This report highlights the history and importance of public education in the United States, dating back to its establishment as a necessary institution for the young republic and Horace Mann's efforts to promote a common school for all. The report focuses on how and why the U.S. system of public education came into being; the six core public…

This article analyses three normative accounts that can underlie educational policies, with special attention to gender issues. These three models of education are human capital theory, rights discourses and the capability approach. I first outline five different roles that education can play. Then I analyse these three models of educational…

The Department of Education is a leader in improving the quality of education and raising expectations of what students can accomplish. The Department has promised to leave no child behind in order to ensure that all Americans can use their knowledge and skills to lead productive lives, enhance communities, and participate fully in the economy. To…

This paper is based on 1001 home-based interviews with UK adults. It describes their varying patterns of participation in lifelong learning and their use of technology for learning and leisure. It finds that 37% of all adults report no further education of any kind after reaching compulsory school leaving age. This proportion declines with each…

Student aid policy around the developed world depends to varying degrees on the idea that the cost of post-secondary education needs to be subsidized. Despite the fact that governments around the world are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to support and widen participation in higher education, policymakers pay surprisingly little attention…

The recently released "Young People's Participation in Post-Compulsory Education and Training" document completes an education policy triad in Australia involving schooling, higher education, and further education. This paper examines the policy nexus between higher education and further education, exploring contradictions between…

Race-exclusive programs of American universities and colleges, created initially to level the playing fields for under-represented students in higher education, are now considered discriminatory and illegal. The concerns levied against higher education institutions have been in response to two 2003 U.S. Supreme Court cases on race and admission at…

The trajectory of the Roma is illuminating for understanding the social situation of other minorities, but also for a set of issues concerning the multiculturalism present within states. In this article, the author discusses the context of Roma education--marked by the stateless and marginalized status of the Roma--and provides a brief history of…

Combines 1987/88 household-budget survey data and public-budget consolidated data to yield a nonestimation-based measure of the benefit of public education outlays in Greece. As expected in a country with free education and limited private education, transfers in elementary and secondary education contribute strongly to declining inequality. (28…

The prevailing view among leaders in the university community is that America is not investing enough in higher education. A recent survey of the American economy by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) echoed that concern. After all, college graduates are dramatically more productive than those without higher education…

This volume examines conceptual frameworks and models that flow from scholars' definitions and operationalizations of social class: status attainment theory, human capital theory, the financial nexus model, Bourdieuian theory, and critical race theory. Since students often have multiple social locations that affect their educational process, the…

Two decades of research on the external efficacy of educational investments in developing countries have produced a persuasive rationale for expanding access to schooling and raising educational attainment levels. Schooling has been associated with such outcomes as the following: (1) rationalistic attitudes conducive to participating in modern…

This publication contains ten articles concerning the development of human resources in rural areas. It focuses on a broad perspective of rural adult education and the issues facing those who wish to serve rural areas. The articles and their authors are: "Rural Adults and Postsecondary Education" (Jacqueline D. Spears and others);…

Education names and classifies individuals. This result seems unavoidable. For example, some students will graduate, and some will not. Those who graduate will be "graduates"; those who do not graduate will be labeled otherwise. The only way to avoid such labeling is to fail to make distinctions of any kind. Yet education is rife with…

Education is considered by some to be so important a determinant of individual well-being in American society that an understanding of the reasons for differences in the propensity to invest in education is crucial to the development of sound and equitable social policy. ( MM)