(2012). Citizenship Education and the Promise of Democracy: A Study of UNESCO Associated Schools in Brazil and Canada. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, v7 n3 p241-254 Nov. With current manifestations of globalization creating local problems, including widening equity gaps, increased environmental destruction and burgeoning poverty, many policymakers, civil society, organizations and educators are seeking models of education that promise social justice and a democratic public sphere that reflects more than democracy of and for elites. This study of UNESCO Associated Schools, located in Brazil and Canada, identified how educators negotiate contradictory global agendas and employ UNESCO ideals of a peaceful world, human rights and democracy, and a healthy environment to create a platform for citizenship education. While there is no package of liberation and transformational education that comes with being a UNESCO Associated School, there is encouraging evidence that educators are working in creative and critical ways to educate toward more engaged citizens who are capable of contributing to a strengthened public sphere. This article compares the… [Direct]
(2011). Learning through Doing: Suggesting a Deliberative Approach to Children's Political Participation and Citizenship. Perspectives in Education, v29 n1 p46-54 Mar. The paper focuses on the issue of children's political participation and considers the idea of political participation understood as a human right. Contingently it considers the question of children as agents or potential political actors, as well as the assumed limitations of their role. The paper begins by offering an outline of how children's rights have come to be considered in the international context as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the idealized concept of childhood that is implicit in this convention. The paper then proposes some alternative approaches to understanding childhood and children's status, with a view to proposing a more nuanced approach to their political participation that neither treats them as passive recipients of duties towards them, nor as the voiceless possessions of groups or families. This is followed by an account of the emerging debate about deliberative democracy as a more substantive approach to… [Direct]
(2012). Policies and Initiatives: Reforming Teacher Education in Nigeria. Bulgarian Comparative Education Society, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (10th, Kyustendil, Bulgaria, Jun 12-15, 2012). Much discussion surrounding educational policy currently is international in character. Governments, policy makers, stakeholders and many international organizations of both developed and developing countries have become concerned with how policies, practices, and outcomes in one country can be compared with those in other countries. Comparative Education, as a subject of study, is more often found at the post-graduate than at the under-graduate level of university studies. Time is allocated for the introduction of the subject of Comparative Education. The field of Comparative Education is introduced in its historical perspective, and students learn about the few chosen foreign educational systems and institutions. In the teacher training programmes there is hardly any space and time left for the specific issues with which Comparative Education is also concerned, such as minority education, education of women, economics and politics of education, cross-cultural education, and others…. [PDF]
(1998). 1998–Human Rights Year. Canadian Social Studies, v32 n2 p39-40 Win. Promotes teaching human rights at every educational level in conjunction with the United Nations-declared Human Rights Year. Provides World Wide Web addresses for resources on human rights and the Human Rights Year, including the United Nations and Amnesty International. Summarizes UN-suggested guidelines for human rights commemoration celebrations. (DSK)…
(1998). Bringing Human Rights Home: Human Rights Education for the 21st Century. Social Education, v62 n6 p377-80 Oct. Discusses the purpose and focus of human-rights education. Traces the definition of human rights, emphasizing the role of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Compares the U.S. record on human rights against the UDHR. Suggests that human-rights education is limited, and offers ideas for improvement (DSK)…
(2010). Cultural Sites of Meaning: Challenges and Pitfalls for Gender-Based Research. Education Inquiry, v1 n4 p329-345. This article classifies four constructs of feminist identity and focuses on the role and implication of these identities in an educational field research project which aims to empower girls in diverse school communities in South Africa through human rights education. The subject is explored by examining specific genres of knowledge and inquiry in feminist epistemology and educational philosophy and interrogating the implication when juxtaposed in the research process and outcomes. A central argument in this discourse is that both the researcher and subject participants experience gender, activism and consciousness in such a way as can be linked to type within the given classification. The conclusions of the article challenge the dominant construction of gender and power in the research process and outcomes and argue in light of the impact on the validity and theoretical development of the research project…. [Direct]
(2010). Exploring the Literacy Environment: A Case Study from Urban Senegal. Comparative Education Review, v54 n2 p243-269 May. The low literacy rates in developing countries have been repeatedly problematized as a major constraint to socioeconomic development by education planners and policy makers. In the 1950s and 1960s, the dominant rationale for literacy development was one of promoting economic growth. In more recent years, by contrast, literacy has increasingly come to be recognized as a human right, contributing to political participation, gender equality, and so forth. Another issue concerning literacy, frequently overlooked, is that people in low-income countries are often deprived of reading and writing materials–even dictionaries in their own languages. Resources are generally very scarce. This article presents a research which explores the literacy environment in an urban Senegalese context by presenting a comparative perspective on the distribution, the types, and the quality of literacy materials such as books and posters. (Contains 4 tables and 11 footnotes.)… [Direct]
(2010). Diverse Classrooms–Opportunities and Challenges. Intercultural Education, v21 suppl 1 pS1-S5. In April 2009, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam invited more than 30 experts in the field of Holocaust education from a dozen countries for a three-day seminar to share their thoughts and experiences to provide insight into the kinds of opportunities and challenges educators might face in the future when teaching about the Holocaust in diverse classrooms and other diverse contexts. This article presents a number of questions which highlighted the discussion of new successful ways of teaching the Holocaust. In the authors' opinion, the themes highlighted in this supplemental issue of \Intercultural Education\ will help educational professionals in the fields of, for instance, Holocaust education, human rights education, citizenship education and intercultural/multicultural education gain insight into how teaching about the Holocaust and related issues can help them to see how their disciplines are interconnected…. [Direct]
(2011). Religion in Education in South Africa: Was Social Justice Served?. South African Journal of Education, v31 n3 p381-393. The promulgation of South African policy regarding the place of religion in public education was delayed until 2003, after a lively debate. The National Policy on Religion in Education effectively banned confessional, sectarian religion from public schools, but allowed for the teaching of Religion Studies as an academic subject and for religious observances, on condition that these were offered in a fair and equitable manner. Given the nature of the debate around religion and education in South Africa, it can be asked whether the state has served social justice through this Policy. A discussion of human rights, social justice, morality and the role of the state leads to the conclusion that although the state never actually mentioned the philosophical or moral driving forces behind the Policy, it is most likely that it applied tenets of secularism, value-plurality, pragmatic political expediency and modus "Vivendi." This was probably the best route for the state to follow… [PDF]
(2016). Teachers' Perception towards Total Quality Management in Secondary Schools. Online Submission, EDUCARE: International Journal for Educational Studies v9 n1 p41-48 Aug. Quality has been the goal of human beings right from the beginning of life. It has been the driving force for all human endeavors. Quality is also the inspiration for human being to move from better to the best available option. The highest demanding and desirable need of the every hour remains the quality in every sphere. The world has been made for human being and teacher is the person, who deals with humans to mould him. There is a need to assess the perception towards quality. The purpose of this paper is to present the perception of Secondary School teachers of Kulgam district in Jammu and Kashmir, India, regarding TQM (Total Quality Management) in education. It is an attempt to get perception of Secondary School teachers and to understand how these perceptions vary by demographic variables, such as subject specialization (Arts and Sciences) and gender. For this, data were collected from 200 high school teachers from Kulgam district in Jammu and Kashmir on the J.J. Bonstingle… [PDF]
(2010). Access to Elementary Education in India: Politics, Policies and Progress. CREATE Pathways to Access. Research Monograph No. 44. Online Submission This monograph examines progress in, and policies for, access to elementary education over the past 60 years, the role played by political factors in the process of policy formulation and implementation and the drivers and inhibitors of the implementation of reforms in elementary education in recent years in India. Drawing on interviews and documentary sources, the monograph analyses the growth in central direction and international support for elementary education alongside the parallel and at times countervailing trend towards decentralisation and community participation. It outlines the tensions between agendas focused on expansion, quality improvement, human rights and economic development that led to the legal enactment in 2009 of the Right to Education. Overall, political will is found to be an important driver of progress while corruption, resistance by vested interests and the general condition of poverty in rural areas are among the key inhibitors. (Contains 10 footnotes and… [PDF]
(2011). '"We Saw Inhumanity Close up." What Is Gained by School Students from Scotland Visiting Auschwitz?. Journal of Curriculum Studies, v43 n2 p163-184. As the education for citizenship agenda continues to impact on schools in the UK and with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) in conjunction with the Scottish Government introducing its Lessons From Auschwitz (LFA) project for students and teachers in Scotland, this article focuses on the Scottish context and investigates the school processes by which students are chosen to participate in the LFA project, the impact the LFA project has on student personal growth, and the range of follow-up activities in their schools and communities. The methodology employed online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews which were designed to ascertain student perceptions of the LFA project and the impact that this project had on student participants, their schools, and their communities. Findings demonstrate that the student cohort were highly academic students who took their responsibilities on return to their schools very seriously and organized a wide range of events, both in their schools… [Direct]
(2022). Information-Seeking Behaviour of Parents of Students with NDD: A Case Study of Parents of Students with Intellectual Disability. Online Submission, International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education (INT-JECSE) v14 n5 p7959-7966. Information is extremely vital for human existence, however, searching for the right information at a particular point in time is quite challenging. In the context of this research, information-seeking behaviour of parents entails the kind of behaviour that parents exhibit in order to have access to the required information for their child with intellectual disability (ID). There is a paucity of literature with respect to information-seeking behaviour of parents of children with ID. The present study intends to close this lacuna by exploring the information-seeking behaviour of parents of students with ID in the Nigerian context. Through a qualitative research approach, six (6) participants who were selected using a purposive sampling technique were studied. The instrument for data collection was a semi-structured interview. Three themes emerged from the data analysis. The study showed that information-seeking behaviour of parents of students with ID is characterised by consulting… [PDF]
(2015). A Tangled Path: Negotiating Leadership for, in, of, and with Diverse Communities. Leadership and Policy in Schools, v14 n1 p1-11. This article addresses issues of educational leadership in postcolonial and post-conflict environments. The focus relates to large-scale testing protocols, diversity in schools, asset-based community development, and communications technology. The article highlights the importance of context to the tenets of social justice, equitable human experience, and the right of all to have a meaningful and productive life. This article was originally presented as a keynote talk to the joint conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Administration and the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management…. [Direct]
(2023). Analysis of Discourses in the Islamic World about the Ban upon Women's Education by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Issues in Educational Research, v33 n3 p1148-1160. The women's education ban in Afghanistan is a vital issue for people in the country and also a challenging issue for the Islamic world. The researcher used critical discourse analysis to analyse the mediated discourses in the Islamic world regarding the women's education ban in Afghanistan. An online search was applied by using key terms and headings such as "girls deprived from education in Afghanistan"; "women education ban in Afghanistan"; "women education bans by the Taliban in Afghanistan"; and "the ongoing discourses in the Islamic world regarding the women education ban in Afghanistan". A total of 62 articles were recorded, and after the exclusion of duplicated and irrelevant articles, 20 news articles were selected, reviewed, coded, and analysed. The Foucauldian viewpoint was adopted to consider the relationship between discourse and power, and the three-dimensional model of Fairclough (1993) was applied to guide the critical discourse… [Direct]