Browsing by Subject "Comparative education"
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Item Foresight Programs for Educational Policy: Program Participants' Perceptions and Experiences with Outcomes.(2019-08) Thayer, TryggviIncreasingly rapid technological and social changes pose significant challenges for educators and educational policymakers in Iceland. To address these challenges, Icelandic policymakers implemented two foresight programs intended to provide anticipatory intelligence and promote long-term perspectives for educational policymaking. Foresight programs are intended to produce intelligence and capacities that encourage stakeholder organizations to adopt long-term perspectives regarding policy change and development. Foresight outcomes have been categorized as: immediate outcomes, resulting from initial program activities; intermediate outcomes, resulting from the transfer of immediate outcomes to stakeholder organizations; and ultimate outcomes, that are expected to occur over the long-term. This multi-methods case study examined two foresight programs implemented in Iceland, the Iceland 2020 program and the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture's foresight program on technology and education. The programs were implemented to explore, and address, future challenges relating to education, and in the case of the Iceland 2020 program, other related issues. The study used Engeström's (1999) Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to explore how immediate foresight outcomes were transferred from program contexts to program participants' organizational contexts and their affects on organizations. The study included a survey and semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method to develop themes as they emerged. The data were further analyzed using the CHAT framework to explore the processes that were involved in the transfer of immediate foresight outcomes between the program and organizational contexts. The findings suggest that foresight program coordinators and planners need to ensure that program participants have a sufficient understanding of foresight and futures methods to recognize immediate foresight outcomes and how to engage others within their organizations with them. The outcomes of the study provide an empirical foundation for extending current models of foresight processes and outcomes as they relate to educational policy. Furthermore, they help to better inform foresight program coordinators and planners to ensure that program objectives are met.Item Investigating policy transfer from both sides: case study of a technical and vocational education and training model in South Africa(2013-10) Stuart, Jonathan DavidA manufacturing TVET program, known as M-Powered, was developed in the United States and successfully transferred to twelve sites in South Africa. This process took several years to complete, and the new TDM-Powered Program, aimed at skill development in the tool, die, and mold-making industry has now been running for four years. The research question for this study was: "What features were important in the successful transfer of M-Powered to TDM-Powered?" Using a model from the education policy borrowing field, four specific sub-questions were utilized to break the transfer process into distinct phases. The objective of this investigation was to understand and describe the experiences of those on the US and South African sides who worked to make this happen. By incorporating the perspectives of both those from the borrowing and lending countries this case study provides an example of an industry led cross-national initiative to develop manufacturing competency via transfer of a TVET model. This research was conducted as a qualitative case study using a constructionist lens. Methods for data collection have involved the triangulation of document analysis, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. The same process of investigation was undertaken in both countries with fifteen participants in total. Findings from this case study paint a specific picture of what was involved in the TVET model's transfer both in terms of a narrative story and from the collective themes of those on each side. An analysis of these findings allowed for comparisons to be drawn between those themes from the data and in light of the literature. Though not meant to be an evaluation of the process or programs in either country, it is hoped that this record is instructive. The specific implications of this study are focused around these areas: (A) the ways in which the fields of HRD, TVET, and education policy borrowing interact with and inform one another; (B) the impact of an industry led initiative to solve a national skills crisis by looking abroad; (C) incorporation of the perspectives of lenders and borrows leading to a more holistic view of educational program transfer.Item Producing a Culture of Inclusion: Inclusive Refugee Education for Syrian Refugee Youth in Jordan(2019-05) Cohen, ElishevaIn its 2012-2016 Global Education Strategy, the UNHCR introduced a new paradigm of refugee education that called for inclusive refugee education. In this model of schooling, refugees study the curriculum of the host country, from local teachers and, often, alongside local students. While this model of refugee education is upheld for its potential to provide high quality education for all students, limited research of this context shows refugees experience discrimination and harassment in these spaces (Bellino & Dryden-Peterson, 2018; Mendenhall, Russell, Buckner, 2017). Following the outbreak of conflict in Syria in 2011, over 650,000 Syrians sought safety and protection in Jordan. Over 80 percent of those refugees live in urban areas, and almost half of them are school-aged (UNHCR, 2019). To accommodate the educational needs of Syrian refugee children and youth, the Government of Jordan provides inclusive refugee education such that Syrian refugees attend Jordanian schools and learn the Jordanian curriculum from Jordanian teachers, often alongside Jordanian students. This dissertation draws on 12 months of ethnographic research to examine the processes and practices of inclusive refugee education and the cultural production of “inclusion” that occurs within the educational space of Forseh Tanieh, a non-formal educational program in Jordan. Through this dissertation I advance two arguments. First, I argue that inclusive refugee education holds potential to serve as a space to foster inclusion among refugee and national students. I suggest that the flexible and supportive conditions of non-formal education enable students and teachers to engage in an ongoing process of cultivating, navigating, and contesting inclusion of refugees. Second, I contend that despite its potential, inclusive refugee education is not immune to the social, cultural, political, and economic struggles taking place in society and that these struggles structure and constrain teachers’ and students’ understanding of and approaches to the production of inclusion. Based on my findings, I propose a theory of inclusion in the context of inclusive refugee education that conceptualizes it as an ongoing process that is continually being constructed, navigated, and negotiated by multiple education actors whose interactions in the classroom reflect unequal relations of power in wider Jordanian society.Item Shadow education in the southeast of South Korea: Mothers' experiences and perspectives of shadow education(2014-08) Lee, Soo KyoungThis study examines mothers' experiences and perspectives of shadow education in the southeast regions of South Korea, Daegu and Changwon, in the multiple layered sociocultural and historical context of its society. When I was immersed in the mothers' world in those selected regions of South Korea in 2011 and 2012, expenditures on shadow education decreased for the first time. While there was still high demand for shadow education in order to secure "the foothold for better life opportunity", mothers I came across in the selected regions showed ambivalence about the prevalent pervasive shadow education. To fill the gap of literature on Korean shadow education, this study looked at mothers' motives for their children's shadow education and perceptions of social changes including education and family involvement. Their lived experiences and ambivalent feelings toward shadow education were scrutinized in order to understand the Korean shadow education phenomenon from the mothers' viewpoint. The study found that mothers' perspectives on shadow education practices were extremely complex. It is argued that mothers' pursuit of shadow education has been their way to adapt to the rapidly changing education and society. The mother participants perceived their role in their children's education as being most critical and their ways to be involved in their children's education were ever changing. The gendered practice of providing shadow education to children was changed from the image of `mothers watching from behind' to the image of `mothers suggesting ways in front'. What remains the same is, however, the strong connection between prestigious universities and desired occupations. Academic learning was still foundation of all endeavors for school aged children. The complexity of mothers' experiences of shadow education is also found in their ambivalence towards this prevalent phenomenon. Knowing the mothers' ambivalence and concern about educational migration, mothers wished to live in a society where true learning can take place for their children. Unique contributions of this study are to understand mothers' experiences and perceptions of Korean shadow education outside of the capital, Seoul, and mothers' perceptions of the different genres of shadow education. Mothers in the selected regions in the southeast of Korea, Daegu and Changwon, viewed mothers in Seoul as more demanding and motivated to provide shadow education and they legitimized some of their actions of providing extraordinary amounts of shadow education. Their viewpoints of educational environment in different places also went beyond the national border. Seeking a different educational environment abroad was, however, found only in several upper-middle class families who could afford such education. Stratified shadow education also suggests the role of shadow education in reproducing social class through education. Lastly, this study calls for further studies of transnational shadow education through educational migration and other family members' experiences and perspectives of the shadow education phenomenon.Item There is no nation without a language (Ní tír gan teanga): Language policy and the Irish Dancing Commission(2017-01) Farrell, AnnaThis study examines how language is employed to (re)create an Irish national identity through one popular form of non-formal education – Irish dancing. I specifically examine the entangled histories of the Gaelic League and An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG), the Irish Dancing Commission dance. Together these two organizations have engaged in an anti-colonial project spanning nearly a century that links the Irish language, dance, and an idealized Irish identity. This year (2016) is the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the event that marked the beginning of the successful Irish independence movement. In light of this anniversary, language issues are at the forefront of many peoples’ minds. This dissertation considers to what extent the articulation between language and dance continues in Ireland today, and how the role of language and dance in (re)creating an idealized Irish identity has changed from an anti-colonial project to one that seeks to reify Irish national identity in an era of globalization. Furthermore, I argue for a renewed focus on non-formal education in the field of Comparative and International Development Education, specifically the role that non-formal education can play in identity formation and fomenting language attitudes.