While the Chinese government is in full force to narrow the gap between its rural and urban areas in all facets of development, it has been suggested that there are disparities in teacher quality in the two dichotomous territories, especially in terms of promoting children's cognitive trajectory. To unpack specifically the differences of the two…

Under current test-driven educational accountability policies, there has been a debate about school effectiveness. As conventionally measured by test scores in academic subjects, school effectiveness is often limited and potentially biased. With increasing emphasis on preparing students with both cognitive and noncognitive competencies,…

This research investigated followers' expectations of their heads of departments (HoDs) and how they felt about the fulfilment of the expectations within the context of Ghanaian higher education. It further explored the nature of the challenges the HoDs faced as they tried to meet followers' expectations. The research used a phenomenological…

Education plays an important role in the successful settlement and life outcomes of young people from refugee backgrounds. Because of this, research into young people from refugee backgrounds in education systems tends to focus on examples of "good practice" in terms of how these young people experience education. Yet, examples of good…

Globally, education improvement aims to address the critical area of quality teaching and learning. A common emphasis on quality tends to create a binary of 'active' teaching methods and rote learning, while the teaching and learning processes have remained a black box in many contexts. This study explores teaching practices in natural classroom…

This study examined whether there are significant differences between effective, average, and ineffective urban schools with regard to (a) students' classroom behavior and (b) students' perceptions of their classroom learning environment. Students from four effective, average, and ineffective urban elementary schools that served predominantly…

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory research project that examines what aspiring principals in Singapore think a good principal is, based on a framework of personal, interpersonal, and organizational dimensions of school leadership. According to the findings, a good principal has a moral purpose centered on personal values, a humble…

The meteoric increase in technological advancement in the last few decades has dramatically transformed how people live their lives. Innovation is seen to be essential as it ensures sustainable growth in a knowledge-based economy and a competitive global marketplace. Consequently, enabling innovation to occur becomes of prime concern to educators…

The current U.S. education agenda places unprecedented attention on improving the quality of its roughly fifteen hundred teacher preparation programs. The effort places considerable weight on measuring program effectiveness and includes a push to hold programs accountable for their graduates' effects on student performance. Concerns regarding the…

Following a major shift in Swiss teacher education in the 1990s, teachers are now educated at the university level with a more research-oriented focus than before the reform. Furthermore, the curriculum in teacher education is not only more academically oriented, but also concurrently practice-focused. Swiss student teachers are highly involved in…

This research aims to investigate democratic environments offered to children in Turkey at school, in the home, and in society. A mixed method is a general type of research where qualitative and quantitative methods are used together. The researcher first collects quantitative and then the qualitative data. The study group in the research…

This article discusses the nature, power and effects of neo-liberal rationale in educational settings. By introducing discourse analysis of two cases, the influence of neo-liberal ideology on contemporary curricula and school programs were examined. The analysis showed that dominant discourses based on neo-liberal rationale presented themselves as…

This article explores the discourse of international educational reform that aims at meeting the various challenges of globalisation and a knowledge-based economy and preparing students for a better future in the twenty-first century. Specifically, it reviews the dominant themes, trends and goals of modern education. It does so by exploring the…

This study explores the different ways in which the notion of multiculturalism in Japan has been influenced by various social and historical trajectories. Since the Japanese government started to promote "internationalization" in the 1980's, slogans such as "international exchange," "cultural exchange," and…

While school decentralisation policy in Nepal has been taking effect for more than 8 years with the financial and technical assistance of the World Bank, confusion and controversy have been prevalent in relation to its goals, outcomes and sustainability. This article explores the issues of school decentralisation in Nepal by relating the Bank's…