Three universities in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: the struggle against corruption and for social cohesion     

Stephen P. Heyneman 《Prospects》2007,37(3):305-318

Universities may contribute to a nation’s social cohesion through both direct and indirect means. In their syllabi they may include techniques necessary for understanding complex social problems. Faculty may model good behaviour in terms of listening and understanding points of view that may contradict their own. University administrators may illustrate ways to lead honourably, which can enhance the chances for achieving consensus with respect to future dilemmas. This project assessed typical areas of university tension, including academic freedom, equity of participation and academic honesty. Three different universities were chosen as sites for faculty interviews—a foreign private university in Kyrgyzstan, a flagship state university in Georgia, and a regional teacher training college recently upgraded to university status in Northeast Kazakhstan. Results suggest that the single most important arena wherein universities can influence social cohesion in these countries is the manner by which they address education corruption. The paper reproduces the statements of those faculty members who participate in corruption as well as those who refuse to participate. It concludes with some predictions about the future of the relationship of higher education to social cohesion.

Stephen P. HeynemanEmail:

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Stephen P. Heyneman   received his PhD in comparative education from the University of Chicago in 1976. He served the World Bank for 22 years. Between 1976 and 1984 he helped research education quality and design policies to support educational effectiveness. Between 1984 and 1989 he was in charge of external training for senior officials world wide in education policy. Between 1989 and 1998, he was responsible for education policy and lending strategy, first for the Middle East and North Africa and later for the 27 countries of Europe and Central Asia. In July 2000 he was appointed professor of International Education Policy at Vanderbilt University. Current interests include the effect of higher education on social cohesion, the international trade in education services and the economic and social cost to higher education corruption.  相似文献   

Inclusive education is not dead,it just smells funny     

Stephen J. Ball 《British Journal of Educational Studies》2019,67(2):277-278

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Ageing and skills: The case of literacy skills     

Garry F. Barrett  W. Craig Riddell 《European Journal of Education》2019,54(1):60-71

The relationship between ageing and skills is of growing policy significance due to population ageing, the changing nature of work and the importance of literacy for social and economic well‐being. This article examines the relationship between age and literacy skills in a sample of OECD countries using three internationally comparable surveys. By pooling the survey data across time we can separate birth cohort and ageing effects. In doing so, we find that literacy skills decline with age and that, in most of our sample countries, successive birth cohorts tend to have poorer literacy outcomes. Therefore, once we control for cohort effects, the rate at which literacy proficiency falls with age is much more pronounced than that which is apparent, based on the cross‐sectional relationship between age and literacy skills at a point in time. Further, in studying the literacy‐age relationship across the skill distribution in Canada we find a more pronounced decline in literacy skills with age at lower percentiles, which suggests that higher initial literacy moderates the influence of cognitive ageing.  相似文献   

Turnover Causation Amongst High School Teachers in Nigeria     

Stephen O. Ajayi 《Africa Education Review》2019,16(2):1-15

Four theoretical frameworks were used to explore causations of turnover amongst high school teachers in Nigeria: (1) teachers’ personal health, (2) work–family life, (3) job satisfaction, and (4) actual turnover intention. Quantitative data were obtained from 925 public high school teachers in Ogun State, South-Western Nigeria. Cronbach's Alpha reliability procedure, regression modelling and t-test were used to analyse a total of 96 causations of turnover. Ad hoc analysis returned an Alpha value of 0.78. However, this improved to 0.93 when the causation factors were reduced to 64 – those with highest item-rest and itemtotal correlations. The findings showed that job (dis)satisfaction, personal health and work– family life conflict are prominent amongst the issues that trigger the intention of Nigerian high school teachers to quit their jobs voluntarily. Insights from the findings will help funding administrators in prioritising strategic decisions around mitigating turnover.  相似文献   

Guest Editorial: Dissemination of Measurement Concepts and Knowledge to the Public     

Avi Allalouf  Stephen G. Sireci 《Educational Measurement》2012,31(2):1-1

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Evaluating the Comparability of Paper‐ and Computer‐Based Science Tests Across Sex and SES Subgroups     

Jennifer Randall  Stephen Sireci  Xueming Li  Leah Kaira 《Educational Measurement》2012,31(4):2-12

As access and reliance on technology continue to increase, so does the use of computerized testing for admissions, licensure/certification, and accountability exams. Nonetheless, full computer‐based test (CBT) implementation can be difficult due to limited resources. As a result, some testing programs offer both CBT and paper‐based test (PBT) administration formats. In such situations, evidence that scores obtained from different formats are comparable must be gathered. In this study, we illustrate how contemporary statistical methods can be used to provide evidence regarding the comparability of CBT and PBT scores at the total test score and item levels. Specifically, we looked at the invariance of test structure and item functioning across test administration mode across subgroups of students defined by SES and sex. Multiple replications of both confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch differential item functioning analyses were used to assess invariance at the factorial and item levels. Results revealed a unidimensional construct with moderate statistical support for strong factorial‐level invariance across SES subgroups, and moderate support of invariance across sex. Issues involved in applying these analyses to future evaluations of the comparability of scores from different versions of a test are discussed.  相似文献   

Training educators of adults: A comparative analysis of graduate adult education in the United States and Great Britain     

Stephen Brookfield 《International Journal of Lifelong Education》2013,32(4):295-318

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Media/ting change: the print media's role in mediating education policy in a period of radical reform in Victoria,Australia     

Jill Blackmore  Stephen Thorpe 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(6):577-595

This paper draws upon critical discourse analysis, cultural studies and communication theory, studies on media and educational reform, and the work of Bernstein, Bourdieu and Luhmann in particular, to explore how the print and media ‘mediated’ a period of educational change marked by moves to self‐management in schools in Victoria, Australia. It considers how the media was mobilized by various education stakeholders, and in turn informed relations between schools and government, through policy discourses and texts. It considers why and how particular themes became media ‘issues’, how schools and teachers responded to these issues, and how the media was used by various stakeholders in education to shape policy debates. It is based on a year‐long qualitative study that explored critical incidents and representations about education in the print media over a year in the daily press. It illustrates the ways in which a neo‐liberal Victorian government mobilized the media to gain strategic advantage to promote radical education reform policies, considers the media effects of this media/tion process on schools and teachers, and conceptualizes how school and system performance is fed from and into media representations, public perceptions and community understandings of schools and teachers' work.  相似文献   

Training from cradle to grave? Social justice and training for people with learning difficulties     

Sheila Riddell  Stephen Baron  Heather Wilkinson 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(4):531-544

In this paper we question whether the radical change in the life situation of people with learning difficulties triggered by the closure of long‐stay hospitals does in fact represent an adequate inclusion into civil society or whether people with learning difficulties continue to experience strong exclusionary tendencies. We will explore the implications of a range of contemporary social justice theories for people with learning difficulties and examine the justice inherent in arrangements for training people with learning difficulties made by Local Enterprise Companies (LECs). We argue that training may be seen as a crucible of social values since its distribution transmits powerful messages about who is considered salvageable or unsalvageable, who is likely to become economically active and who is to be consigned to some special status of otherness. Finally, we consider what conceptualizations of social justice might hold out most hope for people with learning difficulties.  相似文献   

DOCUMENTS AND DEBATES 'e-ducation': electronic,emotionless and efficient?     

Stephen Crump 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(6):631-637

Life is now a matter of selling oneself to slave-work, building roads or labouring in quarries or mines or on the railways, purposeless, meaningless, real slave-work, each integer doing his [and/ or her] mere labour, and all for no purpose, except to have money, and to get away from the old system. (…) It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. (D. H. Lawrence, Twilight in Italy, 1997, Penguin Edition: 223/4).  相似文献