Ideas about educational improvement are contextual and contested. This study proposes a critical and pragmatic framework to analyse systemic improvement, taking into account the paradoxes and limitations of quantitative sources. The study compared 83 subnational educational systems of three federal countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil,…

The field of educational leadership has yet to develop a coherent knowledge base that reflects the global diversity of policies and practices. This disconnect -- for example between Asian and Western research, presents a major challenge, curtailing authentic knowledge production and transfer. Accordingly, a major objective for the field is the…

Transitional justice and education both occupy increasingly prominent space on the international peacebuilding agenda, though less is known about the ways they might reinforce one another to contribute towards peace. This paper presents a cross-national analysis of truth commission (TC) reports spanning 1980-2015, exploring the range of…

Building on the Education for All movement, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development re-emphasises quality education as a discrete goal. Contextualising the discussion surrounding this goal in Zambia, this study examines how education quality is conceptualised by educational stakeholders at local, national, and global levels. Triangulating…

This paper examines the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field. The OECD's PISA is helping to create this field by constituting the globe as a commensurate space of school system performance. The effects of Shanghai's success are considered in…

Are western psychological and educational theory and practice truly applicable to a range of diverse settings around the world? We demonstrate that there is a globally dominant pedagogical orthodoxy--not exclusively western--for which there is little supportive theory nor evidence of efficacy. There is an alternative--Standards for Effective…

Comparative education can provide a background of contrasts and possibilities against which to examine one's own problems. For comparative education to be effective, background conditions must be understood; educational systems must be examined as wholes, in their contexts; and ideas should only be borrowed from systems sufficiently similar to…

Reports survey findings on job satisfaction and other work attitudes among 686 secondary teachers in northern England. Compares results to those from four other countries. Provides background on the British teacher's changing role in light of radical educational reforms and teacher labor disputes in the 1980s. Contains 27 references. (SV)

Compares administrative reforms and decentralization in the public educational systems of 3 Hispanic countries 10 years after transition to democracy. Discusses the effects of collaboration and compromise among political parties, incremental approaches to change, continuity of policies, costs and resource management, and formalization of…