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It can be said that the curriculum was the greatest passion of the exceptional intellectual and educational reformer Cecilia Braslavsky. The selection and organization of educational knowledge, condensing as it does central relationships between society and education, attracted her natural inclination towards a broad and profoundly political understanding of knowledge and educational processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The studies in this book examine school curricula and curricular change, worldwide, from many different perspectives. Some chapters look at long-term global stability and change. Others focus on curricula in particular countries or regions, with shorter time perspectives. Most of the chapters focus on the substantive content of intended curricula, but a few attend mainly to processes of curricular reform or change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most recent school restructuring initiatives have combined a series of features. They have adopted a posture of ‘optimistic newness': an amnesia which focuses on the spontaneous creation of solutions-of new ‘change forces'. Above all, they have shown an almost willful disregard of previous change efforts and of the embedded contexts and frames of schooling [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most recent school restructuring initiatives have combined a series of features. They have adopted a posture of ‘optimistic newness': an amnesia which focuses on the spontaneous creation of solutions, of new ‘change forces'. Above all, they have shown an almost willful disregard for previous change efforts and of the embedded contexts and frames of schooling which are historically sedimented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined circle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why should educational authorities decide to change intended subjects and topics of teaching within their jurisdictions? One may conceive of different answers to that question. Interest groups both within and outside the education system may exert pressure in order that educational content reflects scientific developments, corresponds to structural changes in the education system or adapts to new theories or philosophies of teaching and learning. Politicians may feel unhappy with their country's performance in international achievement studies and attribute the poor results to the selection and organization of teaching content. Or a situation of social transformation or crisis may lead to vague feelings of inadequacy regarding what is taught in schools. But whatever the driving forces of curricular change may be in each specific case, state authorities need to make the rationale behind their decisions explicit in order to legitimize them. This chapter deals precisely with what educational authorities at the nation-state level consider most important when they are asked to give the reasons or motives behind curriculum reforms in their countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the different ways in which micro-political dynamics affect macro-curricular policies. The first section critically explores several traditional perspectives on the relation between macro- and micro-policies. The second section introduces the notion of curricular regulation and we distinguish two types of instruments that influence the configuration of policies. The third section analyzes, through a specific case, how a micro-political regulation device-the school notebook-brought about changes at the macro-political level. This educational instrument is of considerable interest given that it was employed not only in Argentina, but also in France and Spain, and very likely in other countries. Thus, the school notebook represents an educational device with clear local relevance, which can certainly be used as a valuable source for a comparative study of education. For this purpose, the chapter (a) analyzes its structure in Argentina, (b) discusses the way it was used to dilute the Peronist doctrine; and (c) observes the way it has been used in other parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of twentieth century several world models for organizing secondary education emerged and spread beyond Europe and North America to newly independent nation-states (Kamens, Meyer and Benavot 1996). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent international events have intensified interest among politicians, religious leaders, scholars and educational professionals about the way religion is taught in schools and its consequent manifestation as learned social behavior. Students' understanding of other faiths alongside their own personal faith is being scrutinized and there are persistent calls for a reassessment of the emphasis placed on this in education. Indeed, the linkages of spiritual and moral development with religious education and civic education (with its focus on human rights and the duties and responsibilities of citizens in local, national and international contexts) are lively and contentious issues. Of particular interest are contrasts between curriculum-based approaches to religion adopted in secular societies (where state and religious institutions are separated as in many western nations) and religious societies (as in most Muslim nations). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the publication of the first Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results in 2000, public and scholarly debates in German-speaking countries focused extensively on the issue of developing competences in the subjects of German language, mathematics and, to a lesser extent, the natural sciences. Concurrently, many commentators discussed the importance of introducing educational standards for these learning domains, which many considered (especially those responsible for PISA) as necessary for a general education and useful both for life and the job market. Others viewed such a utilitarian approach to schooling as overly narrow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"If sharks were men," Mr. Keuner was asked by his landlady's little girl, "would they be nicer to the little fishes?" "Certainly," he said. If sharks were men, they would build enormous boxes in the ocean for the little fish, with all kinds of food inside, both vegetable and animal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2002, the United Kingdom introduced citizenship into the curriculum as an independent subject. Other European countries, notably Spain, are undertaking reforms along the same lines. The Council of Europe declared 2005 as the European Year of Citizenship through Education and, since 1997, has been developing several programs and projects to promote the teaching of democratic citizenship. Elsewhere, in Asia China took a further step to consolidate the teaching of citizenship by replacing politics instruction with character training and social studies in elementary and junior secondary schools in 2001, and the new syllabus has been implemented since 2003. This move marked an end to almost four decades of a core curricular area that had overtly aimed at providing training for socialism. In a series of educational reforms introduced in recent years in Japan, the debates on the national curriculum have carried out a most scrupulous examination, especially on the teaching of citizenship and history. Indeed, the teaching of some form of citizenship has been gaining ground in education throughout the world (Benavot and Amadio 2004; chapter by Fiala). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the Babylonian builders who were scattered over the face of the Earth by God for their arrogant attempt to build a tower that would reach to heaven could get together today, they would perhaps be able to continue their work without having any problems in understanding each other. A quite unexpected challenge to God's work is now being made by the English language. The diversity of human languages, one of the major barriers to reuniting innumerable ethno-linguistic groups for thousands of years, is about to be overcome by the rapid spread of English all over the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights education is increasingly emphasized worldwide in organizational, curricular and discursive developments (Andreopoulos and Claude 1997; Elbers 2002). We analyze this expansion, with information on both world- and national-level educational patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education systems reflect and are shaped by ideological and organizational processes at the individual, group, societal and the even world level. At the world level, ideological processes appear to have been associated with the extraordinary expansion of education systems following the Second World War, and with an array of associated characteristics of national education systems (Ramírez and Boli 1987; Meyer, Ramírez and Soysal 1992; Wong 1991; McNeely 1995). The current research is an effort to assess the character and change in these ideological processes by examining the formally stated aims of education in countries throughout the world in the second half of the twentieth century. These aims serve as an indicator not only for an ideology of education at the societal and world level, but also an indicator of an intended curriculum of general goals for the content of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present volume is a child of serendipity. Some years ago, at the start of a sabbatical leave at the European University Institute, Aaron Benavot boarded a train heading north from Florence to Milan and on to Geneva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pregnancy early in life reduces the risk of breast cancer (BC) in women and this effect is universal. This phenomenon is also observed in rodents. We have shown that a treatment with high pregnancy levels of 17β-estradiol (E2) for 7 to 21 days is effective in conferring protection against mammary carcinogenesis. We determined the difference in gene expression between hormone-protected rats and unprotected rats. Nine weeks old female Lewis rats were treated with 10 microgram (unprotected), or 200 microgram (protected) of E2 in silastic capsules for 3 weeks. Control rats received silastic capsules with no hormone. The rats were terminated 8 weeks after the removal hormone treatment. Mammary RNA was used for microarray analysis. Using Agilent Rat cDNA Microarrays, with 14,815 unique clones, we have analyzed genes from Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus which are annotated as "mRNA" or "gene EST" in GenBank. The genes involved in growth promotion like interleukin 18, kit oncogene, thyrotropin stimulating hormone receptor, cyclin dependent kinases etc. were down regulated in the protected group compared to the unprotected groups. In contrast, genes involved in growth inhibition like early growth response 1, insulin-like growth factor binding proteins and genes involve in apoptosis and DNA repair like T-cell death activated gene, CD47, histone acetyltransferase were up regulated in the protected animals compared to the unprotected. These findings define a pattern of gene expression that could serve to determine the efficacy of protective hormone treatments and help identify potential biomarkers for prevention of mammary cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]