In a growing revisionist tradition, comparative educational scholars challenge conventional assumptions about quality education as a singular undertaking dominated by standardised assessments and globalisation influences. The contributors to this volume illustrate the complexities and global dimensions of educational quality that emerged in their research. Several chapters critique educational reforms employing assessments aligned to global standards and large scale assessments, revealing how considerations of contextual factors, internal needs and local traditions are essential for developing a quality curriculum or for overhauling a national education system. Most chapters interrogate the uses and misuses of standardised assessment results. The contributors reveal the importance of asking critical questions about quality education: how to access it and for what purposes; what contextual and cultural factors are important; what implementation issues and local-level realities must be considered for true understanding of standardized assessment results; what content, skills and values are necessary and desirable ingredients; what roles teachers and administrators play; and what benefits accrue in terms of outcomes for employment and labor market needs or for achieving autonomy and stakeholder participation. Critiques of narrow interpretations of standardised assessment data contrast with research-based evidence that participation in large scale assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS can indeed be beneficial to identify needed reform refinements and implementation shortcomings. Specific country cases include Brazil, Canada, the United States, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and the Philippines. Other chapters provide insights on quality education issues worldwide. The volume offers readers a panorama of views on the diversity of paths to quality education.

In a growing revisionist tradition, comparative educational scholars challenge conventional assumptions about quality education as a singular undertaking dominated by standardised assessments and globalisation influences. The contributors to this volume illustrate the complexities and global dimensions of educational quality that emerged in their research. Several chapters critique educational reforms employing assessments aligned to global standards and large scale assessments, revealing how considerations of contextual factors, internal needs and local traditions are essential for developing a quality curriculum or for overhauling a national education system. Most chapters interrogate the uses and misuses of standardised assessment results. The contributors reveal the importance of asking critical questions about quality education: how to access it and for what purposes; what contextual and cultural factors are important; what implementation issues and local-level realities must be considered for true understanding of standardized assessment results; what content, skills and values are necessary and desirable ingredients; what roles teachers and administrators play; and what benefits accrue in terms of outcomes for employment and labor market needs or for achieving autonomy and stakeholder participation. Critiques of narrow interpretations of standardised assessment data contrast with research-based evidence that participation in large scale assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS can indeed be beneficial to identify needed reform refinements and implementation shortcomings. Specific country cases include Brazil, Canada, the United States, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and the Philippines. Other chapters provide insights on quality education issues worldwide. The volume offers readers a panorama of views on the diversity of paths to quality education.

Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.

The seemingly amorphous phenomenon we call "globalization" involves concrete realities that make it a major source of social change in our contemporary world. Bringing globalization alive for students, this book uses examples and perspectives from economics, technology, and mass media to show how globalization is producing unprecedented impacts on education and culture. Education at all levels--from primary school to university education--is undergoing a world wide transformation of its objectives, values, and practices. New technologies and communication practices have promoted the West's optimism that market forces can replace the former governmental responsibilities for social welfare and the inclusion of diverse cultures. New emphasis on competition, quality control, parental choice, marketing, and the linkage of education to work means that schools all over the world face innovations and challenges to established practices. Meanwhile, the worldwide expansion of entertainment and advertising media convey notions of individualism and consumerism that are changing definitions of gender and solidarity among social groups. This book offers a vivid introduction to these complex changes, recognizing the role of the state while explaining new forces like transnational corporations and nongovernmental organizations. Stromquist points to governmental and school policies that can actively shape the future of education at a time of rapid change.

One of the key elements in determining the socio-economic significance of education is quality. Quality management plays an integral role in higher education by ensuring that quality benchmarks are being met, thereby attributing to its prestige, increased enrollment, and student success. Quality management policies must be successfully implemented for the institution to thrive. With quality management still in the growing stage, research is needed regarding the applications, challenges, and benefits of these policies within advanced academics. Quality Management Principles and Policies in Higher Education provides emerging research exploring the theoretical aspects of quality management policies and applications within the educational field. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as faculty involvement, administration practices, and critical success factors, this book is ideally designed for educators, administrators, educational consultants, researchers, policymakers, stakeholders, deans, provosts, chancellors, academicians, and students seeking current research on successfully implementing quality management systems in teaching, learning, and administrative processes.

This book critically examines the overall interplay between globalisation, social inequality and education. It explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable in the research covering the State, globalisation, social stratification and education. The book, constructed against this pervasive anti-dialogical backdrop, aims to widen, deepen, and in some cases open, discourse related to globalisation, and new dimensions of social inequality in the global culture.

An international gathering of leading scholars, policymakers, and educators takes on some of the most difficult and controversial issues of our time in this groundbreaking exploration of how globalization is affecting education around the world. The contributors, drawing from innovative research in both the social sciences and the neurosciences, examine the challenges and opportunities now facing schools as a result of massive migration flows, new economic realities, new technologies, and the growing cultural diversity of the world's major cities. Writing for a wide audience, they address such questions as: How do we educate all youth to develop the skills and sensibilities necessary to thrive in globally linked, technologically interconnected economies? What can schools do to meet the urgent need to educate growing numbers of migrant youth at risk of failure in societies already divided by inequality? What are the limits of cultural tolerance as tensions over gender, religion, and race threaten social cohesion in schools and neighborhoods alike? Bringing together scholars with deep experience in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, this work, grounded in rich examples from everyday life, is highly relevant not only to scholars and policymakers but also to all stakeholders responsible for the day-to-day workings of schools in cities across the globe.