Exploring issues in international context (4): Globalization

Chapter 8. Globalization and implications for education p. 283

Definition: Globalization has "become the central issue of our time" and "will define the world our children inherit." Globalization results in the increasing interdependence and integration of countries as the result of the worldwide movement of ideas, capital, labor, and goods and is "a set of process that tend to de-territorialize important economic, social, and cultural practices from their traditional boundaries in nation-states."

I. Globalization as paradox rather than paradigm

• Local-global dichotomy
  
  • The lack of attention to issues of social justice (wealth distribution, access and opportunity, cultural identity, and universal human rights and cultural rights)
  • In international projects, the global is actually the knowledge of those from developed nations passed off as priorities onto the Other - the developing nation
  • globalization's forces may incite strong reactions from local communities committed to protecting their particular views and values
    
• Addressing the dichotomy
  
  • Schools are expected to help prepare students to adapt to a global-oriented economy while simultaneously negotiating community values at more local levels
  • Educators are to prepare global citizens (address cultural pluralism)
    

II. Multiple conceptions of globalization

• Globalization as economics
  
  • from a positive outlook: globalization represents a natural and inevitable expansion of the marketplace beyond national borders (economic liberalism; market economy)
    
  • from a critical outlook: the economic aspects of gloablization stress that the anthropomorphic imagery of formulations like that of the World Bank has the rhetorical effect of depicting human actors as beholden to supposedly natural economic forces that are beyond their control rather than as participants in the creation of these forces (ignoring "human agent")
  • Application: A Nation at Risk (rationalized in terms of economic competition)
    
• Globalization as information and communications technologies (p. 291)
  
  • "knowledge economy"
  • ICTs have transformed the rate and the consequences of globalization - changing conception of knowledge and information
    
  • The profusion of IT combines with other forces of globalization to produce a homogenizing effect
  • unequal access - whose knowledge tech exalts and whose may be forgotten
    
• Globalization as sociocultural phenomena
  
  • arising from the acceleration of phenomena such as immigration: the divergence and convergence of perspectives within classrooms that are increasingly multicultural
  • Typical question: how the national and international are reflected in (and shaped by) the local and by the actualities and experiences of people's lives
    
• Globalization as philosophical reassessment
  
  • new moral and ethical imperatives that have emerged (redefinition of citizenship, society
  • Digital divide (new literacies) p. 293
  • Global social justice (universalization of human rights) - injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere
  • Be aware of the market-centric conception of globalization as ideologies are commonly defined in economic terms
    

III. Globalization and its impact on educational issues

• Globalization and purposes of schooling
  
  • The purpose of education: prepare the educated person (predicated on the way in which dominant or powerful members of a society view the world)
  • Education is often considered an instrument to develop human capital (globalization thus treated as a paradigm rather than a paradox)
  • Curriculums should be designed not only to acquaint students with globalizing impetuses but also to help them critique the ways globalization benefits some over others
    
• Globalization and educational access and opportunity
  
  • poverty, digital divide, relocation, "white flight" (economic stratification along urban-suburban lines
  • develop identities as world citizens
    
• Globalization and educational accountability and authority
  
  • The global commercialization of education - homogenizes curriculum & instruction
  • acute pressures related to the accountability movement (inspired by the 1983 A Nation at Risk report) - school choice through market principles (vouchers, charter schools)
  • Resistance (NCLB controversial)
    
• Globalization and teacher professionalism
  
  • two spheres educators inhabit
    
    • Official sphere: dominated by formal authorities directing curriculum, instruction & assessment
    • Unofficial sphere: distinguished by the form the culture of teaching practice assumes
      
  • Reconcile 2 major views
    
    • education for national economic growth
    • education for social transformation toward a more just society
      
  • Philosophical commitments: to promote human dignity, engage students in critical discussion about social challenges, and foster teacher reflection on the kinds of educational practices that develop concern for others at home and abroad
    
    

IV. Developing teachers' comparative perspective taking skills

Exploring issues in international context (3): Applying frameworks

Chapter 7. Applying frameworks to analyze educational issues

1. Hofstede's cross-cultural framework (a psychosociological critique of the purposes of schooling) p. 268

• power distance: the degree to which citizens tolerate social inequalities and can be described as a situation in whcih those with less power accept the power imbalances and view them as a normal part of society
  
• uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which a cultural group tends to become nervous about unpredictable and complex situations and tries to avoid them through the maintenance of strict behavior codes and faith in absolute truth
  
• social principledness: a strong inclination on the part of a culture to acquiesce, without question, to authority, thereby accepting the society's conventional values and norms
• locus of control: a set of generalized beliefs or expectancies about how positive and negative reinforcements are obtained
  

2. Harvey & Knight's framework for examining educational policy discourse (a critique of educational access and opportunity) - five notions of quality (normative vision), p. 269-272

• Exceptionality: the more traditional view whereby quality is seen as distinctive and exceeding a set of germane standards that are, by definition, "unattainable by most people" (implication: many schools will not attain educational quality)
  
• Consistency: focus on producing a predictable defect-free result, doing so as a matter of routine and reaching this goal on the first attempt as often as possible (criticism: intangible educational results; does not fit well with the idea of discovery learning)
• Fitness for purpose: emphasizes the end point more completely by considering how a process or service suits specific aims (ambiguities in definition of customer)
• Value for money: educational effectiveness must be maintained but with greater efficiency (evidence of returns on investment)
  
• Transformation: the most consequential benefits for students derive from the enhancement of their skills and from their empowerment through participation in self-evaluation and instructional evaluation as well (quality viewed in terms of change).
  

3. Frank's framework for examining accountability-authority relationships

• Policy effectiveness: the feasibility of a policy or program (government support, political voice; financial concerns; implementation time; parents and business community)
  
• Theoretical adequacy: the evidence for a compelling linkage between the targeted or desired outcomes and the strategies the proposal envisions for accomplishing them
  
• Empirical validity: the evidence that pairs a program's assertion with its strategies (assessing a policy)
• The missing element - ethical merit
  

4. Thomas's political framework (a critique of teacher professionalism) - symbiotics of ed-pol: education is influenced by politics in at least three ways

• the support provided to schools
• the content and procedures allowed in schools
• the latitude of social and political action permitted the people who inhabit school
  

Exploring issues in international context (2): Theory

Chapter 2. Theory in Comparative Education

I. Modernist theories (influenced by Enlightenment rationalism; the theories favor predictability and logical sequencing of events, and view human conditions as manageable and perfectible)

1. Structural-functionalism (a consensus perspective; sees stability as natural and desirable; characteristics: unitary, coherent, stable; purpose: maintain equilibrium, p. 37)
   
   • Modernization theory
     
     • View: human nature as variable, malleable, and therefore subject to refinement - role of education within societies seeking to modernize
     • Value: the industrialized West as most desirable model
     • A chain of functional steps: modern institutions - modern values - modern behaviors - economic development
     • Criticism: 1. the ideological and cultural biases; 2. individual level - society-wide change?
     • Application: litracy, readiness, "lifelong learners"
       
   • Human capital formation theory
     
     • capitalist progress: traditional society - transitional stage - take off phase - drive to maturity - high mass consumption
     • View: "the improvement of the human workforces as a form of capital investment" (Fagerlind & Saha, 1989, p. 18) - economic liberalism
       
     • Critique: ignore or underplay cultural origins and meanings; measurability; diploma disease
     • Application: "Yet in the United States at least, the notion of investment in education is often treated with skepticism. It can be seen as inconsistent, therefore, that investment in education is routinely heralded as an essential prescription for developing nations seeking U.S. foreign aid and assistance while at the same time the remedy of educational investment is regularly discredited on the American domestic home front.
       
2. Marxism (a conflict perspective; skeptical of the means by which the status quo is maintained)
   
   • Dependency theory
     
     • Definitions: examines relationships (social, cultural, political, and economic) between privileged core and exploited periphery countries, exploring also exploitative relations that result within peripheral nations; education reinforces the dependent condition of less developed societies or of the poor within a nation
     • Assumptions
       
       • Links underdevelopment of region/society to development in another region/society
       • Sees creation of dependent relationship: Progress in "core" nations is related to underdevelopment of "peripheral" nations
       • Favors consideration of external factors
       • Sees rich nations dominating poor nations
       • Sees elites of poor nations dominating poor nations
       • Views elites, therefore, as obstacles to real development
       • Questions the capacity of "modernization" to promote autonomous national development
     • Application: compensatory education (e.g., Head Start) for the disadvantaged
       
   • Liberation theory
     
     • Definition: drastic, radical change in the structure of society is necessary for just conditions to take root. Broader changes in the socioeconomic, political, and cultural world order are similarly required for equitable and just conditions to emerge; education can be used to help the oppressed of a society become aware of their condition to push for social change
     • Assumptions
       
       • Sees members of underdeveloped societies as oppressed by powerholders in their own societies
       • Equates liberation with development
       • Views development more in terms of justice than in terms of wealth
       • Sees literacy as essential for economic development
         
     • Application: reject a "banking" approach to teaching (Freire)
       

II. Postmodernist and poststructuralist theories (deny rationalist explanations; question the possibility of "master narratives" or encompassing theoretical arguments; focus on otherwise marginalized alternative perspectives; reject predictability as goal for theory)

1. Feminist theories
2. Critical theories
3. Ecological theories
4. Deconstruction
5. Particularist perspectives derived from cultural viewpoints
6. Adaptations of "post-"thought

Summary: Postmodernists do hold that the curriculum should not be viewed as discrete subjects and disciplines, but instead should include issues of power, history, personal and group identities, and social criticism leading to collective action

Exploring issues in international context (1)

Kubow, P. K., & Fossum, P. R. (2007). Comparative education: Exploring issues in international context (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

1. Comparative education

• Concerns
  
  • Egalitarian concern for educational quality and the opening of opportunity for more and more students
  • Economic concern for equipping students with appropriate workplace competencies and skills
  • Civic concern for educating citizens who can participate effectively in public life in increasingly pluralistic environments
  • General humanistic concern for developing the whole person through a process of lifelong education
    
• Four premises (p. 4)
  
  • educational issues rather than educational systems become the centerpiece for critical study
  • the central issues are seen as educational dilemmas rather than educational problems
    
  • these issues are examined cross-culturally in order to broaden and deepen understanding of the issues and, in turn, to enable personal improvements of educational practice
  • the text uses analytic frameworks
    
• "Technology and mass communication are challenging the notion of national boundaries, changing economic relationships, fostering greater interdependence, and challenging citizens to reconsider their loyalties and identities" (p. 4)
• Four issues
  
  • What are the purpose of schooling?
  • What is equitable education," and who decides? (ed access & opportunity)
  • What is the appropriate balance between education authority and accountability?
  • What factors reinforce or hinder teacher professionalism?
    
• Rationale: to broaden one's perspective and sharpen one's focus; understanding in light of differing cultural, social, and political contexts (p. 5)
  
• Definition: comparative ed draws on multiple disciplines (e.g., sociology, political science, psychology, and anthropology) to examine education in developed and developing countries. Comparative inquiry often leads to an examination of the role that education plays in individual and national development. It also encourages us to question our educational systems and to examine how societal values influence our attitudes toward how we educate.
  
• Benefits: "Comparative thinking and international perspective taking are essential for citizens in a diverse, global society" (p. 6).
  
  • "Comparative education and the critical perspective taking that comparative inquiry affords can prompt deeper examination of the tensions among society, development, and education and the role that citizens, either directly or indirectly, play in the educative process."
  • Cultivate a political (ideological) awareness
  • Comparative ed is a field that draws on a variety of disciplines to better understand the complexity of particular educational phenomena; thus serves as a device to mediate the relationships among the ed. foundations (e.g., history, philosophy, and sociology)
  • comparative thinking is an essential skill and develops one's ability to think deeply and comparatively about the political, economic, social, and cultural landscape affecting education, as well as education's influence on that landscape
    
• Emphasis: from method (1960s-1970s) to content (the late 1970s) (e.g., school outcomes and the school/society relationships) - Michael Apple' (1978) critical inquiry devoted greater attention to the internal workings of schools by examining curriculum and pedagogy for ways in which processes maintain inequities and hide particular interests; 1980s-1990s, inquiry into the nation-state, social movements, conceptions of equity, educational control, and centralization-decentralization tendencies
  
• The instrumentalization orientation (p. 14) - devaluing practitioners' input and the dynamics of teaching (researcher specialization & practitioner marginalization)
  
  • Control orientation: predictability & instructional replicability instead of context-laden classroom solutions
    
  • Externality: recommendations for classroom practice are outputs of a scientific process that rely on specialized expertise, controlled settings, and the consequent exclusion of practitioners
  • Fragmentation: Effectiveness is defined externally and in advance of the contexts practitioners encounter. Challenges of practice therefore tend to be construed as failures of practitioners' execution of prescriptions
    
• Habermas (1971) three human interests
  
  • Technical (control oriented)
  • Practical (emphasizes understanding)
  • Emancipatory (social critique and self-analysis)
    
• A practical approach (a multidisciplinary field of inquiry) p. 19
  
  • Anthropological: the concept of culture
  • Sociological: the concept of group affiliation and subcultures
  • Political science: the concept of power, control, and influence
  • Philosophical: the philosophical commitment the school and the society it serves (e.g., developing democratic values)
  • Economic: concepts such as class, market, and human resources
  • Historical: interpreting past events
  • Psychological: the mind-sets and values people hold individually and as a society
    
• Comparative education as foundational in education (the tripartite purpose of EdFon is to develop the following perspectives, p. 21)
  
  • Interpretive perspective: focuses on concepts and theories derived from the humanities and social sciences to examine and explain educational phenomena by considering the diverse cultural, philosophical, and historical contexts that affect the meaning and interpretations of that phenomena
  • Normative perspective: helps educators to examine and explain education in relation to differing value orientations and assumptions about schooling
  • Critical perspective: to develop in students the ability to question the contradictions and inconsistencies of educational beliefs, policies, and practices
    
• Problems v. Dilemmas p. 24
  
  • problems: disruptive to society
  • dilemmas: puzzles to be figured out. This term accommodate the fluidity, dyanmism, and uncertainty that characterize a characterize a changing, more global world (suggest an openness to the exploration)
    
• The skill of "comparative perspective taking": the process of performing cross-cultural investigation and then deriving insights from these investigations
  
• The value of comparative ed
  
  • the value-laden nature of educational issues
  • fostering national identity
  • recognize that possibilities for human growth and threats to human survival transcend national boundaries
  • addressing the international knowledge gap
    

Trends in comparative ed.: A critical analysis

Kelly, G. P., Altbach, P. G, & Arnove, R. F. (1982). Trends in comparative ed.: A critical analysis. In P. Altbach, R. Arnove, & G. Kelly (Eds.), Comparative education (pp. 505-533). New York: Macmillan.

Knowledge, the univ., and development (4)

Part IV. Peripheral centers: The newly industrializing countries (NICs)

12. Higher ed, democracy, and development: Implications for newly industrialized countries

• Higher ed in the NICs
• The development of an indigenous scientific system
• Historical patterns and contemporary variations
• The international context of inequality
• Key elements of higher ed development
• Conclusion
  
  • continued growth
  • expanding research role and improving academic quality (changes in values, orientations, and facilities)
  • a more public and instrumental role in society ("open universities")
  • financing cut; examine own needs
  • become increasingly vocal and controversial (call for academic autonomy & freedom)
    

13. Higher ed & scientific development: The promise of newly industrialized countries

• The international knowledge system
• The language issue
• The scientific diaspora
• Foreign training
• The traditional universities
• The research infrastructure
• Research in small scientific communities
• The role of scientific research in newly industrialized nations
• The role of the university
  

Knowledge, the univ., and development (3)

Part III. Exchanges: People & ideas

9. Gigantic peripheries: India & China in the world knowledge system

• The international knowledge system (the people & institutions that create knowledge & the structures that communicate knowledge worldwide): centralized means of production & distribution
  
• The Third World scientific superpowers: India & China
• The brain drain & the Chinese & Indian diasporas
• The future
  

10. The new internationalism: Foreign students & scholars

• Inequalities (the industrialized nations retain control
  
• Foreign study as a phenomenon
  
  • Knowledge transfer: foreign students must make the appropriate "translation"; doctoral dissertations by foreign students are tailored to topics of relevance to them
    
• The foreign study industry: English-language industry
  

11. The foreign students dilemma

• The world balance of students
• The foreign student infrastructure
• Curricular factors and foreign study
  Many curricular issues are important in the curriculum-foreign students relationship: the relevance of a Western academic curriculum for Third World students, the transferability of knowledge, the impact on Western institutions of the presence of large numbers of foreign students, and so forth. P. 167 (no accommodation of courses, textbooks, or content to Third World contexts)
  
• Foreign study and dependency (inequalities) p. 173
  
  • foreign students become acclimated to working in an international language
  • they become part of an international knowledge network
  • they may absorb the culture of the host country as well as its technology knowledge, and this may engender unrealistic attitudes, orientations toward consumer goods, or working styles that make readjustment to their home countries difficult
  • foreign study frequently instills in the student the methodological norms, ideological approaches, and general scientific culture of the host nation
  • foreign study bestows a certain prestige on the individual who has been abroad (leads to better job opportunities and access to power)
  • the location of foreign study may make a difference not only in the outlook and attitudes of an individual but also in professional opportunities
  • specific relationships between industrialized and Third World nations are key determinants of the nature of international student flows and of continuing intellectual and academic relationships among nations
    
• The future of foreign study
  
  • The growth of indigenous academic systems in Third World nations will lessen the need for overseas study
  • Fiscal problems will continue to have a negative impact
  • As incomes rise in the Third World there will be a tendency for families to sponsor foreign study privately
  • Third World countries with foreign exchange problems may curtail foreign study opportunities
  • The balance between undergraduate and graduate students will continue to shift toward a preponderance of graduate students in foreign student populations
  • Less money available for overseas scholarship programs
    

Knowledge, the univ., and development (2)

Part II. Teachers and Students

5. An international academic crisis? The American professoriate in comparative perspective

• Insularity & internationalism (American professoriate is least committed to internationalism among scholars from 14 countries, p. 76; The American research system is remarkably insular - pay little attention to the knowledge that the rest of the world produces)
  
• Centers, peripheries, & knowledge networks
  
• The decline of the traditional professoriate (a caste system: tenured, full-time non-tenure-track, part-time)
  
• Tenure (v. accountability)
  
• Scholarship reconsidered & assessed (research v. teaching)
  
• Morale (little sense of crisis; unhappy with institutional governance and policy)
  
• Future realities & professorial perceptions (university-industry collaboration)
  The largest and arguably the most powerful in the world, the American academic profession is faced with unprecedented challenges. Its world scientific and research leadership is reasonably secure because of the size of its academic system. At the same time, it must function in an increasingly multipolar world in which international skills and connections are important, and it is ill prepared for this role. American scholars and scientists remain remarkably insular in their attitudes and their activities
  

6. Professors & politics: An international perspective

• The impacts of activism ("academic as expert"; indirectly involved in government; oppositional thinking - involved in revolutionary movements in the Third World)
  
• Perspectives on faculty activism

7. Student political activism

• The historical context (Nazi supporters, nationalism during the colonial period
  
• The impossibility of a "Permanent Revolution" in the university (lack of sustainability)
  
• Response to activism (ignorance and/or repression; activist participation
• Who are the activists (core leadership, active followers, the sympathetic). Characteristics of activist leadership:
  
  • study in the social sciences (humanities)
  • from affluent families
  • from more educated families
  • from more liberal families
  • among the best students
  • often from minority groups
    
• The activist impulse (nationalism; broader political issues)
• The impact of activism (The collapse of communism - leftist student activism)
  
• The industrialized nations & the Third World (Third World students were more successful in politics than students in the industrialized nations)
  

8. Student politics in the Third World

• The political framework
• The academic environment
• Historical traditions
• Sociological currents
• Ideological orientations
• The future (from leftist to religious or conservative)
  

Comparative Education Review

Comparative Education Review

(Definition from Wikipedia)

National Differences, Global Similarities: World Culture and the Future of Schooling
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/501148

The United Nations and Education: Multilateralism, Development and Globalization
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/501147

Market University?
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/498325

Chronic Consequences of High-Stakes Testing? Lessons from the Chinese Civil Service Exam
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/498328

Asian Universities: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/501143

Tech & Ed (Bibliography 2008)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/cer/bibliog07.html#sc24

Internationalizing Curriculum and Institution (Bibliography 2008)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/cer/bibliog07.html#sc15

Asia (Nepal) (Bibliography 2008)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/cer/bibliog07.html#sc27

Kalman, Yoram M., and Paul H. Leng. "A Distributed Model for Managing Academic Staff in an International Online Academic Programme." Interactive Learning Environments 15, no. 1 (May 2007): 47–61
http://www.kalmans.com/ILEsubmission

Knowledge, the univ., and development (1)

Altbach, P. G. (1998). Comparative higher education: Knowledge, the university, and development. Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing.

Intro: Comparative perspectives in the 21st century

• The modern university is at the center of an international system that encompasses technology, communications, and culture. (p. xvii)
• Internationalism
  
  • The university is an international institution with strong national roots. However, most analysts overlook the international origins and role of the university, focusing exclusively on national realities (p. xviii)
  • The modern American university, arguably the most influential academic model today, grows out of 3 basic ideas - the English collegiate model, the German research university ideal of the late 19th century, and the American concept of service to society
  • All of the world's universities stem from the medieval European model - common academic culture worldwide
  • Study abroad, brain drain
  • Knowledge is international; English language and new ICT contributed to the internationalizationalism; International higher ed. has become a significant "industry"
• The estates
  
  • Senior staff (professoriate): eroding power. Future - less full-time permanent positions, more diverse, less research-oriented, less able academically
    
  • Students: "student consumerism"; nature of the student population
  • Non-academic staff: gaining power
    
• Roots and implications of crisis (国学技研私付钱）
  
  • Diminished state funding (high enrollment, tech, salaries)
    
  • Who should pay? (Taxpayer - individual, equity, financial stability, access)
    
  • Privatization (revenue-producing strategies)
    
  • Technology (expensive, quickly outdated, difficult to integrate, time consuming, training)
    
  • Basic research and graduate study (fiscal climate - hard to sustain)
    
  • Internationalization (positive aspect but need mechanisms for financing and administering)
    
  • The academic profession (core of the university; under pressure; change)
    

Part I. Perspectives

1. Patterns in higher ed development

• Role of universities: Knowledge creation and distribution; political function
• A common heritage: follow institutional patterns derivative of Western models
• Networks of knowledge and higher ed: West-centered, English dominated, brain drain, the Third World scientific diaspora
• Expansion: Hallmark of the postwar era.
  
• Change and reform:
  
  • 1960s Interdisciplinary program; Curricular vocationalism
  • 1990s Improving the administrative efficiency & accountability
• The Millennium
  
  • Access and adaptation (equal higher ed. opportunity for disenfranchised groups)
    
  • Administration, accountability, and governance (bureaucracy, budget)
    
  • Knowledge creation and dissemination (changing forms, tech, cost, control & ownership, Western domination)
    
  • The academic profession (the professoriate is under pressure, challenged by demands for accountability, increased bureaucratization of institutions, fiscal constraints in many countries, and an increasingly diverse student body
    
  • Private resources & public responsibility (a change in values and orientations)
    
  • Diversification & stratification
  • Economic disparities (developed nations v. developing ones)
    

2. The university as center and periphery
The inequalities of the international knowledge system run very deep, have strong institutional support and significant historical roots, and are often in the interest of those who wield power, whether that power is military, economic, intellectual, or technological (p. 20)

• Third World Realities (univ remain elitist institutions, a key means of social mobility, mainly urban, often use European languages as the language of instruction)
  
• The anatomy of inequality
  
  • The historical tradition of universities is a Western tradition, and has little if anything to do with the intellectual or educational traditions of the Third World
  • The language of higher ed in many Third World nations is a Western language (language of power and of wealth)
  • Third World nations are basically "consumers" of knowledge, dependent on industrialized nations for research, interpretations of scientific advances, and, in general, information (difficult to develop indigenous model)
    
  • The means of communication of knowledge are in the hands of the industrialized nations (Internet may change the landscape? but access is a problem)
  • Large numbers of students from the Third World study in the industrialized nations
    
• Dependency & Neocolonialism
  
  • Neocolonialism: the policies of the industrialized nations that attempt to maintain their domination over the Third World (Education is a "fourth dimension" of foreign policy because it is seen to fit integrally into the national objectives of industrialized nations, p. 28)
  • Academics trained in Western universities to feel natural to continue using Western models
    
• Peripheral centers & central peripheries
  
  • Peripheral centers - The public in the Third World sees higher ed as a means of social mobility in societies with severe economic problems; faculty members see themselves as part of an international academic community
  • Central peripheries - International scholarship is communicated in English; some Western univ. lack funding and infrastructure; study abroad and maintain contacts with academics in the U.S. or Britain
    
• Removal of inequality
  
  • America is a sample of success that completed periphery-center transition
  • Sustained economic growth combined with national policies that have supported higher ed have fostered this development
  • removing inequalities as part of a commitment to a new international order is extraordinarily difficult to achieve (p. 34)
    

3. Twisted roots: The Western impact on Asian higher ed

• As a consequences of the industrial revolution, the products and the science of Europe, and later North America, came to dominate much of Asia (p. 41)
• The West tries to retain its central position (e.g. government-sponsored programs that are cultural and intellectual in nature)
• The heritage of colonialism: the use of the mother language; academic structures patterned after metropolitan models; the curriculum was like that in the metropole and not relevant to Asian realities; acdemic staff were from the metropole; culture of subordination; sources of cultural, political, and intellectual ferment; stressed contact with the metropole
• The noncolonized heritage: China, Japan, Thailand
• The contemporary impact of the West
  
  • The pervasive and subtle influence of the English language
  • The effect of foreign study (center-periphery flow)
    
  • Scientific exports
  • Western academic structures
    
• The indigenous response: change, accommodation, evolve
  

4. The American academic model in comparative perspective

• The American academic system in historical perspective
  
  • The English academic tradition (liberal arts) changed and democratized by the American experience (the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries)
  • The emergence of graduate education (the end of the 19th century, land-grant ideas - direct service to society, research as part of the academic enterprise)
  • Implantation of research (the early 20th century, German research concept)
    
• The elements of the American academic system
  
  • The research university at the pinnacle of the system
  • The undergraduate arts and sciences colleges (basic ed. in the liberal arts)
  • The community college ("open access" to higher ed)
    
• The relevance of the American Model
  
  • The community of scholars and governance (department - a unique organizational model adapted from the European "chair" system)
    
  • An administrative cadre (professor-turned senior admin v. career admin)
    
  • Curricular expansion (flexibility to serve employment needs)
    
  • Research (P&T stress research & publication; funding & salary: reward-related; "publish or perish")
    
  • Autonomy & accountability (academic freedom v. social responsibilities)
    
  • Service (commercialized?)
    
  • Stability & change (peripheral change)
    
  • Dealing with adversity (financial problems, demographic changes, government cutbacks and shifts in emphasis away from education
    
  • Student services (loco parentis; extracurricular activities)
    

Emergent issues in education: Comparative perspectives

Arnove, R. F., Altbach, P. G., & Kelly, G. P. (1992). Emergent issues in education: Comparative perspectives. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Part III. Theoretical frameworks

7. Conceptualizing education and the drive for social equality (Farrell, J. P.)

• Components of national development (p. 107)
  
  • The generation of more wealth within a nation (economic development)
  • The more equitable distribution of such wealth, or at least more equitable distribution of opportunity for access to that wealth (social development)
  • The organization of political decision-making structures which would be close approximations of those prevalent in the West (political development)
    
• A model of educational inequality (p. 111)
  
  • equality of access: the probabilities of children from different social groupings getting into the school system (学校数量）
    
  • equality of survival: the probabilities of children from various social groupings staying in the school system to some defined level, usually the end of a complete cycle (primary, secondary, higher) （在校年份）
    
  • equality of output: the probabilities of children from various social groupings will learn the same things to the same level at a defined point in the school system （学习成效）
    
  • equality of outcome: the probabilities of children from various social groupings will live relatively similar lives subsequent to and as a result of schooling (have equal incomes, have jobs of roughly the same status, have equal access to positions of political power, etc) （毕业回报）

8. Conceptualizing the role of education in the economy

• Human capital theory
  
• Neoclassical model:
• Criticism
• Alternative conceptual frameworks
  
  • Institutional approaches
  • Radical economics perspectives
  • The political economy of educational policy-making
    

Part V. Assessing the outcomes of reforms

18. National literacy campaigns in historical and comparative perspective: Legacies, lessons, and issues (Arnove, R. F., & Graff, H. J.)

• Legacies and lessons (p. 286)
  
  • literacy effort need to last long enough to be effective
  • local initiative should be mobilized in conjunction with national will
  • there will be a significant minority who will oppose or not be reached by literacy efforts of centralized authorities
  • eventually emphasis will have to be placed on schooling for youth (in order to head off future illiteracy)
  • literacy must be viewed and understood in its various contexts
    
• Literacy must be contextually defined and continually reappraised
  
  • Literacy takes on meaning in particular historical and social formation
  • A process of deskilling (e.g., basic adult ed program's goal "is not ultimately a critical and imaginative literacy but an etiquette, an ability to perform tasks whose value refers not to the life experiences of the student but to the institution of education. p. 293)
  • It's only potential empowerment; certain groups try to prevent or control the provision of literacy
  • literacy is fundamentally a political issue involving these questions: What sort of society do we want? Are we seriously interested in improving the skills and training of the poorly educated? Will we make this a priority, and commit funds and expertise in an age of dwindling resources? p. 294
    

American education: A history

The Feminization of Teaching (p. 106)

Horace Mann - Common School (p. 115)

The Freedman's Bureau (p. 138)

Booker T. Washington and the "Atlanta Compromise" (p. 150)

The Progressive Reform (p. 194)

Committee of Ten (p. 206)

Vocational Education (p. 208)

John Dewey (p. 217)

The Eight Year Study (p. 267)

The Sputnik (p. 293)

Brown v. Board of Education (p. 297)

A Nation at Risk (p. 355)

No Child Left Behind (p. 366)

The social theoretical perspectives

1. Normative - value-oriented; what you value defines educational value

• Definition: the term "normative" is used to describe the effects of those structures of culture which regulate the function of social activity. Those structures thus act to encourage or enforce social activity and outcomes that ought to (with respect to the norms implicit in those structures) occur, while discouraging or preventing social activity that ought not occur. That is, they promote social activity that is socially valued. While there are always anomalies in social activity (typically described as "crime" or anti-social behaviour) the normative effects of popularly-endorsed beliefs (such as "family values" or "common sense") push most social activity towards a generally homogeneous set, resulting in varying degrees of social stability.
• Application
  
  • Normative influence is inevitable - it is difficult to separate your personal norms
  • Probe the nature of personal and educational assumptions
  • Examine policy in light of values and how these policies reflect values
  • Individuals develop their own value positions
  • Deals with the question of values
    
• Examples
  
  • Portfolio initiative@BSU - policy implementation and the digital divide/gap
  • What a student from Evansville Indiana sees as normal computer use is very different from Westfield or Carmel Indiana (?)
  • The amount of work expected from student in a rural district may differ from a suburban district - and Arkansas school from a Texas school - what is normative for one may not be normative for another
    

2. Interpretive - use concepts and theories to examine education in different contexts

• Definition
• Application
  
  • Students analyze the intent, meaning and effects of educational thought and practice
  • Interpretation varies based on historical, philosophical and cultural perspectives
    
• Examples
  
  • Northern v southern view of the war between the states
  • Democratic education allows for differing viewpoints of same instance
  • Portfolios in the Netherlands v. US - they have some different values
    

3. Critical - encourages development of inquiry skills

• Definition
• Application
  
  • Encourages students to question educational assumptions
  • Encourages students to identify contradictions
  • Encourages students to use democratic values to assess educational beliefs, policies and practices while assessing the origins and consequences of the beliefs, policies and practices
  • Students develop awareness of education and schooling in light of complex relations to the environing culture
    
• Examples
  
  • Technology is powerful and how it is used by students can produce powerful learning
  • Curriculum choice should be viewed with a critical perspective - how does this effect each student?
    

Distinguish between "perspectives" (interpretive, normative, and critical) and "standards"

• Perspectives are ways to interpret; based on philosophical, epistemological (theory of knowledge) understanding of how knowledge works (e.g., what is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? What do people know?)
• Standards are action indicators - do this to "meet" the standard
• Perspectives vs curriculum
  
  • These perspectives are different from curriculum in that curriculum is comprised of a set of knowledge, generally agreed to by a group who share common perspectives
  • Bobbit & Dewey defined curriculum as the compilation of deeds and experiences through which children learn and become successful adults in a given society
  • These experiences can be viewed from a variety of perspectives through reflection. The perspective of participants varies somewhat according to their own persoanl experience, cultural background, and reflective understanding. In social foundations, the perspectives are evidenced through demonstration of the thought processes, either through writing, verbal articulation or response to classroom assignments or conversations
  • Perspectives are ways to think about problems and issues in education. Standards are often behavioral in nature and oriented to some sort of action. Standards are used to build confidence in learning how to learn, especially in interdisciplinary ways

The field of social foundations of education is both an interdisciplinary approach to understanding knowledge and is a content-specific body of knowledge

• Field of social foundations - interdisciplinary is embedded in problems (a question for consideration, solution, inquiry), issues (must be answered yes or no, matter of dispute, ready for decision, and controversy or disagreement), claims (assertion open to challenge - stance on issue), evidences (proof, outward sign, research), and arguments (intended to persude, leads from premise to conclusion, supports claim)
  
• epistemological functions: how to accumulate, how to make sense, how to distribute - all about thinking in interdisciplinary ways
• Content-specific body includes history, sociology, philosophy primary areas, but also includes uses of all social sciences like anthropology, economics, all ways we make sense of work and apply to education questions
• Full complement of social sciences to better understand - want to know how each of various fields think about something and bring them together
• Uses content from all disciplines to make sense and communicate understanding