New developments and challenges regarding early childhood education (ECE) policy and practice in Norway and in the Flemish and French communities in Belgium are presented in this issue. There are clear differences between the countries when comparing systems they have chosen for ECE. In Belgium, supervision and responsibilities for education,…

The article's focus is the relationship between culture, indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), sustainable development and education in Africa. It analyzes the concept of sustainability with particular reference to education and indigenous knowledge systems. In particular the article analyzes the documents from the World Summit in Johannesburg in…

School-based curriculum development has been a highlight of China's new curriculum reform since 1999. This reform introduces a curriculum policy change towards devolving partial power in curriculum decision-making to teachers, and invites their active involvement in transforming their role from being book-knowledge transmitters to curriculum…

This article provides insight into the nature and scope of home-school cooperation in Finland. Situating the study is a brief overview of the Finnish education system and a discussion of the Programme for International Student Assessment reports that place Finnish student outcomes at the top of rankings among industrialized nations for the past…

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent, to which factors in the process of decision making involved in curriculum development in Australia, have determined the quality of curriculum documents. Searches on web sites of education organisations and electronic databases of educational literature were conducted to identify source documents…

The purpose of this study was to review policies and inquiries on national curriculum reform, initiated during the federal election campaign in 2007, to identify whether a new phase of national curriculum collaboration, characterised as standards-based reform, is likely to be initiated. A set of ten criteria, defining key features of…

This paper focuses on embodied practices in processes of nationalization among preschool children at the age of 6. It analyses how children define themselves and others, how they characterize and frame Finnishness through embodiment. The analysis is based on an ethnographic study in two preschool classes. It is argued that nationality works in a…

History praxis can transform perceptions of the "other" by reshaping ideas about events transpiring between groups. Nevertheless, peace education research has rarely examined history teaching. This article addresses the potential for teaching peace through history teaching. After laying out a conceptual framework for understanding the…

The Rose Report, commissioned by the Secretary of State for Education for England, recommended in March 2006 that early reading instruction must include synthetic phonics. This paper evaluates the extent to which research evidence supports this recommendation. In particular, a review of international research into the teaching of early reading…

There has been recent international concern that the teaching of geriatrics may be in decline. Research has suggested that support for geriatrics in national undergraduate curricula is the key to effective delivery of teaching in the specialty. We set out to determine the geriatric medicine content in the U.K. generic curriculum, reviewing this in…

Schools and teachers in England have found themselves coerced into a situation where high-stakes testing, scrutiny of "performance" and the generation of data for competitive league tables have dominated the educational experience of young people. There is a growing recognition from all quarters that this model is failing and that…

This article explores the current context for personal, social and health education (PSHE) in English schools, and examines what the implications of the "Every Child Matters" (ECM) agenda are for schools in the future and how these changes may affect the profile and provision of PSHE in the curriculum. The author begins by revisiting the…

The Government is committed to ensuring that the new National Curriculum compares favourably with the curricula in the highest performing jurisdictions, and sets rigorous requirements for pupil attainment which measure up to the highest standards set internationally. The Government is also committed to slimming the National Curriculum so that it…

A comparative review of the research literature regarding the effectiveness of continuing professional development (CPD) demonstrates that a range of different factors needs to be present if it is to have impact in the classroom and that short CPD episodes are unlikely to be effective. The Earth Science Education Unit approach to CPD had to be…

Although research has traditionally discussed the ways in which societies in conflict develop educational practices, only recently have scholars begun to examine the role of education in creating or sustaining conflict. In Afghanistan, changing regimes have had an impact on state-sanctioned curricula over the past fifty years, drastically altering…