Educational System Building

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 807-811
Author(s):  
David K. Cohen ◽  
James P. Spillane

Recognizing that there are many different sorts of school systems in the United States and noting the absence of comparative research on these systems, we sampled six such systems—two public, one not, and three at various places on the border between public and private—for a comparative study of educational system in the United States. In this introduction, we motivate the research and discuss our research questions in order to situated the four papers in this special issue. The first three papers capture how different systems inhabit their environments similarly and differently, exploring the relationship between environments on one hand and the system–instruction connection on the other. The fourth paper sketches a comparative research agenda that would include more school systems, in and outside the United States, as they try to improve instruction.

1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Deans ◽  
Alan Ware

ABSTRACTThis article examines the issues and the problems confronted by those conducting comparative research of charity-state relations in England, Canada and the United States. It also provides an explanation of why the interaction between charities and the state is important for political science: in part this is because in all three countries charities have become increasingly dependent on government for their income. In section I, the article examines the relationship between the concepts of a third sector, voluntary sector, non-profit sector and charity and concludes that the last might be the most appropriate to employ in comparative analysis. In section 2, the authors argue that in both England and Canada the state is formally responsible for the formation of certain kinds of charities; they also argue that in the United States a stricter separation between state and charity exists but that, in practice, the boundaries between charities and the state and the market are not clear ones.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 916-945 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Spillane ◽  
Donald J. Peurach ◽  
David K. Cohen

Institutional theory, an important research tradition in analysis of schooling, has examined the development of mass schooling in the United States and worldwide. But research in this tradition has given little attention to the internal working of mass school systems, to problems of inequality and the quality of instruction, or to relating those problems to the organization and management of mass school systems. Building on the first three articles, which document how education system building has become a key instrument in efforts to improve the quality and equality of educational opportunity for students, we argue for a program of comparative research on education system building cross-nationally. We outline a program of research that would extend our comparative approach to studying school systems’ efforts to build, use and manage educational infrastructure as they attempt to transition to education systems in the United States by including such efforts in several other nations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carli Friedman

The United Nations exclaims "all human beings have the right to be treated with dignity and respect" (Annan, 2005, p. 34). Yet, disabled people have long been denied respect in the United States and have been subjected to disability oppression and ableism. For these reasons, the aim of this study was to explore the relationship between respect and disability, particularly respect's impact on the quality of life of disabled people. We had two research questions: (1.) what factors predict disabled people being respected? and, (2.) how does being respected impact the quality of life of disabled people? To explore these questions, we used secondary Personal Outcome Measures® data from approximately 1,500 disabled people; we analyzed this data to examine relationships between disabled people's interpretations of feeling and being respected, and their quality of life. Our findings revealed being respected had a significant impact on every area of ones' quality of life. Problematically, this also included areas which should be considered non-negotiable fundamental human and civil rights, that should not depend on if, and how, people respect disabled people. While the attitudes underlying the disrespect of disabled people are harmful and problematic, human and civil rights should be inalienable – ones' access to exercise their rights, to safety, to health, and to many other domains should not depend on others' attitudes about, and treatment toward, you.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 497-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shi-Hong Weng ◽  
Anna Ya Ni ◽  
Alfred Tat-Kei Ho ◽  
Ruo-Xi Zhong

This study compares the experiences of Shanghai in China and Los Angeles in the United States to illustrate four tension points in pandemic responses: immediacy versus thoroughness, transparency versus secrecy and security, centralization versus decentralization, and state-driven solutions versus coproduction. Based on the case analysis, strategic management and planning practices in six stages of pandemic response are recommended. The study also suggests research questions for future comparative research to examine more carefully how pandemic responses should vary due to institutional differences and local contextualization and adaptation.


Author(s):  
Ted R. Bromund

The Special Relationship is a term used to describe the close relations between the United States and the United Kingdom. It applies particularly to the governmental realms of foreign, defense, security, and intelligence policy, but it also captures a broader sense that both public and private relations between the United States and Britain are particularly deep and close. The Special Relationship is thus a term for a reality that came into being over time as the result of political leadership as well as ideas and events outside the formal arena of politics. After the political break of the American Revolution and in spite of sporadic cooperation in the 19th century, it was not until the Great Rapprochement of the 1890s that the idea that Britain and the United States had a special kind of relationship took hold. This decade, in turn, created the basis for the Special Relationship, a term first used by Winston Churchill in 1944. Churchill did the most to build the relationship, convinced as he was that close friendship between Britain and the United States was the cornerstone of world peace and prosperity. During and after the Second World War, many others on both sides of the Atlantic came to agree with Churchill. The post-1945 era witnessed a flowering of the relationship, which was cemented—not without many controversies and crises—by the emerging Cold War against the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War in 1989, the relationship remained close, though it was severely tested by further security crises, Britain’s declining defense spending, the evolving implications of Britain’s membership in the European Union, the relative decline of Europe, and an increasing U.S. interest in Asia. Yet on many public and private levels, relations between the United States and Britain continue to be particularly deep, and thus the Special Relationship endures.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa L. Beeble ◽  
Deborah Bybee ◽  
Cris M. Sullivan

While research has found that millions of children in the United States are exposed to their mothers being battered, and that many are themselves abused as well, little is known about the ways in which children are used by abusers to manipulate or harm their mothers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that perpetrators use children in a variety of ways to control and harm women; however, no studies to date have empirically examined the extent of this occurring. Therefore, the current study examined the extent to which survivors of abuse experienced this, as well as the conditions under which it occurred. Interviews were conducted with 156 women who had experienced recent intimate partner violence. Each of these women had at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12. Most women (88%) reported that their assailants had used their children against them in varying ways. Multiple variables were found to be related to this occurring, including the relationship between the assailant and the children, the extent of physical and emotional abuse used by the abuser against the woman, and the assailant's court-ordered visitation status. Findings point toward the complex situational conditions by which assailants use the children of their partners or ex-partners to continue the abuse, and the need for a great deal more research in this area.


Author(s):  
Steven Hurst

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.


Contention ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
AK Thompson

George Floyd’s murder by police on 26 May 2020 set off a cycle of struggle that was notable for its size, intensity, and rate of diffusion. Starting in Minneapolis, the uprising quickly spread to dozens of other major cities and brought with it a repertoire that included riots, arson, and looting. In many places, these tactics coexisted with more familiar actions like public assemblies and mass marches; however, the inflection these tactics gave to the cycle of contention is not easily reconciled with the protest repertoire most frequently mobilized during movement campaigns in the United States today. This discrepancy has led to extensive commentary by scholars and movement participants, who have often weighed in by considering the moral and strategic efficacy of the chosen tactics. Such considerations should not be discounted. Nevertheless, I argue that both the dynamics of contention witnessed during the uprising and their ambivalent relationship to the established protest repertoire must first be understood in historical terms. By considering the relationship between violence, social movements, and Black freedom struggles in this way, I argue that scholars can develop a better understanding of current events while anticipating how the dynamics of contention are likely to develop going forward. Being attentive to these dynamics should in turn inform our research agendas, and it is with this aim in mind that I offer the following ten theses.


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