This article investigates neo-liberal policy on education in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Traditionally, the edifice of the education system in these Scandinavian countries has been built on egalitarian values, but over the last 20 years they have increasingly adopted market-led reforms of education. The extent of neo-liberal policy varies between…

Following political devolution in the late 1990s and the establishment of the governments for Wales and Scotland, the education systems of the four home countries of the UK have significantly diverged. Consequently, not only does that mean that education research in the UK has to be sensitive to such divergence, but that the divergence of policy…

This article presents a comparative analysis of two country-specific cases. The comparative analysis is situated within the broad domain of the changing knowledge economy landscape for educational policy. The two cases examine the transfer, embedding and enactment of policies during the interactions between supranational, national, institutional…

Within a single generation Nepal has seen a tremendous increase in higher education opportunities. This rapid growth has encouraged the participation of many young people from social groups previously unrepresented at university. A more questionable consequence however has been the growing divergence and complexity of the educational landscape…

Education hubs are important new developments. They represent a new generation of cross-border education activities where critical mass, co-location and connection between international, regional and local universities, students, research institutes and private industry are key. Different scales (city, zone and country) and types (student, talent,…

Despite the massive education sector of the country, the Philippines--being located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and the typhoon belt--is home to a number of natural instabilities that frequently disrupt the school calendar. Conflict areas in selected parts of the island of Mindanao and the remote geographic features of the country also pose…

In this paper we examine the role which distance, in a variety of forms, can play in the reproduction, intensification or reduction of educational inequality in different types of school systems in different countries. This is a very broad issue, and in the paper we examine the ways in which distance to school has emerged as an important factor in…

This article examines the synergy between a long established discipline, geography, and the younger discipline of educational studies, especially its component, comparative education. Although this synergy was recognised by the founding father of comparative education, Michael Sadler, and one of his principal followers, George Bereday, the…

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate what impact new regimes of management and governance, including new managerialism, have had on perceptions of gender equality at universities in three Western European countries. While in accordance with national laws and EU directives, contemporary current management approaches in universities…

In this study, we used the broaden-and-build theory and emotional response theory as the framework to examine the effects of instructors' positive emotions on student engagement and critical thinking in U.S. and Chinese classrooms, as well as the mediating role of students' positive emotions in their relationships. MANOVA results…

Comparative research on education in small states has attracted international attention since the mid-1980s when the Commonwealth sponsored a number of seminal meetings and publications, and became a key advocate for the advancement of such work. This article considers the place of different dimensions of scale in comparative research; re-examines…

Ella Josephine Baker (1903-1986), an African-American human rights activist, influenced the trajectory of the modern civil rights movement with her emphasis on local action, liberative pedagogy, and grassroots involvement. She modeled a pedagogy of liberation convinced that grassroots efforts at participatory democracy could empower diverse…

The author argues that if we are to foster life-giving and liberating moral reflection, we must first liberate moral reflection from distortions; specifically, from the distorting effects of moral insensitivity, destructive moral relativism, and confusions resulting from a failure to understand the dynamics of moral reflection. The author proposes…

When people of faith participate in movements for social change, how are their religious and moral identities formed, challenged, and transformed? Although they have explicit and tangible goals as they participate in advocacy, protest, and boycotts, religious social activists also, James Jasper argues, craft "lives worth living" (1997).…

Participation in the arts is a form of practical reason and as such has the potential to form and transform the faith of individuals. The findings from Katherine M. Douglass's 2011 study on the role of the arts in the faith lives of young adults provides examples of the transformative potential of the arts as they foster expression,…