University excellence: Students' academic reform beliefs

In this study of 460 SIU-C students conducted in May 1973, five topics are explored. First, to what extent do these students view the academic community as taking the quest for academic excellence seriously? Second, how do these students rate various components of the university regarding academic excellence? Third, who do these students perceive as the source of leadership in the university concerning the achievement of excellence? Fourth, how long do these students feel it will take for excellence to be effected in the university, and how much change must result for excellence to occur? Last, for excellence to be achieved, what types of qualitative changes must occur, and how will the university differ qualitatively if excellence is effected? The results of this study are discussed within a political model of the academic system, treating the university as a political system and students as quasi-citizens who possess a rudimentary academic belief system.     

Responding to diversity and striving for excellence: The case of Finland

The implementation of inclusive education has become an internationally accepted goal. In this process a substantial challenge is to simultaneously increase both equality and quality in inclusive education. This article discusses ways of achieving this goal in light of recent research findings which indicate that it is possible to meet both goals at once. The findings of various studies on the Finnish comprehensive school reform, along with recent learning outcomes, support this conclusion. During the comprehensive school era, equality has increased, performance gaps have decreased, and student achievement has improved overall. Possible reasons for this are that Finnish educational policy development has not followed international mainstream trends and that flexible and extensive special education provisions have been built into our school system. Internationally acknowledged requirements for a good education are competent teachers and a school system’s commitment to take on the responsibility of educating children of all abilities.     

美国联邦政府建设一流大学的政策分析

二战以来美国陆续涌现出一批世界一流大学,这并非完全是大学自然发展的结果,还有美国政府,特别是联邦政府,出于美国国家利益而采取的政策扶植与介入.美国建设一流大学的时间段主要集中于1941-1971的30年间,以1960年的<西博格报告>为标志,可划分为前后两个阶段,在两个阶段中,联邦政府均发挥重要作用.联邦政府首先通过科技政策间接地扶持了一流大学的出现,继而采取专项资助的方法帮助一批大学实现跨越式发展.美国政府长期稳定的高等教育发展战略,不同阶段具体政策的运作方式及其经验教训值得我们思考和借鉴.     

Educating citizens for participatory democracy: A case study of local government education policy in Pelotas,Brazil

A case study was undertaken of Pelotas, a large town in southern Brazil, where a recent government of the Workers’ Party (PT) implemented a range of social policy reforms. The study draws on interviews with key members of the Municipal Secretariat of Education and policy documents, analyzing them in relation to theoretical literature on citizenship and education. The Pelotas approach is seen to be distinctive for its emphasis on active political participation as a citizen's right and as a means to social justice for all. The local government also places a higher value on critical and autonomous attitudes towards the authorities than on cultivating allegiance to the municipality or nation-state.     

与时俱进力争上游努力开创电大工作新局面

学习贯彻“三个代表”重要思想,实现天津电大跨越式发展,要紧紧抓住三个重要环节:一是统一思想、认清形势、理清思路;二是与时俱进、开拓创新,把瞄准目标、突出重点、狠抓质量、深化改革贯穿于工作的全过程;三是转变作风、强化基础、真抓实干,把各项工作落到实处。     

试谈大学生的消防文化教育

阐述了消防文化的概念和内涵,分析了高校对大学生开展消防文化教育的意义,并对高校应该如何开展消防文化教育进行了探讨。     

追求卓越:耶鲁大学校长理查德·雷文教授治校研究

以美国耶鲁大学现任校长理查德·雷文教授为个案,探讨了世界一流大学校长应对全球化的治校实践,为我国大学校长提供参照和借鉴。     

Noetic dispositions: A model for intellectual excellence

ABSTRACT

A burgeoning body of literature discusses the process of being and becoming a doctoral scholar, suggesting that graduate students should move beyond performing the role of ‘good student’ and transform into doctoral scholars and stewards of the profession. More recently, research has been conducted to identify more commonly held competencies and attributes doctoral scholars should develop. Even so, clear models for developing scholarly identity and specific habits-of-mind are more difficult to identify. The literature ranges from discussing this process as a form of transformation or identity development, as a form of socialisation, as regulative epistemology, or as the development of a scholarly habitus. While it would be fruitful to derive a new model for scholarly dispositions, we look to perennial wisdom and metaphors of intellectual excellence and lifelong learning that already exist. In this paper we illuminate three Confucian notions, elaborating the development of scholarly dispositions and cultivating particular habits of mind, values, and ways of being. Confucian philosophy sets forth ideal ways of being, valuing, and knowing that are highly developed in their own right and add a more holistic understanding to the conversation of scholarly identity development.     

Fissures in the Federal Structure? The Case of the University of Wales

The paper describes the evolution of the University of Wales, and describes the attempts made at the end of the 1980s to instigate university-wide planning. These arrangements were, however, of short duration and have recently been reviewed and revised. A degree of tension and instability is endemic in all federations and 'Wales' is no exception. Its large colleges are impatient of central control and planning, and the Welsh Funding Council is unsympathetic to an increase in the sphere of influence of the federal university. Such factors are fissiparous forces, but they have to be set against the symbolic importance of the University of Wales as a means of representing and giving expression to Welsh national feeling.     

Curriculum Reform and the Legitimation of Educational Objectives: the case of the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Taking the political and scholarly debates about curriculum reform in the Federal Republic of Germany as a case in point, the article develops the notion of ‘compensatory legitimation’ as a theoretical construct for better understanding the political dynamics of making and implementing educational policy under conditions of conflict. Among various strategies of compensatory legitimation, special attention is given to the recourse to legal and constitutional norms, the utilisation of expertise, and the invocation of the discourse of participation.

     

组建联邦大学:俄罗斯区域高等教育均衡发展新路径

21世纪以来,俄罗斯政府和高校基于国际竞争的压力,一直致力于高水平大学建设,先后提出发展创新型大学、组建联邦大学、创建大学综合体等策略,其中联邦大学的组建是俄罗斯实现区域高等教育一体化建设的新模式,它带给我们的启示是:区域高等教育一体化不仅需要良好的政策法律环境,也需要考虑区域间高等教育的均衡发展,同时,构建高校与社会力量合作的有效机制也极为重要。     

University Positioning and Changing Patterns of Doctoral Study: the case of the University of Bath

The study examines the changing nature of doctoral study in higher education in the context of significant global changes in higher education. From its origins with Humboldt, the trajectory of doctoral study is traced through the traditional Ph.D, the extended 'American model', to the professional doctorate. A university case study charts how these global changes impacted on a specific UK university as it attempted to position itself in the changing market for doctoral study.     

Research-university governance in Thailand: the case of Chulalongkorn University

Universities find themselves faced with the conflicting institutional demands of being cathedrals of learning and research as well as introducing managerial and corporate-like structures. Despite many studies in higher education research that focus on how this situation affects the mission of universities, the role of imprinting has not received considerable attention yet. Our study aims at closing this research gap by analyzing the influence of institutional founding conditions on mission statements of universities. Results show that imprinting does not affect the introduction of mission statements, but rather their contents. The role of imprinting is, however, moderated by the power and the reputation of universities. In discussing these findings within the context of higher education research, our study contributes to a better understanding of developments in the field of universities.