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Politics, as in many spheres of life in the Philippines, is still very much a male enclave. From the smallest government unit up to the national level, men dominate (Gemba, 2001). The study aimed to find out the factors that facilitates or restrains women candidates from participating in the political arena. This study was conducted among Lady Vice Mayors and Councillors from the Municipal Council and City Council in the province of Bulacan as well as the Lady Board Members of the Provincial Council of Bulacan. The study covers the personal characteristics of the candidates, their motivation to entering the political arena, the challenges and issues they faced as candidate and legislator, and the strategies they applied to overcome these hurdles. The study utilized a validated survey instrument from the survey conducted by the Royal University of Bhutan in 2014. Data for this study was gathered through the Office the Head of the Council or directly from the respondents by administering the survey instrument. The results indicate that the average age of the respondents is forty (Mean=40) years old. Majority of the respondents are married and majority of them had one to three children. The respondents have commendable educational background at college or university level. The main motivation factors of the respondents to running for office are the desire to bring community development; and, to promote gender equality within their respective communities. The family continues to be the biggest source of motivation and moral support for the women candidates. During the performance of their elective positions, the respondents continue to experience challenges like understanding the legal process, time management issues, and consultation skills--all are crucial to their legislative work.

Ethnic towns in China are always special and important. Their rich natural and cultural resources and relatively poor conditions make their development different. This research constructs an integrated development model of town-industry-education (TIE) for ethnic towns in China. The case of Pengshui is presented to illustrate the details of this model. Chiyou Jiuli town, ethnic tourism industry, and Chongqing Vocational Institute of Tourism formed an integration of TIE in their development. Some closely related elements form the basis of their integration and some similar driving forces motivate the formation of their integration. Through the operating platform of Jiuli Ordered Class, their integration could benefit all the participants and contribute to local economic and social development. This model helps to make use of local resources and improve local development levels. Considering the rapid development of society, further studies are needed to apply this model to more regions and include various institutions.

Background: A supportive context is essential for successful implementation processes. Local politicians are delivery system actors who might both enable and hinder the implementation of health and social policies. Aims and objectives: The study examines the relationship between perceived prerequisites and the type of actions taken by local political committees to support the implementation of evidence-based practice in social services. Methods: A cross-sectional web survey targeting the chair and vice-chair of committees responsible for social services in Sweden (n=181). The data was analysed with regression analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA. Findings: Three clusters of action were identified (passive, neutral and active), capturing the reported actions taken by the committees to support implementation of EBP. The committees' perceived prerequisites (capability, motivation, and opportunity) were highest in the active cluster and lowest in the passive cluster. The clusters also differed regarding chair/vice-chair educational level, and type of municipality in which the chair/vice-chair were active. Discussions and conclusion: The variation in reported actions among the committees to support the implementation of EBP implies that some social service organisations might lack the contextual support they need for implementing EBP. The prerequisites for the committees might need to be strengthened with regard to capability, motivation and opportunity. This study is an indication of the relationship between committees' prerequisites and their actions in the implementation of EBP, but further research is needed.

While network governance in education has been widely discussed in the literature, research focusing on the behaviours of and interactions between pluralist actors is rare, and the power exercised by China's local governments in network governance is under-researched. This study uses school turnaround, a networking process that involves multiple actors, as a research window to explore the complexity of local governments' role in network governance. With empirical data from document analysis, observation, and interviews, this study found three patterns of local governments' interactions with schools and third-party actors in school turnaround in Shanghai -- acting as dominator, accommodator, or facilitator -- in different networks. The analyses of the findings reveal that, different from symmetric and asymmetric power models of network governance, network governance in Chinese school turnaround is a differentiated practice involving local governments' different extents of power exercise over other network actors and different degrees of unequal power relations among them (i.e., hierarchical, diffused, or democratic), resulting from the interplay of factors related to tripartite actors.

In 1999, the Chinese government implemented a higher education enrollment expansion policy to improve education equality. Now, its positive impact on educational equality is contested. This study attempts to identify the link between city administrative level and tertiary attainment in the context of the policy. Our empirical findings indicate that after implementation of the policy, inequality increased. Students from political and economic centers had more opportunities for tertiary education attainment. This policy has a greater impact on disparities in access to undergraduate education for individuals living in different administrative hierarchies than it does on specialist education.

In this study, we employ discourse analysis of US gubernatorial political advertisements to analyze the discursive struggles over the purposes of public schools. The advertisements are analyzed to demonstrate how rhetoric works to shape consent for dominant, human capital views regarding schooling's purposes, as well as to communicate alternative articulations of schooling's purposes which can disrupt that consent. In the latter exploration, we draw upon the approach of public persuasion, where the public is persuaded to deem something other than dominant economic values as relevant for making education decisions. We analyze alternative contextual cues that can shift citizens' impressions, leading them to weigh conflicting values toward schools differently. We offer narratives that change the meaning citizens make of schools with the aim of building public support for public schools.

Collaboration and networking have been widely recognized and adopted as strategies for school turnaround. However, most studies focus on external forces' (particularly governments') role in promoting collaborative turnaround, paying less attention to turnaround schools' reactions to external actors. With specific reference to Shanghai, China, this qualitative empirical study examines the complexity of schools' role in school turnaround through network governance. Drawing on document review and interview data, this study found three patterns of turnaround schools' interactions with local governments and third-party actors in different school turnaround networks -- compliant follower, reserved enforcer, or rational aspirant. Turnaround schools' differentiated responses to external actors in China's collaborative turnaround indicated their different awareness and capacity to utilize external resources. This resulted from schools' different levels of disadvantage and leadership and external actors' different extents of power exercise and differently impacted schools' positions and power relations with external actors.

Prior research on environmental and sustainability education policies has largely focused on the international to national policy uptake. This article explores such policies at the subnational level in a fragmented education system. Over the past two decades, a growing number of school districts in the United States have enacted sustainability-oriented policies through the implementation of simultaneous efforts to green their facilities and provide related educational programming. This article explores the breadth of this approach in the 200 largest school districts in the country. In examining policy predictors at the district, municipal, and state levels, the study combines National Center for Education Statistics data and information from a systematic web scan. Using logistic regression, the analysis is grounded in an expanded Advocacy Coalition Framework and reveals four main findings. First, school districts under mayoral control are more likely to have a policy than districts governed by a school board. Second, the study underscores the interconnectedness of these policies with the sustainability efforts of the municipalities they are located in. Third, school districts located in large cities are more likely to have a policy. Fourth, a strong environmental movement in the state is associated with the presence of a policy.

This paper investigates language policy formation through participatory and deliberative methods and, more concretely, the regulation of gender-neutral language in Barcelona City Council (Spain). Through an argumentative approach to policy, the paper examines a specific language policy idea, process and solution, and the accompanying discursive argumentation used by decision-makers. The paper (a) shows that linguistic preconceptions and power relations may constitute a potential barrier to effective deliberation on language, and (b) argues that if local modes of governance (as opposed to the centralised role assigned to language academies) are going to be used to prescribe language practices in institutional contexts, arrangements should be put in place to provide access to a full range of views about language, generate reflective judgments and promote a public exchange of arguments. The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of this study for the inclusion of deliberation in language policy-making.

The question of whether economic globalization promotes or depresses governments' education spending has attracted social scientists' attention for decades. Existing literature presents an interesting contrast between two theoretical scenarios, namely race to the top and race to the bottom. This paper attempts to adapt the debate to the subnational context of China and argues that, under this decentralized authoritarian setting, economic globalization could boost the absolute levels of education funding by incentivizing human capital formation and by contributing to local government coffers but shrink its relative share in overall spending by shifting government priorities away from education to other budget items such as infrastructure that relate more closely to foreign investment. A dynamic panel data analysis of provincial-level statistics from China over an 11-year period confirms that inflow of foreign direct investment increases the absolute level but decreases the relative weight of education spending in the overall provincial budget, essentially a race to the top and to the bottom at the same time.

The scholarly debate about cooperation between different stakeholders in Vocational Education and Training has primarily focussed on the national level, and much less on local and regional levels. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of the conditions and mechanisms of decentralised cooperation in VET systems, through a comparative case study of two partnerships between local government and industry at two industrial schools in Sweden. We want to understand how and why companies and municipalities engage in this kind of co-operation, in a national structural context which provides few incentives for doing so. Our analysis is guided by two research questions. Firstly, what have these collaborations meant in terms of the involvement of firms and commitment from local government? Secondly, what factors can explain the similarities and differences between the establishment and upholding of these two collaborative arrangements? Our study shows that the partnerships can be characterised by different dynamics in relation to the scope of participation and depth of commitment of the partners. We also show that two conditions are especially important for understanding variations between the cases: the structure of local industry, and the characteristics of the relationship between local government and the industrial companies.

This paper reports a study of permanent secretaries who served at the Department for Education (DfE) from 1975 to 2011. Located within a context of theories that explain how government bureaucracies operate, it focuses on Michael Bichard. Appointed in July 1995 when attempts were being made to open Whitehall to non-career civil servants, he retired in May 2001 having served 21 months with a Conservative and 48 months with a Labour Secretary of State. He was an unusual permanent secretary. An outsider, state school and red-brick university educated whose father had been a docker, his prior service was in local government. Inter alia, the paper traces his background and career; his role in the merger of the Departments for Education and Employment (DfEE); his relationship with his Secretaries of State; his contribution to education policy; and his estimation of his style and achievements. Consideration is also given to the value of external appointments and to the merits of a descriptive based approach to the study of public sector administration.

Tackling environmental problems is one of the main policy challenges facing governments. The process of forming attitudes starts at a young age, and is mostly shaped by education. Participation in pro-environmental initiatives at schools is mainly voluntary. Local governments can play an important role as the institution that links communities with the environment. In this paper, we examine the role of local governments/municipalities on school participation in an environmental educational program, with a special focus on primary and secondary education. We use data from the Sustainable School Program in Chile. We model schools' participation and level of participation by an ordered probit model with sample selection. Results show that public schools are more likely to participate in the program compared with private schools, and schools with more teachers reveal a higher probability of being part of the program. In addition, while school performance and teachers' perceptions correlate with achieving higher levels of certification, a more intense commitment to the program is more likely in communes whose local authorities have the capacity to promote voluntary financial and environmental initiatives. Thus, in order to promote successful co-management of environmental policy, local governments should take into account the heterogeneity of the school system.

In March 2016 when North Carolina's House Bill 2 (HB2)--the "bathroom bill"--was introduced and passed, I was teaching at a state university in North Carolina (N.C. Gen. Assem., 2016). In the Spring semester of that year, on March 23, HB2 was passed in a 12-hour special session meeting by the North Carolina legislature. The following day, March 24, HB2 was signed into law. The law was a direct response to the city of Charlotte's recent anti-discrimination policy, which was aimed at protecting LGBTQþ people from discrimination by businesses. Charlotte's ordinance, which had already passed, was set to go into effect April 1, 2016 (Charlotte & NC City Council, 2016). HB2 had broader implications than simply stopping Charlotte's ordinance; it sought to block the right of any local government to pass anti-discrimination policies that differed from the state policy. The element of the bill that drew the most media attention, however, was its mandate concerning public restrooms: one must use the restroom that matches the sex listed on one's birth certificate. As a teacher in a public university at the time, the implications of this bill were palpable among many of the students who were LGBTQþ identified or allied across the campus where Michelle Powell worked. In this article, she draws on her experiences in the classroom on the day following the news of HB2. She argues that the specific experience of a day in the classroom, one that seems mundane, can help lead to a different ethics or theory of political possibility and ways of taking action. Specifically, she suggests that practices usually disparaged as "childish," and therefore politically impossible or ineffective, represent a genuine, effective counter-politics, particularly in the context of late- or post-capitalism.

We study the effects of giving poor females the right to vote in local elections on education spending and teacher-student ratios. To estimate causal effects, we exploit a national voting reform in Norwegian local elections that removed socioeconomic restrictions on female voting rights. The identification strategy exploits heterogeneous changes in the share of females in the voting franchise from the pre-reform (1907) to the post-reform election (1910) across local governments. While US studies find positive effects on government spending of the introduction of female suffrage, we find no systematic effects on education spending, despite a significant increase in female turnout.

How did political factors and public health affect state and local education decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the continuation of in-person schooling? Using an original data set of state policies, we find that governors ordered school closures in spring 2020 but left decisions to districts in the fall, regardless of partisanship. Analyzing local district reopening plans, however, we find that decisions were more tied to local political partisanship and union strength than to COVID-19 severity. Republicans in the public were also more favorable than Democrats toward in-person learning. States' decisions to leave reopening plans to their districts opened the way for the influence of local partisanship.

This paper offers an overview and summary of selected sustainability-related academic programs and certificates delivered by universities and colleges that are located within the same geographic area (Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.). The authors evaluated the holistic and practical dimensions of creating and sustaining educational programs and reviewed emerging outcomes from universities with a history of prosperous programs to recommend models of applicability. The study focused on the role of internal and external leadership, political and appointed officials, networking of various stakeholders, demand for sustainability in education, and the resources commitment in staffing the programs. The authors analyzed internal reports and documents in the context of sustainability in education and longevity of programs. The findings related to the concepts of successfully developing and sustaining sustainability-related academic programs in Grand Rapids (MI) are examined within a broad and holistic context encompassing educational, programmatic, socioeconomic, organizational, and leadership dimensions. While further research is warranted, all elements add value to the conceptual framework of developing and supporting sustainability-related academic programming, with potential lessons and implications for programmatic approaches to education domestically and abroad.

Efficient strategies to embedding sustainability in an organization are frequently linked to effective leadership. By design, changes in direction within an organization may lead to alterations in commitment or perceived significance of sustainability in organizations. While some organizational leaders are interested in embedding sustainability within a structure, other leaders believe in leaving the legacy behind and permanently influencing sustainability efforts. To confirm or dispel the underscored notion of the importance of leadership in embedding sustainability in organizations, a qualitative methodology approach to interviews, document analyses, and literature review is utilized. The research inquiry includes in-person interviews with top city staff and elected officials in a large Midwestern city and a review of the internal documents and reports. The end goal of the research is an examination of the role both elected and appointed officials have in embedding sustainability within cities, and whether a change in leadership may have an impact on continuity of sustainability implementation and long-term viability of such policies. The paper focuses on the application of sustainable energy policies within a local government organizational structure as a mean of constructing a better understanding of leadership on sustainability implementation and embedment. While the further inquiry is needed, the research points out that an active partnership between city managers, administrators, and elected officials must be in place to support integrating sustainability from within and that sustainability thrives where exhaustive leadership support such initiatives and efforts.

The improvement of educational service quality to create sustainable education is not solely dependent on creating well-designed plans and regulations. Despite the fact that the central government already composed beneficial education plans, there is no guarantee that local government implements them effectively. Thus, implementation is the most essential part of creating sustainable education, specifically in Indonesia. This article reports on a case study of the service quality implemented in primary, secondary and tertiary level of institutions in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia. This qualitative study was conducted by using observations, interviews and reviews of related documents. The researcher worked with the total of fifty informants consisting of ten informants for each level of education; primary, secondary (Junior and Senior High school), tertiary, and another ten from local government staffs, all were chosen based on purposeful sampling method. The researcher collected information related to the implementation of educational service as instructed by the central to local government then to the educational institutions. The study found that good plans and regulations are not sufficient to deliver the interchangeable educational services to the community. The local government is considered unable to provide the standardized service quality in education as promulgated by the central government. The poor economic condition in Tasikmalaya also contributes to the complexity of educational development there. The research results suggest the significant role of the local governments in responding to educational development planning which is initiated by the central government to achieve well-qualified education. Further, capacity building is proposed to be a solution for promoting responsive local governments.

To encourage community's role in the field of tourism, the local government of Gorontalo Province analyzes the impact of the development of independent tourism village on community empowerment. It involves community in the decision-making process, related to the income, employment, preservation of the environment, and people's culture. This research aims to determine the factors of independent variables that influence people's activity. Community empowerment (Y) and independent variables are tourism tour (X[subscript 1]), infrastructure (X[subscript 2]), budget policy (X[subscript 3]), resources (X[subscript 4]), and some demography variables such as gender (Djk), types of work (Dkj), and level of education (Dpd) by the descriptive and multiple linear regression method. The results of this study reveal that the development model of independent tourism is the involvement of the villagers in every aspect of tourism in the village. Independent village development in the community empowerment simultaneously has a positive and tangible effect on the improvement of community empowerment as well as having a partial positive influence against the infrastructure and resources.

Early childhood development and education (ECDE) is devolved in Kenya, which means that each of Kenya's 47 counties budgets for and implements ECDE independently. Kenya provides two years of preprimary education to children ages four and five. Given scarce resources, constructing facilities and hiring teachers are often principal considerations for county governments. The present study investigated whether and how counties go beyond the basic provision of facilities and teachers to invest in learning materials, expand teacher professional development, and hire coaches to improve the quality of teaching. These results are presented in the context of the Tayari ECDE program, which was designed to improve school readiness in a cost-effective way. We present qualitative findings from several counties to describe how government bodies invest in additional elements of preprimary quality improvement. We also compare results across counties that do and do not implement the Tayari model to understand whether implementation of an effective program to increase ECDE quality encourages adjustments in government resource allocations. In addition, we present quantitative results from a large-scale longitudinal treatment and control study of the Tayari model, which tested the effectiveness of curriculum-aligned instructional materials and teacher training and support in improving learners' school readiness in public and low-cost private learning centers. Finally, we present policy implications for decentralized government structures responsible for providing ECDE, noting how these can be supported and incentivized to increase investments in ECDE quality.

The following will discuss school violence and address the relationship among students with special needs. Further research is needed on the effects of violence among special needs student populations. Efforts require observation and concrete data in order to understand how to address the increase in violence if we are to create safer schools. School violence is increasing the responsibilities of administrators, teachers and school personnel. Student related deaths from school shootings and other acts of violence perpetrated by students diagnosed as having a mental disability, as defined by the American Psychological Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), were examined across all 50 states, including 19 states where the use of corporal punishment exists. In states where corporal punishment remains legal, students with special needs are frequently punished, while acts of school violence and school shooting related deaths are proportionately higher. Safety is an increasing concern for administration and faculty, as they are required to follow Federal, State, and Local mandated laws to protect students with and without special needs.

While stepped up immigration enforcement and nativist rhetoric have made immigrant communities increasingly nervous nationwide, a union-led effort in Hammond, Indiana, seeks to convince a growing Hispanic population that--in schools, at least--families have nothing to fear.

This article aims to explore the policy provisions and practices of the local curriculum in primary level schools. Data are generated from teachers, head teachers, resource persons, and Assistant District Education Officer by using interview and focus group discussion. In addition, document analysis is done to locate the existing implementation status of local curriculum. The study revealed that the provision of local curriculum exists only on policy that lacks implementation in most primary schools. The popular trend of teaching English language is replacing the local curriculum. Teachers and head teachers are not well-informed and not acquainted with the developing guidelines of local curriculum. Similarly, they are perceived as lacking of technical knowledge in designing curricula. Therefore, there is a serious gap between the policy intention and its execution.This has created dilemma in practicing the local curriculum at primary level education in Nepal.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effective factors of people choosing outdoor recreation areas, which is belonging to local government in Elazig Province Center, for feel comfortable in social, cultural and physiological aspects where they can evaluate their free time and benefit from different purposes according to different variables. The sample group of the study consisted of 232 persons, 106 male and 126 female, selected randomly using recreational areas of local governance in Elazig province center. The data were obtained by participation preference factors for use of recreation area survey which consist 24 questions and 5 sub-dimensions that developed by Gümüs H. and Alay Özgül S. (2017) with face to face survey application method. The data obtained from the study were analyzed using the SPSS 22 packet program. The normality test has been done so that analyzes can be done correctly. According to this, Kruskal-Wallis was used in multiple groups in the analysis of data which not normal distribution and Mann Whitney-U Test was applied to determine the group which the difference occurred. In the analysis of normal distribution data, ANOVA in multiple groups and independent samples t test in binary groups were applied. Significance level was accepted as p<0.05. There was a statistically significant difference between participants who are married and have children, who perform sports 3-4 days a week and who state their health status as good and good and sport diversity, personnel and activity sub-dimensions of the scale (p<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the private vehicle ownership variable and participation preference for recreation areas scale (p>0.05). It was determined that, for participants who married and with children, it is effective that there is playground for children in the recreational areas, the individuals who are good and very good health status are influenced by the sport diversity, activity and personnel situation in choosing these areas, private vehicle ownership is not that important for choosing these areas.

This article recounts how municipalities from border regions in mainland Portugal interacted with the population in the face of the new social order brought about by COVID-19. Our aim is to interpret new educational spaces, beyond schools, emerging from community-level strategies to build trust during the pandemic lockdown and state of emergency. The material consists of 1503 posts from 38 Facebook pages of municipalities that were analysed and organised into dimensions: health and COVID-19; offline to online adaptation strategies; cross-border impact information; economic encouragement; care and social support; community engagement and participation. The article focuses on this last dimension given its pre-eminence. Key findings manifested five educational narratives associated with community engagement and participation: past and memory; place; voicing and wisdom; recognition and solidarity; and participation and learning. We consider those narratives as community resilience builders, accounting for municipalities' educational strategies that enhanced locally anchored responses. If those actions represent an opportunity for local-governing new protagonism, they also generate a footprint for encouraging transformative resilience grounded in situated literacies and new educational audiences. Municipalities were more than timely information providers -- they invested in connecting with the population, an investment possibly explained by the awareness that a health crisis could easily morph into a social crisis.

This study concentrates on the three phases of China's de facto higher education quasi-decentralization since 1949 and center-local relations during each of the phases. The three phases are: (1) the phase of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when provincial-level control was enhanced; (2) the phase of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when "independent colleges" and people-run institutions were established; and (3) the present phase which is ongoing since the mid-2000s, when elite Sino-foreign joint institutions (e.g., NYU Shanghai) and young elite research institutions (e.g., ShanghaiTech and Westlake University) were approved. To investigate the diversification and proliferation of higher education institutions in each phase, a theoretical framework has been constructed based on Zheng's (De facto federalism in China: reforms and dynamics of central-local relations, World Scientific, Singapore, 2007) argument of China's de facto federalism. As macro-level contexts, China's principal philosophies of higher education development and the interrelations between China's higher education system and the outside world during each phase have been briefly reviewed. It suggests that local governments and higher education institutions in China may attempt to play more active roles in promoting de jure higher education decentralization.