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This paper presents data that consider ways in which young people experience the curriculum through the lens of subject examination syllabuses (for GCSEs), their associated assessment techniques and structures, and educational policies at national and school level concerning subject choice. Drawing upon an original qualitative dataset from a mixed-methods study of students’ views and experiences of GCSE from Northern Ireland (NI) and Wales, the paper explores students’ perceptions of choice and fairness in relation to studying various subjects at GCSE. Factors of importance are the subjects available to them through subject option selections at the school level and the ways in which GCSE courses are then administered. In relation to notions of choice and fairness, the paper considers how students see access to the curriculum moderated by national- and school-level decisions regarding the assessment of GCSEs; the extent to which assessment techniques such as tiering, controlled assessment, and modularity, as well as school-level policy decisions about timing of entry to GCSEs (known as early entry) all combine to restrict students’ access to the full range of subjects and influence the ways in which they experience these subjects as curricula within their particular school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is making it a requirement of all schools within the Emirates (both public and private) to follow a programme of moral education (MEP), at all ages from grades 1 to 13, which is designed centrally. Explicitly secular and humanist in its approach, this is a remarkable development in a country where Islam is the official religion and where traditional practices and values are deeply rooted. However, it provides an example of an education initiative designed to contribute to a national strategic ambition—that of developing the UAE as a progressive, enlightened country, and one where its residents share a common culture despite the diversity of their origins. This paper describes the programme and sets it in the context of 'virtue education', following a philosophical and ethical tradition to which both Arab and Western philosophers have contributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an investigation into how secondary student participants in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement related this particular political experience to their learning of Liberal Studies. Questionnaire-based surveys and interviews were conducted to probe their interpretations of Liberal Studies’ impact on their political involvement and their perceptions of national versus local identity. The results indicate that students perceived the subject to have offered them background knowledge necessary for comprehending the movement rather than functioning as the cause of their participation against the backdrop of wider socio-economic conflicts in the community at large. Moreover, the current Liberal Studies curriculum seems to have reinforced students’ sense of a dichotomy between their local and national identities. Further examination of that dichotomy sheds light on both the review of Liberal Studies and another recently proposed, but swiftly shelved, curriculum: Moral and National Education. The study’s broad implications for citizenship education worldwide are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper employs the provisions of international human rights law in order to analyse whether and how liberal states should regulate Haredi educational practices, which sanctify the exclusive focus on religious studies in schools for boys. It conceptualises the conflict between the right to acceptable education and the right to adaptable education in international human rights law, and analyses four case studies of Haredi education that exemplify different socio-legal approaches towards this conflict. The case studies show how education laws are transformed along the cogwheels of education policy, in which there are plural normative orders and many agents who implement them. Based on the case studies, I suggest that policies providing financial incentives for implementing educational standards may facilitate the realisation of the right to acceptable education in Haredi schools more than policies devised to enforce this right. I also suggest stipulations for effective conditional-funding policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing drive towards the promotion and development of enterprise education in Scottish schools. This has involved much debate about the nature of enterprise and how it may be addressed and applied within primary and early secondary school settings. The recent renewed interest in citizenship education and New Labour's drive towards creating a ‘third way’ between capital and welfare has opened up new and wider debates about educational practice. This paper examines the enterprise and citizenship agendas, drawing upon evidence from the English National Curriculum model and recommendations recently published in Scotland, and opens up new debates about the potential for enterprise education to contribute towards the citizenship agenda in Scottish schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]