Policy Learning and Uncertainty: The Case of Pension Reform in Estonia and Latvia

This article addresses the question, under what conditions does the need for urgent solutions to societal problems lead to transferring a policy designed for another political system? The argument developed in the article is based on the theoretical frameworks of learning and historical institutionalism. I have posited that the urgent need for quick solutions to existing policy problems is a catalyst for policy transfer only if there is not enough prior successful experience with self‐designed policy reforms. The theoretical argument is tested using the case of pension reform in Estonia and Latvia, which proves to be difficult to explain with the arguments in the existing policy transfer literature.     

民国时期华侨高等教育的兴起与发展——以暨南大学为例

华侨高等教育是我国高等教育独特而又不可或缺的重要部分,她的产生、形成、嬗变和发展经历了相当长的一段历史。在这段长期的历史进程中,民国时期是华侨高等教育兴起与发展的重要时期。国民政府将暨南学校升格为国立暨南大学,开辟了华侨高等教育新的纪元。政府对一所高校的举措,从一个重要侧面反映了当时社会政治、经济、文化和教育的状况。研究暨南学校走向国立暨南大学,华侨基础教育发展成为华侨高等教育的内在因素和外在条件,探讨侨务政策与华侨教育之间的关系,对于认识与改进今日之华侨高等教育有着很大的现实意义。     

旅游高职教育发展的问题与对策

随着中国旅游业的迅猛发展,旅游业人力资源出现了严重短缺局面,与此同时,旅游高等职业教育发展却受到政策、生源、行业和自身发展水平等制约,步履维艰。为适应旅游业大发展,必须调整职业教育结构,理顺高等职业教育支持政策,提升旅游业就业吸引力,提高旅游高职院校的办学水平。     

高校旅游教育发展研究

随着我国全面建设小康社会的现代化进程的加快,以及国际旅游业的蓬勃发展,我国高校旅游教育发展的重要性进一步凸显出来。本文就培养目标的定位、课程设置的确定、科学研究的支撑和高端教育的学科依托等几个当前中国高校旅游教育发展面临的紧迫问题进行了分析,并提出了相应的对策。     

近代日本高等教育的形成与发展--以国家主义教育体制的确立为中心

以日本江户时代的教育发展为基础,明治时代以来的日本最终树立了自身的国家主义教育体制,在这样一个近代化的过程之中,日本始终保持了自身的主体性的、连续性的发展轨迹。而且,这一近代化的发展历程也充分地反映了日本文化的复合性与创造性的根本特征。     

Promoting Environmental Education for Sustainable Development: The Value of Links between Higher Education and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Environmental sustainability education, the dissemination of environmental education for sustainable development into the community, should be a lifelong process and not one restricted to a learner's years in higher education. Informal environmental sustainability education, including personal involvement in NGO environmental action, can be an effective way of increasing the understanding of environmental and sustainability issues. NGO projects help provide practical environmental education to environmentally aware people who have built their careers in other areas. In the process, they help environmental awareness to trickle into areas of life where it would not ordinarily impinge. In this case study of a community-based land reclamation research project, supported jointly by the NGO Earthwatch and Oxford Brookes University, analysis of the motivations and experiences of project volunteers shows that their aims include making a personal contribution to enhancing the quality of the environment and networking with like-minded individuals, and that they expect to carry their new understanding back into their everyday lives to influence other people in their workplace. Engagement in practical work and action research may help overcome some of the negativity linked to many assessments of the human impact on the environment and, working together, universities and NGOs can more effectively ‘think globally and act locally’. NGOs may provide the best hope for helping to change the destructive aspects of modern society but they are vulnerable through financial dependency on sponsors, volunteers and donors.     

Higher Education Excellence and Local Economic Development: The Case of the Entrepreneurial University of Twente

By tradition or intellectual necessity, universities pursue a main objective: increasing and transferring knowledge that is internationally relevant for the whole of mankind. But new powerful socio-economic forces are demanding universities to be engaged in regional economic development and their knowledge to be relevant in terms of local employment, university spin-offs and growth. These two objectives are traditionally considered as not complementary or even mutually exclusive. Through a case study regarding the Dutch University of Twente, this article shows that local economic relevance and international excellence are not incompatible objectives: they were not at the University of Twente; they can be reached even in a new born and poor endowed university, located in a peripheral, depressed and not industrialized countryside. This article argues that a strong entrepreneurial vision and the adoption of a different concept of knowledge may be the key for other small and peripheral European universities, in order to reach both local economic relevance and international excellence. The article will contribute and enrich the regional studies debate, introducing to it some higher education policy issues and ideas.     

Virtual Geographies and the Use of the Internet for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher Education

Despite the plethora of teaching materials that are available on the Internet to enhance geography higher education, few assessments of the effectiveness of these materials exist. This symposium collects papers that provide guidelines for using the Internet effectively for teaching geography. Students must learn how to use the Internet effectively to promote learning; instructors need to learn how to use the Internet effectively to promote good practice in higher education; instructors need to learn how to use the Internet effectively to enhance learning; and higher educators need to learn how to use the Internet effectively not only in traditional classroom settings, but in new, non-traditional settings such as those used for distance learning. These papers provide some assessment of these various aspects of using the Internet for teaching geography in higher education.     

"郑亳说"立论前提辨析之再辨析

在殷墟发掘以前,王国维先生曾提出“二重证据法”（王国维：《古史新证》,清华研究院讲义,1925年述学社《国学月刊》;又清华大学出版社,1994年第一版）给中国史学开辟了一条新路。所谓“二重证据法”,就是把地下出土的古文字资料与古文献相结合,相互印证,相互说明,以解决学术上的疑难问题。殷墟发掘以后,此法仍然可以使用,只是扩大了范围,把地下的考古材料（包括古代文字在内）与古代文献相结合,以研究中国考古与中国古代历史。     

Critical Geography and Activism in Higher Education

Abstract

Geography within higher education in the United Kingdom is presented as a core at the centre of a field of interacting forces. The balance between these forces and their susceptibility to change is examined. The implications for geography as a degree subject are indicated.     

印刷术与宋代知识发展方式的转型——以中国古代全国总图的发展为例

印刷术在宋代的普及除了推动知识传播范围的扩展之外,更为主要的是极大提高了知识的留存率,而留存率的提高又促进了知识的积累和创新。宋代之后,以地图作为载体的知识类型形成了明确的发展脉络,这与唐代及其之前极低的地图留存率以及所承载的知识缺乏传承形成了明显的差异。因此,宋代印刷术的普及从根本上改变了中国古代知识的发展方式。     

Demographic,employment and administrative challenges for urban policies in Estonia

Estonia is according to the size, population and gross domestic product one of the smallest countries in the European Union. I discuss the challenges of demography, employment and territorial administrative organisation that are the main structural factors behind regional development in Estonia. Selected functional urban regions (FUR) are the most competitive regions in Estonia. So far the FURs have not been deeply considered in national, regional or innovation policies. A key strategy is to enhance urban policies by pooling public and private innovation-supportive actors, institutions and human resources within and between FURs.     

Sexual citizenship in Latvia: geographies of the Latvian closet

This study examines sexual citizenship in Latvia. It investigates the process by which political narratives have heterosexed the nation since regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. My aim in exploring this process is to develop a deeper understanding of non-heteronormative identities and counter-hegemonic spaces in this heterosexist society. Drawing on discourse analysis of political media statements I argue that despite the legalizing of homosexuality, political narratives have continued to sex the nation as heterosexual, forging the national closet. I then explore how these narratives become experienced in lives of sexual minorities through the state's failure to prevent sexual discrimination. Drawing on participant observation and a decoding of the urban landscape, I investigate how the Latvian closet is materialized in the bodies and places of the everyday lives of ‘gay’ men living in the capital, Riga. Examined in this way insights are given to the spatial forms of political resistance to heterosexism in Latvia and how it differs from western models.     

论美英高等教育大众化及其社会调控作用

高等教育大众化是当代教育的重要发展趋势。教育的社会功能亦由此丰富深化。它不仅以教学和科研成为社会经济发展的“动力加速器”,也因大众化逐渐产生一些调节社会关系和控制社会矛盾的作用。高等教育已构成现代国家调控机制中的新兴组成部分①。对这种调控作用需要更多...     

Shifts in regional development of Estonia during the transition

The social and political developments of the last two centuries within the territory of the Republic of Estonia have shaped the present regional distribution of population and economy. Of all the social processes, special attention has to be drawn to the post‐World War II transition from an agricultural to an industrial society. This brought about intensive urbanization and led to the regional differences. At present, the process of transition to an information society exercises influence on social patterns. Of the political factors that have shaped the development of regional processes in Estonia, the politics of Russia (former Soviet Union) was the most influential. Estonia has been both directly involved and a separate political entity. Already for the second time the economy of the Republic of Estonia has had to reorient from the eastern markets to the western. This has also brought about sharp changes in the administration and development of the border regions, some of which have become backward. The regional economic development in Estonia today is mainly the combined result of the economic and social development of the Soviet era and the new processes that started with the transition period.