Published in 2004, this book discusses whether the rhetoric of the market in higher education is matched by the realities of choice. In the first comprehensive study of higher education markets and sixth form choice, Lesley Pugsley argues that the annual burst of media-fuelled panic about university entrance leads to a misinformed rhetoric about the purpose and value of higher education. This is a benchmark study based on the 1997 cohort of students, who were last to enter higher education under the ‘Robbins 1963’ banner of free education. Tracking a group of students throughout their sixth form careers, Pugsley provides a balanced account of the tensions experiences by the students, their parents and their teachers in an increasingly market-orientated higher education society. This book was originally published as part of the Cardiff Papers in Qualitative Research series edited by Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont and Amanda Coffey. The series publishes original sociological research that reflects the tradition of qualitative and ethnographic inquiry developed at Cardiff. The series includes monographs reporting on empirical research, edited collections focussing on particular themes, and texts discussing methodological developments and issues.

This book explores the prospects of innovation governance within the context of the growing uneasiness surrounding the effects, democratic deficits and overall societal adequacy of techno-scientific progress. There is a focus on the recently promoted notion of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), and some light is shed on the inevitable impediments of its meaningful implementation with respect to the normative structure of contemporary market societies. A particular matter of concern is the normative interlock between science and the market around the notion of neutrality, and the narrowing room for ethics reflexivity. The RRI Challenge outlines avenues for further conceptualization so that RRI can fulfil its emancipatory potential as social critique. This involves challenging the current politico-economic framework of the knowledge-creation process, and re-examining key conceptual dyads in innovation governance such as: governance/government, hard law/soft law, risk/fault, uncertainty/indeterminacy and morality/ethics.

Organizational Wrongdoing as the “Foundational” Grand Challenge: Consequences and Impact focuses on the consequences of organizational wrongdoing, the role of whistleblowing, and methodological issues.

Charter schools have become a national phenomenon, garnering praise from both Democrats and Republicans. Because they appear to sidestep both political stalemate and the practical difficulty of implementing widespread change--the traditional barriers to improvement in American public education--charter schools hold great promise as an educational reform. Now, with charter laws on the books in more than thirty states, Bryan Hassel investigates whether charter schools have been able to avoid the pitfalls that have tripped up so many other "revolutionary" school reforms. After a broad overview of how charter laws have been adopted nationwide, this book focuses in depth on charter schools in Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Michigan. Hassel reviews the four states' implementation of charter laws and whether their programs are providing sufficient autonomy, resources, and potential to influence the broader education system--all essential components for charter schools' success. He concludes that if states want to give charter schools a full test, they should empower nonlocal entities to approve charter schools, establish the schools as distinct local entities, allow full per-pupil funding to go with students to the charter schools, and impose minimal constraints on the source and number of charter schools. The schools themselves will need to improve their infrastructure, and charter-granting agencies will have to rebuild the systems for monitoring schools' academic results and compliance with regulations. These policies are vital if charter schools are to realize their potential as a significant educational reform.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Joint Conference of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Technology, Education, Communication, and the Scientific Network on Critical and Flexible Thinking, held in Ghent, Belgium, in October 2011. The 12 papers in this volume represent extended versions of the 20 papers presented at the conference and selected from numerous submissions. The conference brought together scholars and researchers who study the use of serious games in educational settings from different perspectives, such as instructional design, domain specific didactics, cognitive and computer science.

In developing countries across the world, qualified teachers are a rarity, with thousands of untrained adults taking over the role and millions of children having no access to schooling at all. The supply of high-quality teachers is falling behind: poor status, low salaries and inadequate working conditions characterise perceptions of teachers in numerous countries, deterring many from entering the profession, and there are strong critiques of the one dimensional, didactic approach to pedagogic practice. Despite this, millions of teachers are dedicated to educating a newly enfranchised generation of learners. Teacher Education and the Challenge of Development is co-written by experts working across a wide range of developing country situations. It provides a unique overview of the crisis surrounding the provision of high-quality teachers in the developing world, and how these teachers are crucial to the alleviation of poverty. The book explores existing policy structures and identifies the global pressures on teaching, which are particularly acute in developing economies. In summarising the key policy and research issues and analysing innovative approaches to teacher supply, retention and education, this book: establishes an overview and conceptual analysis of the challenge to extend and improve the teaching force in developing contexts; sets out and analyses the quantitative and qualitative evidence around teacher contexts and conditions; provides a series of national studies that analyse the context of teachers and the policies being pursued to improve the number and quality of teachers; looks at a range of significant issues that could contribute to the reformulation and reform of teacher policies; provides an overarching analysis of the nature and challenges of teaching and the possible interventions or solutions, in a form accessible to policy and research communities. This book will be of interest to educationalists and researchers in education, teachers, policy makers and students of development courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

This edited book presents some unexplored issues of economic inequality, including case studies of various countries. Inequality is a chronic and divisive factor of society. Inequality exists as an integral attribute of human development. Communities, nations, and systems are not evolving at the same speed and rate and thus require different resources in different amounts. However, the distribution of winnings is also uneven due to the multidimensionality of influencing factors.When we talk about inequality, it is not just inequality of income or wealth; it is first, inequality in access to priorities and human needs – to shelter, to clean water, air, health care, and also to appropriate vaccination systems and assistance, security systems and safety guarantees for the future. Past financial crises and the current pandemic shock has revealed bugs in the system, shaking it and changing our perception of the norms.We may have no doubts that inequality is an unsolved problem, but now we need to find out - is it unbeatable? There is still lack of knowledge around how inequality has been grounded throughout human civilization, why society is stratified and classified, economically, politically, socially, and religiously; and why the discrimination due to gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, language differences, immigration status, caste, race and ethnicity? This book addresses these issues in a holistic way as well as including case studies of various countries. It tries to find out why inequality has been unbeatable and what would be the best policies to overcome this challenge.

This book addresses how best to meet everyday challenges. The author focuses on how to think and act differently about what we do as we face challenges, and how to assess each situation as one of challenge rather than threat or harm because we have the strategies to cope. Spanning eleven chapters, the book examines the best ways to provide the core skills for life, to children, adolescents and adults, and how that is best achieved through the contemporary theories of coping. Coping has traditionally been defined in terms of reaction; that is, how people respond after or during a stressful event. More recently, coping is being defined more broadly to include anticipatory, preventive and proactive coping. This book provides case studies of resilient adults in a range of settings, highlighting how coping resources have helped them to overcome adversity. Researchers, students of psychology and social work, practitioners and those interested in the self-help field will find this book invaluable.

“A standout . . . a balanced, informative, and highly intelligent guide to dealing with China.”—Fareed Zakaria Many see China as a rival superpower to the United States and imagine the country’s rise to be a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues against this zero-sum vision. Instead, he describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a compelling new assessment of U.S.-China relations that is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the globalized world. The China Challenge shows why China is nowhere near powerful enough to be considered a global “peer competitor” of the United States, but it is already strong enough to destabilize East Asia and to influence economic and political affairs worldwide. Despite China’s impressive achievements, the Chinese Communist Party faces enormous challenges. Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party’s decisions on issues like maritime sovereignty disputes, global financial management, control of the Internet, climate change, and policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. China benefits enormously from the current global order and has no intention of overthrowing it; but that is not enough. China’s active cooperation is essential to global governance. Never before has a developing country like China been asked to contribute so much to ensure international stability. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will falter, but even if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated. Analyzing U.S.-China policy since the end of the Cold War, Christensen articulates a balanced strategic approach that explains why we should aim not to block China’s rise but rather to help shape its choices so as to deter regional aggression and encourage China’s active participation in international initiatives that benefit both nations.

Tanasescu examines the rights of nature in terms of its constituent parts. Besides offering a thorough theoretical grounding, the book gives a first detailed overview of the actual cases of rights for nature so far. This is the first comprehensive treatment of the rights of nature to date, both analytically and in terms of actual cases.