity structures makes a difference; that ideas diffused from outside the national context can inform local-level policy making; and that policies are situated within and adjusted to the broader cultural economy and city branding as part of competition between cities.

Discusses institutional design and regional employment standards of the European Union and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC); finds EU social policy stronger, and the decentralized NAALC more in tune with other emerging trading blocs.

An attempt by Conservative MPs to put forward and explain their views regarding the so-called technological revolution. The contributors suggest that government must face the challenge of managing the social consequences of this change or risk social upheaval and misery

Religiously affiliated providers of social services are becoming increasingly important in the transformation of social welfare policy in the United States. This article focuses on governance issues and challenges facing these small service providers. Using perspectives from the organization and management literatures and examples from prior research, the article makes three general observations. First, predictable patterns of governance exist, depending on the types of structural relationships religiously affiliated agencies have with their religious bases. Second, governance will be affected by particular characteristics of both small and religious organizations. Third, growth presents critical challenges to the ability of these providers to maintain their indigenous religious cultures. Hypotheses are offered to stimulate further research in each of these areas.

In 1900, approximately 10 percent of African Americans resided in central cities; by 1970, nearly 60 percent did, far higher than the corresponding proportion of whites. This geographic redistribution was central to the twentieth-century African American economic experience, with connections radiating in innumerable directions: to labor markets, housing markets, educational systems, the civil rights movement, and public policy responses to discrimination and poverty. Although migration patterns are not their focus, each essay in this special section is closely connected to the black population's historic redistribution.

The paper seeks to conceptualise Marxian value theory as a problem for social research to investigate. It is argued that so conceptualised, value can only be encountered by the study of the 'totality of social relations' in capitalist society, inside the workplace and outside in the wider sphere of everyday life. It first gives a brief overview of the author's interpretation of the theory of value. It then suggests a way of conceptualising the theory of value as an object of research. It is contended that such research requires the study of the different 'modes of existence' that value takes over the course of the production of commodities and their circulation in society. Possible research approaches are discussed. First, the Italian worker's inquiry tradition is analysed as a means by which production in capitalist economies can be investigated in its micro-level, everyday aspect. This is deemed inadequate for its simple engagement with the workplace and those employed within it. An alternative approach is put forward inspired by feminist research into the 'life trajectory of the commodity', which incorporates the full totality of capitalist social relations into a broad and wide-ranging study of the different modes of existence taken by value both inside and outside the workplace, in production and circulation. Alongside this primarily theoretical project, some concrete recommendations are made for how this might pan out in practice.