Within the context of a monocultural and monolingual education system, this paper seeks to explore and compare the experiences of Cypriot and non-Cypriot pupils in Greek-Cypriot primary schools with culturally diverse pupil populations. The concept of multiculturalism has been introduced only very recently in Cyprus and there has been little…

Policies and programmes pursuing the universalisation of elementary education (UEE) in developing nations have been influenced by a set of complex forces in international, state, and local arenas. This paper explores how a large-scale standardised assessment programme shaped by international and market-oriented discourses has been differently…

The above title was suggested by the editors of this journal as being an interesting topic for a forum. It is indeed a valuable one to explore, in that while there has been extensive writing on various connections between security, religion and education (e.g. Apple 2004; Griffin 2006; Merry 2007; Davies 2008), situating this within comparative…

There has been a growing amount of research on low-fee private schools in less economically developed countries, but much less on low-fee private schools in developed countries. Yet, low-fee private schools have also been a recent feature of the educational landscape in countries such as Canada, the USA, Australia and Great Britain. This paper…

This article discusses the views of Turkish and British novice teachers on pedagogy and pedagogical relationships with school students when confronted with the pedagogical practices of the "Other" in particular policy contexts. Experiences of those practices were gained by novice teachers during an exchange visit for British and Turkish university…

Research on educational quality has been scarce in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, whereas the debates over educational quality date from 1966 in the USA with the Coleman Report. Fortunately TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) starts to fill this gap by providing data on students' achievement and for many…

A good quality education is inclusive, relevant and democratic. Of these three characteristics, the author contends that democratic is the most fundamental and underpins the other two. Education can only truly be inclusive and relevant if its goals are continuously the subject of open democratic debate, since education is a value-based,…

There has been a paucity of research on the experiences of students at Pakistani universities. A survey of over 900 students at two universities examined their approaches to studying and perceptions of their courses. Evidence was obtained for a deep approach, a surface approach and two aspects of a strategic approach. Their perceptions were based…

In this study, faculty at institutions of higher education in Southern California were surveyed to determine the ways they interpret the effects of globalization dynamics upon their various teaching and research activities. Faculty in the state's three higher education tiers spoke positively about the intellectual benefits to be gained by exposure…

The notion of "student citizen" is implicit in a range of national and provincial policy documents in South Africa, with citizenship promoted as both an expected outcome of schooling and an encouraged practice within schools. This paper provides an account of how policy on student citizenship was translated differently into practice in four…

The article discusses kindergarten and primary school teachers' preferences for instructional approaches and teaching practices. One hundred and thirty-three teachers from Estonia completed questionnaires. The results showed that the promotion of students' comprehension and independence, enhancing practical application and individualisation of…

As the world works towards 2015 when it will finally assess the progress it has made towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals it set for itself at Jomtien in 1991, it has become clear that important gains have been made in education. Equality of access has been, understandably, at the top of the world policy agenda for the last 20 years or…

Educational practitioners rely predominantly on measures of outcome, rather than of inputs or process, in making judgements as to quality. Outcome measures are available from two main sources: (1) the relatively new international assessment systems; and (2) the traditional national examinations systems. The two types of system differ in their…

Parental involvement in schools is regarded as critical to student success in Australia, Canada, and the USA, the world's top refugee resettlement countries. Refugees can be disadvantaged when they are unfamiliar with the practices and when their own cultural beliefs conflict with expectations in their new communities, or when they are consumed by…

This article outlines policies from multilateral organisations that advocate sharing best practices between developing nations. The article discusses the degree to which these best practices are implemented by small states as indicated by teachers, academics and policymakers in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. For the purpose of this article, a…