This paper focuses on the analysis of student mobility in the EU as a means to stimulate convergence of diverse higher education systems. The argument is based on official texts and other texts of political communication of the European Commission. The following discussion is placed within the current context of the Bologna process and its aim to…

This article will deal with an analysis of how education appears in the future "European Constitution" that will be the reference point for European Union actions on education issues in coming years, even though it has been questioned by the negative results of the "referendums" in France and Holland. Subsequently, there will…

This article examines the policy cycle and vernacular globalization in the context of higher education reform in Vietnam. Through an analysis of the development of the Vietnam National University--Hochiminh City as part of the post-1986 reconstruction of Vietnamese higher education, the article considers the complex interrelationship between…

A former employee of the World Bank discusses the logic behind multilateral development banks and how they operate, bank ideology and the nature of policy formation, educational and other reforms as loan conditions, the inability of development banks to enforce implementation of their policies in countries receiving loans, and whether the banks…

Using an analytics of government perspective, it is argued that neo-liberalism as an art of government, especially its form as North American advanced liberal political reason, has shaped enterprise governance and managerial reform at the World Bank. With a focus on the World Bank as a financial banking enterprise, the article explores questions…

This paper describes an EU-funded project under the Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) Programme, with a particular emphasis on the Oxford-based part. Involving six European universities, the overarching investigation was concerned with the tensions between standardization and tradition in education. In Oxford the focus was on aspects of…

This article reviews the policies for disadvantaged children in western countries since the mid-sixties. First, it analyses the design and results of the "classic programmes" of positive discrimination such as the American Title I programme, and the English, Dutch, Flemish and French priority areas policies. It discusses the differences…

This article presents the conceptual and methodological framework of a two-year comparative research project (2002-2004), funded by the University of Paisley. The study, entitled "Convergence or Divergence? Initial Teacher Education in Scotland and England", investigated initial teacher education (ITE) policy and practice in England and…

Although the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) was a significant international achievement, its adoption requires analysis and interpretation in terms of the possibilities and limitations of multilateral cooperation. The international movement for children's rights can only be conceived as the result of a system of multilateral…

Norwegian official development assistance to education has been profoundly shaped by the political and ideological attitudes of successive national governments. Yet successive coalition governments of highly-contrastive kinds can alike be seen to have been strongly influenced by the policy content, language and underlying assumptions of World Bank…

This article seeks to shed light on the contexts and characteristics of principalship in developing countries, as well as to examine similarities and differences between principals in developed and developing countries. Twenty-seven papers constitute the data on which external influences on principalship, patterns of leadership styles and…

Using the political-economic analysis of globalisation and education as well as a culturalist approach to education policy borrowing, the paper analyses the role of local actors, specifically, national newspapers and the Ministry of Education, in mediating the potentially homogenising curricular policy pressure of globalisation exerted through the…

Focuses on understanding comparative education with regard to its political commitment, as it is reflected in the positions taken by some outstanding educationalists in the course of the history of this discipline. (Author/RK)

This paper investigates European Union (EU) education and training policies in the light of the evolving Lisbon agenda on improving the competitiveness of the EU. It examines the ways in which EU policies have developed over time, focusing on their legal basis, underlying principles, main forms of implementation and their impact on national…