Sisifo: Educational Sciences Journal

Sisifo is an online journal produce at Educational Sciences R&D Unit of the University of Lisbon.

From Sisifo Website:

The main purpose of this journal is to bring UI&DCE’s scientific production to the fore, via a first-line publication and diffusion capable of enhancing further discussion among researchers both within and outside the Unit. We opted for a bilingual edition (in Portuguese and English) as a strategic move to internationalize our research activity, helping to promote interchanges that make networks and projects surpassing the internal scope of the Educational Sciences R&D Unit of the University of Lisbon and crossing national borders not only viable, but also sustainable and visible.

This journal is clearly a publication in the field of Educational Sciences, regarded as part of a broader field – that of social and human sciences, the limitations of which are the result of historical and social factors, found both within and outside the social field of research practices.

The title chosen for the journal also requires a brief explanation. Scientific work is a constant search for truth through a knowledge which is always provisional and conjectural. It is a permanent and never ending task, which implies questioning results and always beginning again. It is from these characteristics of scientific work that it is possible to compare the human adventure in the search for knowledge with Sisyphus fate of incessantly restarting the same task. Our suggestion is to imagine the researcher, as has actually been suggested by Albert Camus, less as an “absurd hero” and more as a “fortunate Sisyphus”.

Our ambition is to publish three issues a year. Each edition of the journal is organized in thematic dossiers and has a responsible editor.

link: http://sisifo.fpce.ul.pt/

 

Call for papers: London International Conference on Education (LICE-2010)

From LICE Website:

The London International Conference on Education (LICE) is an international refereed conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practices in education. The LICE promotes collaborative excellence between academicians and professionals from Education.

The aim of LICE is to provide an opportunity for academicians and professionals from various educational fields with cross-disciplinary interests to bridge the knowledge gap, promote research esteem and the evolution of pedagogy. The LICE-2010 invites research papers that encompass conceptual analysis, design implementation and performance evaluation.

The topics in LICE-2010 include but are not confined to the following areas:

Academic Advising and Counselling Art Education Adult Education APD/Listening Acoustics in Education Environment Business Education Counsellor Education Curriculum, Research and Development Competitive Skills Continuing Education Distance Education Early Childhood Education Educational Administration Educational Foundations Educational Psychology Educational Technology Education Policy and Leadership Elementary Education E-Learning E-Manufacturing

ESL/TESL E-Society Geographical Education Geographic information systems Health Education Higher Education History Home Education Human Computer Interaction Human Resource Development Indigenous Education ICT Education Internet technologies Imaginative Education Kinesiology andLeisure Science K12 Language Education Mathematics Education Mobile Applications Multi-Virtual Environment

Music Education Pedagogy Physical Education (PE) Reading Education Writing Education Religion and Education Studies Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) Rural Education Science Education Secondary Education Second life Educators Social Studies Education Special Education Student Affairs Teacher Education Cross-disciplinary areas of Education Ubiquitous Computing Virtual Reality Wireless applications Other Areas of Education

All the accepted papers will appear in the proceedings and modified version of selected papers will be published in special issues peer reviewed journals.

Click Call for Papers for information on submitting a paper!

 

Call for papers: New Voices in Labour Studies: Emerging Perspectives on Workers and Workplaces October 15-16, 2010 York University, Toronto, ON

Thanks to Mousumi Mukherjee for the link:

CALL FOR PAPERS
New Voices in Labour Studies: Emerging Perspectives on Workers and

Workplaces October 15-16, 2010 York University, Toronto, ON After thirty years of neoliberal economic policies, employer offensives, and global economic restructuring, worker power has been seriously undermined both in Canada and globally. Workers today face a hostile organizing climate, the proliferation of precarious employment, and severe job instability. Yet, as in the past, workers and their allies are rising to these challenges through innovative union campaigns, community organizing,

and political action. We invite paper proposals that address the changing nature of work in the
contemporary global economy, the current challenges faced by workers and their organizations, and forms of collective action undertaken to resist neoliberalism.  We also invite paper proposals that place these processes in historical perspective, using history to shed light on contemporary problems.

The conference is designed to provide an interdisciplinary venue for “new voices in labour studies”. Preference will be given to senior Ph.D. students and scholars who completed their Ph.D. in the last six years. We do, however, encourage a range of junior scholars to submit. The conference will take place at York University, Toronto on October 15-16, 2010. The two-day event will include thematic panels, workshops to discuss teaching and research issues (e.g. labour in the classroom, funding labour
research, working with labour and community partners), and an informal evening social event to be held in downtown Toronto. Recent graduates will have the opportunity to meet emerging voices in the field and interact with more senior scholars.

Depending on budgetary approval, the conference committee is hoping to cover all meals, conference materials, and to defray the cost of accommodations.  Participants without an academic appointment will be prioritized for subsidy. Proposal Submission: DUE DATE MARCH 31, 2010 * Title of paper and a 100-150 word outline of the paper to be presented *
List of degrees, including discipline and starting with the most recent
(maximum four lines) * List of positions, starting with the most recent
(maximum ten lines) * Publications, starting with the most recent (maximum
ten lines)

http://www.yorku.ca/crws/events/

 

CURATOR (Chiba University’s Repository for Access to Outcomes from Research)

CURATOR (Chiba University’s Repository for Access to Outcomes from Research) captures, preserves and makes publicly available intellectual digital materials from research activities on Chiba University campuses, including peer-reviewed articles, theses, preprints, statistical and experimental data, course materials and softwares.
CURATOR is intended to function as the portal for the outcomes from Chiba University’s research activities. The University Library is responsible for building and operating CURATOR under the guidance of the Faculty Committee for Improved Scholarly Information Availability, which commissioned by the Library Board of Faculty Representatives to systematically promote and arrange disseminative activities by the University.

 

Education: Debunking the Case for National Standards

Yesterday a panel of educators propose the institution  single standard for education in all  public schools. In light to these calls for a common standard (not a national standard),  it is necessary to point out that there is a fair amount of  critics on the proposal, and the interests that driven the common standard initiate. For instances,  read the following critical commentary on the idea of a common standard, as distinct of a national standard, posted  at the Education Policy Blog last January:

Alfie Kohn is one of the most cogent critics of much of what goes on in education. He is well known for his belief that eliminating homework and grades will lead to more and better learning. You can explore many of his ideas at his website.

He has a piece coming out in Education Week, of which he has a slightly expanded version at the website, which you can read in its entirety here. Consider this paragraph from the middle of the piece:

Are all kids entitled to a great education? Of course. But that doesn’t mean all kids should get the same education. High standards don’t require common standards. Uniformity is not the same thing as excellence – or equity. (In fact, one-size-fits-all demands may offer the illusion of fairness, setting back the cause of genuine equity.) To acknowledge these simple truths is to watch the rationale for national standards – or uniform state standards — collapse into a heap of intellectual rubble.

First let me clarify something. What Kohn is addressing is NOT the US Department of Education mandating a national standard. Rather is an effort being pushed by a number of organizations, starting with the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, to come up with COMMON standards across all states. This is known as The Common Core State Standards Initiative. A number of people have noted that those most involved in drafting these “standards” do NOT included practicing or recent classroom teachers, have far too many people from testing companies, and are being drafted with little consideration to some basic understanding of the nature of teaching and learning, to wit – that not all students learn all subjects at the same rate. (read full)

 

News: Diane Ravitch changes positions on education reform

Diane Ravitch, the education historian who  served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is now changing her positions on relation to the  educational reform philosophy of  school reform in US, while criticizing the  privatization in the public system and assessment measure trends that relegate the teaching of social contents in the curriculum.

From New York Times, March 2,  2010 by Sam Dillon:

Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.

It makes sense, after all  there is mounting evidence that seems to point out that those strategies of reform undermine public education.

“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview.

Dr. Ravitch is one of the most influential education scholars of recent decades, and her turnaround has become the buzz of school policy circles.

“What’s Diane up to? That’s what people are asking.” said Grover J. Whitehurst, who was the director of the Department of Education’s research arm in the second Bush administration and is now Dr. Ravitch’s colleague at the Brookings Institution.

Among the topics on which Dr. Ravitch has reversed her views is the main federal law on public schools, No Child Left Behind, which is up for a rewrite in coming weeks in Congress. She once supported it, but now says its requirements for testing in math and reading have squeezed vital subjects like history and art out of classrooms.

It is also very interesting to observe on  the type of international exemplars that she uses to justify her change of positions.

“Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,” she said. “They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.”

read full article here

 

Europe 2020: what are the implications of Europe’s new economic strategy for global higher ed & research?

A post at the Global Higher Ed blog by Kris Olds, on the EU strategic economic roadmap towards 2020, with a great description on the key  role  ascribe to higher education and research in terms of the amorphous notion of innovation.

From Global Higher Ed blog:

This week marks the launch of the EU’s EUROPE 2020: A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. As noted in EurActiv (‘Brussels unveils 2020 economic roadmap for Europe‘) on 3 March:

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, called ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010″. The new agenda puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

The European Commission’s plan includes a variety of agenda items (framed as thematic priorities and targets) that arguably have significant implications for European higher education and research. Furthermore several of the plan’s Flagship Initiatives (“Innovation Union”; “Youth on the Move”; “A Digital Agenda for Europe”; “An industrial policy for the globalisation era”; “An Agenda for new skills and jobs”) also have implications for how the EU frames and implements its agenda regarding the global dimensions of both the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). For example, Flagship initiative: “Youth on the move” (p. 11) includes the following statement:

The aim is to enhance the performance and international attractiveness of Europe’s higher education institutions and raise the overall quality of all levels of education and training in the EU, combining both excellence and equity, by promoting student mobility and trainees’ mobility, and improve the employment situation of young people.

At EU level, the Commission will work:
– To integrate and enhance the EU’s mobility, university and researchers’ programmes (such as Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Tempus and Marie Curie) and link them up with national programmes and resources;
– To step up the modernisation agenda of higher education (curricula, governance and financing) including by benchmarking university performance and educational outcomes in a global context.

Please see below for a summary of some of the key elements of EUROPE 2020: A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as well as a YouTube video of José Manuel Barroso’s launch of the plan at a media event in Brussels:

See here for the EU’sPress pack: Europe 2020 – a new economic strategy. EurActiv also has a useful LinksDossier (‘Europe 2020′: Green growth and jobs?) for those of you seeking a concise summary of the build-up to the new 2020 plan.

It is also worth noting that EU member states, and as well as non-governmental organizations, are attempting to push their own innovation agendas in the light of the 2020 economic roadmap for Europe. Link here, for example, to a Lisbon Council e-brief (Wikinomics and the Era of Openness: European Innovation at a Crossroads) that is being released today in Brussels. European Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn also spoke at the same event.

The ‘innovation’ agenda and discourse is deeply intertwined with higher education and research policy in Europe at the moment. While the outcome of this agenda has yet to be determined, supporters and critics alike are being forced to engage with this amorphous concept; a 21st century ‘keyword’ notably absent from Raymond Williams’ classic text Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.

 

News: Thousand in California protest cuts in education

An article, by Jesse McKinley at  New York times describes the current wave of protest on cuts in education at California’s public education system. The article describe the rationale for this cuts in the following terms

California’s public education system has been racked by spending cuts because of the state’s financial problems, which include a looming $20 billion budget deficit. Layoffs and furloughs have hit many districts and school systems, along with reductions in course offerings and grants.

In a post last year, “California university regents approve 32 percent tuition increase” , I point out  that this could be signaling a point of not return for forms of affordable access to quality university education in the United States. The fact that the article also points out other scattered protest in other  states seems to indicate that this has become a national trend. For instances the article also points out tuition protests,

with at least 16 people arrested at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, when protesters tried to force their way into administration offices and threw ice chunks at campus officers, according to a university spokesman.

This point out to a long trajectory of increasing reduce investment in public education by states, now exacerbate by the economic crisis. In California this seemingly acquire  dramatic proportions indicating a point of not return in the public system. As a graduate student, at the protest  indicate, “I plan to be a teacher, but it’s not my job prospects [what] I’m worried about[….]It’s the whole system.” . This is rather dramatic if we consider the role that education play in social policies, and the current  situation of economic depressed areas such as “Richmond, near San Francisco, where unemployment is 17.6 percent and violent crime and poverty are common”, where those cuts have more acute effects. The literature describe the US as a wealthy “advance industrial society” but we see situations, now exacerbate by the economic crisis,   resembling those of a struggling developing country in which teachers describe the situation in terms such as

“Kids come to school hungry; some are homeless,” said Mary Flanagan, 55, a third-grade teacher from Richmond. “How can we deal with problems like that with as many as 38, 40 kids in a class?”

Public education, in California, and the  affordable access to public higher education,  for a long time a feature of US welfare state policies are now confronting a terminal crisis without easy solutions.

Reference:

McKinley, J. (March 5,2010). Thousands in California protest cuts in education. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/education/05protests.html?hpw

 

CIA Library: FOIA Electronic Reading Room

This is a potentially useful research resource, the CIA library. I recommend searches at  Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room , especially those related to education initiatives during the cold war.   The careful reading of declassified documents provide a source of some useful data related to the CIA involvement in human rights abuses during the period, and on some illustrative examples of foreign policy initiatives involving education.

From CIA library:

The CIA releases millions of pages of documents each year and frequently releases items of public interest on this Web site.

The Library contains a wealth of information, from unclassified current publications to basic references, reports and maps. The Library features our most popular publication, The World Factbook, and our online directory of Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments. It also features numerous documents and articles of historical significance, including those found in Studies in Intelligence.

• Publications
• The World Factbook
• World Leaders
• CIA Maps & Publications
• Additional Publications

Center for the Study of Intelligence

Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room

Kent Center Occasional Papers

Intelligence Literature: Suggested Reading List

Reports

Related Links

 

New journal on Higher Education: Student Affairs Research and Practice

NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education is pleased to announce the inaugural issue of Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice (formerly NASPA Journal).

Articles for the first numbers of the journal can be found at: http://journals.naspa.org/jsarp/)

Special Features

Underlying Paradigms in Student Affairs Research and Practice
Florence M. Guido, Alicia F. Chávez, and Yvonna S. Lincoln

Innovations in Research and Scholarship Features

Melvene Draheim Hardee: A Touchstone of the Profession
Sally E. Click and Michael D. Coomes

College Men’s Experiences as Men: Findings and Implications from Two Grounded Theory Studies6
Frank Harris III and Keith E. Edwards

Innovations in Practice Features

The 2008 Amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act: Implications for Student Affairs Practitioners
Lisa A. Burke, John Friedl, and Michelle Rigler

Building Bridges: Community College Practitioners as Retention Leaders10
Michael J. Stebleton and LeAnne Schmidt

International Features

Student Transfer Policies and Practices in the United States and Europe: Mobility without Loss of Credit
Megan M. Chase

Media Features and Reviews

Review of College Organization and Professional Development: Integrating Moral Reasoning and Reflective Practice
Frank Shushok Jr.

Demystifying Social Media
Frank Michael Muñoz and Katherine C. Strotmeyer

Review of Learning as a Way of Leading: Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice
Jessica White

The Toolbox Newsletters, http://sc.edu/fye/toolbox/index.html
Jennifer L. Bloom

Review of Working-Class Students at Radcliffe College, 1940-1970: The Intersection of Gender, Social Class, and Historical Context
Will Barratt
About this journal
The mission of Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice is to publish the most rigorous, relevant, and well-respected research that makes a difference in student affairs practice. Formerly known as NASPA Journal, Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice fosters open and critical discourse within and across disciplines from the perspective of student affairs in higher education. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice is indexed in Educational Indexes/Abstracts and ERIC.