Three essays by the Director of the Comparative Education Center at the State University of New York (Buffalo) have the following titles: "Comparative Perspectives on the Academic Profession,""Student Political Activism," and "University Reform". The first essay discusses the role of the academic profession in the university, stressing the professoriate is the most important single element in the university. Topics considered are autonomy, accountability and the professoriate; the professoriate under stress; historical perspectives; the sociology of the professoriate; promotion and remuneration; national case studies; and the professoriate as an international community. The second essay offers some general perspectives on student politics including the historical context, the impossibility of a "permanent revolution" in the university, responses to activism, who the activists are, the impact of activism, and differences in student activism in the industrial nations and the Third World. The final essay looks at the sources and nature of reform in the university in a discussion of difficulties of reform, the need for reform, the impetus for reform, the process of reform, trends in the 1960s, the 1970s and beyond, and future directions. References follow each paper. (DB)

What does educational policy-making and institutional practice entail in an era of globalization? Global interactions challenge conventional assumptions governing the certainty of geographical boundedness; simplistic notions of citizenship and identity; fixed notions of time, space and movement, and clear distinctions between economic modes of production and consumption. Irving Epstein argues that conventional educational institutions and the policies that support them tend to ignore such anxiety by affirming a belief in educational modernism to the exclusion of other possibilities. What is missing in most of these analyses is an appreciation for the role of affect in determining how our encounters with these practices become significant and how our efforts to find meaning in those policies and practices lead to their acceptance or rejection. This book is the first application of affect theory to comparative education themes and shows how it can help to form a more robust discussion of the policy-making process and the popular reactions to it. After discussing the key concepts associated with affect theory, he presents a total of six case studies. Three of the cases depict relationships between educational, cultural, and social organizations whose purposes conflict with one another but whose presence is indicative of a loss of faith in the efficacy of public schooling. Three of the cases are illustrative of an even greater systematic rejection of educational institutional aim and purpose.