Magistro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjami mokytojų kvalifikacijos kėlimo ypatumai Vilniaus mieste ir Širvintų rajone. Darbo tikslas - išanalizuoti ir palyginti mokytojų kvalifikacijos kėlimo ypatumus Vilniaus mieste ir Širvintų rajone. Tyrimo objektas - mokytojų kvalifikacijos kėlimas. Darbo metodai – teoriniai: mokslinės literatūros bei švietimą reglamentuojančių dokumentų analizė; diagnostiniai: anketinė apklausa. Darbe analizuojama teorinė mokytojų kėlimo kvalifikacijos medžiaga: pateikiama kvalifikacinių kategorijų samprata, naujųjų mokytojų atestacijos nuostatų palyginimas su senaisiais, nagrinėjamos kompetencijos, bei jų reikšmė mokytojų kvalifikacijos kėlimui. Pateikiama teisės aktų, reglamentuojančių mokytojų kvalifikacijos kėlimą bei su juo susijusių procesų apžvalga, institucinė struktūra, atsakinga už kvalifikacijos kėlimą bei jų indėlis į kvalifikacijos kėlimo procesą. Atkreipiamas dėmesys į naująjį 2007 metais rugpjūčio 3 dieną priimtą Europos Bendrijų Komisijos komunikatą Tarybai ir Europos Parlamentui „Dėl mokytojų rengimo kokybės gerinimo“, taip pat apžvelgiamas mokytojų kvalifikacijos kėlimas Europos Sąjungos šalyse, pateikiami apibendrinti tyrimų rezultatai, kuriais pagrįstas naujojo komunikato priėmimas. Praktiniu tyrimu nustatyta, kad mokytojai kvalifikacijos kėlimą traktuoja kaip labai svarbų ir rimtą savo profesijos sudėtinę dalį; mokytojai daugiausia informacijos apie kvalifikacijos kėlimą sulaukia iš mokyklos administracijos arba kolegų; ryški... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Master thesis analyses teacher’s educational aspects in Vilnius city and Širvintos district. The aim of the paper is to analyze and compare educational aspects in Vilnius city and Širvintos district. Object of the research – teachers’ education. Work methods - theoretical: analysis of education regulative documents and scientific literature review; diagnostic: questionnaire survey. Paper analyzes theoretical aspects of teachers’ education: content of qualifying category is given, comparing of new and old teachers certification system is discusses, competency and its meaning for teacher’s education is also presented. Legislative of teachers’ education is presented as well as institutional structure and its implication on the educational process. New Communication from the commission to the council and the European parliament „Improving the quality of teacher education” brought on 2007-08-03 is pointed out. Also teachers’ educational systems in ES are presented. Practical research pointed out that education is being handled as being very important part of profession by teachers; main information about education is released from school administration or colleagues; bigger part of teachers pointed out that self-education is not being used very often; teachers feels lack of possibilities to raise their qualification in foreign countries; among all of the respondents negative approach onto refresher courses preponderated.

My aim in this work is to identify and contextualize the goals driving contemporary post-secondary education reform in New Brunswick. I do this by grounding the 2007 Advantage New Brunswick Report and New Brunswick Action Plan in the general historical context of higher education. I provide a descriptive account of the policies under review with a view to the ideals of a liberal arts education. Through a critical theory framework, I relate the contents of the policies under review to neo-liberal ideology, professional, bureaucratic and managerial hegemony. My focus is on the place of the liberal arts and humanities in a system dominated by the corporate imperatives of professionalization, specialization and bureaucratization. I propose as a response to neo-liberal policies that seek to make education instrumental to the needs of the market returning to history, philosophy and classics as the core of a liberal arts education.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to critically contextualise the organization of content in Swedish upper-secondary vocational education by highlighting its social and political implications in relation to social class. Policy documents concerning the content of vocational education in Sweden from 1971 to 2011 serve as the main empirical source, with particular attention given to the reform of 2011 (Gy11). The thesis is comprised of four studies that each represents a different context that reveals social and political implications of the selection and organisation of content in Gy11. The content structure of Gy11 is thus analysed in relation to (a) the school’s role of fostering democratic citizens and the overarching societal function of education, (b) knowledge distribution among social classes, (c) a class context, including key historical and contemporary reforms, and (d) a modern historical context, focusing on how two previous structural reforms (1971 and 1994) organised power and control over educational content. The study results show that, in terms of its content structure and underlying principles, Gy11 represents a historical break with previous reforms in many respects. Fundamental organising principles of past reforms, such as students’ preparation for active citizenship, critical thinking and entry to higher education, have been given less importance while the content is more context-bound than in previous reforms. The Gy11 reform can thus be seen as a part of a broader policy trend that is detracting from earlier efforts to give all social classes equal access to an equivalent education and reduce social imbalances in education. This new way of shaping vocational education is, it is argued, likely to exacerbate class inequalities by both reducing social mobility and rendering knowledge distribution in society more asymmetric.

Il tema di fondo su cui si confronta la ricerca è l'esistenza di relazioni complesse - dirette e indirette, esplicite ed implicite - tra i diversi livelli di governance dell'istruzione superiore in grado di esercitare una crescente pressione sui sistemi nazionali e sulle singole università sino a modificarne le priorità. Più nel dettaglio la ricerca indaga il rapporto tra i modelli competitivi veicolati dagli organismi internazionali, nello specifico dall'Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - OECD, e il modo con cui ciascun ateneo interpreta i propri obiettivi di formazione - nel quadro dei vincoli e delle opportunità del sistema d'istruzione superiore italiano. L'assunto di base è che tra l'OECD e il management degli atenei ci siano delle connessioni che sono la risultante di due tendenze complementari: da una parte l'influsso dell'Organizzazione sulle politiche nazionali, locali e degli atenei; dall'altra la propensione di questi ultimi ad avvalersi, in maniera differenziata, degli studi e delle analisi statistiche e comparative prodotte dall'OECD per interpretare i fenomeni globali della higher education e supportare le proprie strategie di intervento. / The research focus upon the existence of complex relationships - both direct and indirect, explicit and implicit - between different levels of higher education governance that can exert increasing pressure on national systems and universities up to changing their priorities. In further detail, the research investigates the relationship between competitive models promoted by international bodies, specifically by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - OECD, and the way in which each university interprets its strategic goals - in the framework of the constraints and opportunities of the Italian higher education system. It is assumed that between the OECD and the university management there are some connections resulting from two complementary trends. The first one refers to the influence of the Organization on national policies and local universities; the second one regards to the use by the university management of the OECD's comparative studies and statistical analysis to interpret the global higher education phenomena and support their intervention strategies.

In this study, I examine the factors that influence school districts’ commitment to implement ESL (English as a Second Language) education in compliance with the federal Bilingual Education Act of 1968. To explain variation in implementation effort, I focus on several features of the local implementation environment, including the role of Latino descriptive representation. Utilizing data on all public school districts in Texas, I employ a Heckman two-stage estimation procedure that accounts for factors that influence school districts’ decisions to implement bilingual education programs as well as factors that affect the amount of resources school districts are willing to allocate towards bilingual education. The results indicate that Latino school board and teacher representation play a positive and statistically significant role in determining: 1) whether school districts implement bilingual education programs; and 2) the level of expenditures and teacher positions allocated towards bilingual education. Thus, policy implementation outcomes translate into substantive representation.

Recent political and legal action has raised awareness about underreporting of sexual assaults on college campuses. The present study sought to identify psychological and institutional barriers to reporting sexual assaults through a series of questionnaires administered to current college students (N= 364). To investigate the relationship between policy variations and students’ likelihood of reporting, a 2 (option to report informally versus only formally) x 2 (student involvement in investigation/judicial board: involved versus uninvolved) x 2 (option to terminate an investigation: entirely in student’s control versus up to discretion of administration) between groups factorial design was used. The findings suggest that respondents’ were significantly more likely to report a sexual assault when given the option to terminate the investigation at anytime, when school size, rape myth acceptance and socio-cultural environment were controlled for in the analysis. These findings suggest that the option for complainants to terminate an investigation, their socio-cultural environment and individual rape myth acceptance are important factors in shaping attitudes towards reporting sexual assaults.

Although England and Scotland are two of the countries composing the UK, there are differences and similarities between the structures of education in each country. Teachers often struggle to explain the multi-faceted nature of their work and the general public rarely understands the complexities that educational professionals have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Teachers of 5 to 8 year olds in England and Scotland are expected to fulfil diverse and complex roles. Since devolution, changes have been implemented in Scotland affecting teachers' workload. Changes in the culture of education in both countries have affected the professional and personal lives of teachers. A larger dehumanisation of education in the name of efficiency and cost effectiveness is affecting the morale of teachers and many are leaving the profession. Historical method and a questionnaire are the main methods used to investigate the extent to which teachers of 5 to 8 year olds in England and Scotland have been affected by government legislation of the 1980s up to the present. The research also seeks to discover what changes teachers have made in order to work within the educational climate that resulted from that legislation. The questionnaire includes demographic data, scales for teachers to rate their ideal vs. actual teaching situations, emotive statements taken from a national survey for Likert scale response in terms of agreement or disagreement, and space for open-ended comments. The data were subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS. Two-way ANOVAs with repeated measures and one way ANOVAs were used in the analysis of the questionnaires, in addition to factor analysis. In the discussion of the findings, the historical accounts of the development of education in England and Scotland affecting the teachers of 5 to 8 year olds was used, along with respondents' open ended comments, to inform the results of the statistical analysis of the questionnaire. The findings show a perceived gap between respondents' ideal and actual teaching situations in both countries, and a somewhat negative trend in the overall response to both types of scaled items, with only a few group differences. The pattern of response is interpreted as showing dissatisfaction with managerialism in UK education, and it is argued that this emphasis is affecting the dynamics and cohesiveness of schools. The resulting, increasingly performative culture is perceived to be degrading the quality of early years' education by a process of depersonalisation and restricted implementation of professional expertise.

This study examines the perceptions and operational assumptions of university representatives with regard to the new higher education policy-making in Kurdistan. It attempts to explore the development and implementation of the policy’s first priority, the aim to bridge the gap between quality and quantity in higher education. A mixed-methods case study research is employed by applying qualitative methods in a series of interviews carried out with nine faculty members from a University in the Kurdistan Region. The interviews were followed by a survey of a representative sample of 305 faculty members from all faculties of the university, with responses from 148. Both research methods explored the implementation of quality assurance initiatives under the quality teaching reforms. The aim is to identify what type of quality culture in higher education is being encouraged and if it will enable higher education to serve as a bridge for Kurdistan to the global knowledge economy.

This study examines the perceptions and operational assumptions of university representatives with regard to the new higher education policy-making in Kurdistan. It attempts to explore the development and implementation of the policy’s first priority, the aim to bridge the gap between quality and quantity in higher education. A mixed-methods case study research is employed by applying qualitative methods in a series of interviews carried out with nine faculty members from a University in the Kurdistan Region. The interviews were followed by a survey of a representative sample of 305 faculty members from all faculties of the university, with responses from 148. Both research methods explored the implementation of quality assurance initiatives under the quality teaching reforms. The aim is to identify what type of quality culture in higher education is being encouraged and if it will enable higher education to serve as a bridge for Kurdistan to the global knowledge economy.

The study was concentrated on the period following the first democratic elections for a new government in South Africa, that is, post -1994 up to the year 2000. The change from a system based on fixed apartheid ideology to a more open and democratic one meant that the political scene became more characterized by fierce competition and volatility. The aim of the research was to understand the nature of the contestation as it manifests itself in both the development and implementation of school governance policy at national, provincial and local levels in a climate of political change and turbulence.