Education & Pedagogy

All Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have experienced an unprecedented expansion in higher education during the second half of the twentieth century. This was only possible because higher education became part of national welfare policies. OECD countries differ, however, with respect to the significance of education, and more specifically, higher-education policies within their overall framework of welfare policies. We employ the concept of the "welfare regime" and a "trade-off" hypothesis to understand the different national approaches to higher-education participation, funding, tuition, and student financial aid. Through a comparative analysis of data from international databases, we examine how different countries accomplish the goal of enhancing participation as part of their welfare policies. Overall, our hypotheses are confirmed in that we demonstrate that there is a convincing relationship between higher-education policies and given welfare regimes. We conclude that when adopting policy strategies from other contexts, careful consideration of the underlying societal structures and traditions is required.

This article explores the various types of domestic education, particularly cookery, available in Manchester between 1870 and 1902. The work of the two local School Boards and the Manchester School of Domestic Economy are shown as part of a complicated network of provision--a mixed economy of welfare, including enthusiastic philanthropists and educational entrepreneurs offering a range of practical and academic classes for middle-class ladies as well as working-class schoolgirls. The campaigners for domestic education managed a dual vision of what it was to be domestically competent, insisting on the value of lessons from professionals, while arguing that domesticity was a natural, innate feminine talent. Likewise, although women's education and/or employment could be blamed for a decline in domestic skills, re-centring domestic education in schools and evening classes could make education a cure not just for a generation of inadequate mothers and wives, but also for racial degeneration. (Contains 114 footnotes.)

Schools serve as a setting in which students come to understand gender, but transgender students (those who transgress societal gender norms) are largely left out of discussions of education. The high level of harassment that transgender students face poses sizable obstacles to school success. If the field of education is committed to equity and social justice, then teacher education programs must prepare educators to teach gender in more complex ways that take into consideration the existence and needs of transgender people. This article is intended to begin the discussion of transgender issues in teacher education by providing a rationale for why teacher educators need to care about transgender issues, presenting definitions of basic terms and concepts related to gender and transgender, offering a new framework for understanding gender privilege and oppression, and examining three previously proposed or existing types of gender education and proposing gender-complex education as an alternative, and exploring possibilities for gender-complex teacher education. (Contains 3 notes.)

The article argues that, historically, universities have served a select few individuals as part of modernist not transformative agenda. This highly selective process guarantees students good life. The article argues that university education helps to redress colonial inequities through creating opportunities for graduate employability. However, university education has also served conflicting roles of adhering to the global capitalist imperative and attempting to inculcate social inclusion in developing nations. The roles of university-based adult education is analyzed in terms of its curricula, teaching, and research to demonstrate that adult education serves officialdom and has strayed from the initial adult education focus of social transformation. Drawing some illustrations from the Department of Adult Education at the University of Botswana, the article argues that programs serve state interests through engaging in a neoliberal modernist curriculum that excludes the learners. Finally, it is suggested that adult education should rethink the curricula, strengthen civil society, and mobilize community for social transformation.

This paper explores the role of the Canadian federal government in two foreign policy areas: overseas development assistance and international cultural relations by providing a brief history of the federal government's engagement in both policy areas and highlighting the contributions and challenges of Canadian foreign policy to the internationalization of Canadian higher education. More broadly, the paper explores the unique characteristics of the Canadian federal government's role in higher education policy making, and in particular, its relations with academics and the university community. Ironically in a world increasingly characterized by greater international education flows, in Canada, there has been a narrowing of vision, a focus on more short rather than long term objectives and a limited engagement of dialogue between academics and the government to promote both development assistance and international education as Canada's soft power.

Mastering the public school curriculum is so important to a child's occupational future that in many regions of the world "shadow" education outside of the public system has now become the norm. In one way, this is excellent news because private investment in human capital is a strong contributor to economic and social development. However, private demand is driving a separate and powerful private industry. According to the constitutional standards in many countries, education is supposed to be "free." This suggests that, in some instances, shadow education might be unconstitutional. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights also says that education should be free. This suggests that in some circumstances, shadow education may be contrary to the principles of human rights. The question addressed in this article is whether shadow education is wrong. This article summarizes the arguments in favor and against shadow education and ends with a series of recommendations to better manage what has become a worldwide dilemma.

As the strategy of "sustainable development" is being implemented, it is widely acknowledged that environmental education is fundamental and important. In the current school system, environmental education has produced extraordinary results in elementary and middle schools, and even in universities. However, environmental education is rarely attempted at the high school level. In this article, the author examines whether high school environmental education is necessary or not. Facing with the dilemma that teaching environmental education in high school is very difficult on one hand, and is absolutely necessary on the other, the author suggests to search for a way to carry out high school environmental education in a sustainable manner based on the experience in practicing environmental education in high school. Sustainable development of environmental education means that the course should be designed with exploration and innovation in mind to get students interested in the subject. In his two years of practice, the author gradually realized that teachers must be innovative in teaching environmental education in high school. (Contains 2 tables.)

Elementary education in China is mainly subject-based and courses are offered by discipline. Because of this, it is impossible to offer a special course in environmental education in elementary schools. This article explains that the best approach to teach environmental education to elementary schools is to integrate environmental education by organically incorporating environmental protection into various activities in different courses. In order for this approach to be effective, educators must be well aware of the importance of environmental protection and they should be familiar with environmental protection laws and regulations issued by the central and local government. In addition, teachers must recognize that there are common features, as well as distinct differences, between environmental protection classes and ordinary classes. The common features of environmental education and ordinary education are as follows: (1) Clear objective; (2) Accurate content; (3) Proper method; and (4) Compact structure. On the other hand, the differences of the two include: (1) Environmental education can only be provided through integration into other courses; (2) Environmental education must address the society, the way people live, and its impact on nature.

Institutions of higher education lament the fact that policymakers have lost faith in them, particularly public higher education. One proof of such loss of faith is the substantial, steady, and sustained decline of share of public resources devoted to higher education. One unfortunate consequence of this decline in funding has been increased tuition. As such, the larger share of the burden of financing higher education falls to students and their families. On the other hand, policymakers have developed the impression that higher education is not doing its share to support the neediest students with the rise in tuition fees. In addition, policymakers felt that their efforts to support higher education with limited funds and limited will on the part of the polity to provide those funds are not being appreciated. In this article, the author examines why higher education and policymakers differ in perspective on matters concerning public higher education finance. The author explains that these differences in understanding occur because educational statistics can be misleading. (Contains 13 charts, 2 tables, and 8 resources.)

This article explores ways of improving peace education, placing emphasis on peace education programmes in Israel that use dialogue to foster mutual understanding and respect. This article offers a critical assessment of contemporary Israeli peace education initiatives, emphasizing that current peace education programmes in Israel have failed to significantly improve social attitudes between Arabs and Jews. Critiques of contemporary forms of peace education focus on their psychological and social contexts, and the ways in which the framing of peace education has substantive impacts on the likelihood of its success and its sustainability. Emphasis is placed on the importance of incorporating affective rather than primarily cognitive models for promoting coexistence; the importance of pursuing long-term peace education programming rather than the predominant short-term "encounter group" model; and the need for a comprehensive social and political approach to peace education that extends beyond schools and embraces society as a whole. (Contains 4 notes.)

Information communication technologies (ICTs) have the potential to enable intending and in-service teachers in regional, rural and remote regions greater access to tertiary education. This paper describes how a fourth year environmental education subject has been successfully delivered wholly online for several years and how pre-service and in-service teachers have responded to learning through an online platform. Research indicates the necessity to create a social learning space in cyberspace to support learning; as well as the importance of building flexible learning opportunities and offline assessment tasks to generate meaningful learning experiences related to local places. Teaching environmental education online may initially create the dilemma of how to engage meaningfully with place-based learning through the no-place of cyberspace. However, carefully designed, online learning can and does support positive learning outcomes. While there are limitations to online study, well-conceived, web-based delivery is certainly no barrier to teaching and learning environmental education in the tertiary sector.

The impact on educational analysis of mainstream international relations (IR) theories is yet to realize its full potential. The problem of education in relation to the construction of world order is considered in relation to core developments in IR theory since the Second World War. In particular, the global architecture of education is seen as a complex web of ideas, networks of influence, policy frameworks and practices, financial arrangements and organizational structures--a system of global power relations that exerts a heavy, even determining, influence on how education is constructed around the world. The past decade has seen the rise of fresh understandings of global governance, an emerging theme in international relations that bears considerable potential for new forms of analysis in education, especially for clarifying the significance of the global architecture of education. Fresh understandings of education as a contributor to world order, viewed in the light of shifting global power relations and patterns of global governance, see education remaining relatively undeveloped as a builder of world order, despite decades of normatively-inspired assertions to the contrary.

This article presents an interview with Donna Y. Ford, a Professor of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University where she teaches in the Department of Special Education. Ford has been a Professor of Special Education at the Ohio State University, an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Virginia, and a researcher with the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. She also taught at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of several books, including "Reversing Underachievement among Gifted Black Students" and "Multicultural Gifted Education." She has authored over 100 articles and chapters and has made more than 500 presentations at professional conferences and school districts. Ford conducts research primarily in gifted education and multicultural/urban education. She also consults with school districts and educational organizations in the areas of gifted education and multicultural/urban education. In the interview, Ford talks about the experiences that led her to the field of gifted education and shares some of her ideas about creating a multicultural curriculum for diverse gifted students.

The concept of inclusive education is a relatively new phenomenon within the Irish education system, with considerable developments in government policy only occurring since the early 1990s. These developments are aiming to advance special education provisions and legislation for individuals with disabilities and special educational needs (SEN). This increased attention is illustrated by the Special Education Review Committee (SERC) report, the report of the Government Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, A Strategy for Equality (1996), the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) Discussion Document (1999), Special Educational Needs: Curriculum Issues, the Education Act, the Equal Status Act and the recently published Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Bill and the Disability Bill (2004). However, despite these advancements in SEN developments, it can be argued that the Irish government and education system still fall short of providing a rights-based education to all children with a disability or SEN in the state. This article discusses the educational provision for children with SEN from 1990 to 2004.

Under the guidelines for Initial Teacher Training, all potential primary teachers are required to learn about teaching religious education. However, religious education is not a high priority on ITT programmes and trainees may often have little introduction to it. Given the sensitive nature of religious education, what is the best way to prepare trainees for teaching religious education, and how far do we need to take into account their views about the subject? This article reports on a study involving trainees on a one-year PGCE course. All the students were preparing to teach in primary schools and were not specialist religious education trainees. The aim of the study was to discover how trainees felt about teaching religious education in the primary school and how far their feelings linked to their views about religion. The conclusions suggest that any effective preparation of the trainees needs to recognise the diversity of their starting points and allow them opportunity to reflect on their views of religion and religious education.