While there are many difficulties faced by world language educators, both teachers and students of certain languages--languages commonly identified with countries and cultures deemed to be hostile to the United States--often find themselves in uniquely paradoxical situations. This article begins with a brief anecdotal description of the personal…

Higher Education as a Field of Study is multi-disciplinary in its origin. Given the relative youth of the field, as it was only founded less than 130 years ago, it does not yet have standalone theories or philosophies as the scholarship in the field frequently borrows from its epistemological, methodological, and philosophical ideas from more…

Six years after "Brown v. Board of Education", Atlanta reluctantly complied with the order to desegregate its school system rather than risk having schools closed due to noncompliance. Out of 132 students, nine black high school seniors desegregated four of Atlanta's all-white high schools. The purpose of this study is to explore and…

For decades, the humanistic disciplines--particularly history and philosophy of education--have justified themselves as an essential part of professional training for educators by characterizing themselves as the "foundations of education." This justification, the author will argue, has been weakened in recent years, and as a consequence…

Drawing from the existing body of data and research on the community education concept, effective schools, and standards-based reforms, this essay examines educational achievement in the United States corresponding to and resulting from reform movements and political actions. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is reviewed in…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent an historic shift in K-12 curricular policy. Yet,few have explicitly traced the lineage of the CCSS and linked them to the decades-old standards-based reform movement. This essay situates the CCSS within the larger historical context of standards-based reform. It concludes with a discussion of…

In a seven-year study of new experimental colleges, Grant and Riesman (1978) report that within those schools "The utopian impulses are strong, representing a search for a more perfect union." One of the most radical of those experiments was Minnesota Metropolitan State College (MMSC). In addition to having no campus, the school had no…

If the Foundations of Education are in danger of becoming extinct, Gregg Jorgensen, associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Western Illinois University, says a critical reexamination of how the ideological foundations of American education impact the development and growth of democratic ideals is long overdue. He…

The idea of breaking free from outdated ideas and practices is nothing new. It is an idea advocated by individuals like Aristotle, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. In 1935 Dewey asserted that he viewed education and schooling as the ideal setting for democracy's gestation. He believed that a democratic way of life could best be achieved by…

Much of the history and study of leadership in general has omitted "other" perspectives in the literature. The same is true in educational leadership in general, and the principalship in particular. The discourse of the history of African Americans and their struggle to achieve equity in education has been enhanced by the work of noted scholars.…

Educational policy and practice has resided and continues to reside at the vortex of social and political strife in South Africa, as in the United States. Although school poverty and inequities among schools in the U.S. pale in comparison to conditions in South Africa, the two nations have much in common, including histories of state-sanctioned…

African-American student achievement outcomes have been and continue to be a critical concern for education researchers. Much of the framing of African-American student outcomes centers on what is known as achievement gaps that exist between African-American and White students. Unfortunately, these gaps have remained roughly the same since the…

Today the Kamehameha Schools are widely known for excellent education. In part this is due to the almost $9 billion dollar value of the Bishop Estate that funds and controls the schools. Unfortunately, its success has led to non-Hawaiians challenging its admissions policy, which has since its inception been based upon admitting Native Hawaiian…

Ellen Condliffe Lagemann's (2000) "An Elusive Science" provides the most comprehensive history of education as a field of academic study. As such it is important for those in the education community to read and reflect upon the text in order to take stock of the field. Foundations scholars who read Lagemann's work may be struck by a stark irony,…

The history of normal school education remains an area of study that has attracted relatively little attention from educational historians in recent years, although a growing body of literature is emerging. Nonetheless, early normal schools in New England and the Midwest have received greater attention than those established in the Southwest.…