Élitism to Inclusion - Some Developmental Tension

Higher education as a system is a recent phenomenon. In the developmental process, particularly over the past 35 years, tensions have built up which are grounded in competing beliefs and aspirations about the form and shape of higher education. This paper examines some of the competing tensions and evaluates some of the implications of progressing from an élite to a universal higher education system. The pressure by Government to raise standards and to provide an educated skill base to maintain a competitive edge in a global economy can be seen against an internal higher education world holding on to 'élite instincts and traditions'.     

Engaging Élitism: the Mediating Effect of Work Engagement on Affective Commitment and Quit Intentions in Two Australian University Groups

Some universities rely on their élitism as one mechanism to attract and retain talented faculty. This paper examines two groups of élite and non‐élite universities and the mediating effect that work engagement has on affective commitment and intention to quit. Findings indicate partial support for the mediating effect of work engagement in the non‐élite group but no support in the élite university group. The implications of these diverse results are posed for the management of academics in élite and non‐élite universities, suggesting that a ‘one size fits all approach’ to performance outcomes does not always fit.     

Rankings,Diversity and the Power of Renewal in Science. A Comparison between Germany,the UK and the US

Rankings are part and parcel of the neoliberal agenda in science aiming at increasing the competitive allocation of funds among universities. This article focuses on the decreasing power of renewal in science as a result of this agenda particularly because of its increasingly consolidated stratification of the academic system into élite and mass institutions. A comparison based on data from the Academic Ranking of World Universities of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University between the less stratified German system, the more strongly stratified British system, and the most strongly stratified, though at its heart still diverse US-American system provides a first test of the hypotheses.     

LIFELONG EDUCATION AND THE UNIVERSITIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

The higher education system of the United Kingdom, of which the universities are only part, is changing rapidly. Although broad social conditions explain why universities should be centres of lifelong learning and specific institutional needs are in fact pushing them in this direction, changing demography is only one explanation among many. The kinds of programmes and related policies concerning students, teaching and curricula which are seen as relevant to continuing or lifelong education are widening and diversifying as the political and funding environment of higher education also changes. Research on continuing education and that generated by it are also being perceived differently. The new decade of the 1990's seems likely to witness significant changes in what is identified as continuing education as present trends in favour of integration or mainstreaming accelerate and new arrangements are made for more accessible and flexible forms of study both for degrees and for short courses. This process will be a part of a wider and more fundamental change as higher education moves somewhat towards a mass from an élite model and as the concept of a university and of a university education changes in step behind these changes in practice. The possibility exists that more fundamental changes in the initial undergraduate curriculum will also make universities more effective centres in terms of preparing their young students for lifelong learning.     

Bildung in der Dritten Welt

Educational expansion in the Third World has very often produced disappointing results. In contrast to neo-Marxist dependency theory, the causes for this are to a large extent of an indigenous nature and not primarily determined from outside. Educational systems in developing nations have frequently fallen prey to group self-interest among the ruling élite. This, and over-valuing the benefits of education, has paralyzed educational together with overall development and brought about distortions in the systems of production and employment. Educational reform alone will not suffice to alter the situation for the better. Considerable changes in the prevailing socio-economic and political conditions are also needed.     

Egypt's National Education Debate

This study examines the vigorous dialectic presently occurring between intellectuals, religious leaders and politicians trying to define the appropriate role of Islam in education in Egypt. The study highlights the ideological disjunction between a small but powerful élite who are the 'gatekeepers' of education policy and a polity that is calling for a greater infusion of Islamic instruction in the national education system. This study illustrates the challenges of Egypt's policy-makers in sustaining an education system with goals that are interpreted by many to be inconsistent, contradictory or counter to the collective socio-religious prerogatives of the society at large.     

BOOK REVIEW

The title of this paper has been borrowed to two major players in our field Larry Cuban and Linda Roberts, it develops a high level view of the major changes of the last period. Importantly, despite greater access to technology and the gathering of a critical mass of equipment, usage in schools remains limited. It examines, through the use of dialogue between the French and the US educational systems, the constructivism issue and concludes that we are facing an unprecedented situation. L'investissement en vaut-il la peine? Le titre de cet article a été emprunté À deux acteurs importants du domaine, Larry Cuban et Linda Roberts. Il développe une approche générale des principaux changements intervenus dans les dernières périodes. Il insiste notamment sur un fait marquant : malgré un accès facilité À la technologie et le déploiement d'une masse critique d'équipement, l'usage demeure limité dans les établissements scolaires. Instaurant un dialogue entre les situations franÇaise et américaine, il examine ensuite la question du constructivisme et conclue sur le caractère inédit de la situation actuelle. Lohnt sich die Investition wirklich? Der Titel dieses Beitrags wurde von zwei Experten unseres Arbeitsbereiches 'geborgt': Larry Cuban und Linda Roberts. Versucht wird eine übersicht über die wichtigsten Entwicklungen der letzten Jahre: Trotz besserem Zugang zur Technologie und ausreichender Ausstattung bleibt die Nutzung der neuen Technologien in den Schulen begrenzt. Vermittels eines Dialogs zwischen dem französischen und dem Amerikanischen Bildungssystem wird ein konstruktivistischer Ansatz geprüft. Der Betrag schließt mit der Feststellung, dass wir mit einer beispiellosen Situation konfrontiert sind.     

American cultural diplomacy and post-war educational reforms: James Bryant Conant’s mission to Italy in 1960

This paper, largely based on new, previously unused documents from US archives, considers the consultancy group financed by the Ford Foundation in 1960 to support the school reforms the Italian Minister of Education Giuseppe Medici was promoting. The group was headed by James Bryant Conant, and its evaluations were based on principles of ‘meritocratic’ democratisation: universal access to comprehensive lower secondary school should have been accompanied by ‘cooling out’ mechanisms at subsequent levels. Conant’s suggestions were ignored. In 1962, the new Scuola media was established thanks to a compromise between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, and was founded on uniform treatment and equal outcomes rather than equal starting points in competition. In spite of this, the Italian experience was subsequently used within the Ford Foundation to integrate Conant’s ideas in their strategies for international programmes, and gave birth to planning studies for national education requirements based on manpower needs.     

DEVELOPING ADULT EDUCATION IN UNIVERSITIES: A POLITICAL VIEW

The development of adult education in research‐oriented, élite, universities has always been problematic. This situation arises both from the specific characteristics of this sector of educational activity, which challenge the traditional values and practices that prevail in universities, and with the specificity of universities as organizations. The central argument that is made in the article is that the decision‐making process underlying the development of adult education programmes in universities can be best described as a political process. We report on a case study that was conducted in Belgium in the light of this theoretical framework that highlighted a set of organizational conditions and strategies that proved to be particularly conducive to the successful development of an adult education programme in that kind of organizational setting.     

Cultural Issues in Secondary Education Development in West Africa: Away from colonial survivals,towards neocolonial influences?

The urban areas of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) have become sites for cultural and educational convergence, as well as the reproduction of the élite as a class, far more than the rural areas. The urban secondary schools in cities such as Accra and Cape Coast in Ghana, and the lycées in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, serve as sites for the realization of these goals. Here, the cultural pull and push factors arising from West Africa's 'triple cultural heritage' that is African, EuroChristian and Islamic have placed considerable strain and stress on secondary school students and secondary education as a whole. This situation has been further complicated in recent years by the interplay of cultural pull and push factors emanating from the West, especially Britain, France and the United States. This complicated postcolonial condition with its implications for nation-building and development in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire constitutes the subject of analysis in this article. It is argued that the cultural pull and push factors and the forces of globalization emerging from the West tend to move secondary education and secondary school students in both countries towards neocolonial influences.     

School motivation: A comparison between Kenya and Italy

The authors compare school motivation in Kenya and Italy, two countries that differ in terms of socioeconomic conditions, structure of the school system, and access to education. Free primary education is indeed a recent attainment for Kenyan students. The participants, 449 Kenyan and 480 Italian students, 9–14 years old and attending Grades 4–8, were asked to complete a questionnaire about learning motivation. A factor analysis revealed that school motivation can be described by five dimensions in both contexts: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, academic self-concept, causal attribution, and amotivation. Differences between countries and lower (Grades 4–5) and higher (Grades 6–8) grades emerged: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and academic self-concept were found to be higher in Kenyan than in Italian students, whereas amotivation was lower. Moreover, only Italian students showed less intrinsic motivation and more amotivation in higher grades than in the lower ones.     

La enseñanza de contenidos específicos en matemáticas

¿Matemáticas para todos o matemáticas de élite? ¿Lenguaje matemático o matemática aplicada? En la base de las últimas reformas educativas de todo el mundo no dejan de estar presentes dilemas, reales unas veces, ficticios otras, que tienen mucho que ver con los supuestos políticos—ideológicos—que sustenten los diseñadores de esa reforma respecto al papel de la educación y a los que no se sustrae la enseñanza de las matemáticas…     

New Labour and higher education

The essay does not seek to add to the scholarly literature on UK higher education, so much as to give a sympathetic account of the dilemmas confronting a progressive government of almost any political stripe and especially one that faces the constraints of New Labour. It begins paradoxically by pointing out that serious investment in higher education requires an extension of Sure Start rather than Foundation Degrees, accepts that no government can wait 16 years for its plans to come to fruition, and examines some familiar issues about funding, quality management and the nature of ‘mass’ as opposed to ‘élite’ systems of higher education. Like some recent writers (Alison Wolf and Ewart Keep and Ken Mayhew most notably), the author is sceptical of the claimed productivity benefits of an expansion of higher education and even more doubtful than they whether in the long run degree‐level qualifications will retain their value even as a positional good.     

The Role of Private Universities and Colleges in the Spatial Restructuring of Higher Education in Poland

The development of private higher education institutions in Poland since 1989 has become a thorny political issue. The question is discussed in terms of the overall expansion of higher education in Poland, the Polish national development strategy, the spatial distribution of higher education institutions in Poland, and the role of higher education in the formation of the Polish national e´lite. The author argues strongly in favour of the equal treatment of private higher education.     

Adopting a “satisficing” model for school performance in students' views of learning

In many countries it has been noticeable how students’ use of information technology (IT) in education is often sporadic and inconsistent; at odds with the esteemed status that IT is afforded in educational rhetoric and policy. The traditional approach to the uneven take-up of IT in education has been to concentrate on the deficiency of the student in not using computers. In this way students’ avoidance of IT use is often framed in terms of a psychological inability or deficiency to react with computers. However, this article attempts to look beyond this traditional ‘discourse of deficiency’ and explore the myriad factors influencing students’ decisions not to use computers during their education. On the basis of data gathered from focus group interviews with 96 UK students, three main constructs underlying students’ rejection of educational computing are identified. The article discusses how educational computing can be ‘re-constructed’ in the light of these factors. Résumé Dans de nombreux pays, on a remarqué combien l’usage que font les étudiants des technologies de l’information (IT) en éducation est souvent sporadique et inconsistant, très loin du statut des IT généralement attribu? dans le discours rhétorique et politique sur l’éducation. L’approche traditionnelle de la difficulté a été? focalisée sur les déficiences de l’étudiant qui n’utilise pas l’ordinateur. Dans ce sens, le fait que l’étudiant cherche à éviter l’usage des IT est souvent formul? en termes d’inaptitude psychologique ou de déficience dans les réactions face à l’ordinateur. Cette étude cherche à voir plus loin que ce discours traditionnel de déficience de l’étudiant et explore la myriade de facteurs qui influencent les décisions de l’étudiant de ne pas utiliser l’ordinateur pour étudier. Sur la base de données recueillies lors d’interviews touchant 96 étudiants de Grande-Bretagne, trois types de rejets sous-jacents de l’informatique éducationnelle ont été identifiés. Le document discute la manière dont celle-ci peut être ‘re-construite’ à la lumière de ces facteurs.     

The Costs and Benefits of Investing in Universal Preschool: Evidence From a Spanish Reform

This study provides a cost–benefit analysis of expanding access to universal preschool education, focusing on a Spanish reform that lowered the age of eligibility for publicly provided universal preschool from age 4 to age 3. Benefits in terms of child development and maternal employment are estimated using evidence on the causal effects of this reform. In the baseline estimation the benefit–cost ratio is over 4, indicating sizeable net societal benefits of the preschool investment. The results show that the child development effects are the major determinant of the cost–benefit ratio; the employment gains for parents appear to play a relatively minor role. Overall, the cost–benefit analysis provides support for investing in high-quality preschool education.     

Educational Technology in Turkey: Past,Present and Future

This paper explains the past, discusses the present and makes projections for the future of educational technology in Turkey. Technology has an important role in enhancing educational progress. Therefore, educators need to adapt technology within their field of study. Educational materials such as textbooks, films, radio, television, overhead projectors, video recorders and, of course, computers enrich learning environments in schools. Educational materials motivate students and induce them to study subject matter while providing opportunities for students to access and evaluate information. In Turkey, the use of educational technology in schools has been taken very seriously by the Ministry of National Education since the 1930s. Universities and other institutions are also interested in research and application of educational technology to their own settings. La Technologie de l'Education en Turquie: Passé, Présent et Avenir. Cet article explique le passé et le présent et propose des projections dans l'avenir pour la technologie de l'éducation en Turquie. La technologie joue un rÔle important pour favoriser le progrès en éducation. Aussi les enseignants doivent l'adapter dans leur discipline. Les moyens d'enseignement tels que les livres, les films, la radio, la télévision, les rétroprojecteurs et enfin les ordinateurs enrichissent l'environnement éducatif des écoles. Les moyens d'enseignement motivent les élèves et les incitent À étudier les sujets en fournissant l'occasion pour ceux-ci y avoir accès et d'évaluer l'information en Turquie, l'utilisation de la technologie de l'éducation dans les écoles a été prise très au sérieux par le Ministère de l'Education dès les années 30. Les universités et d'autres institutions s'intéressent aussi aux recherches et aux applications de la technolgie de l'éducation dans leurs domaines. Bildungstechnik in der Türkei: Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft. In diesem Beitrag wird die Entwicklung der Bildungstechnologie in der Türkei von der Vergangenheit bis zu Gegenwart dargestellt und ein Einblick in die Planung für die Zukunft gegeben. Technologie spielt eine wichtige Rolle bei der Verbesserung des Bildungsfortschritts. Daher müssen auch Erzieher sie innerhalb ihres Studiengebiets anwenden und anpassen. Bildungsmaterialien wie Lehrbücher, Filme, Rundfunk- und Fernsehsendungen, Einsatz von Overheadprojektoren, Videorekordern und natürlich jetzt auch von Computern bereichern die Lernangebote von Schulen. Bildungsmaterialien motivieren Lernende und bewirken dadurch, dass sie sich schon während des Zusammenstellens von Material durch Zugriff auf Informationen und deren Bewertung mit Inhalten befassen müssen.     

Isn’t it a pyrrhic victory?: over-privatization and universal access in tertiary education of Korea

This article analyzes the Korean passage to tertiary education for all. With a specific focus on traditional form of higher education, it tries to answer the questions of how and why this extra-ordinary phenomenon happens in a short period of time. Applying a historical sociology method, it attempts to explain the mechanism and consequences of the simultaneous transition to universal access to both the secondary and tertiary education. Over-privatization has been the primary mechanism behind the simultaneous transition since the late 1960s. Such a heavy overflow of privatization in achieving universal access places a significant financial burden on families, particularly those of a disadvantaged socioeconomic status. The more financial resources that come from the private sector, the more difficult it becomes to attain equitable access. There is no sign of a narrowing in the gap which exists among regions, socioeconomic status, gender, and family background, all of which have led to the inequality of access to universities and colleges. My final reflections are put on a simple question: “is this a story of victory or a pyrrhic one?”     

Output-orientated Data Envelopment Analysis for measuring recycling efficiency: an application at Italian regional level

Pro-environmental behaviours associated with reducing, reusing and recycling have become increasingly matters of public policy concern. However, the existing literature on waste management rarely considers the cultural factors associated with predictors and enablers of recycling behaviours, nor has it deeply explored the relation between cultural access and such behaviours. Mindful of the relationship between cultural participation and learning, the main objective of this paper is to examine which Italian regions are ranked among the most ‘efficient’ in recycling, taking into account the variable of cultural participation. Using a Data Envelopment Analysis method applied to Italian regions for the period 2002–2007, we provide a measure of ‘efficiency’ that considers cultural consumptions (as input) and recycling (as output). Public data are drawn from two sources: the Italian Institute of Statistics database, ‘Cultura in cifre’, and the survey ‘Noi Italia – Environment section’. The results from the empirical analysis rank efficient and non-efficient regions in terms of connection between pro-environmental behaviour and cultural participation. The results also indicate a benchmark for ‘inefficient’ regions. The findings add to the discussion of cultural considerations for designing and implementing preventative pro-environmental strategies, that seek to reduce environmental costs and public environmental expenditure by factoring in – rather than out – the importance, role and impact of cultural access and participation.     

International Examinations: The new credentialism and reproduction of advantage in a globalising world

International examinations are increasingly being used by local élites to reproduce their advantage in the face of growing educational competition and the changing economic order associated with globalisation and 'post-Fordism'. Evidence from opportunity samples of students taking these examinations in five countries suggests how this may be working in practice. The evidence indicates that the patterns of use are various and are influenced both by local educational cultures and by broader considerations of location in relation to global economic 'cores'. International credentials bring a qualitatively new dimension to the issue of credentialism and credential inflation as they exclude the majority from participation in the new competition for access to the most advantageous occupational opportunities.