Not long ago, public education in Ontario, Canada, was in deep trouble. Student achievement was stagnating, labor disruptions were rampant, and public satisfaction with the schools was low. In 2003, a new provincial government initiated a series of reforms that embodied a positive, outcome-focused agenda for public education. Today, student…

In 1989, the Japan Teachers' Union, Nikkyoso, split into two unions after 2 years of factional infighting. Japan has two political camps, the governing conservative Liberal Democratic Party and the left-wing Japan Socialist Party. The teachers' union is a powerful member in the camp of the latter. This book incorporates studies of the links…

The book describes working and living conditions among migrant laborers in the northern Canadian work camps, 1903-1914. The early chapters sketch the development of Canada's transportation systems from the mid-19th century as the setting for the development of labor camps, and describe the contract system in railway construction. The heart of the…

This book explores how two nations with widely divergent political economies, Germany and the United States (U.S.), embraced change in four contemporary settings. "Mutual Learning with Trade-Offs" (Kirsten Wever) discusses mutual learning and the distinguishing characteristics of the political economies of Germany and the U.S.…