Inclusive education in Israel from a curriculum perspective: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT

Teachers of young schoolchildren are generally thought to have consistent ideas on developmental and learning problems of their pupils. Therefore, their assessments are also deemed valuable for the early identification of children at risk. However, this can only be the case if these assessments have a high predictive value for learning and behavioural problems in children at a later age. This article reports on a longitudinal research project whereby young children's teachers made assessments on their pupils’ development, which were compared with the later performance of these children in school. The predictive value proved to be insufficient, and the implications of this finding are discussed.     

营销理论视角下的高等学校管理

营销的实质是对需求的管理,营销理论视角下的高等学校管理要求在做总体规划之前,要对高等教育需求有较全面的了解与分析,在此基础上对高等教育市场进行细分,再以营销观念为导向规划总体发展战略,实施内部管理改革,开创品牌建设。战略的具体实施则可根据营销的4P制定相应的组合策略。     

Higher education reform in perspective: The Japanese experience

Japanese colleges and universitiesare in an age of great transition. Currentreforms can be counted as some of the mostextensive and radical changes in the history ofJapanese higher education. Although the agendaof recent reforms has been conditioned bycontemporary socio-political circumstances,many of the ongoing changes are rooted inhistory. In this article, the reforms ofJapanese higher education are examined from along-range historical perspective. Thoughpre-war years are briefly mentioned, the mainconcern here is with reforms after World WarII.     

Higher education reform in Estonia: a legal perspective

This article looks at the higher education reform in Estonia since 1988. Author shows how over a few years ‘university education’ as the meaning of higher education was replaced by much broader ‘post-secondary education’. Another important issue to be covered is the dynamics of the legislative reform—starting with the creation of normative regulations for new institutional groups, and as a second step bringing them into conformity with the Civil Code adopted in 1994. The final part of the article discusses various implications of the new legislation—related to funding, content of studies, and governance—on higher education. Particularly as related to private education it is concluded that most recent reforms do not encourage private initiative to offer higher education, and support orthodox positions with regard to content of higher education studies. This is considered of being not helpful for the development of the learning society.     

世界职业教育发展规律初探--一个历史的视角

当前我国职业教育的发展形势和发展趋势虽然很好,但尚未形成稳定、协调、可持续发展的局面。其根本原因,在于我们对职业教育规律认识的不足。解读发达国家职业教育的发展历史,揭示职业教育的发展规律,对我国职业教育的改革与发展具有重要的现实意义。     

Flexibility in higher education: an Irish perspective

Irish public policy strongly promotes greater flexibility in higher education. This review paper examines Irish policy conceptualisations of flexible learning. The review finds that the promotion of flexible learning is positioned within strongly economistic discourses of lifelong learning, and primarily in human capital terms of meeting the skills needs of the workforce. Irish policy largely presents flexible learning approaches unproblematically as positive and beneficial. This paper demonstrates that flexible learning is not an unproblematic concept and reveals some problems and tensions relating to Irish flexible learning policy.     

Special needs education: an international perspective

Professor Peter Mittler, who is retiring from his post at the University of Manchester, considers the global implications of inclusive education.     

Higher education and attainment of policy goals: Interpretations for efficiency indicators in Israel

This study concerns identification of policy aims and goals in Israeli Higher Education (HE) and an analysis of efficiency indicators to determine the extent and nature of HE policy goal attainment at the Israeli universities. Overall, these indicators, be they quantitative or qualitative, point to major developments in the Israeli HE system in both national and international comparative terms. The aims and related efficiency performance indicators identified and used in this study are normative and their analysis follows conceptualizations of efficiency assessment. They are in line with orientations of quality as bound up with values and fundamental aims relating to fitness for purpose (Ball 1985; Williams 1991; Barnett 1989, 1992; vanVught 1994) and pertain mainly to the individual universities' perceptions and priorities. The analysis model also adopts conceptual approaches used in studies of HE quality by the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Israeli HE Council, as well as those conducted in England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, and by the OECD. As such, the analysis model as well as the findings identified in this study lend themselves to comparative HE policy analysis in a global perspective.     

Towards an assessment of educational theory: An historical perspective

Throughout the last twenty-five years all areas of educational thought have been preoccupied with the continuing conflict between conservative middle-class dominance of the schools and a liberal movement determined to provide a theory of equality and provisions for access. The radical extreme of this movement has gone further and demanded the total reconceptualization and reconstruction of education. This movement has attacked the standard histories of education which have their origins in the late nineteenth century. At that time, it is now argued, education was dominated by anarriviste bourgeoisie embracing a version of late-Hegelian philosophy with a doctrine of Eurocentric progress. Seeking legitimacy, the middle class supported the classical revival which stressed liberal education, expressed aspaideia, and mediated through the limited access to grammar school and university. Traditional educational historiography is now seen as reflecting these assumptions through “grand histories” written around “great educators” and “noble ideals”. As educational thought expanded throughout the twentieth century with the emergence of the contributing disciplines, this tradition was challenged as critical historians had a wider data-base from which to draw. By the 1930s and 1940s in the seminal work of R. H. Tawney and Lloyd Warner a literature of dissent began to appear, which, by the late 1960s had increased to a torrent, issuing in violently provocative criticisms of educational assumptions and practices, accompanied by an equally strident literature of historical interpretation, which, drawing from revisionist work in the contributing disciplines, chiefly sociology, began to re-interpret the past twenty-five years of frenetic activity as the legitimate aspirations of the world's masses. Yet the methodology of both positions is itself being reinterpreted in the present post-empiricist stage, which is characterised by phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches. Both history as the events of the past (data-base) and as interpretation (historiography), are now being seen as facets of the one activity, and, with education considered as part of a wider social process, both traditional and radical positions are themselves becoming criticised for their inadequate positivist assumptions and methodology.     

The Whole Language‐Phonics Controversy: an historical perspective

There has been considerable recent controversy over the competing emphases to beginning reading known as Whole Language and phonics. In order to provide a different perspective on the debate, this paper examines the history of disputes about reading, particularly as they apply to at‐risk students. It commences with a brief discussion of the advantages and difficulties of our English alphabetic system, and the literacy problems associated with it. Identification of the major attempts to deal with the complexity of our writing system is followed by a history of the research into the most efficacious means of enhancing reading development. An examination of early research, such as The Great Debate, The USOE Study, Follow Through and Becoming a Nation of Readers, helps illuminate the current debate by indicating which issues are novel, and which are those from the past as yet unresolved. A thread throughout the paper involves the role of educational research in influencing practice in beginning reading instruction.     

人性视域下多元文化教育的历史使命

多元文化教育作为一种跨越文化边界的教育,在当下全球化语境下对文化、人性的影响日益扩大,它投射与印证着在世界新格局下人们对教育与文化、人性等的新认识与新追求。多元文化教育理应承担起全球化时代的新使命,在教育领域实现民族性与国际性的统一,推进世界文化的多元发展,促进人性的日益完善。     

Teacher education research and education policy-makers: an Australian perspective

As teacher educators, we want our research to be influential in contributing to educational policy and practice, but there remains little understanding about ways in which teacher educators might more productively engage with each other and policy-makers so as to maximise their research impact. Drawing on an empirical study and policy document analysis, this paper seeks to foster a generative ‘researcher-policy-maker dialogue’ by understanding more about policy-makers’ perspectives of what shapes their decision-making and the current role of research evidence in those decisions. Using a research utilisation theoretical framework and discourse analysis, data revealed various factors that served as barriers or enablers to using research in making education policy decisions. Results indicated that policy-makers largely position research as key to solving their policy problems. As such they sought better communication strategies to utilise research findings in a timely, free and publicly accessible, user-friendly manner. Overall, they called for a greater dialogue and engagement at all stages of the policy process and criticised what they perceived as a ‘fly in-fly out’ research approach. Recommendations suggest new collaborative approaches and genres are needed for the teacher education research community to have a greater impact in influencing policy.     

Program diversity in higher education: an economic perspective

Program diversity in academic systems has become an important goal of higher education policy in many countries. Policy makers assume that a diverse academic system will better satisfy public preferences and needs and lead to greater social and economic benefits for society. While these assumptions adopt a recognizably economic perspective, very little of the literature on program diversity in higher education applies economic theory or methods as a means of framing relevant research. The article suggests that an economic perspective would define and measure academic diversity in terms of program innovation in academic institutions, not only in teaching, research and public service activities, but also in the processes of production and markets served. An economic perspective can also provide valuable theoretical frameworks for exploring the important question as to whether and how markets or governments affect program innovation in higher education.     

Teaching appraisal in higher education: an Australian perspective

The current literature on the evaluation of teaching in highereducation institutions is reviewed critically and evaluated from anAustralian perspective. The issues of what constitutes goodteaching and how effective teaching can lead to quality in teachingare discussed together with the reasons for introducing appraisal systems.The professional development and duties-basedmodels of teaching appraisal are summarized and assessed along with thevarious sources of information which can be used as inputs to the appraisalprocess. The problems associated with appraisal systems are identified andrecommendations are made as to the design of appraisal systems which arevalid, reliable and have high user acceptability.