The study of the economics of education has expanded considerably in scope over the last four and a half decades – as is evidenced by the wide range of material in this volume. But the key insights of human capital theory remain central to any analysis of the demand for education, and it is therefore appropriate that this is where the volume should begin. Psacharopoulos and Patrinos outline the basics of the human capital model, emphasizing the role that education has to play in raising individuals’ productivity. They also provide empirical estimates of the rate of return to education in a variety of countries.
Added by: englishcology | Karma: 4552.53 | Fiction literature | 10 April 2009
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Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Oedipus plays, Euripides' Medea and Bacchae, and Aristophanes' Birds and Lysistrata are discussed in this lively and scholarly volume. The author's experience teaching these plays to gifted high school students makes this volume particularly useful. The drama festivals, the adaptations of myth, the relevance of Aristotelian criteria, and the political and cultural background of each play are described fully, and the nature of tragedy and comedy, plot construction, stagecraft, theme, character, imagery and individual odes and speeches are analyzed in depth.
It is not the purpose of this volume to propose solutions but rather to explore some of the methods of recognizing and analysing the problem; only if this difficult first step of agreeing on the dimensions of the problem is carried out successfully can there be any chance of finding acceptable and workable solutions. The writers of this volume do not have a single view of the issues, for they are international in background and experience, and interdisciplinary in training and approach; moreover, as will be clear, they differ in political and philosophical beliefs, in scholarly rhetoric, in research paradigms and in personal circumstances.
