Suchergebnisse

This volume investigates the agendas and initiatives for using education to transition Gulf communities from being dependent on natural resources into knowledge societies. This volume presents information, case studies and empirical research about the development of information-based economies across the Arabian Gulf as a whole.

Discusses the uses of international achievement study results as a tool for national progress as well as an obstacle. This title provides recommendations for ways that international achievement data can be used in real-world policymaking situations. It also discusses what the future of international achievement studies holds.

AbstractSince the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the textbooks in Arab and Islamic nation‐states have been carefully critiqued for any content that Westerners view as promoting hate or violence against non‐Muslims. Very little has been said, however, about the portrayals of Islamic and Arab society in Western textbooks. This report investigates the perspectives and ideologies concerning representations of Islam and Arab societies in textbooks worldwide, and specifically in Western countries' national education systems. Seventy‐two textbooks from 15 Western countries and Israel were examined to investigate the included and excluded content related to Islam and Arab societies. This research found that those countries with either an immediate stake in the Middle East (e.g., Israel) or an immediate past stake in the region (e.g., the United Kingdom) were the most likely to include coverage of Islam and Arab societies in secondary textbooks. The major findings of this research, however, are that content related to contemporary Islam and Arab societies in Western secondary‐level textbooks is overwhelmingly related to terrorism and terrorists, the Arab/Israeli conflict, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The majority of content related to contemporary Islam and Arab societies represents Muslims and their communities as: 1) socially, politically, and economically repressed; 2) religiously and ideologically oppressed; and 3) both typically and frequently violent.

This article investigates the claim that student poverty is the strongest significant predictor of science teaching and learning, even more than school factors. To investigate this phenomenon, this study focuses on education in South Africa. South Africa is a country and educational system characterized by communities of both extreme poverty and wealth, and using cross-nationally comparative quantitative evidence, one can draw a clear distinction and estimate of the impact of student poverty on teaching and learning for both an international and a South African sample. The cross-national comparison contrasts education in South Africa with approximately 40 other countries by using internationally comparative data from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study eighth-grade science assessments and background questionnaires. Using this data, the author tests the hypothesis that student poverty impact is a stable, strong predictor of science teacher pedagogy and student performance in South Africa compared to educational systems around the world and at every level of national development. These cross-national data are analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling, which is a multilevel regression technique that nests student-level indicators of teaching and learning within school communities, and school communities within national systems. Results support the hypothesis that student poverty is the most significant influence on science teaching and learning, which has strong implications for teacher accountability and the impact of school factors on student learning in high poverty communities worldwide.

Acknowledgmentsreferences; when models become monopolies: the making of education policy at the world bank; background: the dilemma of manpower planning; act two: the acquisition of george psacharopoulos; act three: the monopoly of rate of return evidence; act four: the struggle over higher education policy; the final act: the bank rights itself; implications; has the bank learned its lesson: a brief comment on the education paper of 2011; notes; references; the world bank's ''education strategy 2020'': a personal account; phase i consultation at the brookings institution.

This volume of "International Perspectives on Education and Society" investigates the often controversial relationship between gender, equality and education from international and comparative perspectives. Much has been written recently about the global progress made toward gender parity in enrolment and curriculum in nations around the world. And there is much to tout in these areas. Although gender parity is not yet the global norm, the expectation of gender equality increasingly is. Some have gone so far as to say that the global expansion of modern mass schooling has created a world culture of gender equality in education. Yet, while there have been many positive advances regarding girls' and women's education around the world, there are still significant differences that are institutionalized in the policies and administrative structures of national education systems. For example, some of the strongest evidence of gendered inequality in schooling is the fact that in many developing countries there are large proportions of school-age children who are not in school - many if not most of whom are girls. The question this volume investigates is whether gender equality in education is really being achieved in schools around the world or not.