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With dramatic global expansion of secondary schooling there has been significant research interest in how education is related to future aspirations, with important calls to acknowledge connections within processes of aspiring to young people's social, economic and cultural circumstances. This paper presents findings from thematic analysis of interview, participant observation and classroom observation data from an ethnographic study in two secondary schools in Tanzania. It argues that an important, and often overlooked, aspect of this complex process is the way in which aspirations for the future are connected not only to present realities, but also aspirations in the present. Focusing on students' aspirations relating to 'being a "good" student' and being able to 'soma kwa bidii' or 'study hard', this paper uses the conceptual language of the capability approach to assert the importance of considering aspirations for 'being' in education in conjunction with future aspirations for 'becoming'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal education has all too often been portrayed as a means of achieving social and economic mobility, there is a need to address the unequal footing for adolescents in the Global South attempting to achieve social mobility through education. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Sri Lanka, this article considers the impact of upward mobility-driven discourses of the North on the type of aspirations formed by adolescents in the Global South, and the social implications that arise as a result. Through observation, interviews and focus groups carried out at a secondary school for girls and a private tuition centre in Sri Lanka, the paper considers the value given to private tuition compared to government-funded schooling. In doing so, it examines the implications of mobility-driven discourses on the schooling experiences of adolescents in the Global South, particularly the heightening of educational and social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the development of UNESCO's Mahatma Gandhi Institute on Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), examining its record from global, national and institutional perspectives. The global perspective encompasses challenges to UNESCO's attempts to articulate a distinctive, humanistic vision in competition with other multilateral bodies. The national perspective relates to India, which hosts MGIEP, provides the bulk of its funding and exerts significant influence over its governance. Consideration is also given to the relationship between MGIEP's work and Mahatma Gandhi's ideas. Finally, the institutional perspective relates both to the author's own experience with MGIEP, and to information gained through interviews with others involved with the institute. It is argued that MGIEP's story illuminates challenges to attempts, within India and internationally, to sustain a humanistic vision of education in the face of powerful countervailing interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is increasingly becoming central to debates about how to promote peace in conflict-affected societies. Equitable access to quality learning, promotion of social justice through educational reforms and conflict-sensitive curricular and pedagogical approaches are viewed as peace supporting educational interventions. Drawing upon the existing body of literature in the area of education, conflict and peace in Southern Thailand and reflecting on Nancy Fraser's theory of social justice and applying the 4Rs framework, this paper provides a critical analysis of inequalities, cultural repression and epistemic domination through education. The paper argues that the 4Rs framework usefully exposes underlying structural tensions in education but does little to show avenues for rupturing unequal power relations and hegemonies that reproduce systems of domination and social exclusion at the macro level. The real hope, however, lies in the potential use of the 4Rs as a tool for grassroots political socialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing concern in Kenya that boys have gradually been left out of the gender equation with little research capturing their schooling experiences. When examined, boys' underachievement is treated with suspicion that has led to few studies demonstrating their marginalisation. This paper explored the manifestations of boys' underachievement in education in Busia and Kirinyaga counties in Kenya. The study was carried out in 12 primary schools targeted 12 headteachers, 24 teachers, 480 pupils, 8 education officials and 180 households. Enrolment, school attendance, and candidature for national examinations data showed boys were marginalised. In addition, they lacked adequate role models. However, on performance, boys still had better results than girls. The paper concludes that boys were beginning to under participate in education and recommends the need for gender interventions to target both boys and girls and tripartite efforts at communities, county governments and national government to re-enrol boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a neo-institutional approach to the increase in supplementary tutoring (ST) in Sweden, understanding it as an ongoing expansion of the institution of formal education. A narrative analysis of tutors' narrated experiences of for- and non-profit tutoring improves our understanding of how actors animate the cultural clusters of the meaning of formal education in new educational contexts. The narrative identities of stand-by and self-sacrificing tutors illustrate how time and interpretation are crucial aspects of private tutoring in the dominant discourse on the importance of testing in formal education. The paper discusses the re-emergence of ST in Sweden and argues that the social and spatiotemporal settings of for- and non-profit tutoring relate to Swedish mainstream education in different ways, and that non-profit tutoring merits more attention from comparative international research on ST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complex relationship between academic researchers working in the area of 'International Development and Education' and foreign intervention in the Global South. I make the case for stronger definitional links between 'colonialism' and 'development'. In this, I pay attention to how 'soft' and 'hard' sides of colonial strategy operated symbiotically and evidence parallel occurrences in Post 9/11 Western-led military/development activities. Drawing on 'education' examples, I reflect on our fields entanglements in the messy politics, partnerships and funding regimes of our unequal global order and the ways that we, as both researchers and practitioners, become 'implicated'. I also explore sites of counter-hegemony that span similar timeframes, including my engagements with popular education in social movements in Colombia, and make the case for a radical educational internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises one possible antidote to the conditions that produce public mass gun violence (PMGV) in the United States. I begin by illuminating how PMGV is a backlash to the nation's 'founding' on the violent divisions of colonisation and coloniality. I then inquire: If PMGV is a reflection of a deep societal wound, what methodologies and educational considerations can we engage to prevent violence and promote healing? I explore an ecology of knowledges (EoK), cognitive justice, and transdisciplinarity to envisage how Other ways of knowing already figure into pedagogical practices that alleviate violence and create anti-oppressive societies. These theories unsettle Western and colonial logics that rely on contradictory thinking (e.g. good or evil). The theories also encourage us to get to know the 'other' in ourselves in order to get to know the 'other' in the disaffected, work with him, and soothe his desires for violence before they erupt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Anderson's notion of 'imagined community' to argue that how people think about the publicness of their school system provides insight into the functioning and flourishing of communities, societies and nations. We focus on the privatisation of public schooling in Alberta, Canada and Northern England to highlight tensions between the provision of public schooling today and a romanticised, historical imagining of the public school providing equality and emancipation for all. We use data collected from 47 semi-structured interviews of education bureaucrats, union officials, school personnel and advocacy group members that asked about what constitutes 'publicness' within their system. Our analysis shows a tension between the realities of public systems opened up through market-oriented policies of 'autonomous' provision and stakeholders who still strongly believed in a public school system that was in the service of society, rather than the more individualist orientation of school choice and autonomy imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although use of high-stakes tests is common across developing societies, very little is known about how these tests are designed, what principles and criteria guide test construction, and what factors influence this process. The present study investigates the development of the English Paper-1 test for the Higher Secondary Certificate examination in Bangladesh, drawing on curriculum policy and test documents, and particularly on the perspectives of test writers and moderators. The findings reveal a range of conservative, compliant and context-responsive approaches that ensure the perpetuation of problematic test design practices and processes. The authors argue that these responses encourage 'ritualistic' design practices which negate concerns about test reliability and validity, and which obscure the basis by which winners and losers are created through the education system. Importantly, social celebration of this ritual does not seem to question the test architecture itself. The article contributes to our understanding of testing across societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the complex relationship between the state, civil society and education through comparative research with young people in France and the UK. Survey data derived from two cohorts of school students in South Wales and Lyon reveal strong differences in their levels of civic and political participation. While our Welsh students have higher levels of 'civic participation', as measured in terms of charitable work and volunteering, our French students have far higher levels of what might be considered 'political engagement', defined in terms of campaigning and demonstrating. We argue that these differences can be accounted for by the different cultural repertoires and priorities of citizenship education which themselves reflect the contrasting historical configurations of education, the state and civil society in these two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence on the differences among Spanish regions, regardless of other factors, in student achievement – in Language, Mathematics, Science and Citizenship – of fourth graders. This is the first paper in Spain that analyses these differences for Primary Education in all Spanish autonomous communities. The data in the Spanish General Diagnostic Assessment of 2009, by means of descriptive analyses and estimation of multilevel regressions, led us to show that, beyond differences between and within schools, variation in student achievement in Spain is even larger between regions than schools. Furthermore, regions with a co-official language produce worse results than others, especially in Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private institutions are increasingly visible in the higher education landscape of Egypt. Many of these institutions, however, are within the ‘demand-absorbing’ category, offered at relatively lower fees and requiring lower test scores for admission. Building on interview data, this paper looks at how the graduates of some of these institutes reflect on their learning experience. In the discourse of these graduates, the learning experience is described as ‘easy’ and less demanding. This ‘easy’ education is accepted, justified and even celebrated. Credential fetish and the social status associated with a higher education degree are central to the perpetuation of the allure of ‘easy’. However, ‘easy’ education is also condemned for its compromised quality and low status. The paper seeks to situate these competing and overlapping discourses on private institutes within the analysis of the structure of the education system in Egypt and the global neoliberal tide for education reform. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Well-being is realised through the interaction of the individual's desires and capacities, and external contexts. Contexts in postcolonial societies diverge from the assumptions of functioning liberal democratic states and capitalist economies often assumed in theories of schooling. Instead, these contexts are characterised by poverty and inequality, cultural diversity, and ongoing projects of state and nation-building. Through case studies of two rural communities in India and South Africa, this paper analyses the role of postcolonial contexts in shaping well-being opportunities through schooling in these contexts. It highlights the contested nature of this relationship in cultural, economic, and political spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing a research gap concerning the insufficient philosophical discourses on social justice from non-Western traditions, this article conceptualises social justice in education from a Daoist perspective. Drawing upon a Chinese classic Daodejing, it is argued that Daoism is aligned with relational justice through its emphasis on justice as dao (way-making). Relational justice as way-making is comprised of three fundamental characteristics: it eschews all forms of exploitation and subjugation; it relies on deferential leadership; and it balances the needs and interests of the self and those of others through wuwei (non-coercive actions), wuming (nameless) and wuyu (objectless desires). The paper further highlights the key educational implications in light of the neoliberal conditions of schooling. It is contended that a socially just school from a Daoist viewpoint rejects differentiation, measurement, competition and individualism that engender and perpetuate social injustice in favour of critical dialogues, correlation and harmony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perceived dichotomy between public or private benefits to higher education remains of growing interest in higher education research and policy. In this paper, I borrow from the African philosophy of Ubuntu as a conceptual lens to interrogate this binary within the South African context using the 'black tax' phenomenon. Gleaning secondary evidence from online sources, I posit that while black tax is being misused and abused by some beneficiaries, the experiences of majority of black professional graduates within their nuclear and extended families suggest a public good value of higher education beyond the suggested private benefit of earnings and social mobility. I argue using core components of 'Ubuntu' that understanding the benefits of higher education in a context such as South Africa demands a nuance approach beyond the current dichotomy. I conclude that black tax blurs the lines and serves a public good function within a private good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National education policies often emerge from the global arena. These global policy norms hold the promise that reforms will produce similar education and development outcomes in different contexts. However, research on how and why global education reforms are practised 'on the ground' and with what effects is still scant. In this paper, we investigate how two global education agendas, namely Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Competency-Based Education (CBE), are enacted and re-contextualised in Uganda and Mexico. By drawing on data obtained from extensive field research in both countries, we explore how these global policies were translated into practice within their situated, professional, material and external contexts. Our research shows that in both cases the enactment of global policies differed widely from universal agendas. We, therefore, argue that global education norms in education can also reproduce existing inequalities or even lead to new forms of inequalities at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented for the featured articles within the March 2014 issue, focusing on schooling in African countries, including contributions by Shoko Yamada, Christine Smith Ellison, and Roger Jeffery.

In the evaluation of any political strategy, it is essential to carry out the collection and analysis of the available data. The presentation of a complex phenomenon by means of synthetic measures can improve both the political actors' understanding of the situation and the design of new measures. In this paper, we deal with the problem of the construction of a multidimensional composite indicator for the evaluation of educational systems in OECD countries. In our proposal, not only are those indicators included that measure the academic outcomes, but also a group of indicators that measures the social dimension of the educational system. A variation of a methodology based on Data Envelopment Analysis is developed to construct a composite multiplicative indicator that enables inter-temporal comparison and the detection of the sources of the variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss core ideas arising from research undertaken in a Leverhulme Trust (IN2016-002) funded international network project. The project examined youth activism, engagement and the development of new civic learning spaces within and across six countries (Australia, Canada, England, Hungary, Lebanon and Singapore). Arising from interactions with activists and educators and by reviewing literature, we argue that four areas are important for assisting a critical analysis of the fundamental complexities that researchers, teachers, youth workers and youth themselves, are grappling with within and through their activism. These areas that address ways of characterising and developing the relationship between education and activism focus on: engagement with context; engagement with meaning; engagement with diversity; and engagement in reflexivity. We do not present these areas as a simplistic typology; each involves complexities that cannot be easily or readily resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle East and North Africa region has the world's lowest returns to education. This paper examines what the value of a degree is using nationally representative labour market surveys from Egypt (2012), Jordan (2010) and Tunisia (2014). Specifically, the authors estimate Mincer models for levels and years of schooling. They find that returns are highest in Tunisia and lowest in Egypt, although all three countries fall short of the global average. Higher education is where returns are greatest. They also analyse the returns by sub-groups: sex; age group; and sector. The returns are higher for women than men in Egypt. The younger generation has lower returns than the older generation in Egypt. The private sector in Egypt and Tunisia has lower returns than the public sector. One reason for the low returns is that many individuals are overeducated relative to position requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the way education and conflict have become entangled during the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ response to ‘radical Islam’ at home and abroad. The paper charts the complex ways that education has been deployed to serve Western military and security objectives in multiple locations in the global south and how these strategies have now returned to the ‘ West’ in the form of ‘countering violent extremism’ interventions. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of the ‘boomerang effect’ I will explore whether and how education techniques and strategies deployed abroad in pursuit of imperial interests return to the West and are deployed to monitor, control and suppress marginalised communities in a form of ‘internal colonialism’. Finally, the paper brings the two sections together in the Findings to explore commonalities and divergences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an introduction in which the editors discusses articles on topics such as economic, social, and cultural factors contributing to boys' experiences of higher education in Jamaica; the education of refugees in Great Britain; and educational inequality in China and Vietnam.

Chinese education scholars Cesan Wang and Qiquan Zhong led a debate over knowledge centredness versus student centredness in China's ongoing pre-collegiate curriculum reform. The debate was considered the most influential academic event in the past 30 years in the field of education in China. Employing a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, this paper examined the power dynamics in the reform reflected through the debate texts and interview transcripts from a group of teachers. The party-state remains dominant in China's education system. Both sides respect China's ancient educational traditions. The two scholars articulated their own ideas and criticised the other's by drawing on international literature and cases and contemporary education traditions. Teachers' perspectives were neglected at the early stage of the debate but teachers may be the main force in reform implementation. This paper provides a case of how the global curriculum reform trends were negotiated and reconciled in a specific jurisdiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa still faces inequalities with regard to access to higher education opportunities. Foregrounding student voices at one university, the paper compares how students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds make decisions about going to university. The focus is on those who have succeeded, but ideas can be extrapolated regarding those who do not make it. The argument draws on Amartya Sen's capability approach to explore individual stories and the interactions between agency and the intersectional conversion conditions of possibility which shape the capability for university access. Narrative interviews show how students are enabled or constrained in their educational decision-making in relation to selves, schooling, family and income. Some implications are suggested for enhancing access, while not making claims for South African higher education as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether education is a viable route to better livelihoods and social inclusion for children living in poor urban areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It uses qualitative interviews with 36 students aged 11-16, living in slum and middle-class areas, and also draws on data from a larger, mixed-methods study to provide context. Many children from slums are excluded altogether from education, while others are incorporated into the system but on unfavourable terms. The paper identifies three principal ways in which this adverse incorporation can happen: through differential access to different types and quality of school; through obstacles that prevent children from poorer households from progressing through the system and reaching higher levels; and through subordinate power relations in the school, embodied in systems of assessment, labelling of students and discipline. These are likely to limit the potential for education to be a socially transformative institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Arab countries are currently undergoing significant education reform. However, there is a paucity of research on how reforms are crafted and educational policies constructed. Lebanon has witnessed two education reforms since the Taif Agreement in 1989. This paper examines the role of research centres in influencing the last two education reforms. It selects a case study of an independent, non-governmental educational association and studies the role it played in these two reforms. The study found that contrary to the conventional wisdom, policy makers did call on research institutes when designing their reform. Yet there is a haphazard relationship between policy makers and researcher centres influenced by a number of factors, such as personal relationships, policy brokers, donors, and the availability of reputable research centres. The study also showed reluctance amongst some academics to play a direct role in influencing policymakers decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reveals the complex diversity that underpins ostensibly similar transnational education programmes (TNE), through a comparison of UK TNE in Malaysia and Hong Kong. It draws on data from two different yet cognate studies on the role of UK universities in delivering higher education in Asia. Some fine-grained and informative differences between the ways in which 'value' in TNE is constructed in different host contexts is revealed. The paper brings to light the 'voices' of TNE students and graduates, which are very seldom heard. The arguments adapt and extend the concepts of education as a positional good, and as cultural capital. For various instrumental, intrinsic and personal reasons the authors discuss in detail, UK TNE is more highly valued in Malaysia than in Hong Kong. The paper makes a wider contribution to knowledge on the changing landscape of international higher education and the impact on social and personal (dis)advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of chronic poverty many people in South Asia experience poor quality schooling, interrupted schooling, or no schooling at all. People affected by poverty face multiple constraints on wellbeing, which typically include informal employment, low wages and poor health. In such contexts the benefits and, more specifically, the 'returns' to education are not easily observed. Standard measures of educational attainment (such as primary school completion, years of schooling, literacy rates) are ill-suited to capture and understand such benefits. Similarly, data on income from formal employment is likely to be unsuitable. The paper argues that concepts of educational benefit and mobility have to be re-thought in contexts of chronic poverty to capture the 'marginal returns' in situations of constraint and vulnerability. The paper illustrates this argument with ethnographic vignettes of uses of literacy by non-schooled adults in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent education reform in China reflects the global trend of education policy borrowing from Anglophone countries such as the USA. The reform in China essentially advocates shifting from knowledge reproduction and didacticism to knowledge construction by students through a learner-centredness approach. Aware of the trend of borrowing policy from ‘Western’ countries, some educators in China use the proverb ‘the West wind has overpowered the East wind’ to describe this phenomenon. This paper examines the cultural factors that influence education policy borrowing in China by drawing upon Johnson’s metaphors of the ‘politics of selling’ and the ‘politics of gelling’. This paper argues that there exist fundamental cultural differences between Western and Chinese perspectives on the nature and transmission of knowledge that make education policy transfer in China challenging. This paper further proposes that China borrow education policy judiciously by integrating foreign and indigenous sources of knowledge, teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concepts of literacy events and practices have received considerable attention in educational research and policy. In comparison, the question of value, that is, ‘which literacy practices do people most value?’ has been neglected. With the current trend of cross-cultural adult literacy assessment, it is increasingly important to recognise locally valued literacy practices. In this paper we argue that measuring preferences and weighting of literacy practices provides an empirical and democratic basis for decisions in literacy assessment and curriculum development and could inform rapid educational adaptation to changes in the literacy environment. The paper examines the methodological basis for investigating literacy values and its potential to inform cross-cultural literacy assessments. The argument is illustrated with primary data from Mozambique. The correlation between individual values and respondents’ socio-economic and demographic characteristics is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main objective of this paper is to illustrate the conceptualisation of a textbook as a site of memory, a discourse and a genre. This paper investigates the semantic and linguistic elements of the discourse of World War II in Ukrainian school history textbooks for the 11th grade, centring on the following distinct key themes: the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the German attack on the Soviet Union and the ensuing Nazi occupation regime, the Soviet army offensive followed by the restoration of the Soviet regime, and resistance movements. The textbooks analysed dismantle the Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War and reveal the atrocities of Stalinism. They also create a new hero-and-victim paradigm: the heroic deeds of Ukrainians in the Soviet army and of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fighting for Ukraine’s independence are emphasised, as is the suffering of Ukrainians under the German occupation and the Stalinist regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including the history of global education goals, interventions aimed at improving learning quality in three Commonwealth Caribbean countries, and global norms and values in education.

The Child-Centred Approach (CCA) is increasingly promoted within India and internationally as a response to the challenge of delivering quality education. From identifying and examining Indian indigenous and global concepts of CCA within traditional and contemporary child-centred pedagogic discourse, this paper reveals the complexities of underlying agendas within the domestic and international setting and the implications of this for the integration of CCA and the ‘child-centred’ teacher in India. Based on empirical analysis of teachers’ interviews, the findings demonstrate that the role of the teacher continues to be largely overlooked in spite of a willingness from teachers to engage within the child-centred pedagogic discourse. Disempowerment, a lack of autonomy and limited professional status are highlighted. Therefore, this paper calls for the rediscovery of the ‘child-centred’ teacher to advance from within the nation. Without this, it is asserted that the authenticity of the CCA model will continue to be compromised, and with it, any indigenous expressions of a similar epistemology will be fundamentally restricted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the setting up of the partnership across the Mauritian and South African higher education contexts with respect to the development of a postgraduate PhD doctoral studies programme. The Mauritian Institute of Education (MIE) aims to develop staffing capacities through engagement with doctoral studies, especially in the context of limited experience in doctoral supervision. The South African model of doctoral cohort supervision at The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) School of Education is a recent alternative model of delivery in the building of these student and staff capacities through shared ownership of the process and products of doctoral education and development. This paper highlights the expectations, constraints and enabling features of the setting up of the UKZN-MIE PhD programme across international boundaries, driven by mutual reciprocity through valuing of indigenous local knowledges, a non-colonising engagement and innovative methodologies for postgraduate education. Adapting the UKZN cohort model for the international context is the subject of this paper. The paper draws on the experiences of the designers and deliverers as well as users of this programme. The paper explores what drives this form of international collaboration for both contracting partners in the context of shifting conceptions of a teacher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Accountability is increasingly recognised as the key mediating variable that encourages service providers to deliver efficient and effective local services. In the context of education, accountability strategies do not always explicitly consider young citizens as the primary users of education services. In this paper, a client approach to accountability is compared to a citizenship approach. Drawing on community scorecard and social audit research in Malawi and Kenya, the author explores whether education services are more responsive and accountable when young people access information and exercise their voice. The paper outlines a refreshed ‘accountability framework’ for education, placing young citizens at the centre, and argues that a citizenship-led approach in education governance is likely to be more realistic and effective than a ‘client power’ approach. This article makes an important contribution to the development community’s understanding of what constitutes an effective approach for promoting more transparent and responsive education governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper uses data from a household survey of three rural communities and interviews in the Mfantseman Municipality in the Central Region of Ghana to investigate the costs incurred by households that choose either fee-free public schools or low-fee private schools. The paper shows that both provisions impose costs that place those with lower household incomes at a disadvantage since the poorest cannot afford the costs for several children. Although fee-free public education has led to the elimination of payments such as tuition, exams and extra classes fees, other direct costs such as feeding and school uniform consume a large part of the household expenditure on education for the poor. Low-fee for profit private schools remain out of reach and are not affordable by the poorest. The paper concludes that fee-free public schooling still leaves households with significant costs, which constitute a barrier to access for children from poor households. The findings indicate the need for the government of Ghana, and those other countries with similar circumstances, to develop and implement policies that are pro-poor and ensure that there are no costs to the poorest households since this is the only way all children will enjoy a full cycle of basic education as mandated by commitments to Education for All. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the context of educational globalisation, the role of supranational organisations in shaping the educational policy decisions, especially of aid-dependent countries, has increased. Using global governance as a theoretical framework and Critical Policy Sociology (CPS) as a methodological framework, this paper analysed key educational policy documents produced by the World Bank (WB) and the Government of Nepal (GON), as well as interviews conducted with 13 key educational planners in Nepal. The analysis found that the nature and scope of educational management has changed because of the shift from traditional government to a new governance mechanism. In this new mechanism, educational governance is shared among international donors, the private sector and the GON. As Nepal's educational policy decisions are increasingly shaped by international donors, educational strategies recommended by them have shaped Nepal's educational policy and planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the effect of school uniforms on school attendance in low income countries is scarce. Building on a meta-analysis of the available literature, this paper analyses primary survey data collected (n = 462) in Mongolia on students' perceptions of school uniforms. The findings reveal that it is not only the cost of uniforms that matters, but also poor students' feelings of exclusion when the majority of students in a school wear uniforms. The poor drop out from school when their symbolic association with the majority is visibly broken through their inability to afford and wear school uniforms. The study suggests that school uniform policies in low income countries are fraught with complications. Instead of creating cohesion, such policies are more likely to affect poor students' negative perceptions of themselves and play a strong role in dropout rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Convention on Human Rights has been signed by both the UK and Sweden as well as other European states, providing legal justification for accommodating the educational needs of religious minorities. This legal entitlement is explored in the paper, with particular reference to parental choice for schools based on an Islamic ethos. How the UK and Sweden have responded to accommodate the religious convictions of Muslim families is the focus of discussion, drawing on historical and policy backgrounds. The paper also draws on the theoretical work of Kumashiro and the concept of ‘Education for the Other’, examining the positioning of minority groups within the broad context of a multicultural society and the challenge of accommodating religious convictions in a climate of increasing support for cultural assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cannella and Lincoln argue for a critical approach to the social sciences which ‘requires a radical ethics, an ethics that is always/already concerned about power and oppression even as it avoids constructing “power” as a new truth’ (2011, 81; emphasis in original). Referencing Spivak, they call for research relations which ‘address contemporary political and power orientations by recognising that the investigator and the investigated (whether people, institutions, or systems) are subjects of the presence or aftermath of colonialism’ (2011, 83). Such recognition fuels growing dissatisfaction with the formalised ethical review procedures required in,inter alia, North America, Australasia and the UK. This paper draws on an investigation of how students on a professional doctoral programme taught by a UK university in three Anglophone Caribbean territories perceived ethics review procedures. This programme emphasises decolonising methodologies and pedagogies, whilst recognising that these can be ‘perceived as yet another instance of imperialistic, colonial imposition’ (Lavia and Sikes 2010, 90). The paper seeks to re-present a critical research ethics in which ‘societal structures, institutions and oppressions become the subject of research (rather than human beings) [with a view to] avoid further creation and subjectification of an or the Other’ (Cannella and Lincoln 2011, 88). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies to date show how low-fee private (LFP) schools, including unrecognised ones, have gained practical legitimacy and continue to increase in number. However, little explanation is offered regarding the legal legitimacy of such unrecognised LFP schools. This paper intends to fill this gap by examining the legal legitimacy of unrecognised schools in Delhi whose actual existence was challenged by the Delhi High Court and the Right to Education Act, 2009. The paper also illustrates the practical legitimacy of unrecognised schools by comparing perspectives of different actors (the government, NGOs and managers, teachers and parents at nine unrecognised schools in Delhi) based primarily on the author’s interviews with these actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including one on examination of the perception of students regarding education since they are influenced by post-colonial discourse, one on the evaluation of the assertion that school-based education which was introduced by the colonizers does not determine instead suppresses community-based education, and one on the patterns of inequality that deter educational involvement.

Research on educational quality has been scarce in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, whereas the debates over educational quality date from 1966 in the USA with the Coleman Report. Fortunately TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) starts to fill this gap by providing data on students' achievement and for many MENA countries this is the first time that such data are available. The paper gives an overview of the quality of education in MENA using TIMSS' 2007 data. The research questions addressed here are why is achievement low? And why is the gap between the top-performing countries and MENA countries large? In order to answer these questions, the paper focuses on several aspects: the first is the inefficiency of acquiring the language, the second is the inefficiency of time devoted to homework, the third is the meagre intended curriculum which is translated into a weaker implemented curriculum, the fourth aspect deals with the inefficiency of public resources devoted to the education sector. Finally, the paper highlights two other factors believed to affect students' achievement: family background and students' attitudes towards mathematics and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to improve the 'quality' of education for all in government primary schools in India have seen a shift towards child-centred teaching. This paper examines the 'Joyful Learning' programme, an example of a pedagogic reform implemented in rural primary schools in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Through an empirical analysis of teachers' pedagogic discourses, I explore what it means to introduce child-centred pedagogic principles in low-income, rural Indian contexts. Of particular interest to this paper is how new forms of pedagogic control in child-centred approaches might be understood and mediated by teachers. The analysis reveals how the social controls of knowledge acquisition can remain unchallenged, and hidden, by the rhetoric of this child-centred pedagogy. The discussions reflect on the need for more complex and contextual considerations of pedagogy in attempts to achieve 'quality' universal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights some tensions regarding lifelong learning discourses for countries which are listed in the lower part of international development indexes. Such countries are often referred to collectively as the 'South', though this represents a political focus rather than geographical accuracy and usually represents those formerly colonised countries that are affected by international aid agendas, as opposed to those in the 'North' that are identified as advanced industrialised countries. This discussion follows recent concerns (for example by Torres 2003) that the dominant discourse for lifelong learning is articulated as a priority for the North while the learning priority for countries in the South are reduced to basic education, as evidenced in internationally agreed development targets such as the Millennium Development Goals. It is also a response to further calls (for example by Rogers 2003, 700) to articulate 'real alternatives' for the South, and for 'more theoretical' work on 'lifelong learning for the countries of the South' (Youngman 2003, 114). One of this paper's arguments is that the 'North-South' divide of policy agendas for educational reform is symbolic of other divisive discourses and behaviours by the international aid community that are constructed in the name of development. Its other argument is that the South has its own context-specific perspectives that can help to shape a more global lifelong learning vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to the proliferation of private, fee-paying schools in India, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play an important role in providing educational services, especially in un-served and under-served communities. This paper uses qualitative research to critically examine the nature and potential of NGO provision of primary schooling in India. In particular, it explores the contributions of one NGO programme which has sought to increase access for socially and economically marginalised children by establishing and providing support for small, rural, multigrade schools. The paper argues that NGO programmes like these have had positive impacts in terms of both access and quality because, firstly, the programmes are small-scale and locally rooted, and secondly, their organisation allows for greater flexibility and room for innovation in areas such as curriculum design, teacher education, and school networking than is commonly possible within government schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether the recent growth in 'low-fee private' (LFP) schools is able to promote Education for All by being accessible to the poor. Based primarily on a 13-village survey of 250 households and visits to 26 private and government schools in rural Uttar Pradesh, India, this paper explores who 'chooses' private schooling, in the light of the well-documented failure of the government school system. In particular, the paper explores the issue of whether private provision is affordable and accessible to poor rural parents. It finds that LFP school costs are unaffordable for over half of the sampled children, including the majority of low caste and Muslim families. It also finds that while LFPs are greatly preferred under current conditions, what parents actually want is a well-functioning government school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the case of Eritrea to explore tensions between education and militarisation as forms of everyday state-making and examine how teachers constitute the state in the process of navigating these tensions. In 2003 Eritrea merged educational and military institutions. Teachers responded to the new policies by alternately joining in with students' tacit resistance to them, and engaging in strict, often violent, measures to reclaim control and exert 'teacher sovereignty' over schools. Teachers' intermingling of resistant humour and foot-dragging with violence and authoritarianism suggests that teachers, as agents of the state in Eritrea and elsewhere, may resist militarisation yet also reproduce authoritarian violence. While this policy, which effectively merged military and educational institutions was unique to Eritrea, the disjuncture between education and militarisation exposed by this case illuminates the complex role that schools and teachers play in state-making and nuances our understanding of education, the state and armed conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]