Academic freedom: International realities and challenges

Academic freedom is a central value of higher education. It affects the academic profession in all aspects of academic work. Yet, academic freedom is rarely discussed in the context of the changes taking place in higher education in the current period. The concept is defined in a historical and comparative framework, and the challenges facing academic freedom around the world are discussed.     

对高校德育过程中"人性化"的哲学思考

面对高校德育效果始终不明显的客观实际，文章从以人为本的理念出发，指出传统德育过程中的“人性化”缺失现象十分严重，并认为高校德育走出困境的基点在于引导并突出过程中的“人性化”。     

Genomics and world health： hopes and realities

The completion of the human genome project was accompanied by quite remarkable claims about the benefits for health that would follow this out-standing scientific endeavour.In this short article,I shall try to put some of these claims into perspective.Currently,the poorer countries of the world are still suffering from the effects of malnutrition,ineffective healthcare systems,and the scourges of tuberculosis,malaria,and HIV/AIDS.The richer countries are attempting to deal with the costs of…     

Between naturalism and religion: philosophical essays

Taking the increasing implementation and practice of ‘quality‐oriented education’ as the background to the current reform, the paper outlines moral education in the Chinese junior high school over the last 25 years. It offers a brief review of a few theoretical and empirical research projects which have had some influence on the 2003 reform of the course of Ideology and Morality. It describes: three basic principles behind this new curriculum, focusing on the developing lives of students; curriculum characteristics with ideological, humanistic, practical and integrative dimensions; and the objectives of developing feelings, attitudes and value orientations, competencies and knowledge. The curriculum is illustrated by four textbook and class‐based examples of respect for parents, self‐esteem, environmental awareness and being a responsible citizen, which offer some insights into contemporary moral education with distinctive Chinese characteristics. Finally, the paper gives an overview of the significance of the moral education curriculum reform and of its ongoing challenges.     

Distance education for managers: an international perspective

The last few years have seen an enormous expansion, in different countries, of distance education for managers. Paul Northcott, of Deakin University, Australia, has first‐hand experience of several of these developments and charts their key features.     

Building learning communities: foundations for good practice

The School of Health Sciences at the University of Birmingham provided opportunities for the development of student learning communities and online resources within the neurological module of the BSc Physiotherapy degree programme. These learning communities were designed to facilitate peer and independent learning in core aspects underpinning clinical practice, thus laying the foundation for the development of effective clinical reasoning. This paper examines some of the problems that staff encountered, including the lessons that they learnt through the design, development, and implementation processes of the module, and the subsequent modifications that were made. Student experiences of this course are also included, as they provided staff with further insights into the ways in which these problems impacted upon their preparation for clinical practice and how the module might be improved for future cohorts. From an analysis of the problems that staff encountered and then sought to resolve, and of student experiences of the course, this paper identifies foundations for good practice in the development and delivery of innovative learning and teaching methods.     

Academic Twitter and professional learning: myths and realities

Social networking sites provide opportunities for informal and social learning of academic practices in higher education, yet not all academics engage in these spaces. This qualitative study suggests that while Twitter offers informal opportunities for academic development, inhibiting factors prevent staff from establishing their social presence and participating in conversations on academic Twitter. In a pervasively digital era, rethinking academic development practices is required to build digital capacity and digital identity of staff to support participation on social networking sites for academic learning and development.     

Editorial Conclusion: A philosophical perspective

The criticisms of educational research and the proposed solutions to those problems, referred to throughout this special issue, are summarised. However, it is argued that many of the difficulties are of a philosophical nature, rarely recognised as such either by the researchers or by their critics. In particular, it is necessary to pay attention to the nature of that which is being researched into, namely, an 'educational practice', and to the distinctive language and values through which such a practice is to be understood and evaluated.     

Special needs: a philosophical analysis

This paper attempts to illuminate a central concept and idea in special education discourse, namely, ‘special needs’. It analyses philosophically what needs are and on what grounds they are defined as ‘special’ or ‘exceptional’. It also discusses whether sorting needs into ordinary and special is discriminatory. It is argued that individualistic tendency in special need rhetoric has serious shortcomings, although it does not inevitably lead to discrimination against those with ‘special needs’. Improving individuals’ capabilities as well as social conditions are the means to create societies and schools which are inclusive, and which put justice into practice.     

Classroom conceptual change: philosophical perspectives

Researchers of students’ concepts and conceptual change frequently draw analogies to the history of science. The analogy is generally presented when comparing students’ scientific concepts to similar ones in the history of science. We have tried to show the importance of this analogy on a higher level ‐‐ that of understanding the process of conceptual change in general among students.

This article outlines a number of lines in the philosophy of science and analyses differences between the perspectives of a number of broadly constructivist positions which have developed during this century.

The analysis is used to clarify the theoretical basis on which research into student conceptual change is conducted and interpreted.     

高等教育国际化的前景展望:动因与现实

作为当今世界不可逆转的趋势,全球化推动了高等教育国际化的进程,促成了高等教育成为国际自由贸易的一个重要组成部分,并使得营利性高等教育部门的影响力不断扩大。由于高等教育的优势资源主要集中在发达国家,少数发达国家主导了高等教育的国际化,并从中获得了大部分的经济利益,而中等收入国家和发展中国家则扮演了高等教育的购买国。最新的研究表明,虽然新的机会和潜在的利益与风险并存,但国际化仍然是未来世界高等教育发展的主要趋势。     

Decentralizing educational decision-making in Peru: Intentions and realities

The study deals with an attempt to decentralize educational decision-making in Peru and render it participatory. The paper contrasts the intentions and outcomes of the innovation and examines the factors that led to its demise. Political factors such as the reluctance of upper echelons to share power and the teachers' opposition to the reform were significant obstacles. Issues of cultural and technical natures including centralist traditions and lack of clarity about key concepts and new roles were also important. The study shows that the implementation of decentralization is a complex and not always predictable undertaking. It also argues that political accounts of reform failures present a simplified and over-rationalized version of reality.