Nelly P. Stromquist

This study examined the choice of nonconventional fields of study by international women students at the undergraduate and graduate level. Using as subjects 150 graduate students (100 female and 50 male) and 100 undergraduate students (75 female and 25 male) from 10 universities in the United States, a field tested questionnaire was sent to 2500 students in all. A response rate of 21% to 55% for undergraduates and 33% to 56% for graduate students was achieved for a sample of 446 graduate students and 313 undergraduates. Analysis involved three comparisons: female and male; women selecting conventional and unconventional fields; and women and men students in unconventional fields. Conclusions were that field study choices develop over time with families, teachers, and schools playing important roles. In addition, competence in math and science were seen to affect the selection of nontraditional fields. These conclusions suggest that universities might adopt policies to provide more math and science courses, and to become more supportive of women students. Five figures and 80 tables supplement the text. Appendices contain the survey tools and a list of fields of study and rating of conventionality. (JB)

The Choice of Nonconventional Fields of Study by International Women Students

Daring to be Different

Michael L. Basile

In the educational arena, new ideas often compete as solutions to recurrent problems, making the concept of "innovations" a widespread discursive term. While expectations are substantial for each innovation, implementation of ideas has shown them to be more modest in practice. This book examines innovations in several developing countries, presenting case studies of technological, curricular, and organizational innovations selected for their magnitude in financial investment, scope, and duration. The case studies explore the social and political contexts that shaped the features of these innovations and what they accomplished over time in terms of teacher cost reduction, status mobility, access to education, and national unity. The experience of countries such as Brazil, Lesotho, the Philippines, and Namibia, and the influence of international agencies such as the World Bank are described and analyzed against theories of social and organizational change. The case studies themselves also serve as subjects for reflection on the prevailing positivist approaches to research and knowledge. The Politics of Educational Innovations should be of considerable interest to students of educational change, wither in the academic world or in the fields of government and international cooperation.

An Analysis of Knowledge and Power

Politics of Educational Innovations in Developing Countries

Steven J. Klees

Joel Samoff

World Bank and Education: Book Blurb For more than three decades, the World Bank has been proposing global policies for education. Presented as research-based, validated by experience, and broadly applicable, these policies are ideologically driven, insensitive to local contexts, and treat education as independent of international dynamics and national and local economies and cultures. Target countries, needing resources and unable to generate comparable research, find it difficult to challenge World Bank recommendations. The World Bank and Education: Critiques and Alternatives represents a powerful challenge to World Bank proposals. Probing core issues—equity, quality, finance, privatization, teaching and learning, gender, and human rights—highlights the disabilities of neoliberal globalization. The authors demonstrate the ideological nature of the evidence marshaled by the World Bank and the accompanying policy advice. Addressing key education issues in developing countries, the authors’ analyses provide tools for resisting and rejecting generic policy prescriptions as well as alternative directions to consider. Robert Arnove, in his preface, says, “whether the Bank is responsive to the critiques and alternatives brilliantly offered by the present authors, the book is certain to influence development and education scholars, policymakers, and practitioners around the globe.”

Critiques and Alternatives

The World Bank and Education

Karen Monkman

We offer in this book a collection of chapters that reflect a broad range of issues linking globalization to education in an accessible yet theoretically grounded and detailed form. The authors analyze phenomena on the global plane, in local spaces, and in the connections between the global and the local. New developments such as the growing impact of technology on education, the emergence of new policy actors, the growing expansion and segmentation of higher education, the salience of human rights, among others, are emerging as powerful agendas shaping all levels of education. In fundamental ways, the forces of globalization challenge the previous approaches and theories of national development. Recognizing the areas of convergence, dissonance, and conflict should help us grasp with greater clarity the implications of globalization for education and knowledge in the XXI century. The contributors to this book include both well-known scholars in the field of comparative education as well as young scholars. The chapters present a balanced geographical coverage in terms of authors and the countries/regions examined. The second edition has been thoroughly updated throughout and contains seven new chapters. The expanding interest in the intersection of education and globalization has brought up several new topics, including: the salience of global education policies, notably EFA; the expansion and differentiation of higher education; the emphasis on work-related training; the increasing role of non-state actors such as the transnational corporations; and greater attention to human rights. Also in this new edition is a chapter on qualitative methodologies especially suitable to the understanding of the intersection of globalization and education.

Integration and Contestation across Cultures

Globalization and Education

The seemingly amorphous phenomenon we call globalization involves concrete realities that make it a major source of social change in our contemporary world. Bringing globalization alive for students, this book uses examples and perspectives from economics, technology, and mass media to show how globalization is producing unprecedented impacts on education and culture. Education at all levels--from primary school to university education--is undergoing a world wide transformation of its objectives, values, and practices. New technologies and communication practices have promoted the West's optimism that market forces can replace the former governmental responsibilities for social welfare and the inclusion of diverse cultures. New emphasis on competition, quality control, parental choice, marketing, and the linkage of education to work means that schools all over the world face innovations and challenges to established practices. Meanwhile, the worldwide expansion of entertainment and advertising media convey notions of individualism and consumerism that are changing definitions of gender and solidarity among social groups. This book offers a vivid introduction to these complex changes, recognizing the role of the state while explaining new forces like transnational corporations and nongovernmental organizations. Stromquist points to governmental and school policies that can actively shape the future of education at a time of rapid change.

The Connectivity of Economic Power, Technology, and Knowledge

Education in a Globalized World

Gender Dimensions in Education in Latin America

Gustavo Fischman

This book calls for a different understanding of the professional preparation of pre-service teachers, critically reflecting on issues of caring and gender, and challenging the dominance of 'words only' educational research methodologies. Using conceptual tools from visual anthropology, cultural studies, feminism and critical pedagogy, Fischman focuses on the educational dilemmas that students and professors in teacher education programs face within institutions that reinforce, rather than challenge, oppressive class, racial, ethnic and gender dynamics. He pays special attention to the transmission of models of teaching that are invested of essential masculine and feminine patterns that potentially lead to two very distinctive professional careers: one that is associated with 'dedication' and 'care', and a second that emphasizes 'order' and 'command'.

Rethinking Gender Dynamics in Teacher Education

Imagining Teachers

This book explores the involvement of nineteen women in an emancipatory literacy program conducted under the administration of Paulo Freire in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The study presents the classroom experiences of these women and the psychological, cognitive, and behavioral changes they undergo over a three-year period. Their low limited acquisition of literacy and their limited reading and writing practices are explored in the context of their circumscribed environment of poverty, living in families and societies that place definite boundaries and expectations regarding the everyday tasks they must perform. The analysis of the women's individual experiences is linked to a political and structural inquiry into the grassroots groups and the political party implementing the literacy program. In this way, contradictions, ambiguities, and antagonisms within and among social forces regarding literacy for social change are made transparent. Literacy acquisition is shown to be a process fraught with multiple exogenous demands that distance these women from the constant exposure to print required for literacy competence.

Gender and Grassroots Dynamics in Brazil

Literacy for Citizenship

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Nelly P. Stromquist

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