The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is one of the world's leading educational research centres. ACER's mission is to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning across the life span. This annual report describes ACER's milestones and accomplishments for the 2013-2014…

This paper argues that all learners need teachers who are not only professionally qualified but also culturally competent. This is particularly so with teachers of indigenous students, who face the conflicting expectations of schools and those of their home cultures. References to Pacific students will be used to illustrate some of the conflicts…

Reviews the United Kingdom's Eleven-plus Examination and discusses its use in developing countries. Notes that the rise of the comprehensive school has made the use of the examination redundant. Points out that the examination still thrives outside the United Kingdom, perhaps because it was implemented differently in those locales. (KO)

A ninth grade home economics course, taught in an Australian high school, was evaluated with the goals of providing staff with information on evaluation procedures and obtaining information upon which judgments and recommendations for change about a particular course could be made. Of key importance in this project was the presence of an outside…

A case study of the intervention of external researchers in a process of self-evaluation by a large comprehensive school in Israel is presented. The study shows how the patterns of evaluation provided the necessary types of empirical results and shows how the outcomes were integrated into a final report. (SLD)

Describes and analyzes Swedish curriculum theory and research over the last 20 years. Relates this to changes in the comprehensive school system and the decline of the welfare state. Recounts the break-up of the cooperative relationship among the research community, the National Board of Education, and the Ministry of Education. (MJP)