Social media is the new face of global communication, and, instead of blocking it, schools should be embracing it. Twitter presents opportunities for teachers to link students with real-time information and diverse ideological perspectives. The authors describes the use of Twitter in a high school civics class during the 2012 presidential election.

This review provides a critical appraisal of the measurement of students' social class and socioeconomic status (SES) in the context of widening higher education participation. Most assessments of social class and SES in higher education have focused on objective measurements based on the income, occupation, and education of students'…

This article examines the construction and design of literacy attainment data in the English school system in two different historical periods: the 1860s and the 1950s. These periods represent contrasting moments in the history of education in the UK when school structures and the governance of education varied, as did the design and…

Comparative education as a field of study in universities (and "comparative education" as practised by nineteenth-century administrators of education in Canada, England, France and the USA) has always addressed the theme of "transfer": that is, the movement of educational ideas, principles and practices, and institutions and…

Since 2003 children in England have been formally assessed at the age of 5 after their first year in school, and their numerical scores reported to parents and analysed at school and national levels. The use of statutory assessment for this age group is unique in the UK, where other regions use less formal methods of assessment. It is also unusual…

This article examines the invention of counting literacy on a national basis in nineteenth-century Britain. Through an analysis of Registrar Generals' reports, it describes how the early statisticians wrestled with the implications of their new-found capacity to describe a nation's communications skills in a single table and how they…

Since the late 1980s, education systems have increasingly moved to allocating funding for general education by means of a per-student formula. The trend started with developed economies and moved to transition and developing economies, where the World Bank has promoted the adoption of per-student funding (PSF). But promoting a particular reform,…

This article introduces novel sensitivity-analysis procedures for investigating and reducing the bias that mischievous responders (i.e., youths who provide extreme, and potentially untruthful, responses to multiple questions) often introduce in adolescent disparity estimates based on data from self-administered questionnaires (SAQs). Mischievous…

This article draws on evidence from interviews with directors of a diverse group of international gifted education organisations. The business models with which they operate and their obligation to satisfy various stakeholder expectations are found to compromise philosophical tenets and organisational aims, particularly those concerned with…

Gifted students' performance on a Chilean university admission test, Prueba de Selección Universitaria (PSU), was investigated in this study. Sixty-six students participating in an enrichment-based university program for gifted youth were selected. The sample included both male and female gifted adolescents who studied in public and voucher…

A creative life is described with a dual perspective. Starting with the input of family and schools and crystallizing around the aspects of "spoken word" and "need of/for novelty," a scholarly career and research of new topics (in the country) developed on the one hand; on the other hand, creative activities and products in…

James H. Borland, Ph.D. is Professor of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. In this reflective conversation, he reflects on his experiences in an urban environment and the current challenges in gifted education. He argues for ongoing diagnosis of learners' needs…

The landscape of gifted and talented education in England has changed in the past decade when the UK government launched an education programme for "gifted and talented" pupils as part of its Excellence in Cities policy initiative. The policy was initially intended to raise educational achievement of higher ability pupils in secondary…

I write this article in an attempt to establish my own view upon gifted and talented education and as an attempt to review and analyse the perspectives and opinions of others in the field of education. I will examine how people believe gifts and talents are created in an attempt to establish and affirm my own viewpoint. I will look at what I…

Identification of gifted students from diverse and underserved communities is traditionally low; however, there are ways to expand identification methods in order to make access to gifted education programs more equitable. Creation and implementation of multi-faceted and multi-dimensional assessments as well as tiered access into gifted education…