At the turn of the nineteenth century, the German kindergarten - banned by the Prussian government as revolutionary - spread rapidly to nations around the globe, becoming at once a local and modernising institution. This book is a collection of case studies that describe the remarkable diffusion, adoption, and transformation of the kindergarten in eleven modern and developing nations. The contributors to the volume examine the process by which the idea of the kindergarten arrived and was adopted in these countries - a process that invariably demonstrated the immense power of local cultures, whether Christian, Buddhist, or Islamic, to respond to and reformulate borrowed ideas. Borrowing cultures do not engage in passive mimicry, the studies show, but recast ideas for their own purposes. Beginning with Germany, the chapters of this book follow the kindergarten idea as it passed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the United States, then England, Australia, Japan, China, Poland, Russia, Vietnam, Turkey, and Israel. The contributors examine such complex political, social, and cultural issues as the relationship of gender to national educational policies, the impact of mi

p.122-142 mentions Australian patrilineal bands.

"This book examines the core changes in the nature, status, and significance of the university over the last century. Having grown in numbers, reach, and scope, the university has seen sweeping expansion and has become central in a contemporary global society built on liberal and neoliberal institutions. David Frank and John Meyer begin by describing the university's expansion, focusing especially on global diffusion. They then examine the transformation of university knowledge, illustrating the ways in which standardized and scientific knowledge now reaches into more sectors of everyday life. This leads them to discuss the porous interface between the university and society. They suggest that there are now essentially no social problems that the university should not responsibly address. The result is a society dependent on credentials and cultural content provided by the university, and in the final chapter of the book, the authors reflect on what it means to exist in this "knowledge society""--

Up-to-date and comprehensive, this book is an integration of the biological, cultural and historical dimensions of population movement.