Bilingual-bicultural education in Mexico: Recent research

Public bilingual education for non-Spanish-speaking Indian children has been in existence in Mexico for some 33 years, longer than in the United States. Since a review of research on bilingual education in Mexico, published in 1978, both the quantity and quality of the studies has increased notably. Basic studies have prevailed, especially those related to the myriad Indian languages of the country. Action research, incidental to the preparation of curriculum materials, has also been more fruitful than in the past. The few objective evaluations conducted during the period under consideration, all government sponsored, have been notable for the publication of a wide range of results, including those critical of official programs. Equally notable has been the alacrity with which the results have been applied to planning and programs, if not yet at the school house level.     

高校生态文明教育初探

简述高校生态文明教育概况,分析存在的教育机制残缺、生态意识淡薄、价值观错位等问题,进一步提出高校生态文明教育的途径：拓宽教育渠道,提升认知水平;树立正确理念,提倡绿色消费。     

An alternative technical education system: a case study of Mexico

Many developing countries have relied on the varied forms of diversified secondary technical education as the main venue for training skilled workers and mid-level technicians. But there have been numerous and strong critics against this mode of technical education. As an alternative, the Mexican Government established the CONALEP system in the late 1970s. This study tests the viability of the system by evaluating CONALEP graduates' labor market performance in comparison with other forms of education. It also supplements the scant literature on the transition from technical education to work and on the use of technical skills. Through innovations — inter alia, an autonomous national organizational structure, decentralized operations, strong links to industry, use of industry-experienced instructors, terminal program with modest cost recovery, and highly practical courses — CONALEP has forged an effective technical secondary education system aimed at the Mexican labor market with substantial spill-over effects. Although it is a Mexican program, the special features of the CONALEP system bear policy implications for other countries as well. With globalization and rapidly changing technology requirements of the Mexican economy, however, this alternative form of technical secondary education faces new challenges, notably adjustment of its curriculum to changing market circumstances and improvement of its external and internal efficiency.     

Understanding outcome-based education changes in teacher education: evaluation of a new instrument with preliminary findings

Outcome-based education (OBE) is a current initiative in Hong Kong universities, with widespread backing by governments and standards bodies. However, study of students’ perceptions of OBE and validation of understanding these perceptions are lacking. This paper reports on the validation of an OBE-specific instrument and resulting preliminary findings. Instrument responses (n = 89) were analysed using Rasch and exploratory/confirmatory factor analyses. Both approaches identified two dimensions (i.e. evaluation and comparison). Challenges and modifications to the instrument items and their relationships to constructs are discussed. Preliminary findings suggest students did not perceive significant differences between OBE and traditionally organised courses. Lack of explicit discussion of OBE with the students may have denied students the ability to make fully informed evaluations of OBE innovations. Implications for instrument validation and evaluation of initiatives in an OBE context are discussed as is the broader issue of transparency in teacher education curriculum design and implementation.     

Vocational education in Nigeria: A preliminary appraisal

This paper examines the vocational education aspects of the new National Policy on Education (NPE) in Nigeria. The NPE advocates a 6+3+3+4 system which means that the educational system would be divided into six years of primary school, three years in a junior secondary school, three years in either a senior secondary school, a technical or teacher training college and four years in a university. The junior secondary school will be terminal for those who do not have the aptitude for the more academic subjects of senior secondary school and the emphasis at this stage would be both pre-vocational and academic. While it is generally thought that the vocational provision outline in the NPE would help to lay the foundation for a modern technological society, it is clearly an over-simplistic appraisal of the Nigerian socio-economic background. First, the selection for the trainees in vocational education is not usually from an open population in terms of relevant characteristics but from a closed population, those who had already proved to be of lower than average ability, by failing to gain entry to the ‘academic’ senior secondary school. The social implication of such a situation is that trainees in vocational education are caught up in an ‘ecological niche’ in society as fishermen, miners and other direct producers. Secondly, when the elite, the top federal government officials, advocate vocational expansion, it is often for other peoples' children rather than their own. Furthermore, as could be seen from the results of the Udoji report set by the government to harmonize civil service salaries, those who had academic qualifications from schooling rather than vocational qualifications were more favoured. Thus this paper calls for a rethink of the NPE, bearing in mind the realities of the Nigerian educational system and the job market.     

Higher education in Mexico: From unregulated expansion to evaluation

This paper deals with changes in Mexican higher education over the past 20 years, with particular reference to modifications in policy underway since the late 1980s. There is a general overview of the structure of the Mexican system and the basic changes that occurred during the expansionary period of the 1970s: unplanned growth in public universities which quickly became large, unwieldy organizations; the rapid expansion of the academic profession; heavy influence of politicization in public institutions, which diluted many of the traditional forms of academic organization; and an expansionist and undemanding government funding policy which was basically geared to giving access to growing student demand. The 1980s were a period of economic crisis which translated into restricted public funding for higher education and a government stance of benign neglect. However, during the past four years a new policy has been formulated which has channelled more funds toward the sector in a context of new demands: evaluation of institutional and individual performance, closer links with the productive sector, diversification of funding (mainly through higher student fees), and differential salary scales for academics among other things. The paper concludes with some remarks on emerging processes and various unresolved issues in a context where two rationales seem to be at odds within the system: the traditionalmodus operandi of institutions where assessment has always been lacking, and the new government policy which demands quality and accountability from higher education.

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Resumen Este ensayo brinda una visión de conjunto de los principales cambios producidos en la educación superior mexicana a lo largo de los uúltimos veinte años, con énfasis en las modificaciones más recientes en las políticas estatales aparecidas durante el gobierno de Salinas de Gortari. Se revisan las principales transformaciones de la expansión no regulada de los años setentas y posteriormente el período de abandono benigno de la crisis de los ochenta. Se subrayan los principales aspectos de las políticas en curso: renovado impulso al financiamiento estatal en un contexto de evaluación institucional e individual, de insistencia en buscar vínculos entre instituciones y aparato productivo, de búsqueda de nuevas formas de financiamiento (especialmente el aumento de cuotas a estudiantes), y de escalas salariales diferenciadas de acuerdo con el desempeño académico. Termina el artículo señalando algunos de los procesos emergentes y algunas cuestiones críticas (issues) no resueltas en un contexto de pugna entre la lógica tradicional de las instituciones universitarias no acostumbradas a evaluarse y a dar cuentas públicamente de su desempeño, y la nueva lógica de las políticas gubernamentales.

     

The modernisation of higher education in Mexico

Following the Second World War, higher education in Mexico began a series of fundamental changes that taken together, altered the profile of the traditional university. It developed into a system which in its academic, social and political functions became highly complex as well as diverse, given the variety of institutional options and professional development schemes.The transition took place both at the institutional level and was system wide. The former was accompanied by expansion in the organisation as a whole. It involved updating the curriculum and the overhaul of administrative, managerial and planning mechanisms. At the latter level, the most significant change involved reforming the major component parts; the territorial distribution of access to education, and carried across the various fields of knowledge and disciplines, bore down on the level and allocation of different funding sources. These developments are best analysed within the perspective context of academic diversification and differentiation.     

Taiwanese higher education in a cultural perspective: a preliminary study of two premier universities

ABSTRACT

Imposing the policy lessons from higher-performing countries may involve the complex interplays of socio-cultural and institutional contexts. This article attempts to observe Taiwan’s progress in higher education from an explicit cultural perspective. It locates Taiwan among the rising group of higher education systems in East Asia. The study interrogates a wide-held understanding of higher education development and critically reflects on the “high performances” at systemic and institutional levels. It re-examines a capacity of the Western-influenced system in preserving indigenous cultural traditions while pursuing the quest for world-class status. Adopting a case study research, data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with executives and academics at two premier universities in Taiwan. The findings have shown that, due to fundamental differences, integrating traditional values with imported Western-structured institutions remains an arduous task for Taiwanese higher education. This study critiques conventional presumptions concerning the primacy of an Anglo-Saxon model in Taiwan and offers insights into the society’s efforts to bring back its own cultural values.     

Recent racial incidents in higher education: A preliminary perspective

The goal of this paper is to provide a contemporary perspective on the recent resurgence of racially motivated harassment and violence directed against minority students at predominantly white institutions of higher education. In achieving this goal, first an overview of minority student experiences on white campuses is given. Second, their experiences are linked to general perceptions of racism in contemporary society. Third, a delineation of the scope of racial-ethnic incidents on campuses of predominantly white institutions is made through a content analysis of a national and selected local and black-oriented newspapers. Finally, an assessment is made of the prospects for change. We argue that the recent upsurge in racism against minority students on white college and university campuses was implicitly encouraged by the previous national administration and by majority individuals in leadership roles. Finally, we argue that to combat these problems, university officials must begin to indicate in a direct way that racist actions will not be tolerated and that infractions will be dealt with severely.     

Challenges and prospects for Indian education in Mexico

Author of several books and articles on the ethnic question in Peru and Mexico, and on indigenous education.     

Technical and further education reforms: Theoretical issues

This paper examines theoretical issues arising from technical and further education and training reforms over the last few decades. It illustrates how these reforms have been dominated by particular knowledge concerns assumed to be central to specific areas of human activity. It then examines the reforms in terms of theoretical relationships among knowledge, skills, activity and meaning, as advanced by Piaget (1980a, 1980b) and Vygotsky (1934/1986); and discusses the implications for this and other sectors of education. The paper concludes that the reforms in technical and further education have pursued an image of relevance, but have mistaken how individuals construct meaning in workplace activities and the relationships among these kinds of meanings and those used in wider individual and social activities. It is also concluded that this mistake has serious implications for the current directions of the sector and its effectiveness in preparing people for their working lives.     

Citizenship education in Mexico: the depoliticisation of adolescence through secondary school

Recent contributions have argued about the depoliticisation of citizenship education (CE), mainly through theoretical and documentary analyses, and based on the European context. Nonetheless, there is a lack of field studies which can provide empirical evidence about how does the depoliticisation of CE actually operate. Based on a mixed-method research in Mexico City’s secondary schools, this paper shows how the contemporary approach to CE, instead of looking at nurturing children’s and adolescents’ politicity, contributes to pupils’ depoliticisation. Among different potential characterisations of political participation (PP), the curriculum of CE circumscribes it within the arena of formal politics, from which students are largely excluded in the present. Additionally, CE promotes a range of practices of participation which are deprived from a political meaning. Students appropriate them discursively, but perceive limited opportunities for perform them, especially in school. Through the depoliticisation of CE, adolescents mostly learn that PP is a promise of inclusion in the future, while the idea of active citizenship becomes reduced to a correct discourse about largely imperceptible practices in students’ everyday life. The article stresses the need of shifting the priority of CE in Mexico from the formal curriculum to the transformation of school practices, in order to develop students’ politicity through participation.     

From internal unravelling to transnational assembling: histories of education in Mexico

This essay traces recent developments in Mexican history of education in the light of trends in the field and publication in Paedagogica Historica.