This article focuses on the Cuban education system, which is well known for its focus on inclusion and equality of opportunity, but also for its focus on political and ideological conformity. The economic crisis in Cuba has led to an educational crisis as well, both in terms of teacher shortages and a decrease in quality and in…

Refugee young people are an educationally diverse group. However, unlike groups such as Gypsy/Roma and Travellers, in the UK they do not attract targeted educational funding. In addition, neither the UK integration or refugee educational strategies nor the Higher Education Funding Council for England's strategic plan refer to higher education as a…

Based on the work of Bourdieu, this paper analyses how far formal education within a revolutionary setting can act as a "strategy-generating" institution in terms of enabling women to aspire to and achieve goals they would not even have envisaged pre-revolution. In making its case, it draws on the examples of three revolutionary societies: Vietnam…

Family literacy programmes have become increasingly popular with policy-makers as a means of addressing low levels of adult literacy. It is believed that such initiatives will help to address social exclusion and aid greater economic participation by those in deprived communities or from disadvantaged sectors of society. The growing interest in…

Gender inequality exists within higher education in the UK and Germany. In the UK only 15.3% of professors in pre-and post-1992 universities were women (2003), whilst in Germany only 8.6% attained the highest grade of professorship (2003). The research uses existing data sets combined with theoretical constructs to investigate the reasons for…

The article addresses the issue of possible curriculum models in post-conflict countries, taking as an example the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1996 and 2004. Following the Dayton agreement, the education system in Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided between 13 ministries administering different Bosnian, Serb and Croat cantons. Despite…

This article analyzes the common educational challenges faced by curriculum developers in the UK at the turn of the 21st century and the steps taken to address them by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England and the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland. The paper explores how the solutions emerging…

The increasing importance of schools and learning in the changing patterns of work and society is widely recognized. However, implementing and sustaining educational reforms pose major problems in all countries. This paper briefly: (1) summarizes conceptual trends in implementing educational change, (2) reviews the complexities of educational…

The article analyzes curriculum processes and products pertaining to the overall reconstruction of Afghanistan's education system after 2002. With the support of several international agencies, including UNESCO's International Bureau of Education (IBE), as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Afghanistan's Ministry of Education succeeded…

The article documents the complex process of changing Argentina's science curriculum and implementing those changes over the last 15 years. It recounts how reformers tackled the challenges of balancing national (federal) unity in education with local (provincial) autonomy from the political, social and pedagogical points of view. It also analyzes…

This article recounts the battle in the "math wars" that took place in Massachusetts, United States in 1999-2000 over the scope, content and teaching of the state's K-12 mathematics curriculum. Harsh controversies arose between the partisans of a "reform-math" movement stressing an undefined "conceptual understanding" and student-created…

This article explores the theoretical foundations of "social cohesion" as it relates to higher education institutions. In so doing it seeks (a) to understand the core elements of social cohesion--social capital, human capital and ethical behavioral norms that serve a common good--and (b) to establish a flexible framework for understanding the…

This article analyses the situation of the right to education in Europe, based on a comparative study of the recommendations made by the Committee on the Rights of the Child with respect to the reports submitted to the Committee by the European States Parties. The primary sources used are the Committee's concluding observations and the individual…

This study explores the role of public Islamic higher education in promoting better relations between various religious communities in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Based on field research conducted between December 2005 and March 2006, it documents how progressive Islamic education leaders have advanced a tradition of critical intellectualism in…

This paper discusses the results of a study of faculty and university staff at two major universities in the Netherlands: the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam. I sought to understand how faculty viewed the role of the university in relationship to national and European goals promoting social cohesion and the integration…