Is Britain a Western European Country? A Multivariate Analysis of Western Higher Education Systems

Using data collected by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a multivariate analysis of 13 measures for 16 countries is carried out with the aim of identifying similarities and differences between national systems of higher education. The results support the view that the North American systems of higher education are distinctive in terms of their high participation rates. They suggest that there are significant variations within Europe, particularly in terms of demographic structures, participation and expenditure rates. Three possible sub-groups are identified, focused on (i) Austria, Ireland, Italy and Spain; (ii) Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom; and (iii) Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Japan, the only Asian country included in the analysis, appears to be more similar to Finland than any other country.     

A critical evaluation of recent progress in understanding the role of the research-teaching link in higher education

Research into the relationship between research and teaching in higher education has flourished over several decades, and the most recent research phase has focused particularly on how the research-teaching nexus can enhance the quality and outcomes of the learning experience for both students and academics. On the basis of bibliographic review, this article concludes that progress in answering the fundamental questions posed by researchers in the early 1990s and earlier has been limited. Diverse practice has been categorised, shared and evaluated against broad criteria, while questions about the inherent nature and value of the nexus in higher education remain as yet unanswered within the research theme and within the broader consideration of higher education policy and practice. Recent research provides an enriched evidence base on which earlier questions of principle and policy might usefully be reconsidered.     

Revisiting (and Revising?) Sports Boycotts: From Rugby against South Africa to Soccer in Israel

For the first time in nearly 30 years, 2013 saw increasing public awareness of calls for a comprehensive boycott of and sanctions on a state based on questions of an ‘entrenched system of racial discrimination’. The call to boycott South African sport emerged in the 1950s as the apartheid state was developing and refining its comprehensive and systematic legal form amid growing international pressure for decolonisation. This is a different social and political context than the call 50 years later by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This paper draws on analyses of international anti-apartheid movements' campaigns against sporting contact with South Africa and the BDS call for the isolation of the Israeli state to propose a theory of sports boycotts. It looks at the anti-apartheid campaigns to consider ways in which the BDS campaign has an impact on existing historical understandings of cultural boycotts as a tactical and strategic campaign tool.