Purpose: As a highly heterogeneous group, seniors live in complex environments influenced by multiple physical and social structures that affect their safety. Until now, the major approach to falls research has been person centered. However, in industrial settings, the individuals involved in an accident are seen as the inheritors of system…

The California history and social science standards-based reform has been touted as the "gold standard" for state history curricula. But the standards, framework, and tests that constitute this reform provide inconsistent and contradictory criteria for teaching and assessing history and social science. An examination of the political…

Universities operate in both a market and in an institutional setting defined by government. For many universities, the latter is the dominant source of support. The discourse on the entrepreneurial university emphasizes the universities position in a market and does not adequately reflect the dominance of the institutional setting. This paper…

Using a communities-of-practice framework, this 2-year qualitative study centered on five elementary teachers the year following their participation in the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification process. Focused on teachers' appropriation of the Board's standards and portfolio as conceptual tools related to literacy…

While niche colleges and universities have upheld principles of environmental sustainability for several decades, mainstream institutions of higher learning only more recently have begun to embrace a "green ethos" on campus. The exact nature of these initiatives may vary but tends to fall into four categories: (a) a general infusion of…

South African universities are required by the Language Policy for Higher Education adopted by the government on 6 November 2002 to implement multilingualism in their learning and teaching programmes. Multilingualism is recommended in this policy as a means to ensure equity of access and success in higher education, in contrast to past colonial…

The purpose of this paper is to compare the role of human capital accumulation measured by number of years of schooling with the relative contribution of institutional capacity to prosperity. We employ several concepts of institutional quality prevalent in the literature. We discover that developing human capital is as important as superior…

The international literature provides little in-depth analysis of distance education and e-learning activities, achievements, and challenges in Turkish higher education other than the country's mega-university, Anadolu. This paper examines the development of, and lessons to be learned from, such undertakings by three pioneers--two regular state…

This research was undertaken to determine to what extent international schools saw themselves as cosmopolitan educators, deliberate or not. The mission statements of sixty-seven self-identified international schools were analyzed to measure the extent to which these schools articulated purposes that were consistent with dominant typologies and…

This article uses data from a qualitative exploratory study at two urban community colleges to examine experiences of beginning students, paying close attention to the influence that institutional information networks have on students' perceptions and persistence. The authors find that students' reported integration, or sense of belonging in the…

Higher education leaders seeking to reshape institutional identity and establish community engagement as a core institutional value ultimately have to address how to embed the values of community engagement in the institutional reward policies that define the faculty roles of teaching, scholarship, and service. Furthermore, since the research…

This article examines the conceptions of research held by 505 teachers of English from 13 countries around the world. Questionnaire responses supplemented by follow-up written and interview data were analyzed to understand teachers' views on what research is and how often they read and do it (and why or why not in each case). An understanding of…

This paper is concerned with the way we understand and investigate the relationship between human functioning and social setting. The central argument draws on the work of Bernstein and Vygotsky. A novel approach to the study of the mutual shaping of human action and institutional settings is developed and an empirical example of its application…

What are quality vocational teachers? This article analyzes the different factors exerting an influence on the professional knowledge, practices and performance of teaching staff involved in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). The international variety of vocational teacher education patterns, profiles and recruitment practices…

In this paper I use a governmentality framework to explore the growth of women's mentoring programmes in Australian universities over the last 10-15 years. These programmes are supported because they speak to institutional concerns with improving performance in a performative culture, while being seen to deal with the problem of gender inequity. I…