Taking account of challenges and pressures caused by Russia's transition, this book offers a set of specific recommendations for policies to address key issues of access, quality in teaching; new directions to diversify and deliver tertiary education; the quality of research, and governance.

This book provides a detailed analysis of the social problems facing the Russian Federation, and develops proposals for continuing reform to improve the economic fundamentals, including the productivity, while at the same time ensuring that social and labour market policies become more effective.

Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local, Third Edition brings together many of the outstanding scholars in the field of comparative and international education to provide new perspectives on the dynamic interplay of global, national, and local forces as they shape the functioning and outcomes of education systems in specific contexts. Various chapters in the book call for a rethinking of the nation-state as the basic unit for analyzing school-society relations; provide new ways of conceptualizing equality of educational opportunity and outcomes; call attention to the need to study social movements in relation to educational reform; emphasize the value of feminist, postcolonial, and culturally sensitive perspectives to comparative inquiry into the limitations as well as potential of education systems to contribute to individual development and social change; and provide detailed critical accounts of how various international financial and technical assistance agencies shape educational policy and practice in specific regions of the world.

A collection of essays which examine the reform of the educational system in post Soviet Russia in historical and comparative perspective.

Schooling the New Russians is an important volume for specialists in Russian education and general readers alike. It places recent reforms in the context of broader historical developments, with a wealth of first-hand insight and scholarly research. Professor David Turner, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Glamorgan It is essential reading for anyone seeking to discover what lies below the surface of ‘modernization’ in Russian education. Dr. Vera Kaplan, The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, Tel Aviv University Joseph Zajda reveals in his important new book that Soviet propaganda against capitalism was largely true, given what is happening to the Russian education system today. This is a compelling and important text. Professor Peter McLaren, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles Few scholars worldwide possess Professor Zajda’s breadth and depth of knowledge of pre and post-Soviet schooling and society. This text clearly and brilliantly elucidates the reforms, the successes, and the disappointments of schooling in the evolving New Russia. Professor Kas Mazurek, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Lethbridge, Canada

This unique handbook offers an analytical review of the education systems of all European countries, following common analytical guidelines, and highlighting the paradox that education simultaneously pursues a universal value as well as a national character. Coverage includes international student performance studies, and a comparison of education dynamics in Eastern "new Europe" with "older" western EU members. The book provides a differentiated analytical data base, and offers suggestions for further research.

The mission of the International Journal of Educational Reform (IJER) is to keep readers up-to-date with worldwide developments in education reform by providing scholarly information and practical analysis from recognized international authorities. As the only peer-reviewed scholarly publication that combines authors’ voices without regard for the political affiliations perspectives, or research methodologies, IJER provides readers with a balanced view of all sides of the political and educational mainstream. To this end, IJER includes, but is not limited to, inquiry based and opinion pieces on developments in such areas as policy, administration, curriculum, instruction, law, and research. IJER should thus be of interest to professional educators with decision-making roles and policymakers at all levels turn since it provides a broad-based conversation between and among policymakers, practitioners, and academicians about reform goals, objectives, and methods for success throughout the world. Readers can call on IJER to learn from an international group of reform implementers by discovering what they can do that has actually worked. IJER can also help readers to understand the pitfalls of current reforms in order to avoid making similar mistakes. Finally, it is the mission of IJER to help readers to learn about key issues in school reform from movers and shakers who help to study and shape the power base directing educational reform in the U.S. and the world.

The new comparative research in this volume explores the global flow of competence-based education, curricular policy, and frameworks for instructional practice. Taking critical perspectives, the chapters trace the pathways through which educators and policy actors adopted and reshaped competence-based education as promoted by the OECD, the World Bank, and the European Union. The authors ask: What purposes do competence-based educational reforms serve? How are competence-based models internationally deployed and locally modified? What happens as competence-based reforms get re-contextualized and contested in particular cultural, social, and political contexts? In their nuanced examination of these global flows, the authors theorize how competence-based reform strategies variously produce hybridity, silent borrowing, “loud borrowing,” and new social imaginaries. Although entangled with other “hot topics” in educational research —skills and dispositions for citizenship and employment; higher-order and critical thinking; and socio-emotional learning—competence itself has multiple, fluid meanings. The authors dissect this polysemy while documenting the pivotal role of key actors in the development, design, and deployment of reforms in diverse international contexts. Contextualizing Global Flows of Competency-Based Education will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of comparative education, educational research, curriculum studies, sociology, and education leadership and policy.This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

This book examines an intercultural translation of economics as an academic field from Western to post-Soviet university settings.

This book explores the domestic adoption and implementation of international norms. The study of normative outcomes is expanded beyond traditional studies of value conflicts and localization to explore how transnational networks and local content policies affect an international norm’s chances of reaching compliance on the ground. Empirical research from two case studies devoted to world class universities and the flaring of Associated Petroleum gas in Russia illustrate how the involvement of ‘Transnational Expertise and Experience Networks’ increases the chances norm implementation will be successful. This book shows how networks help to adapt international norms to a local context by raising awareness and motivation levels, sharing best practices and past experience of implementation. It will be relevant to students, researchers and policymakers interested in international relations and economic transition.