China and Vietnam have experienced drastic social, economic and political changes, especially when these two socialist regimes have started economic reforms in the last few decades. In order to create more opportunities for higher education with limited national resources, both Chinese and Vietnamese governments have adopted strategies along the…

Prior to Poland's transition from central planning to a market system, which began in 1990, schools of business were non-existent in that country. Instead, university level instruction on economics during the socialist period was closely tied to ideological priorities, and limited to imparting skills suitable for planned economy. All universities…

The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of the influence of the private sector in all aspects of public education. Across the United States, test publishers, software companies, virtual charter school operators, and other industries are rapidly moving to take advantage of the significant revenues made available by public policies.…

The politics of rural educational leadership are both intense and concentrated. Rural educational leaders need to be savvy and politically skilled if they are to inspire educational stakeholders and accomplish organizational objectives. The local school system is an organization with a political culture that can be characterized as a competitive…

Two imperatives form the basis of the present paper. The first is the market-driven imperative, vital to production and value-chain development. The second is the knowledge imperative, central to the advancement of human capacity and institutional development. In view of these two imperatives, this paper argues for overhaul in extension toward a…

Neoliberalism is one of the most pervasive and contested concepts of our contemporary era. Thus, it is essential for students to gain an understanding of its history, meaning, assumptions, and policy prescriptions. In addition to recognizing the importance of neoliberalism in the current political discourse, I argue that the polarized responses to…

As state tax revenues plummet, some lawmakers and higher-education leaders are once again looking at loosening the bonds between state governments and public colleges to save money and give colleges the freedom to bolster their bottom lines in new ways. Over the past two decades, college officials have often lamented the growing need to secure…

Privatisation in higher education is not a new phenomenon for Western European countries. Authors like Geiger (1986), Levy (2008) and Altbach (1999) made challenging predictions in the 1970s and early 1980s that the private sector would inexorably diminish in size and significance. These predictions were triggered by globalisation and the…

The contributors to this special issue of "The Journal of Inquiry and Action" provide insight into why the Obama administration's educational policies manifest the dominance of neoliberal ideology over most elements of social life. The articles presented in this issue build on the work originally presented in "The Phenomenon of…

Drawing on a study of new forms of educational privatization, this article examines how ideas from institutional theory can be useful in analyzing the complex dynamics behind interim assessment technologies. The study was based on qualitative research methods and included interviews, a small-scale questionnaire, participant observation, and…

In 2008, the Florida state legislature, by a nearly unanimous vote, rushed passage on a statute that allowed sex segregation in public school classrooms. According to the version of the bill that passed through the Florida House, sex-segregated public school classrooms would be an expansion of school choice and would be implemented only…

This paper focuses on the deregulation of university education in Nigeria, its problems and prospects. The paper commences with the recognition given to education all over the world, especially higher education. Nigeria as a country gives much credence to higher education as the means for social and economic mobility, social transformation, and as…

This article examines how notions of "child" and "childhood" are produced in relation to recent early childhood policies in Ontario, Canada. It centers on an ongoing shift from Foucauldian disciplinary societies to Deleuzian control societies where it is argued that early childhood subjects (researchers, students, educators,…

Recent state and national policy has both reflected and helped to further an image of localities as parochial, reactionary, ineffective, and appropriately marginalized in the enterprise of school reform. Growing state and national roles (on one hand) and growing market and private sector inroads (on another) have the potential to undermine…

The entrance of for-profit charter schools into the public educational system is one of the most recent manifestations of market-based reforms in public education. Previous studies raise concerns over the marketisation of education and suggest that market reforms clearly change teacher attitudes and behaviour. Taking a public administration…