Studying conflict,violence and peace in African universities

The aims of this article are to present the case for the study of conflict, violence and peace in African universities and to discuss ways by which this might be organised. It begins with a discussion of the meanings of conflict, violence and peace, as used in the discipline of peace studies. The case for studying peace is then laid out, with particular reference to the beliefs that non-violent ways of resolving conflict are effective and can be learned. The nature and extent of peace studies in African universities is then surveyed and ideas are presented concerning the content of peace studies modules. A distinction is drawn between peace studies and political science; the former emphasises the importance of structural violence, that the means used to build peace must be consistent with the ends aimed for and that students can learn to adopt peace as a way of life. The article concludes by examining five ways of setting up a peace studies programme.     

Enhancing environmental educators' evaluation competencies: insights from an examination of the effectiveness of the My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant (MEERA) website

To conduct evaluations that can benefit individual programs as well as the field as a whole, environmental educators must have the necessary evaluation competencies. This exploratory study was conducted to determine to what extent a self‐directed learning resource entitled My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant (MEERA) can enhance environmental educators' evaluation competencies. The multiple case studies relied on data from eight environmental educators with limited evaluation experience who used MEERA to evaluate one of their programs. Results suggest that MEERA can (1) increase environmental educators' perceived evaluation competencies, (2) help environmental educators produce quality evaluation outputs, and (3) foster their use of evaluation results. Perceived benefits of using MEERA included obtaining evidence of program success, insights into how to improve programs, and alternative ways of thinking about programs. Perceived challenges included varying difficulties with evaluation tasks such as prioritizing evaluation questions and designing data collection instruments and, in line with this, desiring personal expert assistance for context‐specific advice and reassurance. This research contributes to expanding understanding of how to enhance environmental educators' evaluation competencies and practices.     

Gender differences in peace education programmes

Peace education programmes have become part of the school curriculum all over the world, as a way to enhance positive relationships between conflict groups. However, although gender differences are being taken into account when planning various educational programmes, this is usually not the case with peace education. The present study aimed to reveal gender differences regarding peace and peace pedagogy. One hundred and eighty Israeli Jewish and Arab high school students participated in a peace contact education programme. Gender and group differences were examined both before and after participation in the programme. The findings revealed that the Jewish and Arab female youths were more dovish than the males both before and after participating in the programme, and gained more from the encounters. Implications for conflict resolution and peace pedagogy are discussed.     

The contribution (or not) of UN higher education to peacebuilding: an ethnographic account

This paper examines the role of United Nations (UN) peace academics in teaching for peace within the UN higher education system, and questions what contribution, if any, UN peacebuilding education makes to the broader field of peace and conflict studies education, and in the lives of the people it touches. The study draws on ethnographic data collected over a six-month period at one UN university in 2015. The data collection period involved participant observation, interviews with faculty and postgraduate students, document analysis, and surveys with learners. Findings suggest tensions and contradiction in the university around issues of UN mimicry, Western-centrism, state domination, and institutional capitalism. Implications are briefly addressed and recommendations provided.     

21st Century Competencies for Doctoral Leadership Faculty

Graduate and post-graduate programs were initially developed by universities to increase discipline-specific mastery. Faculty members impact both the content and quality of such programs as they are responsible for making it relevant in the current climate while also addressing the changes envisaged for society tomorrow. Although studies exist regarding faculty competencies in various disciplines and for preparing future faculty members, there is a paucity of research specific to competencies necessary for faculty members who currently teach in doctoral leadership programs. This Delphi study explored 21st century competencies required in the next decade for faculty who currently teach in doctoral leadership programs in U.S. institutions.     

From education for peace to education in conflict: changes in UNESCO discourse, 1945–2015

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the global education community has focused significant attention on the promotion of education in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, embodied in the growth of a new sub-field called Education in Emergencies. This article points out the surprising distinction of this new sub-field from the more established and closely related field of peace education. It examines United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) documents for insight into the changing global ideas that have facilitated the shift in focus from peace to conflict. Empirically, we draw on a quantitative content analysis of more than 450 UNESCO documents published between 1945 and 2015. We find that education for peace remains a constant, if evolving, concern in these texts, but that a powerful emphasis on individual rights has shifted the discursive focus away from inter-state relations and towards the educational needs of young people. In the documents, conflict is now theorised as a threat to education and peace is re-envisioned not just as the desirable outcome of education, but also as its pre-condition. We show how this ideational transformation has re-cast an expansive array of conflicts, natural disasters, and other emergencies as threats to education.     

Gatekeeping and Competency-Based Education: Developing Behaviorally Specific Remediation Policies

Gatekeeping has long been an integral component of what is now referred to as the Implicit Curriculum, or the context in which professional social work education occurs. Despite its long-standing role within social work education, gatekeeping elicits conflict for both individual faculty members and entire programs of social work education. Much of this conflict stems from a failure to identify objective and measurable standards on which to base gatekeeping decisions. This article proposes using the Council on Social Work Education’s core competencies as behaviorally specific standards for remediation/termination and provides suggestions for developing gatekeeping policies inclusive of these competencies.     

Schools and war: urgent agendas for comparative and international education

A focus on conflict and education is one of the most pressing concerns of the current times, and yet the role of education in the perpetuation, or the mitigation, of international conflict is curiously underplayed and under‐researched. This paper looks firstly at the contributions that education makes to conflict, through the reproduction of inequality and exclusion, through perpetuation of ethnic or religious divisions, through its acceptance of dominant aggressive masculinities, through selection, competition and fear, and through distorted curricular emphases on narrow cognitive areas of learning. However, the paper also outlines some ‘possibilities for hope’, such as resilient schools, the impact of peace education initiatives and the rise of global citizenship education. It is argued that comparative and international education has a highly important role in establishing patterns of educational contribution to peace or conflict, and in dissemination of research to act as a lobbying force to influence education policy and practice. The paper outlines eight priorities, including alternative international studies focusing on ‘achievement’ in peace education; cross‐cultural or longitudinal studies of impact of peace education and war education; and tracer studies of why young people join fundamentalist organisations.     

Creating a Culture of Peaceful School Communities

Peace Learning Center implements conflict resolution and peace education programs for a large urban school district in the United States of America. Learn ways the center teaches conflict resolution skills to youth and school staff members while creating peaceful school cultures through peer mediation programs.     

生活视域下的物理科学探究活动设计策略

科学探究是物理学科重要的核心素养之一,探究活动兼具知识教学与能力教学功能。目前,物理教学中的探究活动存在“伪探究”与“试卷型知识理解”等现实问题。据此提出探究活动设计策略:在生活视域下创设问题情境,以知识为目标、生活为问题载体,打破知识与生活间的界限,将知识与生活相联系构建情境性问题;丰富证据来源,提供多样实验工具,激发多种探究方案;提供多种形式的学习“脚手架”,激发学生自主性知识建构,促进探究活动结论的解释与交流;以问题为核心,问题、证据、解释与交流四者联动,相互支撑与反馈。     

Higher education in the heart of armed conflict: The pivotal role of student affairs

The issue of conflict confronts many developing countries, hence encouraging a growth of scholarship aimed at determining the effective delivery of education in a conflict situation. This paper suggests that units within higher education, such as student affairs has the potential to contribute to the promotion of peace, by addressing student needs through a paradigm that straddles between compliance and avoidance. The compliance–avoidance paradigm presents student affairs responding to the effects of war in the teaching and learning processes through programmatic and non-programmatic means. Formal programs are interventions adhering to established rules and accepted ethos of practice, provided to address students’ developmental needs and foster harmony, while non-programmatic ways refer to strategic actions beyond the formal lines of authority and policy to calibrate the university to the peculiarities of the conflict situation. Ultimately, the study proposes the shift of focus of higher education in context of war from peace education to the needs of the learners and to the unique challenges of educational service providers. Findings were derived from a case study on student affairs practice conducted in a public university in Mindanao, Philippines, using interviews, public documents, and on-site observations as primary data.     

Do universal social and emotional learning programs for secondary school students enhance the competencies they address? A systematic review

While universal school‐based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs claim to target various SEL competencies, earlier reviews have not provided a clear overview of the competencies in question. We therefore wished to identify the competencies targeted in SEL programs for secondary school students. We also aimed to examine the effects of these programs on SEL competencies and psychosocial health. The specific SEL competencies directly addressed in the programs' primary learning targets were identified based on the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework for SEL. Five bibliographic databases (PubMed, PsychINFO, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Applied Science Premier (ASP), and Web of Science) were searched for relevant research papers published between 2014 and 2018. We included 40 studies that investigated 32 programs focusing on two or more SEL competencies. While most programs targeted four or five of the SEL competencies, many of the included studies did not measure the programs' effects on all the competencies targeted. Our results showed that the SEL programs had substantial effects on the SEL competencies they addressed and on psychosocial health. Although the programs focused predominantly on self‐management skills and relationship skills, the largest summary effects were found for self‐awareness and social awareness.     

Evaluation of adult literacy education in the United States: A review of methodological issues

This is a critical review of methodological issues in the evaluation of adult literacy education programs in the United States. It addresses the key research questions: What are the appropriate methods for evaluating these programs under given circumstances. It identifies 15 evaluation studies that are representative of a range of adult literacy contexts at various evaluation levels; and reviews each study regarding evaluation designs, data sources, learner assessment tools, and indicators of program effectiveness. It summarizes methodological lessons learned regarding the evaluation of adult literacy education and identifies areas for further research.     

Does Educational Preparation Match Professional Practice: The Case of Higher Education Policy Analysts

This study compares the extent to which higher education policy analysts and master’s and doctoral faculty of higher education and public affairs programs match on a set of competencies thought to be important to higher education policy analysis. Analysts matched master’s faculty in three competencies while analysts and doctoral faculty matched in five competencies. The findings suggest possible reasons why analysts and graduate faculty agree or differ on various competencies. Also, the findings raise important questions regarding the preparation of higher education policy analysts and the graduate programs that educate them. This study is an addition to the body of competency literature. Eduardo C. Arellano  obtained a B.A. in Political Science and an M.P.A from the University of Texas at El Paso, and he holds the Ph.D. in Educational Administration from New Mexico State University. He is an assistant professor at New Mexico State University in the Department of Educational Management and Development. His special interests are interactional diversity, competency, and US–Mexico border studies. Mario C. Martinez  has a B.A. in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University, an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Leadership from Arizona State University. He is an associate professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in the department of Educational Leadership. His special interests are higher education policy, governance, finance, competency modeling, and strategy.     

What Should Instructional Designers & Technologists Know About Human Performance Technology?

Human performance technology (HPT) is having a significant impact on the field of instructional design and technology (IDT), and many IDT graduate programs now offer training in HPT to their students. However, some IDT programs may be struggling with the extent to which they should incorporate the principles and techniques of HPT into their courses. To provide some determination of which specific skills and competencies in HPT graduates of IDT programs should have, an online survey was administered to 24 IDT faculty members and 45 members of local chapters of the International Society for Performance Improvement and the American Society for Training and Development. Respondents rated the importance of HPT competencies for graduates of IDT programs. Results suggest strong support for the inclusion of HPT concepts in the curricula of IDT graduate programs. Implications of these results for IDT graduate programs, as well as for distinguishing HPT as a field of specialization separate from IDT, are discussed.     

Imitation and performance in confrontations between competent peers: The role of the representation of the task

This study (N=75) examined the influence dynamics that take place between two competent individuals presenting divergent solutions for a cognitive task. The hypothesis was that such settings (i.e., conflict of competencies) are unlikely to have a positive effect on intellectual performance because of the representation of the task, and that an increase in performance may be found if such a representation is modified. Three conditions were examined: a control condition in which participants completed the task by themselves, a conflict of competencies condition in which participants declared to be highly competent where confronted with a equally highly competent (bogus) partner who offered diverging solutions (standard conflict of competencies condition), and a conflict of competencies condition in which a decentring procedure was induced to modify the representation of the task. The results showed that participants in the decentring condition solved the task better compared to the standard conflict of competencies condition and the control condition. However, the results unexpectedly revealed imitation in the two conflict of competencies conditions compared to the control condition. Complementary analyses suggest that in the standard conflict of competencies condition imitation corresponds to a defensive motivation.     

Peace for Kashmir: A Worldview,Psychological Intervention

This paper reviews the current situation in Kashmir, the historical roots of the conflict and considers the possibilities for peace in the region. Given the nuclear arms proliferation in the region, war can have devastating outcomes not just for the people in the region but also for the people and the ecology of our planet. It is imperative that a peaceful solution to the crisis in the region is sought. Further, the situation in Kashmir must be resolved from a human rights perspective and the people of Kashmir must be assisted in achieving peace and safety in their own homeland. It is noted that counselors and psychologists can play a role in bringing about peace using worldview research, and Carl Rogers’ model of conflict resolution.     

Bridging Education and Practice With a Competency-Based Learning Contract

ABSTRACT

Field work programs have a substantial responsibility for providing support and gatekeeping functions while ensuring an educational experience that allows students to master the nine holistic, multidimensional social work accreditation competencies. With additional emphasis on field as a “signature pedagogy,” field directors are tasked with finding placements that can support these explicit competencies. Through the utilization of a learning contract that combines the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards competencies (including component behaviors) students and supervisors can begin to discuss their joint progress on meeting each of these prior to the final evaluation. This process will ensure that students have demonstrated the necessary outcomes to become a generalist social work practitioner.     

Competencies for distance education professionals

The purpose of this study was to identify the roles and competencies of distance education professionals within the United States and Canada. A population of 103 distance education experts was identified, and their perceptions regarding this information were sought in a modified two-round Delphi process. The results of the study include a competency model for distance education. It illustrates the final top ten competencies and eleven roles which were identified by the study. In addition, a supplemental table outlining outputs and competencies by individual role was developed. The top ten competencies portray the dual importance of both communication and technical skills in distance education. These ten competencies are: (1) Interpersonal Communication, (2) Planning Skills, (3) Collaboration/Teamwork Skills, (4) English Proficiency, (5) Writing Skills, (6) Organizational Skills, (7) Feedback Skills, (8) Knowledge of Distance Education Field, (9) Basic Technology Knowledge, and (10) Technology Access Knowledge. The resulting competency model will be useful in serving as a research foundation for development training and certification programs for distance education professionals. She is also Editor of the International Review section of this journal.     

Meeting Tomorrow’s Expectations

Today, experts agree that the level of cognitive development of modern young people affects the long-term life goals and outcomes that they set for themselves. During the course of numerous studies experts have identified such key competencies as problem solving, information literacy, and critical thinking. However, there are still many unanswered questions about what the components of these competencies are and how they should be evaluated. The aim of this article is to analyze the above competencies, to identify them within the context of different conceptual approaches, and to evaluate their significance for university graduates and the working population. In conclusion, we examine the basic difficulties encountered when developing tools for assessing the identified core competencies.