There has been much debate about the profile of the child who is ready for primary school. Thirty-three teachers from pre-primary and primary schools in Jamaica participated in a series of focus group discussions as part of a discursive approach to understanding children's readiness. Four themes emerged which were guided by the research questions:…

This study aimed to examine career and academic outcome expectations of high school students. Data of the research designed in the survey model were collected from 695 students attending ninth to twelfth grades of high schools that offer academic and vocational education in city center of Nigde in the Central Anatolian Region of Turkey in the…

In Germany about half of the adult learners who start second chance education drop out before graduation. In this paper we aim to contribute to an explanation for this low success rate. We focus on the normative expectations of learners: What are their expectations concerning teachers' attention to their personal abilities, teacher support and the…

In this study we examine how the academic-vocational divide is manifested today in Finland, Iceland and Sweden in the division between vocationally (VET) and academically-oriented programmes at the upper-secondary school level. The paper is based on a critical re-analysis of results from previous studies; in it we investigate the implications of…

Vocational education has a historical legacy of being low-status and aimed at producing skilled workers. Students with low marks in comprehensive school are still often guided to the vocational educational track. In this article we examine how mathematics teaching in a vocational educational context is framed (henceforth VET). Therefore, our aim…

With very few exceptions colleges and universities of all types--2-year and 4-year, public and private-- are feeling the fiscal pinch. They are caught in the vise of rising expectations and constrained revenues. Public institutions are operating in an environment in which state-level policy-makers press for increasing numbers of graduates,…

This article describes a research study that investigated three- and four-year-old Canadian preschool children's perceptions about starting kindergarten. Findings from 33 focus-group discussions suggest that children begin to formulate ideas about starting kindergarten prior to school entry. Children's responses were grouped according to three…

This study investigated the expectations of gifted students for a science enrichment summer program held in Finland in 2011 and how these expectations were met. The students' expectations were studied by analyzing the answers of 1,935 camp applicants. Altogether, 4,348 expectations were identified through content analysis. The data showed that the…

Despite scholars' praise of liberal arts education as a model form, very little research has examined the actual impact of liberal arts education on learning outcomes. The elaborate rhetoric and anecdotal support, long used to advance liberal arts education as the premier type of education with value for all, is no longer sufficient. The practices…

This article presents the authors' critique of lessons proposed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). The authors initiate a discussion about content that they hope will play out in schoolhouses and statehouses across the country. They take on a different task: they present a handful of lesson ideas from P21 that could enhance studies…