The aim of this study is to provide a retrospective on the reorganisation of the school network in Portugal between 2005 and 2007. Underlying measures predicted the closure of approximately 2000 primary schools, mainly situated in rural areas. This is a current topic of considerable controversy considering the reform which is being implemented and…

Official reports on primary education are a bit like London buses. You wait ages and then three come along at once. There has been no major report on primary education since the 1967 Plowden Report "Children and their Primary Schools". Now, final reports are awaited from the Cambridge Primary Review and the government-appointed…

The aim of this study is to examine and evaluate the basic structure of changes in primary educational curricula in Turkey since the establishment of Republic. The study is mainly qualitative and is based on literature and document analyses and teaching curricular reviews. The research findings indicate that primary educational reforms in Turkey…

The paper is based on a research conducted to evaluate primary education in the light of education policies and plans in Pakistan. This article discusses the objectives of primary education, and analyzes different education policies and plans regarding the achievements of objectives. Results revealed that the objectives of primary education were…

During the twenty to twenty-five years after World War II, children in the United States were increasingly taught to understand their nation, its history, and its economic greatness--as an "economy"--rather than in social, moral, philosophical, or political terms. During this time period, not only did an economics education movement…

One of the most important issues in Tibetan education is resolving the problem of instruction language in the Tibetan regions. This paper provides a preliminary exploration of this issue and makes some proposals based on the bilingual state of today's education in the Tibetan regions and the needs of Tibetan as a language of instruction for social…

This article examines the controversy that ensued when the Education Department of the province of Ontario, Canada, granted the tender to publish elementary school readers to the T. Eaton Company, a department store, in 1909. This decision eliminated an important source of income for retail booksellers, who could not compete with the consumer…

This monograph examines progress in, and policies for, access to elementary education over the past 60 years, the role played by political factors in the process of policy formulation and implementation and the drivers and inhibitors of the implementation of reforms in elementary education in recent years in India. Drawing on interviews and…

This research examines "lesson study" as a traditional model of creating professional knowledge in schools. "Lesson study," typically defined as teachers' classroom based collaborative research, has a long history in Japan as a shared professional culture with potential for enhancing learning, enriching classroom activities and…

This study explored how multi-generational, middle-class, fifth-graders from Latino families responded to classroom discussions of social issues--particularly discrimination--and draws upon sociocultural views of culture, educational theory, and sociological perspectives of immigration to provide insight into the learning experiences of one group…

With the introduction of arithmetic as a compulsory part of the elementary school curriculum in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany, textbooks and pedagogical methods were wanted. Relying on the traditions of the Rechenbucher and informed by the demand for method found in Wolffian style advanced textbooks, the first generation of…

A debate over the quality of teacher education programs has been ongoing for nearly 100 years. The most current round in this debate started with "A Nation at Risk" (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) and has escalated in recent years to involve an increasing number of participant-constituents, each of whom has voiced…

In the 1920s and 1930s, Paul R. Hanna and Harold O. Rugg developed new textbooks that integrated social studies curriculum in the elementary grades for the first time. Each author's curriculum; Hanna's expanding environments framework and Rugg's recurring concepts with a focus on contemporary issues has significantly impacted today's elementary…

On March 3, 1963, nine-year-old Jack Chase of Torrance, California, wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy. In his single-page note, featured in this article, Jack described his plans for staying physically fit. He said he would walk to school, the store, and the library "because I know a strong boy makes a strong man and a strong man makes a…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the reform syndrome, bottle-neck effects and their impacts on teachers and school education in the last ten years and highlight the direction of new developments. Design/methodology/approach: The paper examines educational reforms in Hong Kong in the last decade. Findings: Echoing the international trends of…