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With the passing of Korea's Gifted Education Act, creativity has come to the forefront in considering the future of Korea's economic prosperity in the global economy (Korean Educational Development Institute, 2003). The purpose of this study was to examine the understanding of creativity among Korean science teachers of gifted students. Sixty teachers participated in this study with an open-ended questionnaire about their understanding of creativity. The data were analyzed based on Urban's (1995) three components of creativity. The findings indicated that these science teachers had a thorough understanding of the cognitive component and a strong association of creativity with intellectual ability, but overidentified with the cognitive component, showing less awareness of the personal and environmental components of creativity. To shift their understanding to a more balanced view, personality and environmental components, as well as attributes in other component areas, should be emphasized.

This article, using unbalanced panel data on 16 affluent OECD countries, tests the effects of diverse aspects of globalization and deindustrialization on unionization trends. In contrast to the recent studies focusing on the conditional role of labor market institutions, this study underlines the role of two structural factors in transforming occupational structures and ethnic composition of labor force: deindustrialization and international labor mobility across borders. The results lend substantial credence to my argument that, while deindustrialization has driven dramatic declines in union density by shrinking employment in traditionally highly unionized manufacturing sector, international migration negatively affects unionization by increasing competitions and heterogeneity between low-skilled native and immigrant workers. The empirical findings raise the question of how trade unions can build solidarity between native and immigrant workers. (Includes 16 endnotes, 1 figure, and 2 tables.)

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the strategies employed over the last decade by governments of five Central Asia republics-Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan-to raise educational quality at the primary and secondary levels. Data are drawn from a 2002 cross-national study sponsored by the Asian Development Bank that examined recent education reform efforts across these countries. Using a globalization perspective, a comparison of countries on 14 strategies that were most commonly used by these countries suggested that efforts to raise education quality met with mixed results. While raising the quality of education was a popular cause and a safe political goal, it proved to be an elusive target.

Globalization in higher education and the replacement of state funding of universities with ''revenue substitution'' strategies in western countries have resulted in an increasing number of universities in these countries participating in what has come to be known as transnational knowledge transfer without being better informed about the cultural contexts in which this knowledge is applied, resulting in many program failures and resistance in the recipient countries. One reason for this neglect is the difficulty involved in identifying which aspects of culture to select for study before implementing educational innovations in a recipient country. The study reported in this paper was undertaken as a curriculum inquiry to identify those aspects of culture, which affect, influence or mediate curriculum, pedagogy and teacher learning in South Asia, where an increasing number of western expatriates are engaged in international curriculum work. Three aspects of culture-namely, concepts of self, discursive practices and indigenous approaches to learning-which emerged as having significant influence on curriculum and teacher learning, and may help expatriate educators to provide educational experiences that are grounded in the cultural realities of South Asia are discussed. The paper draws briefly on post-structural, postcolonial theories, and enunciations of critical pedagogy to reflect on culture, education and resistance in international academic relations.

A variety of perspectives exist on the evaluation of Japan's educational reform of 2002, which has evolved since the 1980s. However, thus far, little attention has been paid to the emerging influence of civil society on educational policies and practices. This paper shows that the origin of the current educational reforms can be traced to reports prepared by various neo-liberal/conservative business leaders and politicians. Further, it shows their privatization and decentralization principles happen to coincide with the increasing interest of progressive citizens' groups and educators. Their impact on the Japanese education system remains latent, especially as more scepticism grows towards progressivism as a philosophy behind the current educational reform. However, the expanding civil society and new progressive education movements in Japan are trends worth exploring in the context of globalization at the grass-roots level.

The relative newness of online education to most teachers and students means that the virtual classroom is largely uncharted social space; teachers and students must deliberately consider how and when they will enter into the virtual classroom and where and how they will locate themselves and each other within it. This study uses the concepts of "time-space separation" and "disembedding", drawn from Giddens's work on globalization, to identify how teachers and students in one virtual classroom constructed social relations in synchronous and asynchronous Web-based forums. Using discourse-analytic methods, the study illuminates the discursive processes through which the teacher and students rearticulated conventional classroom discourse to create hybrid, student-controlledteacher-centered spaces. The authors identify the challenges and potentials of such classrooms for teachers and raise several questions for further investigation into, and theorizing about, teaching and teachers' work in the virtual classroom.

Child care and protection have become key issues of concern for all teachers, and particularly for those teachers responsible for the care of young children. In this paper, we analyse focus group data on the topic of child care and protection produced by primary school teachers in Queensland, Australia. By drawing on concepts from cultural globalization, risk society and the sociology of childhood we outline the images, imaginary worlds and imagined professional identities constructed by a cohort of teachers. In particular, we pay attention to teachers' accounts of changes to everyday schooling practices in the context of new child protection legislation and policies. We argue that education and/or professional development in relation to child care/protection must involve critical engagement and contestation of the images, imaginary worlds and imagined collective professional identities of teachers and children constructed, and consumed often uncritically in these new times.

Very little empirical research has examined mathematics education in rural schools and communities. A modest nonresearch literature does exist, however, and this study analyzed this literature. We found 3 themes describing the prescriptions given to rural educators: (a) mathematics education in rural schools needs to be fixed; (b) good things happen in some rural schools; and (c) fixing mathematics instruction requires certain practices. These practices include providing challenging curriculum, undertaking professional development efforts, making use of distance-learning options, and engaging local support. In general, the prescriptions given in this literature loosely reflect conventional wisdom in their support of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards and the exigencies of the various state-level accountability schemes. The nonresearch literature only rarely tied its prescriptions to any relevant empirical research (either general or rurally focused). In an extended discussion, we critique the influence of deficiency theory on the themes evident in this literature. We conclude that a strong need for a rurally focused empirical work exists and recommend that it be informed by a critical reading of mathematics education practice in rural places. Issues surrounding the rural lifeworld, especially in the context of globalization, would have much to contribute toward the development of such a literature.

The ascendancy of neoliberalism and the associated discourses of '[new public management', during the 1980s and 1990s has produced a fundamental shift in the way universities and other institutions of higher education have defined and justified their institutional existence. The traditional professional culture of open intellectual enquiry and debate has been replaced with a institutional stress on performativity, as evidenced by the emergence of an emphasis on measured outputs: on strategic planning, performance indicators, quality assurance measures and academic audits. This paper traces the links between neoliberalism and globalization on the one hand, and neoliberalism and the knowledge economy on the other. It maintains that in a global neoliberal environment, the role of higher education for the economy is seen by governments as having greater importance to the extent that higher education has become the new star ship in the policy fleet for governments around the world. Universities are seen as a key driver in the knowledge economy and as a consequence higher education institutions have been encouraged to develop links with industry and business in a series of new venture partnerships. The recognition of economic importance of higher education and the necessity for economic viability has seen initiatives to promote greater entrepreneurial skills as well as the development of new performative measures to enhance output and to establish and achieve targets. This paper attempts to document these trends at the level of both political philosophy and economic theory.

This paper describes a WAP-based course registration system designed and implemented to facilitating the process of students' registration at Bahrain University. The framework will support many opportunities for applying WAP based technology to many services such as wireless commerce, cashless payment... and location-based services. The paper outlines the main concepts of the analysis and design methodology of our proposed system. It shows also how the request will be issued, received, processed, formulated, and how the reply is sent back to the student for display.

Diversity in its many guises is strongly championed in the adult education literature. To conceive a future for adult education that is not diverse and does not try to address the needs of diverse learners seems absurd. Yet, diversity is not a unitary concept, having many definitions and paradoxical effects. Questions arise about its future in a globalizing world. It is not obvious that all facets of diversity in adult education can thrive into the future. This paper attempts to explore the future of diversity in adult education. It applies two methodologies used in futures research to do so. One, causal layered analysis (CLA), enables the present to be analysed critically in order to explore possible futures. In this paper CLA is used to identify possible effects of globalization on diversity in adult education. The other methodology used is visioning. The adult education literature is examined for its visions of diversity. Four different visions are identified. Each theorizes diversity differently. One aims for individual personal development within an accommodating, non-critical context. A second emphasizes personal development but within a context that is critical, striving for a more just society. A third envisions social learning facilitating change towards a critical, more just society. A fourth focuses on social learning but within an accommodating, non-critical context. CLA and visioning enable some tentative statements to be made about the future of diversity in adult education. Chief among them is that diversity, when valued in the market place, will prosper, while diversity that is intended to act as an agent for social change will not.

School moral education in any country is carried out in a particular social and cultural context. The renewal of policy and practice in moral education in China has come about because of a rapidly changing Chinese society, as a result of the government's 'reform and opening up' policy since the end of the 1970s. The consequent changes in the Chinese economy, politics and culture are innovatory and challenging. It is these changes that have brought about, and will continue to bring about, new ideas and practices in moral education. This paper describes how Chinese moral education has been influenced according to recent social changes and modernization in China, including the formation of the market economy, the impact of globalization, mass media and the Internet, cultural diversity and value pluralism, trends to democratization in politics, and structural changes in the family. It also considers the kind of social issues and challenges which are being dealt with and anticipated in policy, theory and practice in contemporary Chinese moral education.

In June 2003 the author travelled with students to Mexico to explore pre-Columbian culture and traditional artisanal work in the Valley of Oaxaca. They arrived in the midst of a massive teachers' strike and their education really began. When they were not visiting the Zapotec ceremonial city of Monte Alban or the communities of artisans in the valley beyond, these American high school students were in the streets outside their hotel where thousands of teachers were quartering. The teachers had gathered in the state capital to protest government indifference to the dearth of school supplies, their meagre wages and the general poverty throughout the state of Oaxaca. The politics of rebellion reverberated in the hotel as peasants from distant communities gathered in political rallies demonstrating against government duplicity concerning a massacre of indigenous villagers a year earlier. The American teacher arranged an opportunity for his students to speak with Zapotec and Mixtec students of a bilingual school who were in the city to support the teachers. Within this narrative an analysis of globalization and the politics of education takes shape.

The purpose of the paper is to develop a set of theoretical propositions to explain the impact of globalization on a country's quality of life (QOL). In this paper, we describe how globalization impacts the quality of life of residents of a country by first articulating the globalization construct (in terms of inflows and outflows of goods, services, capital, technology, and workers), second, articulating the country's QOL construct (in terms of economic, consumer, social, and health well being), and showing the relationships between globalization and a country's QOL. We develop a set of theoretical propositions to capture these relationships. Finally, we discuss the public policy and research implications of this study.

Since perestroika there have been many changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The states of the region have regained the opportunity to establish partnerships within the European Union. Higher education development has enabled increased communication and opportunities for staff and students. Greater interaction has resulted in a greater mobility of people and ideas, supported by the increased use of information and communications technology. A key factor in the globalization of higher education has been the freedom from the ideological constraints that existed before the break-up of the Soviet Union. This paper traces the changing face of higher education in Central and Eastern Europe through a comparison of models using Dynamic Concept Analysis (DCA), drawing on survey responses from Russia, Byelorussia, Central Asia, Bulgaria and Latvia. The survey gathered positive and negative perceptions of change, which were then analysed in focus group discussions. The models produced provide a framework for the interpretation of higher education systems, and suggest a transition model for further development in an increasingly global education market. In this context, the new autonomous nature of higher education institutions in the region is strongly related to scholarship and selection, while their continuing orientation towards teaching creates opportunities for skills development, thus enhancing graduate employability and services to the community, improving the 'socialization' of students and ensuring the sustainability of the institution.

Drawing on the work of Foucault, and to a lesser extent actor-network theory, this article examines some of their methodological and theoretical implications for conceptions of workplace learning. We suggest that workplaces need to be examined for the spatio-temporal ordering of practices and the actors drawn into them in order to move beyond the totalizing discourses of, for instance, the knowledge economy, globalization, performativity and even workplace learning itself. We argue that there is no single trajectory for workplaces and that pedagogic practices are embedded in the actor-networks of specific workplaces. This is illustrated by way of a critique of discourses that posit a simple move from disciplined, Fordist work to more flexible forms of work. In this way, we seek to locate discussions of workplace learning within the wider debates in the social sciences about changing practices of governing and the differing forms of subjectivity associated with them. The article is intended to be illuminative and is theory driven.

This paper traces some aspects of the growth over the last 20 years in the number of quality assurance agencies in higher education, that is, organisations with some responsibility for the quality of teaching, research and other activities in higher education institutions. Initially, staff of these agencies were largely amateurs in the field, and little theory or experience existed for the agencies to draw on. In 1991, agencies world-wide associated together in an International Network for mutual advice and support. Since then, the practice of quality assurance has developed the characteristics of a profession, and agencies have turned their attention to the quality of their own operations. The International Network of agencies has addressed the question 'what makes a good quality assurance agency?' This action is timely, because the increase in globalisation has increased the need for agencies to interact across national boundaries, and to do this effectively they must have confidence in each others' judgements.

This essay examines the shift toward a globally interdependent world, starting with the ontological premise that thinking, identity and action are subsumed by culture. The author explores the view that globalism, with its break from modernist constraints, may enable liberation. The post-Soviet borderless economy implies a shift of rule and a new sovereignty. The current US educational system does not reflect the rapid pace of global change. The author discusses the role of music educators as artists facilitating cultural and social transitions in the post-September 11, 2001, climate.

This paper moves beyond a conceptualization of globalization as a top-down imposition of policy directions 'from above' to focus on the active two-way dynamics between global, national and local levels of policy processes. Arguably, the particular 'case' examined here of 'quality' policy is especially appropriate as quality policy and golbalization rose to prominence in educational discourses at roughly the same time during the 1990s, suggesting that the two may be intimately interconnected. An analysis of new quality policy in Australian higher education for the 2000s is used as a vehicle to explore the dynamic reciprocity of global-national-local interactions in policy processes as revealed through empirical evidence collected during interviews with members of the national Australian Universities' Quality Agency. The concluding discussion highlights a key meta-level theme of education policy transfer between countries and the potential for global policy convergence.

A problem with the construction of an inclusive definition of international education is that the word 'international' has a variety of connotations. It is proposed that the term 'international education' is ambiguous because it appears to refer to contrasting usages in educational studies. International education is frequently discussed in the context of the related field of comparative education, but a different sense of the term has also developed in the context of the theory and practice of education in international schools and other institutions. This paper compares and contrasts the different usages of the term 'international education'. It also discusses internationalism and globalization as contexts for international education, as practised in international schools and other institutions, particularly with reference to the history and programmes of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO).

Social cohesion has emerged as a powerful hybrid concept used by academics and policy analysts. Academics use the concept to underline the social and economic failings of modernity, linking it to the decline of communal values and civic participation. Policy analysts use it to highlight the social and economic inequities caused by globalization. The desired effect of using this concept is often to influence governments to implement policies that will enhance social cohesion by reducing social and economic disparities. Despite its widespread use, however, statistical measures of social cohesion tend to overlook local, non-Western strategies of social inclusion as well as the social impact of non-Western economic systems, such as the mixed economy typical of many Aboriginal communities in North America. In this paper, we develop a model of social cohesion that addresses these omissions through the use of social indicators that measure both the behavior and perceptions of Inuit living in the Canadian Arctic with respect to the social, cultural and economic conditions of Arctic communities. We explain how and why measuring social cohesion is optimized by combining both culturally-specific and non-specific social indicators.

How do we understand the rise of religious nationalisms in the context of an increasingly globalized and interconnected world? Recent events in the education sector in India provide a particularly compelling example of this contradictory phenomenon. While on the one hand, the Indian State is liberalizing its economic and social sectors to compete in the global economy, in a paradoxical move, it has introduced a new Hindu nationalist curriculum in schools across the country. This article analyses the controversial national curriculum framework released in November 2000 that presents the State's new vision of education. The author argues that the cultural nationalist discourse of the new curriculum is part of India's postcolonial history that finds new meaning and purpose in the current phase of globalization.

This article examines some of the ways in which debates about globalization and education have changed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. From a postcolonial perspective, I argue that while some of the claims about the world "changing for ever" are clearly simplistic and grossly exaggerated, there are at least three ways in which new elements have been introduced to the debates about globalization. First, there has emerged a new narrative of security, which has major implications for thinking about issues of mobility across national-boundaries, both of people and of capital. Second, the view that the authority of the nation states is in decline has been shown to be overstated since nation states are now required to perform a range of new administrative, cultural and coercive functions. And finally, the antagonistic relationship between the West and Islam has become a major impediment to the realization of cosmopolitan objectives. Each of these developments has implications for thinking about education, and for imagining education's role in the promotion of global democracy and justice.

The globalization of the economy creates new challenges for social work in the arenas of social and economic justice. This article outlines social justice issues related to the debt crisis of the Global South and sweatshops. A presentation of colonial precursors is followed by a detailed examination of these global institutions with an emphasis on the vulnerability, disempowered status, and exploitation of poor people of the Global South. Connections with global inequities in wealth, income, and the distribution of resources are made explicit. The article explores domestic social justice problems as possible points of connection with these issues. Finally, the authors give recommendations for social work education, advocacy, and activism.

It is argued that the ambitious programme "Education for All", launched by UNESCO, could be seriously undermined by its reliance upon the achievement of numerical "targets". Evidence from existing attempts by countries to impose educational targets reveals undesirable side-effects and distortions of educational systems. The paper explores some of the possible consequences of UNESCO's adherence to such targets.

Foster's concerns with the decline of the local are examined in the context of schools' embeddedness in intersections of social, economic, and political forces of the communities in which they are located. Three readings are taken of Foster's call to explore political and economic undercurrents when viewing schools as agents of, and for, community. A concluding interpretation of the three readings of Foster's concerns calls for a new socioeconomics of education and nuanced analyses of the dilemmas of deliberation. Promising approaches to promoting critical praxis are drawn from emerging scholarship on perspectives of educational leadership from native and indigenous populations. Efforts to explore the communicative processes required to mediate ideas and interests and to enact institutional reforms are called for. The author concludes that multidisciplinary scholarship holds promise for enhancing understanding of the praxis of educational leadership in fostering the politics of local convening for deliberative democracy in a globalized world.

The tendency in education writing on globalization has been to examine the congruence of educational policies in western societies and the international effects of global governance of education by powerful transnational institutions such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union. The authors tend to identify massive changes in approaches to educational governance, including the establishment of a broadly common policy and management agenda that is characterized by 'new managerialism', devolution, and rigid accountability structures, entrepreneurialism, and school effectiveness, that have been imposed largely as a result of globalization. These measures are often seen as being directly related to the 'hollowing out' of the state, and the emergence of neo-liberalism as the informing ideology of both international capitalism and residual nation-states. There are few studies, however, of the dynamics of educational life and micro-political activities that enable or challenge or bring about the kinds of educational reshaping and renorming that are typically associated with globalization. This study attempts to analyse such micro-shaping, which, through reporting an ethnographic study in a site of educational practice, examines how school managers and teachers dealt with government policy intervention and, in the process, both willingly and unwillingly implemented significant educational change.

The 2004 State of the Union address included an announcement that $250 million was being allocated to community colleges for workforce development programs. This indication of support was good news in light of the recent trends for level funding or cutting back on educational programs, and demonstrates the perceived benefits of workforce development programs on a local and national level. Workforce development can be valuable in helping community collegesmeet the needs of a competitive global economy and advancing a state's economic growth by providing services to businesses and organizations. The documents described in this annotated bibliography these benefits and also raise some concerns about how to balance the competing missions of job training and transfer preparation.

The term lifelong learning has been used in different contexts and in policy application for a wide variety of purposes and initiatives. Singapore's approach to lifelong learning is pragmatic and rational. It is one of the economic drivers used by policy makers to enhance Singapore's competitiveness and is viewed as an antidote against unemployment. With the emergence of a more integrated and interdependent global economy, the premium placed on ideas and continuous learning becomes critical to an individual, organization and the country. This paper offers a snapshot of some of the current responses to the challenges and the perceived issues from the perspective of the government, organizations and individuals. The discussion would also cover a number of policy implications that may overlap and interconnect in practice.

Describes how development cooperation can help achieve developmental education goals, noting the impact of education on cultural, social, and material prosperity in later life, and discussing how quality education is the gateway to participation in society and better wages. The article examines challenges to quality education in developing nations, policy environment, principles for effective development cooperation, and how the international community can help (e.g., comparative performance and worldwide experience). (SM)

Presents a study showing that New Zealanders have very different attitudes to variants that sociolinguists have lumped together in the past suggests that globalization with localization is an important principle for variationists to take into account. (Author/VWL)

Explores ways in which the globalized new economy has resulted in the commodification of language and identity, sometimes separately, sometimes together. The article is based on recent ethnographic, sociolinguistic research in francophone areas of Canada. (Author/VWL)