Religious affiliation,ethnicity, and power in admission policies to Jewish religious schools

This paper analyzes the challenges embedded in the conflict between the right to accessible education, which implies a prohibition on discriminatory practices in school admission, and the right to adaptable education, which accommodates children’s cultural affiliations. It shows that a normative lens, which examines the ways by which legal rules correspond to conflicting rights and interests, cannot fully capture the tension between legal prohibitions on discrimination in education and the sociocultural norms in religious communities. Thus, the paper offers a socio-legal lens, which focuses on the context of admission policies to Jewish religious schools. Based on three test cases of admission policies to Jewish religious schools in Israel, England, and Flanders, Belgium, the paper demonstrates how the legal rules regulating the admission policies are influenced by social forces. In Israel and England, these forces have facilitated a descent down slippery slope, originating with religious criteria, but concluding with discriminatory criteria. They also shaped admission practices reflecting the asymmetric power relations between the institutional school systems and individual families. The paper highlights the benefits of the Belgian policy, which proscribes religious classification of school candidates. This policy circumvents the ambiguous distinction between religion, ethnicity, and social class, and expands educational choices.     

Affordability of private schools: exploration of a conundrum and towards a definition of ‘low-cost’

The affordability of private education is a contentious issue. While the extent of ‘low-cost’ private schooling is widely accepted, there is no agreement on what ‘low-cost’ means in this context and how this relates to affordability for poor families. This paper addresses the lacuna in the literature by defining ‘low-cost’ in relation to what poor families could afford if they were to send all their children to school while restricting their expenditure on schooling to a fixed proportion of their total family expenditure. This approach links the definition of ‘low-cost’ to internationally accepted poverty lines. Two examples from recent research in South Sudan and Liberia illustrate the flexibility of the new method. The paper also addresses the ‘conundrum’ in the research literature, which suggests low-cost private schools are unaffordable for poorest families, when the same literature typically shows some of the poorest using these schools.     

高校扩招给教育质量带来的问题与应对措施

本文对近几年我国高等学校的扩招给各高校教育质量带来的问题和挑战进行分析并提出学校应采取的对策。     

Policies of global English tests: test-takers’ perspectives on the IELTS retake policy

Globalized English proficiency tests such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) are increasingly playing the role of gatekeepers in a globalizing world. Although the use of the IELTS as a ‘policy tool’ for making decisions in the areas of study, work and migration impacts on test-takers' lives and life chances, not much is known about its own policy and policy logic. With the growing call for listening to test-takers' voices, specific policy aspects of the test have recently been scrutinized. This article seeks to contribute to this area by drawing on test-takers' perspectives on the IELTS retake policy and developing an understanding of how policies of global English tests are perceived, interpreted and given new meanings by its key stakeholders. Although the truth-value of the emic views of test-takers may be debated, their experiences and perceptions problematize the reliability claims of the testing agency by locating commercial motives at the center of their policy and thereby raising theoretical, professional and ethical questions.     

股票市场发展对货币政策的影响

我国股票市场历经十多年的发展,已逐渐成为影响货币政策的一个不可忽视的因素。股票市场发展对货币政策的挑战已经成为我国金融体制转轨过程中货币政策无法回避的现实问题,因此我国在实施货币政策时要关注金融资产价格,进一步推进利率市场化改革,开辟证券市场与货币市场之间资金合理流动的联系渠道,从而提高货币政策的有效性。     

Pre-service teachers’ interpretations of religious policy in citizenship education in China

Studies about religion and education in post-Mao China have become more common in recent years, but very few have touched on teacher and religious education at the basic education level. This study adopted a mixed methodology approach (questionnaire, interview and lesson design analysis) to report Chinese pre-service teachers’ interpretations of religious policy in citizenship education. The analyses of the findings reveal that pre-service teachers actively constructed their understandings of religion-citizenship, rather than passively adopting the officially promoted religion-citizenship relationship.     

高校基层党组织的地位与作用初探

党对高校的领导决定了高校基层党组织工作的原则性;高等教育的不断深入改革决定了高校基层党组织工作的目的性;高教管理的运作机制决定了高校基层党组织工作的依附性;同级行政组织负责人的类型特征决定了高校基层党组织工作的灵活性;高校知识分子为主体、多利益并存的现状决定了高校基层党组织工作的复杂性。对此,基层党组织领导在决策前要为行政把握方向,出谋划策;决策时要为行政排除干扰,撑腰鼓劲;决策后要给行政拾遗补缺,排忧解难;有失误时要替行政遮风挡雨,共同反省;有成绩时要帮助行政总结经验,再上台阶。     

The effects of discourses in regional contexts on the development of curriculum-based literacy standards for adolescents in schooling: a comparative study of South Australia and Ontario

This study analyses how discourses in regional contexts affect the development of curriculum-based literacy standards for adolescents in schooling. A comparative case-study research design enabled the influences of discourses at the regional level to be analysed. The case studies include the development of curricula to define a minimum literacy standard for the final years of schooling for adolescents in Ontario, Canada, and South Australia, Australia. Critical discourse analysis of key texts associated with the development of literacy standards in each region reveals how globally shared meanings about standard setting for schooling interact with other discourses operating in local contexts to produce curricula that define literacy standards. The results indicate that, while a global discourse about standards-based reforms may be foregrounded in curriculum, locally generated discourses can challenge key ideas associated with a simplistic discourse about standards. Discourses about literacy in Ontario and South Australia contest the assertion that literacy at the end point of schooling can be defined as a basic competency and local meanings associated with literacy are emphasised within the curriculum for each location. Language choices, involving particularly lexical cohesion, complex noun groups and nominalisation, are used to ensure that local meanings inform literacy standards for the endpoint of schooling.     

冷战初期到越战结束美国的意识形态外交

冷战的特点之一便是意识形态的巨大分野与对抗。意识形态对国家对外政策的影响是深远的。对美国来说,从杜鲁门主义、马歇尔计划到古巴导弹危机等事务中,每一项对外政策的制订都带有浓厚的反共产主义色彩。以冷战开始到越南战争结束作为一个时间段,论述意识形态因素在美国对外政策中作用、效果以及美国政府对此所作的调整。     

突破财政体制瓶颈 加快农村教育发展——关于推进广东农村教育现代化的政策思考

改革开放20多年来,广东虽已跃为全国第一经济大省,但其大部分地区的农村教育却仍陷于举步维艰的境地。目前,扭转这一困局的根本出路就在于,在建构合乎市场经济要求的宏观公共财政体系的前提下,创设规范化、稳定性和长效性的财政转移支付制度。