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This presentation is a critical reflection on the limitations of academic libraries' attempts to support widening participation in higher education as a political project, and on our potential to support working class equity, self-actualisation and liberation. Critical sociologists of education have developed a rich body of research and scholarship which addresses working-class exclusion from higher education, especially in terms of access, and feelings of marginalisation and impostorship of working-class students. However, relatively little attention has been paid to working-class experiences of academic libraries as a site of marginalisation within higher education. Libraries should be key to learners' independent formation of their academic identities and in finding voice as writers. They provide spaces free from assessment, and librarians select and provide access to print and online collections which form reserves of cultural capital. These, alongside practices and ways of knowing developed within educational settings, represent those capitals most valued and legitimised by universities and wider society. In our practice however, librarians misrecognise working-class students (in the sense meant within Nancy Fraser's model of recognition and theory of justice). This misrecognition is facilitated by middle-class cultures of higher education and librarianship, and deficit models of working-class communities which employ middle-class experience and knowledge as representative markers of 'good' students. Working-class exclusion from professional librarianship based on economic inequality, as well as cultural hierarchies, also limits potential for change from within.

This book discusses and analyses global policies and practices aimed at promoting equity in higher education participation and attainment. Although the massification of higher education systems has facilitated the participation of students from deprived backgrounds, socioeconomic inequalities persist in access to the most prestigious institutions and programmes. Privileged students benefit from a number of advantages in the competition for selective and scarce places: access to information, lower aversion to debt, higher expectations, better previous schooling and higher academic achievement. The chapters present a critical analysis of equity policies in different countries – with or without affirmative action policies, within a context of neoliberal policies or within a social democratic model – and the reasons why they have failed to promote equity and fairness, preventing students from achieving their full educational potential. This is an open access book.

The article presents a comparative analysis, similarities and differences in the development of student learning and teacher training at universities in Japan and Ukraine are found. The origins of Japanese economic miracle are particularly suited to the training and education of the younger generation, combining western trends with the traditional humanistic educational principles. The Japanese education system, like Ukrainian, has undergone transformation towards humanistic many difficulties due to historical conditions and characteristics of the national mentality. Comparative analysis of the education system in Japan and Ukraine showed similar approaches in the educational process in schools: the structure of schools (primary, basic, senior), the operation of private schools, although there is a difference in the period of training; the use of credit- modular technology that promotes democratization of education; organizational forms of the educational process for the preparation of teachers (lectures, seminars, practical and so on.); Graduate School offers training both competition and on contract basis in government educational institutions; there are private educational universities.

Deliberative democracy surfaces disagreements so that people holding conflicting stances understand each other's reasons for the purpose of decision-making. Democratic education approaches should provide students with the opportunity to learn and practice how to address conflict in the collective decision-making process. In this paper, I examine the Foxfire Course for Teachers, a professional development retreat in which teachers learn to practice democratic teaching by themselves experiencing democratic decision-making. In particular, a series of disagreements among course participants is analyzed in detail to understand the learning that resulted and the conditions that supported that learning. As a result of this experiential learning opportunity, teachers came to realize the importance of allowing students to experience and reason through disagreement although it may cause discomfort. Teachers also came to view democratic participation as a developmental process that requires practice.

This paper argues that despite the very real differences between the various sub-regions of the Mediterranean, a shared political history and a common state of peripheralisation to the global economy make the comparison of the university systems of the region possible. The paper first outlines the context in some detail, in order to then generate a set of testable propositions that throw light on trends that have marked the region over the past years. These include (a) the prioritisation of the University sector, (b) a broadening of access, (c) a diaspora of Mediterranean students, (d) privatisation (e) the increasing legitimisation of the entrepreneurial university, (f) a greater degree of autonomous management, (g) secularisation, (h) an 'innovative accommodation' in resolving the issue of choice of language of instruction, and (i) the use of interactive pedagogies. It is argued that this set of propositions, while grounded in data, could constitute an initial agenda for further qualitative and quantitative research in order to put comparative Mediterranean higher education studies on a firmer footing. ; peer-reviewed

Large complex systems need to be analyzed prior to operation so that those depending upon them for the protection of their information have a well-defined understanding of the measures that have been taken to achieve security and the residual risk the system owner assumes during its operation. The U.S. military calls this analysis and vetting process certification and accreditation. Today there is a large, unsatisfied need for personnel qualified to conduct system certifications. An educational program to address those needs is described. ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.