In Asia, we are witnessing an era where the pendulum of power seems to be swaying towards the East with the rising strength of China and India and Singapore is at the 'crossroads' between these populous nations. Although Singapore may appear to be the most westernized country in Asia, she is nevertheless a multi-cultural Asian society. Having the most open economy in the world, Singapore is plugged into the global marketplace of education and learning. The development of human capital is used as a strategic economic driver to internationalize and transform education for sustainable competitive advantage. Singapore's education system, regarded as one of the consistently best performing in the world, offers a unique opportunity to explore issues where eastern and western culture, values, beliefs, learning and knowledge systems converge, clash, and at times diverge.This book is meant to extend our knowledge on the role of ‘learning’, often overlooked and taken for granted as the air that we breathe but which constantly transforms our lives and reshapes societies. It is the first book that deals with the dichotomy of ‘east’ and ‘west’ going beyond the traditional learning and education framework to other areas such as economic, socio-cultural, political, and technological dimensions that impact Singapore. It puts together key topical issues and explores the underbelly of how a small 'resourceless' independent city-state like Singapore stays ahead of the learning curve, even while facing increasingly intense global competition where the discovery and emergence of new systems for empowerment and independence and the resulting creation of new knowledge and modes of communication are challenging traditional boundaries between the virtual and real world.

This Handbook provides a wide-ranging frame of reference for researching adult and lifelong education and learning. With contributions from scores of established and newer scholars from six continents, the volume covers a diverse range of geopolitical and social territories across the world. Drawing on the multiple heritages that underpin research on education and learning in adulthood, this Handbook addresses the inner tensions between adult education, adult learning, lifelong education, and lifelong learning, by using current research and theorizations from disciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, psychology, biology and neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, history, political science, and economics. It provides an explicit discussion of the differences and tensions between adult and lifelong education and learning, and locates these in different policy and historical contexts, theories and practices. It explores a variety of discipline-based theoretical perspectives, and highlights how these have influenced, and been influenced by, research in the education and learning of adults. The Handbook also explores the inevitable frictions and dilemmas these present, and carefully examines the role of the international dimension in researching education and learning in formal, non-formal and informal contexts, beyond traditional schooling. This state-of-the-art, comprehensive Handbook is the first of its kind to explore adult education, lifelong education and lifelong learning fully as distinct activities on an international scale. It will be an indispensable reference resource for students of education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and for academic researchers, professionals and policy-makers concerned with adult and community education, further and vocational education, or work-based training and human resource development.

Is liberal democracy a universal ideal? Proponents of "Asian values" argue that it is a distinctive product of the Western experience and that Western powers shouldn't try to push human rights and democracy onto Asian states. Liberal democrats in the West typically counter by questioning the motives of Asian critics, arguing that Asian leaders are merely trying to rationalize human-rights violations and authoritarian rule. In this book--written as a dialogue between an American democrat named Demo and three East Asian critics--Daniel A. Bell attempts to chart a middle ground between the extremes of the international debate on human rights and democracy. Bell criticizes the use of "Asian values" to justify oppression, but also draws on East Asian cultural traditions and contributions by contemporary intellectuals in East Asia to identify some powerful challenges to Western-style liberal democracy. In the first part of the book, Bell makes use of colorful stories and examples to show that there is a need to take into account East Asian perspectives on human rights and democracy. The second part--a fictitious dialogue between Demo and Asian senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew--examines the pros and cons of implementing Western-style democracy in Singapore. The third part of the book is an argument for an as-yet-unrealized Confucian political institution that justifiably differs from Western-style liberal democracy. This is a thought-provoking defense of distinctively East Asian challenges to Western-style liberal democracy that will stimulate interest and debate among students of political theory, Asian studies, and international human rights.

The essays in this volume explore communication across cultures using an interdisciplinary approach to language teaching and learning, mediated by the growing field of educational linguistics. Topics include the use of English as a medium of wider communication and the growth of national varieties of English throughout the world. An international array of distinguished contributors includes scholars from China, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Nigeria, Singapore, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United States. This collection suggests that language diversity is a unifying force in a globally interdependent world.

Learning from Singapore tells the inside story of the country’s journey in transforming its education system from a struggling one to one that is hailed internationally as effective and successful. It is a story not of the glory of international test results, but of the hard work and tenacity of a few generations of policy makers, practitioners and teacher trainers. Despite its success, Singapore continues to reform its education system, and is willing to deal with difficult issues and challenges of change. Citing Singapore's transformation, author Pak Tee Ng highlights how context and culture affect education policy formulation and implementation. Showing how difficult education reform can be when a system needs to negotiate between competing philosophies, significant trade-offs, or paradoxical positions, this book explores the successes and struggles of the Singapore system and examines its future direction and areas of tension. The book also explores how national education systems can be strengthened by embracing the creative tensions generated by paradoxes such as the co-existence of timely change and timeless constants, centralisation and decentralisation, meritocracy and compassion, and teaching less and learning more. Learning from Singapore brings to the world the learning from Singapore—what Singapore has learned from half a century of educational change—and encourages every education system to bring hope to and secure a future for the next generation.

This book describes in vivid detail how a newly independent nation with neither a history of technical education nor industry, developed in a short period of time a world-class system of technical and vocational education that helped it make rapid progress in its manufacturing and industrial sector. The economy and the education sector both developed in parallel, with each complementing the other, utilizing strategies and making the decisions that were to bring the country quickly to advanced status.Studies show that premature investment in higher education at the expense of technical and vocational education has created many leaders but few doers, leading to high unemployment. The Singapore Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) story demonstrates how governmental support helped changed the image of technical and vocational education to one equal with higher education, yet including bridges and ladders to allow everyone to maximize their potential.

In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

In Understanding Global Cultures, Fifth Edition, authors Martin J. Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai present the cultural metaphor—any activity, phenomenon, or institution with which the members of a given culture identify emotionally or cognitively—as a method for understanding the cultural mindsets of individual nations, clusters of nations, and even continents. The book shows how metaphors are guidelines to help outsiders quickly understand what members of a culture consider important. The fully updated Fifth Edition includes 31 nation-specific chapters, including a new Part XI on popular music as cultural metaphors, two completely new chapters on Vietnam and Argentina, revisions to all retained chapters, and a more explicit linkage between each cultural metaphor and current economic and business developments in each nation.

In the fully updated Sixth Edition of Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 34 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity, authors Martin J. Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai present the cultural metaphor as a method for understanding the cultural mindsets of individual nations, clusters of nations, continents, and diversity in each nation. A cultural metaphor is any activity, phenomenon, or institution that members of a given culture consider important and with which they identify emotionally and/or cognitively, such as the Japanese garden and American football. This cultural metaphoric approach identifies three to eight unique or distinctive features of each cultural metaphor and then discusses 34 national cultures in terms of these features. The book demonstrates how metaphors are guidelines to help outsiders quickly understand what members of a culture consider important.

Global rankings and the Geopolitics of Higher Education is an examination of the impact and influence that university rankings have had on higher education, policy and public opinion in recent years. Bringing together some of the most informed authorities on this very complex issue, this edited collection of specially commissioned chapters examines the changes affecting higher education and the implications for society and the economy. Split into four interrelated sections, this book covers: The development of rankings in higher education, how they have impacted upon both the production of knowledge and its geography, and their influence in shaping policymaking. Overviews of the significance of rankings for higher education systems in Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia, South America, India and North America. An analysis of rankings in relation to key concerns that pervade contemporary higher education. Examination of the role rankings are likely to play in the future directions for higher education. This is a significant scholarly work that analyses in depth an important development in higher education systems, and which is likely to have an important influence upon how we understand the higher education policy-making process – past, present and future. It provides new analysis and conceptual understanding for researchers, and firm evidence for policy makers to use when addressing the value of rankings in measuring the quality of their institutions. Besides bringing together a powerful cast of academics, this book incorporates contributions from heads of important international higher education organisations – from both those involved in making and also in administering key decisions. This timely, reflective and accessible book forms crucial reading for those studying the subject of rankings, as well as the broader implications and unintended consequences of rankings on national higher education policies. Extending beyond academic researchers and students, this book will also be of significant interest to policymakers, higher education leaders and key stakeholders.