Equity is the most significant problem educators face. Very large inequities and inequalities persist in both education and society. Why? What can be done about them? While much has been written about these issues, progress is very slow and there is little agreement on why or what to do. While this article cannot resolve these questions, it raises…

Schools in the most deprived areas in Brazil are marked by extreme poverty, a situation that has obvious consequences for the everyday life in schools and for efforts to develop a supportive culture of schooling. Nevertheless, schools' responses to poverty are far from uniform. Although the context of poverty generally determines what is…

This article reports on a study of community participation in School "for" Life, a complementary education programme operating in northern Ghana. The researchers investigated three components of community participation: the nature of the mechanisms used to engage community members as participants in the education process; the actors who…

This article has three purposes. First, it presents findings from a study of student retention and dropout in Cambodia, as pupils transition from primary to lower secondary school. Second, it aims to understand from an in-depth, emic perspective the dynamics of this process and the challenges that individual families and their students face around…

The educational challenges girls face are often explained by economics. However, gender norms and identities, constructed historically but subject to change, also play a crucial role. In Kenya, little attention has been paid to the negative social constructions that keep girls from attaining the education they want. This article analyses the role…

This article offers a definition of prejudice and then reviews the literature on relevant theories of its development and methods to identify and map it. It then discusses how prejudice is institutionalised and legitimised in schools, before turning to the main thrust of its investigation: the extent to which international education (K-12) can…

This paper analyzes the parent decision-making processes underlying school selection in Nepal. The analysis is based on primary survey and focus group data collected from parent meetings in diverse local education markets in two districts of Nepal in 2011. It highlights three main arguments that are less frequently discussed in the context of…

In 2009, a reform in teachers' pay, linking remuneration to performance, was implemented in China. The intention was to improve the quality of education by making teachers more diligent and creative and removing the inequality in pay between teachers in different schools. A review of this reform reveals that it has resolved the problem of…

Young people in Africa encounter many difficulties in entering the labour market and in searching for decent and productive jobs. Research on the links between formal education and vocational training and their economic returns are especially crucial in understanding the inadequate demand for their labour. This article presents evidence based on…

The international literature contains few formal analyses of the state of Colombian higher education and its most critical issues. This article systematically and comparatively analyzes the emergence of Colombian doctoral programmes within a national and international context. It shows that, while Colombia has experienced a significant growth in…

The article describes an approach towards a fully transformed university, coined Integral University. Linking Education (E), Research (R), Activation (A) and Catalysation (C), it can "CARE" for individual, organisation, communal and societal development. Within it, theory and practice, knowledge creation and transformative action go hand…

At a time of unprecedented multiple crises threatening life on earth, the wholesale transformation of cultures and societies has never been more imperative. This article draws on insights and experiences of a group of women leaders who met in Oxford in October 2013, for five days of intensive thinking and discussion on the emerging future. They…

This article highlights some of the key issues in current discussions around curriculum, such as values education, inclusive education, competency-based approaches, soft and hard skills, and scientific and digital culture. It starts with the assumption that quality education for all is necessary to achieve social justice, and it looks at curricula…

This paper describes the effect that assistive technologies, such as paper, printing, protractors, logarithm tables, computers, and the Internet, have on pedagogy. It reports the results of experiments with self-organising systems in primary education and develops the concept of a self-organised learning environment (SOLE). It then describes how…

United Nations development goals have consistently placed a high priority on the quality of education--and of learning. This has led to substantive increases in international development assistance to education, and also to broader attention, worldwide, to the importance of children's learning. Yet, such goals are mainly normative: they tend…