1994 film by Hal Hartley

1996 film by Masayuki Suo

1996 film by Yoshimitsu Morita

"Despite the Odds" poses an important question: How can we account for successful policy reform initiatives when the political cards are stacked against change? Theories of politics usually predict that reform initiatives will be unsuccessful when powerful groups are opposed to change and institutions are biased against it. This book, however, shows how the strategic choices of reform proponents alter the destinies of policy reforms by reshaping power equations and undermining institutional biases that impede change. In many countries, the political path to reform can be daunting. Anti-reform interests are powerful and support for change is, at best, lukewarm. Centrally important institutions strongly defend the policy status quo.Despite these political odds, reformers have seized the initiative in promoting reform, weakening and marginalizing opposition groups, and marshaling political patrons and networks to advance their initiatives. "Despite the Odds" opens the 'black box' of decision making in five initiatives designed to enhance the quality of education services in Latin America. The book addresses the strategies used by reformers to manage the political process of change and those adopted by opposition groups and institutions resisting their efforts. Individual chapters consider how leaders set national policy agendas for education, how policy design teams created the content of reform initiatives, how they dealt with the messy and public confrontations that greeted reform proposals when they were announced, and the carryover of political conflict when they were implemented.

A history of efforts to reform mathematics education in California throughout the last two decades of the 20th century. That history is a contentious one, full of such fervour and heat that participants and observers often refer to the "math wars". Suzanne Wilson considers the many perspectives of those involved in maths reform, weaving a tapestry of facts, philosophies, conversations, events and personalities into the narrative. While her focus is on California, the implications of her book extend to struggles over education policy and practice throughout the United States. Wilson's three-dimensional account of maths education reform efforts reveals how the debates tend to be deeply ideological and how people come to feel misunderstood and misrepresented. She examines the myths used to explain the failure of reforms, the actual reasons for failure, and the importance of taking multiple perspectives into account when planning and implementing reform.

A mysterious suicide and a series of unmanned robot run-aways sparks off a Police investigation into the suspicious software on-board thousands of industrial robots around Tokyo.