Homicides in Higher Education: Some Reflections on the Moral Mission of the University

This essay on the ethical mission of the university explores extremes of anti-social behavior, visiting numerous crime scenes before concluding that contemporary higher education has lost the capacity—and even the language—for taking character development seriously. In his attempt to determine whether coincidently traditional-liberationist-diversiphilic-apathetic colleges can morally improve their charges, Peter Wood collects a wrenching compendium of violent academic mayhem.

Exam Scams and Classroom Flimflams: Urban Legends as an Alternative Lens for Viewing the College Classroom Experience

Campus-based urban legends have the potential to convey and construct student culture in higher education. Basic qualitative and humanistic research methods were used to collect, analyze, and interpret legends related to the academic experience of collegiate life.

The Social effects of the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS)

Australia’s Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) is an income contingent loan scheme, in which university students pay back part of the costs of their tuition after their post-university income reaches a certain threshold, is an important policy innovation for the financing of higher education. However, its critics claim that HECS increases socioeconomic inequalities in higher education and the HECS debt reduces the ability of young people to make the transitions to adulthood. This paper investigates these claims. There is no evidence that socioeconomic inequalities in higher education in Australia increased after the implementation of HECS in 1989 or the 1997 reforms. The magnitude of the HECS debt was found to have a negative impact on the transition to parenthood, but had no negative impacts on other transitions to adulthood: leaving the parental home, marriage and home ownership. Its effects on parenthood were moderate compared to other influences, such as full-time work in the previous year, marriage and being in a de facto relationship. Furthermore, only a small proportion of young people who attended university have large enough HECS debts for it to affect their fertility decisions.

Sustainable, large-scale education renewal

Much has been written about sustainable large-scale change but there are few examples of it. Over the last 4 years, the province of Ontario, Canada, has been engaged in just that work of moving from a system that was in constant conflict to one that generates both good results and positive energy. This paper describes the origin, main elements and results to date of the Ontario education strategy as an example of large-scale change in education that is respectful of educators, fair to students and communities, and based on the best available knowledge.

The Role of Doctoral Advisors: A Look at Advising from the Advisor’s Perspective

The doctoral advisor is said to be one of the most important persons—if not the single most critical person—with whom doctoral students will develop a relationship during their doctoral degree programs (Baird 1995). However, we have limited knowledge regarding how doctoral advisors see their roles and responsibilities as advisors. Therefore, through in-depth interviews, we explored the perceptions of 25 exemplary doctoral advisors, who have graduated a large number of doctoral students, about their roles and responsibilities as advisors. We conclude this article with implications for doctoral education.

The new student loan system in Chile’s higher education

Chile’s higher education system stands out as being one of the most privatized and open to the market in the world. Recently, the Chilean Congress passed Law # 20.027 of 2005, which provides the legal framework for the creation of a student loan system guaranteed both by the State and by higher education institutions (HEIs), financed by the private capital market through the securitization of the loans. The system operated for the first time in 2006, where approximately 21,000 students were able to access financing of their higher education for the remainder of their careers. It is expected that as the system matures, more and better information will be available, which will benefit the students and the HEIs; and it is highly likely that the current number of financed students could grow significantly in the next few years. The purpose of this article is to describe the outstanding characteristics of this system, explain its conceptual basis and analyze the public policy choices available in its design.

Mapping the Field of VET Partnerships

This paper looks critically at partnerships in education and training by presenting a case study of a community-level partnership aimed at promoting high school apprenticeships in Ontario Canada. The analysis maps the field of social relations within this partnership in order to reveal institutionally-based struggles and their implications for youth training and employment. The assumptions within policy that employers are actively engaged as partners and that they and other stakeholders share a unitary vision for education and training are challenged. Rather, partnerships reflect tensions among partners that must be addressed in order to improve the learning affordances for youth.

Quality management in Hungarian higher education: organisational responses to governmental policy

This article focuses on responses of higher education institutions to governmental policy. We investigate the influence of organisational characteristics on the implementation of quality management in Hungarian higher education institutions. Our theoretical framework is based on organisational theories (resource dependency and neo-institutionalism), Allison’s models on organisational decision-making processes, and also addresses some of the more specific characteristics of higher education institutions. Our empirical investigation shows that organisational characteristics matter in policy implementation of quality management in Hungarian higher education. Certain organisational variables, viz. leaders’ commitment to the implementation process, the involvement of external consultants, institutional reputation, and bureaucratic and political decision-making processes have strong effects on the implementation of quality management. Characteristics particular to higher education institutions were much less influential.

Sreyashi Jhumki Basu: Building a more equitable world through science education

Dr. Sreyashi Jhumki Basu was a scholar committed to equity and social justice in science education who passed away in December 2008. In this essay, I describe Jhumki’s research and the call to action her life’s work has laid out for the science education community. In particular, I draw attention to the role of critical science agency in learning and the democratic science pedagogy model that Jhumki developed to support students in crafting such agency.

Jong-Hsiang Yang: a major promoter of Taiwanese science education

This article reviews the work of Jong-Hsiang Yang in science education and his efforts in creating a research culture in Taiwan. Following in Yang’s footprints, the rebuilding of science education, implementing a new science curriculum, and gaining the academic status of science education, we go through the important years of the development of science education in Taiwan. His leadership in introducing interpretive research methods and expanding international studies catalyzed profound changes to science education research in Taiwan.

A Simple Unifying Measure of State Support for Postsecondary Education

Conflicting measures of state support for postsecondary education create confusion and misunderstanding that convolute debates about states’ postsecondary education funding. The use of multiple measures is largely unnecessary, though. A simple single measure is constructed that adequately quantifies both states’ postsecondary need and states’ ability to pay. Specifically, this study proposes measuring state support for postsecondary education as state postsecondary funding per high school graduate over the previous four years per dollar of per capita income.

The notion of historical “parallelism” revisited: historical evolution and students’ conception of the order relation on the number line

This paper associates the findings of a historical study with those of an empirical one with 16 years-old students (1st year of the Greek Lyceum). It aims at examining critically the much-discussed and controversial relation between the historical evolution of mathematical concepts and the process of their teaching and learning. The paper deals with the order relation on the number line and the algebra of inequalities, trying to elucidate the development and functioning of this knowledge both in the world of scholarly mathematical activity and the world of teaching and learning mathematics in secondary education. This twofold analysis reveals that the old idea of a “parallelism” between history and pedagogy of mathematics has a subtle nature with at least two different aspects (metaphorically named “positive” and “negative”), which are worth further exploration.

Clergy’s Views of the Relationship between Science and Religious Faith and the Implications for Science Education

Since many teachers and students recognize other kinds of knowledge (faith) based on other ways of knowing, consideration of these realities is appropriate for the science education community. Understanding the multitude of ways that clergy view relationships between science and faith (i.e. alternative ways of knowing) would assist in understanding various ways that people address complex issues arising from ideas about science and faith. We administered a questionnaire composed of multiple-choice and short answer items to 63 United Methodist ministers. Findings included (1) that formal, organized faith contexts (e.g. church services) serve as informal science education opportunities, (2) participants demonstrated considerable diversity regarding the types of relationships developed between science and faith, and (3) participants recognized a need exists for better understandings of science and its relationship to faith for them, their colleagues, and their congregations.

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Academic social cohesion within higher education

This article explores the theoretical foundations of social cohesion as it relates to higher education institutions. In so doing it seeks (a) to understand the core elements of social cohesion—social capital, human capital and ethical behavioural norms that serve a common good—and (b) to establish a flexible framework for understanding the combined contributions of higher education to society. Tertiary institutional phenomena (those occurring in higher education) that are involved in the creation of social cohesion are hereafter termed academic social cohesion. The particular emphasis is on higher education’s role in cultivating moral awareness as a vital product of institutions’ primary activities. These core functions of colleges and universities are discussed in relation to both academic social cohesion and the degree to which they should involve the creation of specific ethical norms.

Evaluating student allocation in the Portuguese public higher education system

This paper characterizes and evaluates the student allocation in the Portuguese public higher education system. It describes the supply and demand sides of the system by looking at the numerus clausus across areas of study and institutions, institutions’ degree of diversity, and performance and adjustment indicators based on students’ revealed preferences. Performance indicators quantify the adequacy between demand and supply, across institutions and fields of study, and gauge the performance of public higher education institutions in the competition for candidates. Adjustment indicators allow us to predict the potential impact of changes in higher education regulations on student allocation and its stability. According to these indicators, such changes could result in an expansion for some institutions and fields of study, whereas other institutions might face a reduction.

The Bologna process and its impact on higher education at Russia’s margins: the case of Kaliningrad

Embracing the Russian Federation since 2003, the Bologna process is no longer exclusively confined to western European countries. As early as 1999, Vladimir Putin declared the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Lithuania and Poland, as a potential pilot region for intensified cooperation between Russia and the EU on a number of policy areas, including higher education. In this paper, we study whether the Bologna process has served to underpin these ambitions. With a view to the EU, we will ask to what extent the European Union has proffered a model or directly influenced the path for transformation of Kaliningrad’s higher education system. We argue that a number of Kaliningrad-based actors in higher education have recognized the salience of European models and the need to work closely with partners from the EU, while Moscow only allows for marginal discretion in terms of Kaliningrad’s higher educational policy.

Intellectual innovation or intellectual retrofitting: on agency, culture and access to science education

A great challenge in education research involves the difficulty of differentiating between studies that apply commonly understood theoretical perspectives and recognizing studies that merely rename old theoretical frameworks. This conflict between intellectual innovation and intellectual retrofitting emerges as central to Basu, Calabrese-Barton, Clairmont, and Lock’s exploration of the relationship between critical agency and student identity development in science.

Creating (in) equalities in access to higher education in the context of structural adjustment and post-adjustment policies: the case of chile

By analyzing the access of different socio-economic groups to post-secondary institutions by quintile, this paper examines the impact produced by higher education financing policies in Chile during the Pinochet (1973–1990), the Aylwin (1990–1994) and the Frei (1994–2000) administrations. To this purpose, CASEN databases and semi-structured interviews conducted with former and current government officials as well as higher education administrators provide valuable information to measure the impact that higher education financing policies had on different socio-economic groups. Access to post-secondary institutions is seen in relation to two aspects: (a) enrollment rates by type of institution and sector and (b) access of students (18–24 year-old group) by family per capita income level. Major conclusion set up that despite increased participation across all socio-economic groups within the post secondary system, upper and upper-middle income students gained access to higher education disproportionately compared to lower, lower-middle, and middle income groups during the 1987–1998 period.

Educational Inequity from the Perspectives of Those Who Live It: Urban Middle School Students’ Perspectives on the Quality of their Education

In interviews with over 250 urban young adolescents, many students make it clear that they are acutely aware of the educational inequities that exist in their schools and that these inequities are having a negative impact on their education. Student voice is used to highlight urban middle school students’ perspectives on the quality of their education particularly in terms of curricular issues, teacher quality, and lack of resources.