The "Chronicle of Higher Education" recently reported that the number of doctoral degrees awarded in the U.S. rose 3.4 percent in 2004, largely because of an increase in foreign students [Smallwood (2005). Doctoral degrees rose 3.4% in 2004, survey finds. The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 9, 2005]. Currently, 20.9 percent [National…

During the past two decades institutions of all types have sought to expand and enhance residential facilities. Institutional focus on scale, configuration, amenities, and academic integration has sought to leverage prior research documenting the multiple and often positive impacts of on-campus residence. Although institutional size has been…

This study examined the unique and joint contributions of engineering students' classroom and out-of-class experiences on the development of two sets of skills central to students' successful performance as engineers: analytical and group skills. Although the study focuses on engineering, the conceptual underpinnings and criterion measures are…

Civic responsibility as an ideal of higher education is rarely considered through a cultural and theoretical lens. Swidler's (1986, "American Sociological Review", 51: 273-286) framework linking ideology, culture and action was used in this ethnographic study of a research university (a) to understand dominant institutional beliefs about civic…

Compulsory citizenship tests and ceremonies are some of the ways in which new British citizens must prove their commitment to their adopted nationality. Existing citizens, on the other hand, have to make no such outward show of commitment; neither do they have to prove any level of knowledge about the UK in order to claim their citizenship. These…

This article examines the particular strength of theater to raise questions about relations of gender and race. The authors consider the "rights" of youth and teachers in schools to use drama to critique their cultural contexts and connect these educational struggles to those of broader political, cultural, and social democratic life. The…

This article explores the use of ironic performance in education, particularly around issues of human rights. I examine my own efforts to engage audiences with the history of domestic espionage and sabotage by the intelligence agencies of the United States. This is a history well known to some marginalized counterpublics (see Fraser, 1997), but…

Joan Littlewood is best known for offering re-vitalized textual and visual interpretations of classic plays and for her work with new writers, animating representations of working-class life during the 1950s and early 1960s. This picture of Littlewood's contribution to British theater has cemented her reputation as one of the foremost directors of…

This article deals with a British Academy funded pilot project carried out in December 2005 and January 2006 involving six primary schools in Eritrea. The project was led by the author, Jane Plastow, a Theatre for Development academic and practitioner, and John Holmes, an educationalist. Both partners work at Leeds University and have involvement…

For over ten years, London's National Theatre, under the banner of "Connections", has been commissioning ten professional playwrights per year, each to write a play for young people. The plays are workshopped and performed by secondary schools, colleges and youth theatres across the United Kingdom and Ireland, and are presented in a series of…

The emerging sub-field of applied theater encompasses a wide range of pro-social 'alternative' theater practices, but it also refers to a discursive practice that seeks to reconcile the apparently contradictory claims of the politics of egalitarian redistribution and the politics of difference. The argument in this paper is that this emerging…

This article details how a unique educational project conducted through Tel Aviv University's Community Theatre program tackled the complex dynamics of the prison-political system over nine months in 2005-2006. The program focused on theatrical facilitations between mainly female students and male prisoners - two more or less homogeneous groups…

Community-based performance often facilitates participation through story-based processes and in this way could be seen as enacting a form of inclusive democracy. This paper examines a playback theater performance with a refugee and asylum seeker audience and questions whether inclusive, democratic participation can be fostered. It presents a…

The article addresses the issue of whether student learning style has an impact on use of a learning technology such as a virtual learning environment (VLE). It is based on material from a broader research project at a UK university (Kingston University) on the use of VLEs in teaching and learning and explores the findings from the analysis of…

This article describes part of the findings of a study requested by the (then) Teacher Training Agency (TTA) into the factors that support high quality initial teacher training (ITT) provision in England. The study had two chief aims. The first was to characterise successful trainees in terms of data already known about them using a dataset of all…