(2022). Foreign Language Skills and Labour Market Earnings in Rwanda. Journal of Education and Work, v35 n6-7 p719-734. This paper investigates the extent to which proficiency in English and French as a form of human capital individually determine earnings in Rwanda's labour market and whether it still pays to be bilingual. Using data from the nationally representative Labour Force Survey conducted in 2018, our findings show that after controlling for other human capital and demographic factors, proficiency in both languages is positively rewarded. However, economic returns for proficiency in English language are higher than those for French proficiency and this gap widens from the median to the upper tail of the earnings distribution. Further, in the last two deciles of the earnings distribution, returns to English proficiency surpass returns to bilingual proficiency. A key finding of our study is that proficiency in English is highly rewarded while being bilingual in English and French pays but not in the upper 20% of the earnings distribution. The observed high returns to English language… [Direct]
(2018). Kigali and Phoenix: Historical Similarities between Pre-Genocide Rwanda and Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Wave. Critical Questions in Education, v9 n1 p40-61 Win. Historical events in Arizona, including very recent ones, are eerily similar to those of Rwanda. In this article, stories of Arizona's political history are relayed while recalling those leading to Rwanda's genocide. The stories include references to key roles education policy has played in the oppression of students labeled Tutsi and students labeled Mexican. These stories are then mapped with respect to Barbara Harff and Ted Gurr's checklist evaluating conditions that may portend impending oppression. Conclusions derived from the stories and the mapping suggest that Arizona's phenomena extend beyond its borders and into a Trump presidency, necessitating our obligation to be leaders by extending cur-rent technical conversations supporting multiculturalism to boisterous multilingual advocacy regarding any dehumanization of oppressed communities…. [PDF]
(2022). Teaching and Learning the Legacy of Residential Schools for Remembering and Reconciliation in Canada. History Education Research Journal, v19 n1 Article 4. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released a Final Report containing 94 Calls to Action. Included were calls for reform in how history is taught in Canadian schools, so that students may learn to address such difficult topics in Canadian history as Indian Residential Schools, racism and cultural genocide. Operating somewhat in parallel to these reforms, social studies curricula across Canada have undergone substantial revisions. As a result, historical thinking is now firmly embedded within the curricula of most provinces and territories. Coupled with these developments are various academic debates regarding public pedagogy, difficult knowledge and student beliefs about Canada's colonial past. Such debates require that researchers develop a better understanding of how knowledge related to Truth and Reconciliation is currently presented within Canadian classrooms, and how this may (or may not) relate to historical thinking. In this paper, I explore this… [PDF]
(2024). Decolonizing Anti-Racist Professional Development for PK-12 Educators: Centering Indigenous Peoples of the "Americas". ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Lesley University. This study explored challenges non-Indigenous educators face in centering Indigenous histories and experiences in anti-racist professional development (PD) workshops for PK-12 educators. It addressed the process of transforming anti-racist PD and the significance of learning from Native American community members. The invisibility of Indigenous Peoples extends beyond physical aspects tied to attempted genocide and includes the invisibility of the political rights of tribal citizens. It encompasses exclusion from historical conversations, anti-racism research, and statistical data. In contrast, the hypervisibility of stereotypical images and inaccurate information starkly contrasts the invisibility of authentic images and accurate resources. The Indigenous methodology of two-eye seeing is employed. It intertwines the author's personal experiences in decolonizing professional development through testimonio while complementing the research data. Narrative interviews, conducted through… [Direct]
(2016). Global Gender Discourses in Education: Evidence from Post-Genocide Rwanda. Comparative Education, v52 n4 p492-515. This paper investigates global gender policy discourses within the education realm in post-genocide Rwanda. Drawing on interview data from students in seven secondary schools and Unterhalter's gender framework (Unterhalter, Elaine. 2007. "Gender, Schooling and Global Social Justice." New York, NY: Routledge), I analyse the extent global discourses are integrated into national education documents and how students understand global discourses around "gender equality". I find that in national education policies and texts, discourses around gender equality are framed as a means to development, as a human right, and in relation to the past conflict rather than for the transformation of patriarchal structures. Similarly, students draw on themes from global policy discourse around development and rights but at the same time "re-gender" this for a local context, propagating a public/private divide and cultural and biological stereotypes. Consequently, gendered… [Direct]
(2020). Voice(s) of a Black Man. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, v18 n1 Fall. Since March of 2020, two pandemics have hit the United States of America like a bag of bricks. The health pandemic as a result of COVID-19 that has killed over 180,000 Americans and the racially-charged genocides that continues to murder our Black brothers and sisters. As a result of constant disregard for Black lives, in part 1, we analyze the ongoing threat on Black bodies by police officers while simultaneously illustrating why Black Lives Matter. Additionally, in part 2, we explore what it means to be a Black person on America's post-secondary campuses while naming "privilege" and illustrating what White allies can do to support their Black peers, colleagues, friends, families, and communities. Moreover, in part 3, we wrap it all together by illustrating the importance of voting in the upcoming election and why this is the election of our lives…. [PDF]
(2021). Critical Place-Based Pedagogy in an Inner-City University Department: Truth, Reconciliation and Neoliberal Austerity. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, v29 n1 p137-154. In 2015, Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) described Canada's residential school policy, established in the 1880's and active through most of the 20th century, as 'cultural genocide'. Earlier that same year, Maclean's magazine described Winnipeg as Canada's most racist Winnipeg. Winnipeg, situated on Treaty One territory, has the largest Indigenous population of any Canadian City. Situated in the centre of the City, The University of Winnipeg is seeking ways to respond to the "TRC Calls to Action" and is exploring ways to "Indigenise." In this paper I describe the pedagogical approach of a small university department purposefully situated outside of the main campus in a low-income inner-city neighbourhood with a large Indigenous population. The department integrates critical, place-based pedagogies rooted in an understanding of systemic oppression. We agree that reconciliation begins with acknowledging the "truth" about the… [Direct]
(2020). Critical Social Justice Education and the Assault on Truth in White Public Pedagogy: The US-Dakota War Re-Examined. Palgrave Macmillan This book explores tensions between "critical social justice" and what the author terms "white justice as fairness" in public commemoration of Minnesota's US-Dakota War of 1862. First, the book examines a regional "white public pedagogy" demanding "objectivity" and "balance" in teaching-and-learning activities with the purpose of promoting fairness toward white settlers and the extermination campaign they once carried out against Dakota people. The book then explores the dilemmas this public pedagogy created for a group of majority-white college students co-authoring a traveling museum exhibit on the war during its 2012 sesquicentennial. Through close analyses of interviews, field notes, and course artifacts, this volume unpacks the racial politics that drive "white justice as fairness," revealing a myriad of ways this common sense of justice resists "critical social justice education," foremost by teaching… [Direct]
(2023). Amid Signs of Change: Language Policy, Ideology and Power in the Linguistic Landscape of Urban Rwanda. Language Policy, v22 n1 p73-94 Mar. In this paper we explore the nexus of language policy, ideology and power in the linguistic landscape of urban Rwanda. In post-genocide Rwanda, English has been promoted and gained status. This has led to an increased usage of English on shop signs in the streets of Kigali and other towns in Rwanda at the expense of both French and Kinyarwanda. Unique quantitative language data documented in streets before 2008 are in this study compared to data collected in 2018, in the same streets. This forms the background for analysis of official discourse, targeting language policy changes, especially after the 2008 decision to appoint English as the language of administration as well as the medium of instruction throughout the educational system from grade 1 on. This decision was made despite the fact that Rwanda has a national language, Kinyarwanda, known by 99.4 per cent of the population. The analysis shows that political aspects of language policy decisions are downplayed. Officially, both… [Direct]
(2013). Patterns of Genocide: Can We Educate Year 9 in Genocide Prevention?. Teaching History, n153 p30-37 Dec. Alison Stephen, who has wrestled for many years with the challenges of teaching emotional and controversial history within a multiethnic school setting, relished the opportunity to link her school's teaching of the Holocaust with a comparative study of other genocides. As she reports, her aim was to not create a hierarchy of suffering or significance but to expand her students' knowledge and understanding and to equip them with a framework within which to analyse patterns of similarity and difference. Her article offers an invaluable guide to the processes of planning, both by alerting readers to the rich and varied resources available on-line, and by illustrating the power of collaboration–within a school setting, between a school and its local community, and across the wider history education community. The account that she presents of a short scheme of work in history and of a Year 9 "Global Awareness Day" reveals how history departments can contribute powerfully to… [Direct]
(2023). Partnering to Support K-12 Instruction of Difficult Topics through Inquiry-Based Professional Learning. School-University Partnerships, v16 n2 p101-109. Purpose: Many K-12 teachers teach difficult topics as part of their curricula, and discussions of difficult topics are common across grade levels and content areas. As teachers increasingly engage with difficult topics in their classrooms, the need for high-quality professional learning experiences has also grown. In response, the purpose of this article is to introduce an emerging partnership between the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Initiative at Penn State and the Red Lion Area School District (Red Lion, Pennsylvania), conceptualized from the outset with an explicit focus on intentionally engaging in collaborative, inquiry-based professional learning surrounding difficult topics in formalized curricula and within educational practice. Design/methodology/approach: The article briefly describes how the partners came together, then provides a high-level overview of how they approached their first year of collaboration. Next, the partners' adaptation of inquiry-based… [Direct]
(2022). Teaching Difficult Histories in Difficult Times: Stories of Practice. Research and Practice in Social Studies Series. Teachers College Press Despite limitations and challenges, teaching about difficult histories is an essential aspect of social studies courses and units across grade levels. This practical resource highlights stories of K-12 practitioners who have critically examined and reflected on their experiences with planning and teaching histories identified as difficult. Featuring the voices of teacher educators, classroom teachers, and museum educators, these stories provide readers with rare examples of how to plan for, teach, and reflect on difficult histories. The book is divided into four main sections: Centering Difficult History Content, Centering Teacher and Student Identities, Centering Local and Community Contexts, and Centering Teacher Decision-making. Key topics include teaching about genocide, slavery, immigration, war, racial violence, and terrorism. This dynamic book highlights the practitioner's perspective to reveal how teachers can and do think critically about their motivations and the methods… [Direct]
(2020). Translating Global into Local/Local to Global Learning into Teaching Practices. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, v5 n2 p33-47. During an eight month period in 2019 the researchers conducted case study classroom-based observations and pursued conversations with ten study abroad participants from four Fulbright-Hays study abroad programs (India, South Korea, Israel, SeneGambia). Observing, documenting and reflecting on the translation of global to local and local to global academic, cultural and pedagogical insights in the work of the preservice and in-service teachers is the focus of the grounded theory qualitative research study. Global experiential learning for college students is repeatedly described as transformative, while research studies have indicated the difficulty in identifying specific outcomes of short term study abroad experiences. By working with preservice and in-service teachers, this qualitative case study researches new conceptual perspectives and quotidian meaning-making practices in actual classrooms. The coded grounded theory case study research details turn-key classroom activities and… [PDF]
(2019). Residential Schools and Indigenous Peoples: From Genocide via Education to the Possibilities for Processes of Truth, Restitution, Reconciliation, and Reclamation. Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education. Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education "Residential Schools and Indigenous Peoples" provides an extended multi-country focus on the transnational phenomenon of genocide of Indigenous peoples through residential schooling. It analyses how such abusive systems were legitimised and positioned as benevolent during the late nineteenth century and examines Indigenous and non-Indigenous agency in the possibilities for process of truth, restitution, reconciliation, and reclamation. The book examines the immediate and legacy effects that residential schooling had on Indigenous children who were removed from their families and communities in order to be 'educated' away from their 'savage' backgrounds, into the 'civilised' ways of the colonising societies. It brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, Greenland, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States in telling the stories of what happened to Indigenous peoples as a result of the interring of Indigenous… [Direct]
(2019). Does Education Lead to Pacification? A Systematic Review of Statistical Studies on Education and Political Violence. Review of Educational Research, v89 n1 p46-92 Feb. Does more education lead to less political violence, and may education thus be a tool for peace? This article provides the first systematic review of the existing quantitative literature on education and political violence. Looking at arguments pertaining to levels, expansion, inequality, and content of education, we identify 42 quantitative studies from the time period 1996 to 2016 that test the relationship between various measures of education and political violence. An emerging scholarly consensus seems to be that education has a general pacifying effect. However, this general conclusion is challenged by recent evidence showing above-average levels of education among terrorists and genocide perpetrators. This, as well as other findings, underscore that the relationship between education and political violence is complex and multidimensional, depending on type of political violence, mediating factors, and level of analysis. We conclude with policy implications from our findings… [Direct]