Community college concepts : a comparative educational analysis of the nature and development of community colleges in the U.S.A., Canada, U.K. and Australia

摘要

Through comparative methods the thesis will concentrate on the commonudfeatures in the nature and development of community colleges in theudUnited States of America, Canada and England. The insights gained willudthen be used to examine the influences behind the origins and developmentsudof Australian community colleges.udIn the case of the U.S.A. and Canada the study inevitably makes considerableudreference to developments within the broader tertiary educationaludcontexts in which their community colleges operate. English communityudcolleges, when compared with North American community colleges, presentuddifficulties as they operate within the secondary sector. The difficultiesudare not insuperable as all"community colleges" regard themselves inudvarying degrees as having some kind of special relationship howeverudnebulous or well-defined with a "community", particularly its adult component,andudat a general level experience similar problems in attemptingudto cope with this relationship. Further, the thesis assumes that, unlikeudthe U.S.A. and Canada where the basic institutional patterns at the postsecondaryudlevel have been established in most cases for at least a decade,udEngland is in the process of evolving new institutional patterns partly inudresponse to the increased demands for access to further and higher education,ud particularly from the 16-19 age group. There is material in thisudtransitional process for comparison, albeit speculative, between NorthudAmerican community colleges and some institutions such as the tertiaryudcolleges which show signs of adopting parallel functions at similar levelsudwithin the broader tertiary educational sectors of England.