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Service-learning (SL) shows potential to respond to the global policy agenda of education for sustainable development (ESD) by increasing pro-sustainability competences through direct involvement of students in projects that satisfy identified community needs. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies that attempt to measure the impact of SL on students’ sustainability competences, especially the action competence. This study aims to address this gap by examining the experiences of higher education students.

A pre-post survey design based on the Self-Perceived Action Competence for Sustainability Questionnaire was conducted on an interdisciplinary group of 219 students of two courses (Sustainable Development and Ecology) in Medellin, Colombia, half of which (109) participated in SL projects.

Sufficient empirical evidence was found to suggest that SL boosts the impact of academic courses regarding action competences in students (specially their willingness to act).

The statistical analysis shows some contradictions that should be addressed in further research.

These results can encourage more educators and universities to implement strategies such as SL to move forward with ESD and thus help overcome the current socioecological crisis.

This paper not only discusses the theoretical potential of SL but also contrasts theory with empirical observations of 13 SL projects assessed in terms of self-perceived action competence for sustainability.

This chapter will discuss how the traditional role of principal, as the lead learner of schools, is both challenged and complemented by the cultural and epistemic values of Aboriginal communities in publicly funded school across Ontario in light of the Ministry of Education's Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Framework (2007). Leadership, in this context, is redefined to create a positive working environment. The authors also address the social impact of large-scale assessment programs on the standards for Aboriginal students, including the respective challenges for principals and teachers in Ontario schools.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders and teachers make sense of multiple accountability policies, including the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation, and how this process relates to school priorities and classroom practice.

This study uses a comparative case study approach to understand how principals and teachers in three high-poverty urban schools respond to policy.

Although principals and teachers viewed academic standards and the teacher evaluation framework as complementary, two of the three schools focused on meeting the expectations of the teacher evaluation framework at the expense of attention to academic standards. Without attention to the connections among policies and school priorities, the introduction of new policies may detract from rather than reinforce attention to academic standards.

Principals who are stronger instructional leaders may be better able to “craft coherence” among multiple standards-based policies and school priorities for instruction and student learning. Although their experiences are not generalizable, findings suggest that attending to standards for student and teacher performance without connecting to the implications for content and students’ learning may lead to superficial integration of accountability policies with school priorities.

Findings provide further evidence that principals play an essential role in responding to policy and suggest that districts and external support providers can assist their efforts by creating opportunities for professional learning about the connections among multiple policies and their implications for practice.

This paper extends Honig and Hatch’s conceptualization of “crafting coherence” to the work of teachers and the implications for classroom practice.

Avant‐propos sous les auspices de l'Institut international de Coopération intellectuelle, paraissait en 1934 le t. I, consacré à l'Europe, du Guide international des Archives. Le questionnaire envoyé à tous les États européens comportait sous les points 4 et 6 les questions suivantes: ‘Existe‐t‐il un guide général pour les diverses catégories d'Archives ou des guides particuliers pour l'une ou l'autre d'entre elles?’ et ‘Existe‐t‐il des catalogues imprimés, des publications tant officielles que privées, susceptibles de constituer un instrument complet de référence pour tout ou partie importante des fonds d'archives?’ Les réponses des divers pays à ces questions, malgré leur caractère très inégal, ont fait du Guide international un bon instrument d'information générale sur les Archives. Malheureusement les circonstances ont empêché la publication du volume consacré aux États non européens, tandis que le temps qui s'écoulait tendait à rendre périmés les renseignements fournis sur les Archives européennes.

The purpose of this paper is to present the author's commentary on the special issue of Journal of Educational Administration entitled “Systemwide reform: examining districts under pressure”.

The author gives her personal opinions, draws upon her recent experiences in the national study of US district leadership for school improvement, recent engagement with one specific US district's improvement efforts and work with colleagues in Europe on how a nation's culture mediates global policy trends.

One striking feature is the degree to which the language of “New Public Management” (is suffused within all of the papers).

The author notes that each paper peels a layer of the opaque onion of systemic school reform initiatives in the USA and was struck by the papers’ insight into current policy and administrative dilemmas facing districts in the USA – and also by their uniquely American perspective.

In these notes at the beginning of our last volume we expressed the hope that its conclusion would see at least the approach of peace. That hope has not been fulfilled, and only an unreasoning optimist could say that at present the cessation of hostilities is anywhere in sight. The year has been marked by success and tragedy; tragedy in the losses we have sustained of some of the leading young men of the profession who have died in all parts of the world for the Flag; success in the fact that the moral of the nation has grown rather than diminished, that the Empire is more determined than ever to secure a world in which free men may live, that the course of events have proven to our American brethren that our cause is and has been just. As librarians we share in all the feelings created by these facts. Perhaps the most significant social fact of the year has been the gradual awakening of the people to educational opportunities, and the need of them. There has been a wave of interest in things intellectual, from the utilitarian point of view mainly. The need of meeting German after‐the‐war competition is frankly the impetus to interest in education among many public men; but there are educationists with somewhat higher views whose voices are receiving attention; and, it is obvious, alas, that there were never so many cranks in full volubility as now. Whatever may be the causes of the new interest, it is undoubtedly the duty of librarians and library organizations to take full advantage of that interest to press the claims of libraries to a public hearing. How that is to be done is the business (theoretically) of the Library Association to determine, and we understand that of late it is devoting attention to the problem.