Educational Policy & Reform books

Current conventions in school evaluation focus on accountability, control and compliance. New Zealand offers a distinctive, systemic alternative to school self-evaluation, with developmental and negotiated approaches ingrained throughout the education system, from school inspection to major government schooling improvement initiatives. In New Zealand there is no national testing, other than a Ministry-sponsored (voluntary) formative assessment system designed for school and teacher self-evaluation. This is a form of professional and program evaluation where there is shared power and responsibility between evaluators and those being evaluated. Through a detailed national case study of New Zealand, together with commentaries from international specialists, this volume examines the successes and challenges of this approach to programme evaluation and its generalizability to other educational and professional review settings, and show how education systems can recover a balance between an achievement agenda and a focus on educational quality.

Framed in the context of a world in which academic freedom is often jeopardized, or criticized by outside social forces, Academic Freedom: Autonomy, Challenges and Conformation sets out to echo the voices of faculty who have encountered challenges to academic freedom within their personal and professional careers.  Including chapters which range from showcasing specific experiences within particular disciplines, to providing broad historical or philosophical perspectives, this edited collection provides an authentic account of how academic freedom has helped and hindered the academic profession, scholarship, and teaching. Revealing one-on-one interactions which shed light on the views of individual educators, this book shifts focus onto the day-to-day ramifications of limited academic freedom. Faculty members recollect occasions where they have experienced a challenge to their ability to exchange ideas and concepts freely in the classroom, to explore and disseminate new knowledge, and to speak professionally and privately on topics in their field of expertise without being under duress.  Offering up a finely curated collection of chapters, editors Ceglie and Thompson allow readers to understand the dynamic between academic freedom and professional responsibilities, and also open up an opportunity to discuss challenges to academic freedom and the potential loss of autonomy in higher education in the United States and beyond.

Sexual violence is a well-documented issue within Higher Education and wider society. Students subjected to sexual violence suffer impacts to their physical, psychological, emotional, behavioural, and practical wellbeing, which have significant effects on their studies. Higher Education Institutions have a duty to ensure students can access their education in environments that are safe, without fear, harassment, or violence. Currently, there is a critical lack of guidance on how to meaningfully address this issue in practical terms. Advice offered to the sector, particularly in the UK, has focused on why Higher Education Institutions need to address sexual violence, offering general principles to shape institutions’ responses. This unique text is the first to offer practical guidance on how to address sexual violence, utilising a comprehensive institution-wide approach. This ethical method is trauma-informed and survivor-centred whilst being intersectional and requiring perpetrator accountability. The authors provide how-to level information on staffing, policy writing, responding to disclosures, developing comprehensive prevention and response education programmes, conducting trauma-informed investigations, adjudication and sanctioning processes and considering sanctioning guidelines for sexual violence. This is a ground-breaking resource for practitioners, senior leaders, policy makers, student services administrators, educators, investigators and adjudicators in Higher Education.

Real and meaningful educational ethnography requires researchers to grapple with how they come to know what they know. In Black Boys' Lived and Everyday Experiences in STEM, KiMi Wilson invites us to understand the experiences of four Black boys attempting to learn mathematics and science in K-12 spaces. How do mitigating circumstances and fraught relationships impede on their journey to sharpening their mathematical and scientific skills? Taking us on a sociocultural trek of the best and worst elements of public education, Wilson provides access to a bird's eye view of how Black boys experience schooling on a day-to-day basis. Through phenomenological interview, readers are let into the minds of students Carter, Malik, Darius, and Thomas, and given the opportunity to understand how they identify themselves. Showcasing a mixture of revelations, we learn how some of their perceptions come from an authentic place, while others were out of their own control, and decided by individuals blind to their potential. Imagining a world where Black boys are encouraged to work on STEM goals rather than abandon them, this important book is for educators, researchers, teachers, administrators, and superintendents who want to create school cultures that value Black boys, and want to reimagine teaching spaces for them.

The expectations of the Catholic Church and the demands of the state are a precarious balancing act that have been apparent throughout the history of Catholic education. It is a relationship that is under scrutiny, even in the contemporary context.  Drawing on the works and lives of key figures in the history of teacher preparation in Catholic education internationally, this important text illuminates the contributions they made and the challenges they faced. In providing this rich historical synthesis, the authors invite further reflection on the most appropriate methods of teacher preparation for contemporary Catholic schools and on possible contributions to wider teacher preparation from cogitating the history of the Catholic tradition.  This book addresses teacher preparation for Catholic schools at both the 'pre-service' and 'in-service' levels by looking at the Church and its relationship with the state. The former will allow opportunities for a deep study of the role of 'faith' in Teacher Preparation, while the latter focuses on how a distinctive faith-based model of education can be in dialogue with the expectations of civil society. By using this multi-layered framework, the book offers exciting and innovative opportunities to inform contemporary practice from international examples, proving an invaluable text for researchers in the fields of comparative education, theology and the sociology of religion.

As an increasing number of universities across the world focus efforts on giving back to the communities they exist in, there is now a growing appetite for information, examples, and case studies of best practice for social responsibility in Higher Education. This volume explores different angles of sustainability, university corporate social responsibility, and the role of civil society in the context of education, with a focus on curriculum development and teaching. The chapters provide international examples of new and innovative intiatives, focusing on areas including eliminating racism in nursing education, teaching writing for advocacy and active citizenship, and several examples of service learning in different contexts. The chapters also importantly provide theoretical frameworks for teaching sustainability in Higher Education. This book will prove an invaluable resource for those looking to reorienting curriculums, develop programs and modules, and implement innovative teaching methods which integrate sustainability and civil society into their institutions and educational programmes.

Policies to promote high participation in Higher Educations (HE) systems aim to deliver social justice and economic development through widening participation of under-represented groups. Degrees of Success provides a critical test of this through examination of participation and success of learners progressing to HE with a vocational background. Employing an original conceptual framework that combines the ideas of Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu the authors analyse the various transitional frictions experienced by learners with VET backgrounds on their journeys into and through the HE system. The findings indicate that including students with vocational qualifications does lead to widening participation but that their modes of participation may not provide fair access and outcomes. In part this is due to the epistemic incompatibilities between higher and vocational education which remain unresolved despite constant VET qualification reform. This book, therefore, extends the debate about widening participation beyond metaphors of barriers to access to consider the epistemic and pedagogical challenges of increasing student heterogeneity in high participation HE systems. The analysis and policy suggestions therefore have relevance for all seeking to support students' HE learning journeys, and policy makers concerned with how best to utilise HE systems as means of furthering social mobility and justice.

The worldwide shift towards a knowledge society and information based economy requires educational policy makers to re-evaluate their understanding of the knowledge and skills students need in order to achieve national development goals. This shift has influenced curriculum development, teacher preparation, and the role of formal schooling in creating lifelong learners and an educational culture, which reflects both national development interests and global norms. The Arabian Gulf countries, which largely comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries, include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Most of these Gulf countries have embarked on bold national experiments to pilot technology and teaching in their schools as a way to transition to knowledge societies. Their national interests and expectations have increasingly focused on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education and both the regional and global context in which Gulf societies, economies, and political systems operate.

Universities and faculty members play a vital role in providing education that helps build a strong foundation for a society where people are respected, treated equally, and get equal opportunities for upward social mobility. This book addresses the role of education in uplifting people out of poverty and oppression by imparting social justice education at the institution and community level.  Including chapters dedicated to human rights education, the authors consider how educators can help to foster a sense of awareness among learners about the dignity of human life through various interventional programmes. Discussing human rights with respect to migrant workers, foster youth and prisoners in different countries, the chapters demonstrate how students from all levels can benefit from social justice education.

Conversations about social education curricula largely neglect elements of spirituality and consciousness. This omission undermines the quality of the learning that occurs. This book presents spirituality as a legitimate basis for reframing these social decision-making by examining how revisiting notions of spirituality may redefine patterns of social relationships and financial choices.This work presents an interpretation of spirituality that offers the foundation for an alternative ideology to capitalist practices founded on principles of merit and blame. By acknowledging a spiritual sense of being, citizens may gain a renewed sense of personal responsibility toward community and social justice. The work draws from a fate-based ideology, which claims that individual and group choices originate from conditions outside their control. It describes art-based instructional processes that may stimulate students' affective awareness. It encourages facilitation of compassionate environments founded on principles of selflessness and provides a basis for conversation about the nature of social education and its foundations. This book represents an invaluable resource for researchers, leaders and practitioners in the field of social education.