Globalisation And Local Indigenous Education In Mexico

Globalisation is often viewed as a threat to cultural and linguistic diversity and therefore is a central concern of educational practices and policy. The present study challenges this common view by demonstrating that local communities can use global means to support and enhance their specific practices and policies. An historical exploration of education policy in Mexico reveals that there has been a continuing struggle by indigenous peoples to maintain locally relevant modes of teaching. Indigenous peoples have increasingly used technology to maintain their languages and local cultural practices. Such accentuation of the local in a global context is exemplified by the people of Chiapas: They live in subsistence-type communities, yet their recent education movements and appeals to international solidarity (such as in the Zapatista rebellion) have employed computer-aided technologies.     

Girls' and boys' reasoning on cultural and religious practices: a human rights education perspective

Human rights play a vital role in citizens' political, religious and cultural life (Wang 2002, 171). Due to the prominence of human rights in the everyday life of citizens, including those of South Africa, human rights education has been included in many school curricula. Human rights education aims to develop responsible citizens who inter alia foster an understanding of gender, ethnical, religious and cultural diversities. This, it is hoped will encourage and maintain peace, as outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Departing from a human rights position, a qualitative study commenced in 2009 to explore how girls and boys reason about the cultural and religious practices of girls in their communities and families. Narratives by girls and boys highlighted their views on girls' positioning in their specific communities. From the findings it became evident that the participants were aware of conforming to particular cultural and religious practices. However, some participants also challenged how they perceived these practices and the roles of girls in their communities. The article highlights the necessity of embarking on a gendered perspective towards human rights education.     

Educational Policy for the Transnational Dominican Community

The increasingly transnational character of many immigrant communities necessitates changes in educational policy. We use the Dominican neighborhoods in New York City as our local case, examining the economic, political, social, cultural, and linguistic evidence of the transnationalism of this community. Many Dominicans maintain close ties to their native country through global networks that facilitate language and cultural maintenance. In spite of discrimination, Dominicans in the United States need to maintain their Spanish and want their children to develop fluent Spanish. Neglecting the language needs of transnational children leads to serious academic and social problems. Enriched bilingual bicultural programs would promote parallel development in both languages, providing cultural as well as linguistic instruction so that students can succeed in either country.     

Inclusive Education in New Zealand: culture,context and ideology

Parents and teachers in New Zealand who have developed inclusive, non‐ discriminatory classrooms and schools are supported by education and human rights legislation and by recent policy on special education. Resistance to inclusion within the education system may be seen as reflecting disablist attitudes and practices. Inclusion values diversity, not assimilation. It is consistent with separate development, which might be chosen, for example, by those in the deaf and Maori communities as a means to maintain their language and culture. Education policies and practices are examined from the perspective of disability as a sociopolitical issue within a broader context of new right, libertarian ideologies that have impacted on the resources and structure of education and other state activities in New Zealand over the last decade.     

Shifting Practices,Shifting Selves: Negotiations of Local and Global Cultures Among Adolescents in Northern Thailand

Around the world, adolescents increasingly grow up as members of local and global cultures. Little is known, however, about how precisely adolescents in rapidly globalizing societies blend local and global cultures. Interviews with 40 (16- to 19-year old) Thai adolescents, evenly divided between rural and urban communities, were analyzed alongside participant observation data for the interplay between local and global linguistic and dietary practices. Results revealed that urban adolescents inhabited differentiated selves, alternating between local and global practices based on interactional partner. The activation of each assisted them in navigating—and in some cases, reshaping—hierarchies encountered in everyday relationships. Findings contribute to the developmental science of globalization and point to the utility of interrogating cultural practices as sites of self-negotiation in rapidly changing cultural contexts.     

School mining clubs in Kono,Sierra Leone: the practices and imaginaries of a pedagogy of protest against social injustice in a conflict-affected context

ABSTRACT

This paper takes as a case study the pedagogical practices emergent from the educational interventions of a civil society organisation in the conflict affected region of Kono, Sierra Leone. Using a cultural political economy approach, it highlights the possibilities of pedagogy being leveraged to protest against perceived and experienced social injustices. In so doing it contributes to understanding of a context-specific model of teacher agency, rooted in the local and global challenges faced by pupils and their communities. It thereby illuminates an alternative to the generic and decontextualized framings of pedagogy frequently offered in human rights and peace education curricula.     

Native science,intercultural education and place‐conscious education: an Ecuadorian example

This paper explores ways to bring together local and global knowledge systems in the context of education. It first discusses the concepts of native science and of intercultural education, key ideas in Ecuadorian indigenous education today. Both of these concepts seek to unite the local and the global in new ways. It explores the views of Ecuadorian indigenous educators and leaders around issues of education and science. The primary need voiced by these individuals is that of defending their communities against various kinds of encroachment, economic as well as cultural, and the enterprise of education is viewed within this reality. Finally, the paper discusses the paradigm of place‐conscious education, which the author argues is a unifying conceptual framework that speaks to the concerns voiced by these educators as well as those of educators elsewhere.     

Social justice,capabilities and the quality of education in low income countries

The paper sets out a theoretical approach for understanding the quality of education in low income countries from a social justice perspective. The paper outlines and critiques the two dominant approaches that currently frame the debate about education quality, namely, the human capital and human rights approaches. Drawing principally on the ideas of Nancy Fraser and Amyarta Sen the paper then sets out an alternative approach based on a theory of social justice and of capabilities. The paper develops an overall understanding of how education quality can be understood in relation to the extent to which it fosters key capabilities that individuals, communities and society in general have reason to value. It then analyses three inter-related dimensions of the quality of education from a social justice perspective. Each dimension is considered in relation to contemporary policy debates and research including the work of EdQual. The first dimension, that of inclusion draws attention to the access of different groups of learners to quality inputs that facilitate the development of their capabilities, the cultural and institutional barriers that impact on the learning of different groups and priorities for overcoming these. The second dimension, that of relevance, is concerned with the extent to which the outcomes of education are meaningful for all learners, valued by their communities and consistent with national development priorities in a changing global context, whilst the third dimension, that of democracy considers how decisions about education quality are governed and the nature of participation in debates at the local, national and global levels. It is argued that a social justice framework can provide an alternative rationale for a policy emphasis on quality that encompasses but goes beyond that provided by human capital and rights approaches; that through emphasising the importance of context and through providing a normative basis for thinking about quality in relation to development, it provides a useful starting point for re-conceptualising education quality and how it can be evaluated; and, that it draws attention to the central importance of public dialogue and debate at the local, national and global levels about the nature of a quality education and quality frameworks at these levels.     

Economic globalization,politico‐cultural identity and university autonomy: the struggle of Tsinghua University in China

A great deal of research has addressed the tension between economic globalization and local cultural identity, and the tension between convergence in global policy objectives and divergence in local practices, but research has not explored the impact of the complex interactions between these tensions on an individual university, especially in relation to university autonomy. This paper attempts to bridge this gap. Based on a case study of Tsinghua University in China, this paper explores the university's role in three interrelated processes: the incorporation of international experience into higher education, in order to respond to economic globalization; the reinforcement of political education, as a means of preserving the state‐prescribed cultural identity; and the quest for autonomy, to facilitate the university's move towards world‐class status. Tensions raised by the interaction of these processes will also be discussed. This paper concludes by applying the concept of ‘glocalization’—i.e., ‘thinking and acting both globally and locally’—as a means of understanding the complex interrelations of global, national, and local factors that inform the translation of global imperatives into local realities in the context of Tsinghua.     

Letting the village be the teacher: a look at community-based learning in Northern Thailand

ABSTRACT

Higher education in the U.S. sees global learning as critical to student development. Over the last seventy years, study abroad has emerged as the method of choice for teaching global knowledge and intercultural competence. In this context, community-based global learning programs are a type of program where students live in communities to learn directly from people and place. Looking at a field studies program in Northern Thailand, this paper explores the educational mobility of study abroad and impact on host communities. It shares findings on the experiences of two communities who have hosted study abroad students for almost twenty years. Best practices and recommendations for faculty and institutions running community-based global learning programs are shared, including the centrality of community voice in curriculum, benefits of applying a range of pedagogical methods on course, the critical nature of adequately preparing students for cultural immersion, and compensating communities justly for their work.     

The New Improving America's Schools Act and Title I

Although they face many obstacles in common with other at-risk communities, Native Americans encounter other obstacles specific to their sociohistorical context. North American national policies imposed on Indian communities have resulted in political, social, and economic subjugation of a wholesegment of the national population. The historical context of this relationship continues to influence contemporary classrooms through institutionalized social relations, educational practices, and goals, all of which may be at odds with those of Native American communities and their perceived educational needs. The geographical and social isolation of many Native American reservation communities hinders recruitment and retention of competent teachers and administrators. Communication is impeded by both subtle and profound cultural differences between school personnel and the families they purport to serve. Native American leaders work to make teaching methods and curricula responsive to local tribal situations. Often, tribal efforts, expectations, and needs are at cross-purposes to national professional organizations, educational standards, and accreditation agencies that strive to achieve and maintain national uniformity in education practice. These obstacles are mountainous, but some guidelines for success are discernible; we have a map of the territory, and although there are no smooth roads across it as yet, we know how the land lies. For the obstacles, and for means of overcoming them, specific examples are drawn from our work in the Pueblo of Zuni in New Mexico.     

The Globalizing Labor Market in Education: Teachers as Cultural Ambassadors or Agents of Institutional Isomorphism?

Institutional isomorphists and other proponents of world culture theory argue that schools around the world are converging in many ways, whereas anthropologists and others question this conclusion, often arguing that local cultural differences belie superficial similarities. These viewpoints are not merely academic explanations of the spread and apparent convergence of education policies and practices around the world but are often present in policy and practice. The authors seek both to shed new light on these often-entrenched positions and to refocus the debate by considering the presence and influence of such views in the policies and practices of international teacher exchanges. In the context of the expanding global labor market for teachers, the authors consider the implicit theories underpinning international exchange policies and the ways in which the exchange teachers themselves make sense of these policies.

In particular, we recognize that although extensive work has been done on the dynamics of policy borrowing, little attention has been paid to international exchange teachers as potential agents of isomorphism, adopting and disseminating practices at the local level. Paradoxically, the exchange policies construct a universal teacher who is interchangeable across national (and cultural) contexts, a view resonant with institutional isomorphists, while justifying the exchanges rhetorically on the basis of their value as a cultural exchange, a view more consistent with the culturalists. The teachers who participate, however—and who effectively self-select by their beliefs that such exchanges are possible—accept the interchangeability thesis and view such exchanges as a professional development opportunity.     

Contested womanhood: women’s education and (re)production of gendered norms in rural Pakistani Muslim communities

In a world marred by the fears of religious extremism, Muslim women have become subjects of various global projects that aim to modernize ‘traditional’ Muslim societies through women’s education and empowerment. Embedded in these discourses is an assumption that all educated Muslim women will empower themselves through challenging the ‘oppressive’ structures of their families and communities. This paper challenges these homogeneous narratives of education and empowerment through highlighting the complexities of educated women’s daily lives in rural Pakistan. We situate the lived experiences of rural educated Pakistani women in global mainstream as well as in local historical narratives regarding the role and purpose of education for women. Our analysis reveals how the educated women participants’ lives were shaped by a complex gendered hierarchy that facilitated educated women to take on new roles while simultaneously requiring them to maintain harmonious relationships with family and community members.     

The activation,appropriation and practices of student-equity policy in Australian higher education

Current national reforms in Australian higher education have prioritised efforts to reduce educational disadvantage within a vernacular expression of neoliberal education policy. Student-equity policy in universities is enmeshed in a set of competitive student recruitment relations. This raises practice-based tensions as universities strive to meet specific institutional targets for low-socio-economic status (SES) and Indigenous student participation, whilst broadening participation more generally within the sector. This paper seeks empirically to trace the activation and appropriation of federal policy through two sites of higher education policy practices: a state government-sponsored equity practitioner body and two differently positioned universities, Dawson and McIllwraith, as they engage with low-SES schools. Working together Dorothy Smith’s insights into the textually mediated activation of local practices, Levinson and colleagues’ concept of the local appropriation of authorised policy, and Bourdieu’s notion of the contested field, we demonstrate that the generation of state level and institutionally specific policies for student-equity practices not only articulates to federal policy, but also appropriates the ruling relations of mandated policy. Further, the scope of these creative local appropriations is organised within a hierarchical academic field through which particular institutional imperatives, as well as the needs of low-SES students, are negotiated. The analysis demonstrates the vernacularisation of policy in the national rearticulation of global discourses, in appropriation at the level of the state body and in the practices of equity workers.     

US and Russian traditions in rhetoric,education and culture

Traditional rhetoric attempts to find the available means of persuasion in public assemblies, law courts and ceremonials and is grounded in cultural values and beliefs. Traditional rhetoric supports the development of social communities and posits education as a primary means of maintaining these communities. In contrast, contemporary alternatives to traditional rhetoric recognize multiple cultural values both within and between social communities and seek larger unities that encompass but do not eradicate individual and communal differences. US rhetorician Kenneth Burke seeks syntheses among multiple and potentially competing persuasive acts, promotes educational practices of mutual respect and reciprocal learning and advocates a rhetorical theory and practice with potentially global reach. Russian literary theorist Mikhail M. Bakhtin envisions novelistic practices of polyphony, heteroglossia and carnival as modes of dialogue that embrace individual differences within larger, more complex unities. These complementary rhetorical and dialogical practices support US multiculturalism and Russian transculturalism, respectively, but they also and more significantly promote dialogue across cultural boundaries as the basis of an intercultural rhetoric and an intercultural approach to curricula across a range of disciplines.     

Globalisation,global English: ‘futures trading’ in early childhood education

This paper explores my thinking about the issues which surround globalisation and Global English and their connections with the literacy practices, literacy events and futures for young children in home and out‐of‐home communities or institutions such as kindergartens, childcare or the early years of school. Exemplars from Australia and Singapore are provided to highlight these issues and the possible risks or benefits for children and families that seem to flow from globalisation processes. Central to the purpose of the paper are provocations for the field of early childhood education in order to further the discussions on how we respond to the challenges of connecting between the local and the global in our role as policy‐makers, parents, teacher educators or early childhood teachers.     

An Exploration of “Hyper-Local” Community-University Engagement in the Development of Smart Cities

The use of big data in smart cities poses new questions about higher education and community-university engagement practices in addressing longstanding social and economic exclusion in urban communities. Drawing on transdisciplinary ideas in higher education, cultural theory, and science and technology studies, primary concerns in the era of big data are considered with current conceptualizations of higher education engagement and anchor institution purposes. Tensions in the narratives of civic engagement and democratic practice for community well-being are juxtaposed with tensions in the smart citizen narrative implied by the idealized smart city design. A new framing of community-university relations under what I term “hyper-local” engagement is suggested for more justice-oriented and democratic practices when universities interact with their surrounding communities given the impending and sweeping changes occurring from the use of big data in social policy.     

Searching for good practice in teaching: a comparison of two subject‐based professional learning communities in a secondary school in Shanghai

Since the mid‐1990s, the concept of professional learning communities has arisen in the education field in the West, aiming to improve teachers’ professional competency by using collaborative approaches. Western studies indicate that these strategies help teachers achieve professional growth. Schools in China have had a long history of enhancing the professional competency of teachers by using collaboration in school‐based contexts. But do professional learning communities in Chinese schools, especially in times of change, do the same for Chinese teachers? This study provides empirical data from Chinese teachers to assist global discussions on school‐based professional development. The study uses qualitative data collection methods, including semi‐structured interviews, observations and documentary analysis, to investigate how teachers from two subject departments in a secondary school in Shanghai enhance their knowledge and practice within their subject‐based professional learning communities. Results show that members of these two communities have shared common goals and have developed a sense of collective accountability. The study also found that socio‐cultural factors, such as the collectivist values, authoritarian‐oriented practices and influences of interpersonal relationship, are crucial in the development of Chinese professional learning communities, even though different communities may differ in other respects.     

Regional Identity,Language and Education Policy in Switzerland

This article argues that identity and language issues exert a powerful influence on the politics and policies of education in Switzerland. Regional and local linguistic and cultural differences affect the education policies of the Swiss federal government, the 26 Swiss cantons, and the more than 3000 Swiss communities. Switzerland's highly decentralized political system and its mechanisms of direct democratic citizens' participation force educational policy-makers at the national, regional, and local level to take into account not only their own locality's culture and language, but also that of their neighboring towns, cantons, and regions. The article uses the example of the introduction of second language instruction as a case study to illustrate why and how education policy at all levels of the polity reflects Switzerland's cultural and linguistic diversity and the strong local and regional identities of the Swiss citizenry.