This article highlights key theoretical and methodological issues and implications of being an insider/outsider when undertaking qualitative research in international educational settings. It first addresses discourses of "self" and "other," noting that identity and belonging emerge from fluid engagement between researchers and…

This article addresses issues of methodology and ethical reflexivity when attempting to investigate the opinions of young people. Drawing specifically on three studies of young people's understandings of citizenship and their views on topical issues, two from England and one from Lebanon, the authors present ways in which the ethical and…

The flight of human capital is a phenomenon that has been of concern to academics and development practitioners for decades. Unfortunately, there is no systematic record of the number of skilled professionals that many African countries have continued to lose to the developed world. Termed the "brain drain", it represents the loss of…

This article highlights the rationale for Namibia's participation in three studies which were conducted under the auspices of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) during the period 1995-2007. The article provides some of the innovative ways in which the results of the first (SACMEQ I, 1995)…

There is a growing number of students enrolling in community colleges in the United States. Many of these students are looking to transfer credits earned from the community college to four-year institutions, while others are simply looking to enter into the skilled workforce. With the increase in general enrollment and the demand for more…

In this article, the authors review International Large-Scale Assessment (ILSA)-based research over the last several decades, with specific attention on cross-national analysis of mean differences between and variation within countries in mathematics education. They discuss the role of sampling design and "opportunity to learn" (OTL)…

Drawing on the conceptual work of externalisation in comparative education and multi-accentual signs in cultural studies, this article examines how the print news media accentuate "Finnish education" in the process of inserting this external reference into the domestic political discourses around education reform in Australia, Germany…

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) play a distinct role in the United States' decentralized federal education system. Separate from national and state assessments, they offer an external, objective measure for the United States to assess student performance comparatively with other countries and over time. The US engagement in…

One challenge for comparative research is providing a convincing and comprehensive account of how social and political value positions translate into situated acts of teaching; or bringing values and practice together to allow teaching embedded in one context to be compared with teaching embedded in another so as to better inform educationalists…

Photo elicitation has become an important method to produce data in qualitative research. There is quite an extensive literature indicating the benefits of photo elicitation in order to facilitate collaboration in meaning making between researcher and the interviewee. This article addresses dilemmas associated with using photo elicitation in a…

For many years there has been research on study abroad, student mobility and international student exchange; however in the last two decades the volume and scope of this work has increased significantly. There are now specific academic journals, a host of new books each year, expansive reports by international research organizations, and an…

As a result of China's growing participation and importance in the process of internationalization and globalization a continuously rising number of Chinese students has gone abroad for further study. By the end of the last decade the number of Chinese students abroad made up the largest group of international students in the USA (surpassing those…

This article discusses methodological issues associated with education research in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and describes strategies taken to address them. Within a case study, mixed methods allowed the author to examine school leaders' perceptions multi-dimensionally. Multi-level analysis was essential to the understanding of policy-making…

In this article, the author draws together the diverse approaches to equity and widening participation found in the innovative international research conducted in Ghana and Tanzania by contrast with those in the "global North", using the United Kingdom as a case study. In particular, the author considers the utility of equity scorecards around the…

The language of formative assessment, sometimes referred to as "assessment for learning" (AFL), is becoming ubiquitous within international educational discourse. Despite this, levels of common understanding might be considered questionable since the concept appears to have been subject to many different interpretations and to have resulted in…