This article critically examines two sets of ideas that have influenced educational reform in the recent past: managerialism and market approaches. It is argued that while each can be demonstrated to have led to useful change, neither provides a basis for future improvement in education. A recent example of change within the State School sector of…

It is important to understand the government's role in educational policies to gain understanding of educational change or reform. Reports on the status of education tend to be oriented to the needs of the corporate section and its problems of adequate profitability. (DF)

This paper explores links between teachers' learning, the politics and practices of education reform, and teacher identity, examining how teachers learn to negotiate the spaces between promises of improvement, effectiveness, and accountability made in heterogeneous discourses of education reform and their experiences with deteriorating material…

Summarizes adult education projects in Spain from Friends of the Country Societies in 1793 to Luzuriaga's Free Institution of Education. Describes present reform movements in the post-Francco era and various models: open education, popular schools, public adult education, peasant schools, popular universities, and centers for culture promotion.…

Criticizes President George Bush's minimalist education budget as a lot of noise with little substance. Instead of adopting the President's education program and budget, Congress invested heavily in increases for Chapter 1 and Head Start. The President will most likely emphasize deregulation and federal program requirement waivers for school…

Reviews Democratic and Republican party platform statements relevant to education between 1900 and the present. Currently, the parties are struggling to resolve government's role in relation to the individual. Reducing government does not necessarily secure development of strong individuals. A consensus to improve education for all students may…

Describes a teacher's experience assisting a Clinton aide in plans to improve technology for education and training. The pressing question is whether American education can adapt to changes made possible by Information Age technology. A political consensus is necessary to finance the information highway, provide training time for teachers, and…

Discussion of politics of the French language looks at the nature of linguistic politics, offers historical perspective on French linguistic politics, and argues that, in France, language is always linked to the State. Aspects of French linguistic politics concerning the language itself and its role in everyday life are examined. (MSE)

Drawing on Giddens' outline of first-, second-, and third-way politics, examines a range of New Labour's education policies, questioning whether they embody a distinctively different approach. The British government's strategies are largely extensions of second-way "neoliberalism." Education action zones may represent a third (feasible)…

In trying to engage in comparative study or transnational discourse in civic education that promotes democratic ideals and principles, certain realities about democracy should be kept in mind. One such reality is to acknowledge and account for the fact that not everyone views democracy through the same theoretical lenses. The comments expressed by…

Governments must govern; they must strike the balance between representing the diverse wishes of the people whilst also taking society forwards. Without maps of the future, they must choose which of various possible paths to follow. Only hindsight exposes the difference between visionary leadership and misguided fixation, and then only rarely.…

In the 1960s and 1970s distance education was seen as a way of increasing access to education, and hence as something the state should fund. Libertarian thinking has weakened support for the nation-state as a provider of social welfare. This article argues that libertarian policies are "vicious" in their effects. By subscribing to such…

For many years, children with developmental problems, sensory disorders, brain dysfunction, and complex disorders have remained at the margins of the Ukrainian regular education system or have been excluded from it. In 2004, 1.8 percent of the children in Ukraine were registered as having disabilities. In this article, the authors describe the…

"Mission Creep: The Federal Government and America's Schools" is a historical overview of the progressive encroachment if the United States' federal government into the area of education. This involvement began as a way to compete with the Soviet Union in the areas of science and technology but has since morphed into virtually all areas…

Suggests that neomarxism, the dominant form of radical reconstructionism, provides a less internally coherent concept of educational progress than do other major educational philosophies. Outlines epistemological differences between traditional Marxism and neomarxism. Includes 37 references. (SV)