Over the last 40 years, American institutions of higher education have been encouraged to align with the private sector by policymakers, think tank experts and businessmen in order to become more efficient and more accountable. In a wider sense, this new partnership may be evidence of what has been termed "disaster capitalism." In…

In Europe a very intensive discussion is in full swing as to whether vocational schools should in future be guided and monitored by the state or whether they should be freed from state dependency. Within the framework of a number of pilot projects in German-speaking countries, vocational school centers are currently testing their autonomy. This…

The dynamics of educational policy discourse in the USA are illustrated by the highly contested positions on charter schools in three arenas: media debates, national policy and local school reform. In media debates, civil society actors--including teachers' unions, think tanks and print media--engage in polarized exchanges notable for their…