The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize the state of social construction of learning in virtual communities within online learning environments and to identify the advances and research challenges of social learning. The method was a systematic mapping to analyze the evidence published on the topic in 2015-2020. We automatically…

In inclusive education, Disability Studies is a framework that has been useful for identifying gaps in theory, in practice and the spaces in between. Disability Studies in Education also provides new spaces in which to manoeuvre, re-framing theory, reflecting on and (potentially) shifting practice in classrooms, schools, and national policies and…

Purpose: This paper explores the economic and social effects of human capital investment in the 20th century. As well as drawing on census data and statistical yearbooks in Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the paper develops its argument by an intersection of scholarly work in sociology, economics and the history of education to consider the…

In this article, I first critique neoliberal effects on the Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary education sector and then provide a close-up look at tertiary education in the Bay of Plenty region. Information is based on aspects of my doctoral research which was located across three tertiary education organisations comprising the Bay of Plenty Tertiary…

The paper examines the transfer of the Bologna Process (BP) outside Europe, focusing on its "external dimension" and dynamics in global settings. It argues that the BP impacts on the internationalisation activities of universities, especially with regard to cross-border transparency of qualifications, transnational improvement of quality…

Despite all intentions in the course of the Bologna Process and decades of investment into improving the social dimension, results in many national and international studies show that inequity remains stubbornly persistent, and that inequity based on socio-economic status, parental education, gender, country-of-origin, rural background and more…

We know little about how internationalisation processes are understood, rationalised and prioritised in different parts of the world. A global survey of internationalisation in universities was undertaken at the University of Southampton to fill this gap. Its purpose was to discover how strategic leaders in universities in different parts of the…

There is disagreement in the literature regarding the influence of social and cultural factors on the propensity for young people to undertake higher education. This study draws upon a national data set of over 45,000 young people to assesses their propensity to progress to bachelor level study, while controlling for their ethnic backgrounds,…

Reviews values evident in early discussions about the social effects of distance education in New Zealand. Public debates and emergent literature are characterized by extreme positions indicating deep value conflicts. Most discussions were driven by ideological commitment to principles, such as egalitarianism, communitarianism, and…

This paper argues that the current skill strategies of New Labour (in England) and the Labour-led Coalition (in New Zealand) are part of a broader project to construct contrasting markets in education and training. On one hand, the skill strategies are helping to construct open education and training markets through creating institutional-based…

This paper is concerned with the teaching of undergraduate university courses on "women and education" or "the sociology of women's education" in the 1990s to pre-service and practicing teachers, some of whom are fearful of, or even hostile to, feminism. The paper consists of four parts: the first part presents the feminist…

The educational assessment quality assurance and control practices of Germany, Sweden, France, New Zealand, and Australia are compared to illustrate the considerable variety of approaches and some of the social factors that contribute to this variety. In Germany there is considerable variation from one province to another, and quality assurance…

This collection of papers investigates change and compares university education experiences worldwide, looking at it from the perspective of numbers of students, range of institutions, funding, institutional functions, boundaries, and directions, orientation of students and staff, and institutional change. After an introduction by Tom Schuler,…