Reporting the ‘education revolution’: MySchool.edu.au in the print media

Launched in January 2010, the MySchool.edu.au website, which ranks and compares schools on the basis of standardised literacy and numeracy tests, has been the subject of intense media coverage. This article examines 34 editorials focused on MySchool, published from October 2009 to August 2010, and identifies three key narratives in operation, those of distrust, choice and performance. It argues that these narratives work together to reinforce and promote neoliberal educational discourses at the heart of what Michael Apple has termed the ‘conservative modernisation’ of education and other social services. Together, the dominant narratives position MySchool and the ensuing newspaper-generated and published league tables as the solution to problems of poor performance, ‘bad’ schools and ‘bad’ teachers in the face of times characterised by self-interested teachers and governments keen to shirk their responsibility in the education arena.     

The political economy of higher education in the era of neoliberal globalization: Latin America in comparative perspective

During the last two decades, Latin American universities have experienced intense pressure to abandon the main principles established in the 1918 Córdoba Reform (i.e., autonomy and autarchy). While funding for public higher education has declined, they are pressured to relinquish a large portion of institutional autonomy in order to accommodate to market demands and to a new set of control strategies emanating from the state.We argue that current changes in Latin American higher education cannot be examined in isolation from larger political and economic changes in the region, which in turn are related to the dynamics of globalization. After the decline of socialist and welfare-state models, neoliberal regimes have become hegemonic in many parts of the world. In most countries, changes in financial arrangements, coupled with accountability mechanisms, have forced universities to reconsider their social missions, academic priorities and organizational structures. Concerns about equity, accessibility, autonomy or the contribution of higher education to social transformation, which were prevalent during previous decades, have been overshadowed by concerns about excellence, efficiency, expenditures and rates of return. The notion that higher education is primarily a citizens right and a social investment – which has been taken for granted for many decades – is being seriously challenged by a neoliberal agenda that places extreme faith in the market.Though we focus on the international dimension of university change, it is important to note that global trends are promoted, resisted and negotiated differently in each national context and in each individual institution. In the emerging knowledge-based society, the polarization between North and South is expected to increase even further if the scientific and technological gaps are not narrowed. Latin American universities have a crucial role to play in this regard. The paper is organized in two parts. The first describes the context of university change, focusing on issues of globalization and neoliberalism. The second examines the main features of university restructuring in comparative perspective, with a particular focus on Latin America.     

Environmental Education and the Politics of Curriculum: A National Case Study

This article documents the emergence of environmental education in the curriculum discourse in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1988, and proceeds to trace its path through a succession of curriculum documents over the subsequent two decades. As well as exploring the form environmental education takes in these documents, the way it emerges in educational priorities is also reviewed. This historical analysis highlights the political nature of the school curriculum in general, and in particular, the place of environmental education within it. It also suggests that the curriculum, by itself, provides little concrete guidance for teachers. In response, I propose that educators must look to their own community for strength and leadership in a hostile political climate.     

经济全球化时代中国特色社会主义面临的机遇与挑战

经济全球化给中国特色社会主义带来发展的机遇,同时也带来严峻的挑战和风险。我们要正确应对经济全球化的大趋势,自主发展中国特色社会主义事业,以更加积极的态度走向世界前列。     

中国传统经济学教育与环境问题

中国在经历快速经济增长的同时也经受环境恶化带来的问题,环境问题的产生原因是多方面的,和传统的经济学教学内容与方式也有一定的关系。传统经济学的教学内容极少考虑环境因素,这将对学生产生重经济效益轻环境效益的负面影响。据此,提出应该在大学经济专业中开设相关环境经济学课程、教师在教学时融合进相关环境知识等建议。     

新制度主义理论与中国的政治经济学

本文概括了西方新制度经济学的主要流派以及新制度主义政治学的思想要点,指出了其理论特点;分析了包括政治学和经济学的新制度主义的方法论特点,比如制度决定论、整体主义和多学科综合。通过对新制度主义在中国的传播和发展的回顾,指出其对中国政治学和经济学的影响,比如研究方法和研究对象的更新与拓展、现实中的制度创新热潮以及思维上的路径依赖概念的流行。文章最后提出了新制度主义用于中国的政治经济分析时的局限性。     

Teaching science or cultivating values? Conservation NGOs and environmental education in Costa Rica

A key ongoing debate in environmental education practice and its research relates to the content and goals of environmental education programmes. Specifically, there is a long history of debate between advocates of educational perspectives that emphasise the teaching of science concepts and those that seek to more actively link environmental and social issues. In practice, educators and organisations respond to these tensions in a variety of ways, often strongly reflecting the particular social and economic contexts in which they are located. Much of the research in the area, however, has tended to take a narrow focus on either purely theoretical concerns or on individual programmes in schools or protected areas. In contrast, this research used an ethnographic approach to explore debates about the content and aims of educational programmes between diverse educational actors in one community in Costa Rica. The research revealed that environmental education: (i) is an important local site for the active contestation of understandings of the natural world and humans’ relationships to it; and (ii) can be part of wider struggles over the control of processes of local development and environmental management. The study further suggests that while theoretical discussion about the relative merits of diverse approaches to environmental teaching and learning is important, if that analysis is not situated within a particular social, economic and political context, it is likely to reveal relatively little about how or why particular perspectives on environmental education may dominate or remain marginal in a specific place.     

校园文化建设对大学生思想政治教育的影响

校园文化不仅是一个学校精神风貌的体现,而且对大学生全面发展起着重要作用。校园文化建设有利于提高大学生对社会环境的适应能力,提高他们的思想道德境界,培养高尚人格。     

浅析“时政”案例在发展经济学教学中的运用

案例教学在本科发展经济学教学中扮演着重要的作用,但在教学中往往存在着"就案例学案例"的误区,为了避免这一误区,将"时政"引入案例教学则显得较为必要。将"时政"案例分为时政新闻和热点以及时政论坛两大类,认为"时政"案例在发展经济学教学中能够增强学生对案例认识的感知度,提高学习兴趣,在学习过程中注重将知识的灌输转变为能力的培养,在提高学生专业综合能力上具有一定的现实意义;同时,在使用"时政"案例进行教学的过程中,主讲教师应围绕教学目标对案例进行精选,以学生为主体,从多方面进行启发和引导,明确培养目标,以提高学生的专业综合能力。     

中国现代化进程中腐败问题探析——基于经济学与政治学的双重视角

现代化在带来诸多利好的同时,腐败也成为困扰其继续前进的一个不可忽视的严重问题。腐败既是一种特殊的政治现象,又是一种经济现象。尝试从经济学与政治学的两个方面对产生腐败的复杂诱导性因素进行多重全面考查分析的基础上,探寻新时期腐败治理的突破口与重点,同时提出腐败的有效克制与减量的经济、政治策略。以此实现建设相对公平、效率、廉洁的政府,促进经济的可持续发展和现代化建设,构建社会主义和谐社会。