Current trends toward international accountability and standards adoption is strongly influenced by economic globalization forces as nations attempt to become competitive in the global market and try to shape their education systems to provide those skills needed in the growing global economy. As more rigorous research helps to uncover the…

The 2002 restructuring of the national curriculum in all Japanese public elementary and secondary schools includes a reduction and reallocation of instructional hours, and the addition of a new "integrated studies" course, with an emphasis on more individualized, cross-curricular thematic projects. This reform comes at a time when a stagnant…

For almost 200 years German teacher education has remained relatively stable in its core characteristics. In this paper, the present process of fundamental change is analyzed with regard to consequences for the structure of teacher education, accountability mechanisms, and the concepts of the ideal teacher. The implementation of Bachelor and…

Influenced by worldwide globalization forces new structures of control have emerged in Mexico at the school level, and career ladders reward teachers' compliance with testing and training schemes; nevertheless the long-standing institutions of initial teacher education continue to show a strong resistance to change. Increased accountability is…

The paper discusses the process whereby a system of teacher evaluation was established in Chile through a lengthy and complicated process of negotiations between the three main institutions concerned: the Teachers' Union, the Association of Chilean Municipalities (managers of the public school system) and the Ministry of Education. The process is…

Efforts beginning in the 1990s to raise the qualifications and quality of China's teachers have brought about new regulations, standards and systems of accountability. Reflecting broader economic, social and political changes, new policies have moved to create more standard definitions of teacher quality and common forms of accountability. Yet…

The Opportunity-to-Learn framework has provided policymakers and researchers a means to develop strategies to measure classroom practices. In particular, the measure of the delivered content has been shown to be a good predictor of student achievement on tests. The method presented in this article uses classroom artifacts as the main data source…

Vancouver high school honors and university award lists are crowded with Asian names. But do these abilities in face-to-face settings extend to the Internet, which is the centerpiece of distributed learning? The purpose of this study was to measure the extent to which Internet knowledge varied as a function of age, sex, and language spoken at…

This article contributes to the knowledge base on professional development (PD) by reporting on teachers' perspectives of their PD experiences when learning alongside children. Teachers participated in a six-step program of research entitled "In-service in context: Learning science and technology in elementary classrooms" (ISIC). ISIC represents…

Motivational influences on the decision to pursue graduate studies in secondary music education were investigated. The population of secondary music education graduate students in one large Canadian university (N=13) completed a survey that included both open-ended and closed-ended response items. The greatest motivational influences to pursue…

Using focus groups and individual interviews, student teachers' perspectives on their program's design and delivery were examined. Data analysis using constant comparison revealed a set of 10 essential elements for effective teacher education programs: diverse student bodies, effective program faculty, useful curricula and pedagogy, theory into…

This article addresses Alberta's conservative political and social milieu with attention to teachers engaged with their students in school activism on social justice issues. Its purpose is to shed light on the experiences of teachers who address extremism through school-based activism with young people. A brief historical overview of Canada's…

In 2005-6 a team from the NFER carried out an evaluation of the implementation of Renaissance Learning mathematics and reading programs in selected Specialist (secondary) and feeder (primary) schools in London. The research involved matching schools implementing the programs (14 "treatment" schools) with 7 similar schools where the program was not…

This paper is based on the assumption that action research always affects the micropolitical balance characteristic of a certain school setting. The authors claim that micropolitics, that is the patterns of formal power and informal influence, has largely been neglected in the literature on action research in schools. This means that action…

The aim of the study was to describe students' and teacher educators' practical experience with action research and to identify a number of special points for consideration (opportunities and limitations) which could play a role in putting research into practice in concrete terms in the courses. Students and teacher educators on three Dutch…