Over the past decade, international and national education agencies have begun to emphasize the improvement of the quality (rather than quantity) of education in developing countries. This trend has been paralleled by a significant increase in the use of educational assessments as a way to measure gains and losses in quality of learning. As…

The aftermath of the international financial crisis of 2008/2009 and current economic downturn in the world economy has unsurprisingly put publicly-funded higher education (HE) systems under immense pressure in most parts of the world. Added to measures of the past 20 years, aiming at introducing cost effective management approaches imported from…

The year 2015 is the deadline for most of the Education for All (EFA) goals. As this date gets closer, reviews about what has been done and reflection about future agendas will multiply. This Forum aims to contribute such a pressing debate, bringing together contributors from key international organisations within the EFA movement. They are…

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…

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,…

This article presents a "COMPARE" forum specifically designed for research students. The forum reflects a view from the ground on what is considered to be a pertinent and deeply personal issue among international research students, and also an issue of concern for the higher-education sector in the UK: that of the recently announced cutbacks for…

This article reflects on and discusses Central and Eastern European (CEE) learners' adaptability and achievement in one English post-1992 university. There appears to be a scarcity of studies of values, beliefs, attitudes and needs as well as achievement (and factors contributing to it) between CEE and other learners. Since the expansion of the…

For many, 1 March 2011 is a significant date. On the one hand, it was the day that David Mitchell, the international development secretary, presented the key outcomes of two major reviews on international aid to the Houses of Parliament; and on the other, 1 March was the date chosen for the simultaneous launch of the 2011 Global Monitoring Report…

This paper presents the author's response to "Global security, religion and education development: a crisis for the field of comparative and international education?" Prof. Lynn Davies's introduction to the Forum is interesting and provocative, and the author advances his response in the spirit of dialogue by looking at Davies's arguments, the…

Violent conflict and humanitarian disasters such as floods, famines, or tsunamis, have existed since the start of human history. However, it is only recently that education in these emergency situations has emerged as a visible organizational field. We aim to use a unique theoretical application of sociological neo-institutionalism to explain the…

This paper views seeking the optimal balance between state strengths and the scope of state functions for "good governance" as the formation of a homogenization-heterogenization matrix of policy initiatives in different social settings. Homogenization refers to a global tendency for institutional changes and governance framework to change state…

As a result of chronic poverty many people in South Asia experience poor quality schooling, interrupted schooling, or no schooling at all. People affected by poverty face multiple constraints on wellbeing, which typically include informal employment, low wages and poor health. In such contexts the benefits and, more specifically, the "returns" to…

With the rise of network society, consumerism, individualization, globalization and contemporary change forces, students are pressured to both perform well in standardized academic assessments while at the same time constructing a non-standard, unique project of the self. I argue that this generates a particular set of place-based tensions for…

Higher education institutions seem to be becoming increasingly flexible with different functions. Most universities' mission statements involve teaching, research and service, but while the teaching and research missions are clearly defined and located within certain areas of the university activities, service is less clear and more ambiguous,…

This article focuses on social agents' own understandings of socio-economic mobility and social achievement, exploring the possibilities offered by the tool of "family" life history in the context of formerly Untouchable communities in western India, Maharashtra. While arguing in favour of family life histories as both resource and method in the…