Using PISA data for 16 Western OECD countries having comprehensive school systems, we explore the conditions under which the socioeconomic composition of schools affects educational efficiency and equality, to a greater or lesser extent. First, a multilevel analysis is applied to examine and compare the effect of school socioeconomic composition…

This study explores the expansion of international education focusing on International Baccalaureate (IB) schools in England, France, Israel, Argentina, and Chile. As a whole, conditions such as economic globalization and neoliberal education policies favor the expansion of IB schools. Certain national contexts and educational traditions encourage…

The world environmental movement has gained much strength in recent decades and has led many nations to focus on environmental education. We examine the extent to which this global movement has helped change national textbooks. We also consider the effects of national development, national policy on environmentalism, and the general expansion of…

This article explores intergenerational perspectives on the link between secondary schooling and employment held by students, parents, and teachers in Ndola, Zambia. The author argues that the differentiated meanings of schooling must be understood in light of the economic effects of the shift away from a state-controlled economy during the…

Despite the tremendous expansion in education access worldwide, countries differ dramatically both in primary and secondary enrollment rates and in student achievement. Although per capita income explains a great deal of the difference, schooling outcomes vary sharply even among countries at similar income levels. This study asks whether…

This article explores the theoretical underpinnings of citizenship education as well as issues relating to educational practice to identify and discuss challenges that divided societies, which are characterized by conflicting national or cultural identities, may face in the development and implementation of such programs. Formal education…

The global politics of reconciliation provide a blueprint for postconflict reconstruction projects around the world, including in South Africa, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). Of these, the B&H case is of particular interest due to the extensive involvement of some of the world's most powerful states and leading…

The ways in which British Afro-Caribbean students used resistance or contestation to negotiate teacher-student power relations are illustrated, using data from an ethnographic study of school exclusions in five English secondary schools. Situated in their wider racial and gendered positions, students' resistance was a response to their experience…

Twentieth-century data on the numbers of students completing university matriculation examinations in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden were used to study the expansion of secondary academic education. The long-term regularity in the expansion and the differential growth curve for the two sexes suggest that the state was not…

Rapid growth of private secondary schools in Tanzania in the 1990s was fueled by excess demand and looser government policies. Longitudinal data on secondary school characteristics and student performance suggest that the expansion was accompanied by declining access for disadvantaged students, high teacher turnover, and narrow interschool…

In Israel, secondary curriculum differentiation (more diverse course offerings) was related to greater course-taking diversity, student selection of higher-level courses, higher average achievement, and greater equality of achievement. In the United States, which does not have Israel's high-stakes examination system, diverse course offerings were…

Modeled on Hampton Institute (Virginia) and Tuskegee Institute (Alabama), Achimota College in colonial Gold Coast (later Ghana) provided Black students with "adapted education" in agriculture and industrial arts, suitable for a life of manual labor. This case of international educational transfer is analyzed from the perspective of the politics of…

In Thailand, secondary school enrollments for males and females were negatively related to employment opportunities in the agricultural sector and positively related to opportunities in the manufacturing and service sectors. In Kenya, school supply, school quality, and service-sector employment positively influenced enrollments. Adult literacy…

Examines the implementation in eastern Germany of western Germany's much-praised "dual system" of vocational education, in which students divide their time between work and school. Focuses on the role of European Union (EU) programs and funding that supported this transition. Includes information on specific EU education and training projects. (SV)

Explores patterns of recent ideological changes in the content of 12 Russian secondary school textbooks in the social sciences and humanities. Shows that textbook content has shifted from a consistent representation of key dogmas of Marxism-Leninism toward a contradictory combination of the ideological symbols of nationalism, Westernism, and…