Background and purpose: Relatively little research has been conducted on methodology within Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). CHAT is mainly used as a framework for developmental processes. The purpose of this article is to discuss both focuses for research and research questions within CHAT and to outline methodologies that can be used…

Background: Political devolution occurred in the UK in 1998-99, following many years in which some degree of policy administration had been devolved to the four nations. Since devolution, all four countries of the UK have pursued increasingly divergent education policies. This is true in England in particular, where diversity, choice and…

Background: While current investments in school improvement occur in the context of the worldwide economic downturn, in the South African context, there is in addition widespread disparity in education provision and attainment related to pre-democracy race-based patterns. Despite the education sector receiving the largest national annual budget…

Background: Despite much discussion on the role of education policy on school and student performance, we know little about the effects of school spending at the margin on student cognitive achievement beyond the effects of class size. Purpose: The paper examines the effects of annual ninth grade classroom hours in literacy and maths on ninth…

Background: Budgets for teacher education programmes have been substantially reduced as a result of the global economic crisis. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the teacher education budget cutting processes and procedures for universities in Romania versus one university in the United States. Sample: The data were collected from…

Background: In a context of significant educational change and financial constraint, this paper explores ways to develop teacher learning. A recent review of teacher education ("Teaching Scotland's Future: Report of a review of teacher education in Scotland," Donaldson 2011) coincided with two factors impacting on teaching and learning in…

Background: Hong Kong is currently a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. It has autonomy over many policy areas, including finance and education. It is a community of seven million people, which has changed its focus and identity significantly over the last 25 years, from predominantly manufacturing to a service and…

Background: A newly elected centre-right coalition government in New Zealand was forced to deal with the cumulative fiscal consequences of two unforeseen challenges: a global financial crisis in September 2008 and two major seismic events in the country's second largest city in 2009 and 2010. This paper examines the way in which policies for…

Background: Teacher education in Scotland has developed its own trajectory for many years and this distinctiveness appears to have increased since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Teachers' pay and conditions were addressed in 2001 by the agreement "A teaching profession for the 21st century." This agreement led to a number of…

Background: Values continue to play an integral part in education across the globe, but the importance of teachers' personal values is often overlooked (Klein, M.B., "New teaching and teacher issues," Nova Science Publishers Inc., 2006; Aspin, D.N., and J.D. Chapman, eds, "Values education and lifelong learning: Principles, policies, programmes,"…

Many U.S. public school systems now face three large demographic shifts: rising poverty, the growing number of students from immigrant families, and increasing populations of students of color. Yet, we know little about how district policymakers react to these important changes or indeed the factors that consistently shape their policymaking.…

As expectations of the economic impact of educational attainment are soaring (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2009) and conjectures about successful national educational reforms (Mourshed, Chijioke, & Barber, 2010) are welcomed by educational policy-makers in many countries, a careful assessment of the empirical evidence for these kinds of claims is…

Background: Historically, the meaning of teacher competence has changed and is continuously being re-constructed along with changes in society as well as with shifting values and intentions in preschool guidelines and curricula. Over the past decade, Swedish preschool has been incorporated as a part of the educational system, and has received its…

Background: Children's rights education in schools has many social and educational benefits. Among them are a deeper understanding of rights and social responsibility, an improved school climate, and greater school engagement and achievement. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess whether children's rights education has the power to…

Three of the great social ambitions of educational reform since the late nineteenth century are now seriously problematical. Although education does offer individuals a way of bettering themselves, we now know that it does little to change the terms of the competition among people who start from different social classes: it probably does not, by…