This text gives a structured overview of some of the courses for action that the participants in the UNESCO IBE project worked out together as a group over several months. We went beyond identifying the barriers and difficulties together with the good practices being developed in the several countries and tried to define a broad outline for the…

This text is a guide to the reading and interpretation of the "good practices" that are developing in the countries participating in this project and elsewhere. A systematic approach to the factors making up a "good practice" has enabled us to share our analyses in a more structured manner and to reflect on their potential for learning and change,…

This article discusses the Priority Education Zones project (ZEP) in Mauritius. The original and innovative dimensions of the project are described, together with the difficulties encountered during the setting-up of the ZEP schools. The article covers five main issues: the status of the ZEP project; the minimal conditions for success; the…

The Aid for the Development of the People by the People (ADPP), a non-governmental organization (NGO), in collaboration with Angola's Ministry of Education, has set up a network of secondary schools to train teachers to work in primary schools in the rural areas of Angola. These schools, called Training Colleges for the Teachers of the Future…

This article describes a real-life project currently being conducted in Burkina Faso--the bilingual education continuum--and explains its original and innovative aspects with respect to the teaching methods used and the development and process by which it is implemented in the schools. The article focuses on five main points: the status of…

In 1983, Mozambique started reviewing the education system that it had inherited from the Portuguese colonial administration. One of the innovations introduced into basic education is the time allocated to the local curriculum (LC) within the national curriculum (NC). The LC enables the communities, including the poorest and those furthest removed…

This article discusses an educational practice that has been introduced in Rwanda, which aims to bring back into the formal education system children who are out-of-school or unschooled, even though they are over the legal enrolment age. The authors analyse this intensive programme, designed for children at that age and adapted to their daily…

This article presents several questions, reflections and suggestions on pre-service and in-service teacher training that arose during the project "Curricular innovation and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa". While recognizing that the situation in the nine countries taking part in the project, and in many other countries in the southern…

This article provides a brief history of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). The CIES, initially the Comparative Education Society (CES), evolved from annual conferences at New York University begun in 1954 by William W. Brickman. CES was founded at the close of a subsequent conference (April 27, 1956), with Brickman as…

The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) has, throughout its 50 years of existence, exercised leadership in the field of comparative education. It was one of the five societies that founded the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) in 1970, an umbrella body that by 2006 brought together 35 national,…

The authors contend that the impact of the Cold War on multilateral organizations (especially UNESCO) as well as on the academic programs in Comparative and International Education or Development Studies in Education has been largely understudied. Both world-systems (USA and its allies, Soviet Union and its allies) laid claim on the project of…

This article enters into contemporary debates regarding methodology and training in comparative and international education by addressing epistemological questions about "what" can be known of the world and how it can be known through comparative research. We contend that debates over qualitative versus quantitative methods or area studies versus…

Recent scholarship across many ethnic groups in the United States has consistently shown strong gender differences favoring girls in educational outcomes. This paper examines four areas of research that may shed light on why immigrant girls tend to do better than boys in schools: parental expectations after migration, socialization at home,…

The ways in which refugees are assumed to adapt to United States society have serious consequences on their enjoyment and fulfillment in their schooling experiences. This is further compounded by the incorporation of refugees under a more general umbrella of "immigrant" studies. Here, excerpts are shared from an experiential study of fifteen…

This paper explores the plausibility of a hypothesis that puts forth perceived educational opportunity as a significant pull factor influencing Iranians' decisions to immigrate to the United States. Drawing on various literatures, including research on educational policy in Iran, government policy papers, and figures from recent studies and census…