Conceptualizing higher education students as social actors in a globalizing world: a special issue

This introductory essay describes an analytical framework that locates students, staff, and institutions within both local and extra‐local patterns of stratification and clarifies our theoretical understanding of ethnographic data concerning student perceptions and practices in higher education. The essay introduces four articles based on ethnographic research that utilizes such a framework.     

Vocational education and development: key issues, with special reference to the Arab world

Despite the considerable capacity of most Arab governments to invest in education for development, relatively little has been achieved in the vocational and technical sector. Yet, as is well known, it is the production of good quality technicians that is crucial to sustainable industrial development at a national level. In this paper we attempt an analysis of the situation — to identify key issues that need to be addressed if progress is to be made. Two broad problems underlie the contemporary crisis: aspects of Arabic culture that tend to constrain wider involvement in vocational and technical employment, and the low status of technical education in the Western model of education bequeathed to these nations by the legacy of colonialism. Some recommendations are made to assist the resolution of the problem.     

Language: a social mirror

<正>Language and gender studies have experienced a long history in the field of linguistics.Sociolinguists did various kinds of research concerning gender-differentiated use of language.The differences between man’s and woman’s language has long been noticed by anthropologists,historians and linguistics.Then there gradually emerged great gap between male and     

Language policy in Zimbabwean education: historical antecedents and contemporary issues

This article analyses issues pertaining to language policy in Zimbabwean education beginning with the establishment of formal education under colonial rule. English is the official language of business, government and education, and the dominant language in the media. Official policy, before and after independence, has been characterised by continuities, rather than change, providing limited support for the development of indigenous languages. Furthermore, the capacity to support the development of indigenous languages has declined in recent years. The curriculum policy has progressively served to provide avenues for engaging and locking into limited networks of opportunities within and outside the country.     

Using phenomenology to conduct environmental education research: Experience and issues

Recently the environmental movement has seen much success and progress under a newly-framed green paradigm. Yet, despite the proliferation of national attention to, and public interest in, the go-green mentality, environmental education still seems to be stuck within the old environmental paradigm. This critical essay shares lessons that environmental education can learn through incorporating a human benefits approach. Ultimately, this essay calls for a reflection on environmental education's presence within the budding sustainability movement and calls for the “humanization” of environmental education discourse and pedagogical practice.     

Special needs education as a social system: responding to the challenge of methodology

In this concluding article we discuss how the different contributors of this special issue deal with the methodological challenges in special needs education research. The shift from an individual perspective towards an interactional and systemic point of view in special educational needs research has introduced research methods that are able to describe the complexity and the recursiveness of the social reality under study. The different studies presented in this issue provide interesting illustrations of some of these methods. The discussion of these studies makes it clear that social cultural theory is a useful framework for research on special needs education. It is suggested that in their investigations researchers should attach importance to the meaning of discourse and keep their minds open to change and new challenges.     

The twofold character of comparative education: Cross-cultural comparison and externalization to world situations

Member of the Executive Committee of the Comparative Education Society in Europe. His research work focuses on the comparative social history of education. His publications include two books on France, Die französischen Universitäten 1945–1968 (1972) Schulreform und Bildungspolitik in Frankreich (1974), Geschichte der Pädagogik und systematische Erziehungswissenschaft(co-editor) (1976), and Theories and Methods in Comparative Education(1988). He has published numerous articles in scholarly reviews, especially in Zeitschrift für Pädagogik.     

Conceptualising food research in higher education as a matter of social justice: philosophical,methodological and ethical considerations

Globally, food concerns in higher education have emerged as an issue of critical importance. Food acquisition struggles and high rates of food insecurity among students have been documented, yet food within higher education continues to be an under-researched area of study. This paper calls for advancing research that critically engages with food concerns in higher education. The argument is made that food concerns should be viewed as a social justice matter, and a case is made for conducting research on food concerns by adopting an alternative approach to research in this area – a transformative paradigm. The paper advances new insights for the philosophical, methodological and ethical dimensions to researching food in higher education as a matter of social justice. The argument is made that a transformative approach to research is conducive for examining the experiences of those who are marginalised within the context of higher education and confront food challenges.     

科学教育的社会需要研究

本文用报刊检索法调查社会对科学教育的需要 ,两份调查的结果一致表明 ,创新精神和创新能力培养是现今社会对科学教育的最主要需要。     

From myths to models: the (re)production of world culture in comparative education

This article traces the emergence of the world culture theory in comparative education using critical discourse analysis. By chronicling the emergence and expansion of world culture theory over the past four decades, we highlight the (unintended) limitations and exclusive regimes of thought that have resulted. We argue that the theory's telos of a ‘world culture’ neglects the notions of power and agency, and continues to use discourses of modernism and ‘scientific’ methodology to justify conformity as the reigning global ‘norm’. The world culture theory ultimately results in an unwitting legitimisation of neoliberal policies and its varied educational projects. Drawing on the micro-, meso- and macro-levels of discourse analysis, we examine how the semantics and content of the world culture theory have evolved as it embraced an increasingly large and diverse community of scholars aligned with it. By highlighting some significant semantic shifts during the last four decades, we explore how the world culture theorists forged a relatively new (privileged) space in comparative education – a space that has increasingly turned deterministic and normative. Through a careful deconstruction of some of the basic assumptions of world culture theory, we call for reopening of an intellectual space for new ways of thinking about educational phenomena in the context of globalisation.     

世界遗产旅游基本问题研究

与一般旅游相比,世界遗产旅游有很多独特特点.本文提出了世界遗产旅游的定义,阐述了世界遗产旅游与一般旅游之间的差异性,总结了世界遗产旅游的功能,从不同的角度探讨了世界遗产旅游的类型.     

Creativity: a challenge for contemporary education

ABSTRACT

In this essay, I comment on the objective of cultivating creativity in general and in schools in particular. I start by tracing the historical origin of this objective, then discuss a select set of relevant issues, including what can be considered the best practices for achieving this. I conclude by contemplating the potential for globalisation of this objective, and the portability of general pedagogies and specific approaches to cultivating creativity between different educational systems.     

教、科、产相结合,促进社会生产力发展

(一 )在实施科教兴国战略形势下 ,高等教育与科学研究、生产劳动 (以下简称“教、科、产”)相结合 ,除了培养高素质创新人才、发展科学技术外 ,还有一个重要使命就是促进社会生产力的发展。首先 ,这是由三者结合的性质和特点决定的。在现代社会条件下 ,教、科、产在社会分工中扮演不同的角色 ,各有自己的利益、目标和运行规律。但三者又具有明显的互补性 ,只能辩证地统一于社会整体的动态发展之中 ,一旦失衡 ,不但影响整个社会的发展 ,而且也影响自身的发展。正是通过追求整体目标和整体利益的密切结合 ,三者才能更好地实现对各自特定利益的…