Peer Review in Public Administration: The Case of the Swedish Higher Education Authority

The aim of this chapter is to explore the method of peer review as it has been practised within the framework of the Swedish national system for quality assurance of higher education. By highlighting and comparing examples from two reviews, 1997–1998 and 2016–2017, we want to show how the method of peer review has evolved over time and in what way has it been affected by changes made in the system. The study shows that the national system for quality assurance of higher education with peer review as a central method has changed surprisingly little in Sweden during the period studied (1995–2017). Over time, the demands for transparency, predictability and equivalence have increased, which has to some extent undermined the authority of the assessors. At the same time, it is a development which is a logical consequence of—not a break with—the coherent national system for quality assurance of higher education that was put into effect as early as the mid-1990s.

Expanding the Conception of Giftedness to Talent Development

To determine if a person is gifted or not, the government sets the criteria of identification since giftedness is an abstract concept. However, the standard has always been decided and affected by the attitudes of the education authority and the allocation of resources. The opportunities for some potential learners to participate in gifted programs are often closed because of high identification criteria on standardized tests, especially intelligence tests. To bridge the achievement and the opportunity gaps between regular and gifted students with disabilities or different cultural backgrounds, educators are encouraged to apply the talent development model to develop hidden potential rather than focus on identification or labeling students as “gifted.” Every child is unique and has strengths and weakness. It is time to change the rigid concept of giftedness and expand the concept to discover multiple talents. The most important aspect is no longer defining intelligence merely as g or IQ.

Developing a national database for higher education student counselling services: the importance of collaborations

Student counselling services are at the forefront of providing mental health support to Irish Higher Education students. Since 1996, the Psychological Counsellors in Higher Education in Ireland (PCHEI) association, through their annual survey collection, has collected aggregate data for the sector. However, to identify national trends and effective interventions, a standardised non-aggregate sectoral approach to data collection is required. The Higher Education Authority funded project, 3SET, builds on the PCHEI survey through the development of a national database. In this paper, we outline the steps followed in developing the database, identify the parties involved at each stage and contrast the approach taken to the development of similar databases. Important factors shaping the development have been the autonomy of counselling services, compliance with General Data Protection Regulation, and the involvement of practitioners. This is an ongoing project with the long-term sustainability of the database being a primary objective.

An Overview of Swedish Higher Education and Research 2021

Every year the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) publishes a comprehensive overview of higher education and research in Sweden in the form of an annual status report. The report deals with what has happened during the preceding year as well as long-term trends. We also make international comparisons. The report also includes a description of and facts about the Swedish system for higher education and research. The annual report of 2021, An Overview of Swedish Higher Education and Research 2021, includes effects of the coronavirus pandemic on higher education and research in Sweden in 2020.

Impact of the community eligibility provision program on school meal participation in Texas

Objective: To estimate the impact of opting into the community eligibility provision (CEP) on school meal participation among students in Texas. Design: A quasi-experimental design using a two-way fixed effects panel difference-in-difference model and the variation in adoption timing to estimate the impact of opting into CEP on student breakfast and lunch participation in eligible, ever-adopting schools. Setting: All public and charter K-12 schools in Texas participating in national school meals (breakfast and/or lunch) from 2013 to 2019 who are eligible for the CEP program in at least 1 year and choose to opt into the program in at least 1 year (n 2797 unique schools and 16 103 school-years). Participants: School-level administrative data from the Texas Department of Agriculture on meal counts, enrollment and summary characteristics of students merged with district-level educational and socio-demographic data from the Texas Education Authority. Results: We find opting into CEP increased school breakfast participation by 4·59 percentage points (P < 0·001) and lunch participation by 4·32 percentage points (P < 0·001), on average. The effect is slightly larger (4·64 and 4·61, respectively) and still statistically significant when excluding summer months. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that opting into CEP modestly increases school meal participation in Texas, with a similar impact on breakfast and lunch.

Newspapers, Rallies, Strikes

This chapter focuses on the early decades of the twentieth century across the Indies, which saw major shifts in the public sphere, from experiments in fiction, publishing, and dramatic acting to unprecedented initiatives in associational activity and, in due course, revolutionary political action. It introduces the pioneering newspaperman Tirto Adhi Soerjo, who played a prominent role in the founding of the first mass movement in the Indies, the Sarekat Islam (SI), and his fellow journalist and SI activist Marco Kartodikromo. The chapter then highlights the first decades of the twentieth century, in which enterprising Europeans and Eurasian Indos, Hadhrami Arabs, and both totok and peranakan Chinese engaged in unprecedented initiatives in the realm of associational activity, founding modern schools and organizations that challenged established hierarchies of “traditional” education, authority, and identity among the small minority communities. The chapter also discusses the important consequences of reformist and revolutionary republican organizing efforts of the 1900s for the communities of the Chinese diaspora, especially in the Netherlands East Indies. Ultimately, the chapter investigates how the shift in the direction of labor mobilization, union organizing, and strike activity in the Indies in 1917–1918 coincided with developments around the world to encourage and inspire an escalation of social activism and political action by the SI in the late 1910s and early-mid 1920s.

Changing places: comparing 1986 and 2019 elites in Scotland

How are Scottish elites educated? Is Scotland simply England writ small with Oxbridge and private schools predominating? Do private day schools mainly in the cities provide the core of elites? How important are education authority schools? How have patterns changed, if at all, between 1986 and 2019? Using ‘ Who's Who in Scotland’, this article charts the changing composition of elites especially among the political, legal and administrative classes in Scotland in comparison with business and ‘traditional’ elites. Drawing comparisons with analysis of British elites more generally, it appears that Scottish elites are educationally more ‘Scottish’ and state-educated today than they were in 1986.

Christian values as theoretical basis of Ivan Bartoshevsky’s pedagogical views

The article describes the formation and development of pedagogy and the position of Greek Catholic Church in the 19th century. The author of the article analizes features of religious education in the system of pedagogical views of Ivan Bartoshevsky and determines main elements of I. Bartoshevsky’s theory. I. Bartoshevsky in his works supported main principles of Christian pedagogy, described the possibilities of their realization and tasks concerning the educational process of a child. Moral and ethical system of Christian upbringing forms a theoretical basis of the university textbook by I. Bartoshevsky “Russian Pedagogy or the Science of Educationˮ (1891). The significance of Professor Ivan Bartoshevsky’s textbook “Russian Pedagogy or the Science of Educationˮ (1891) for the formation and development of university pedagogy was crucial. The article describes the influence of the principles of Christian morality on the process of education and clarifies educational functions of social institutes, in particular the educational duties of parents, family, church, state, and school. It is determined that goals and objectives of Christian education are of great importance in the formation of a person’s character and worldview and the stages of the process of education in accordance with the age periodization of personality development are characterized. The researcher defines the place and role of each childʼs educator in the formation of his/her authorities and substantiates main features of the ideal upbringing of a child. It is clarified the role of the surroundings, environment, school for personality education as well as the importance of a teacher in the process of child’s development and growth. Psychological and personal characteristics of students according to their age periodization are characterized. Keywords: Christian pedagogy, textbook, the process of education, social institutions of education, family education, school education, religious education, authority, teacher, church, pedagogical objects, pedagogical functions, effectiveness of education.