Research Paper: Citizenship Education at School in Europe

From Politika Public Policy Website:

Year: 2005
Financed by: Directorate – General for Education and Culture
Publisher: Eurydice
Language: English

ABSTRACT

This publication deals with the provision of citizenship education in schools and covers 30 European contries participating in the Eurydice Network. The comparative survey focuses on different national approaches to citizenship education and examines whether a European or international dimension has been officially incorporated into teaching of subject in schools. However, progress in the training of those who teach citizenship and more effective promotion of active participation by pupils in society at large arguably two major challenges in the years ahead.

Citizenship Education at School in Europe

(English, PDF)

 

Lecture: The Origins and Outcomes of the Global Economic Crisis-Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Wallerstein’s lecture of the global  financial crisis took place last March  in the George Soros Auditorium of the Stockholm School ofEconomics in Riga, Strelnieku iela 4a. The lecture itself offer some ideas on the consequences of the economic meltdown

Mousumi Mukherjee for the link

You can watch the lecture here: http://www.iwallerstein.com/the-origins-and-outcomes-of-the-global-economic-crisis/

 

Video: New Math

“The School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG) was an American academic think tank focused on the subject of reform in mathematics education. Directed by Edward G. Begle and financed by the National Science Foundation, the group was created in the wake of the Sputnik crisis in 1958 and tasked with creating and implementing mathematics curricula for primary and secondary education, which it did until its termination in 1977.” [Wikipedia]

“The result, after twelve years, was total failure.  By any reasonable measure, and measures were taken, school mathematics was worse off in 1975 than it had been in 1955.  The idiocies of the older curriculum had in most places been removed, but often to be replaced with new ones.  Tom Lehrer’s 1965 song New Math, lampooning the pretentious language used to justify an inability to calculate, had the mathematical community itself laughing at the follies committed in the name of promoting a better understanding of mathematics.” [http://www.math.rochester.edu/people/faculty/rarm/smsg.html]

This is a good example of how deluded academics and technocrats can trying to apply their ideas, without regard of context or participants, to educational settings. I think that Tom Lehrer’s song may gave you and idea of the dimensions of SMSG failure:

 

Article: Speculations on the Stationary State

An additional reading to consider after watching Robinson’s lecture. The article entitled Speculation on the Stationary State was written by   Gopal Balakrishnan and published in the New Left Review this month  [read full here].

Thanks to Daniel Araya for the link

[...]What is the historical significance of the implosion of neo-liberalism, coming less than twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union? A disconcerting thought experiment suggests itself. The ussr, it might be recalled, had reached the summit of its power in the 70s, shortly before stumbling downward into a spiral of retrenchment, drift and collapse. Could a comparable reversal of fortune now be in store for the superpower of the West, one of those old-fashioned ‘ironies of history’? After all, a certain unity of opposites can be traced between an unbridled late capitalism and the centrally planned rust belts of the former Comecon—and precisely in the economic sphere, where they were diametrically counterposed. During the heyday of Reaganism, official Western opinion had rallied to the view that the bureaucratic administration of things was doomed to stagnation and decline because it lacked the ratio of market forces, coordinating transactions through the discipline of competition. Yet it was not too long after the final years of what was once called socialism that an increasingly debt- and speculation-driven capitalism began to go down the path of accounting and allocating wealth in reckless disregard of any notionally objective measure of value. The balance sheets of the world’s greatest banks are an imposing testimony to the breakdown of standards by which the wealth of nations was once judged. [read full here]

I believe that the quote from Fredric Jameson at the end of Gopal’s paper superbly illustrates today’s anxieties.

Confusion about the future of capitalism—compounded by a confidence in technological progress beclouded by intermittent certainties of catastrophe and disaster—is at least as old as the late nineteenth century; but few periods have proved as incapable of framing immediate alternatives for themselves, let alone of imagining those great Utopias that have occasionally broken on the status quo like a sunburst.

 

Article: Herta Mueller_No nostalgia for Communism

Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall

Thanks to Mousumi Mukherjee

Quite an interesting blog  post to consider after Robinson’s video lecture.

From Christian Science Monitor, by Isabelle de Pommereau, October 10, 2009:

Nobel Literature laureate Herta Mueller counters a current longing for the old days with harsh portrayals of their reality.

There are hints of “Ost-algia” in the air these days in Germany. One in seven German wants the Wall back, according to a recent poll published in Stern magazine. Many feel they were better off when the country was divided. They are bitter about high taxes and millions of dollars of their money poured into rebuilding the formerly communist east over the past two decades. And all that for what? For an eastern region that’s depleting itself demographically, and where unemployment is twice as high as in western Germany.

But lost in those statistics is the reality of oppression. [ read full here]

 

Video: Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on Capitalism, Healthcare, Latin American “Populism” and the “Farcical” Financial Crisis

This interview with Zizek  is quiet interesting. I think that he may have a very good point on his commentary of the current  financial crisis.

Thanks to Ergin Bulut for the link

From Democracy Now Website:

Dubbed by the National Review as “the most dangerous political philosopher in the West” and the New York Times as “the Elvis of cultural theory,” Slovenian philosopher and public intellectual Slavoj Žižek has written over fifty books on philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, history and political theory. In his latest book, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, Žižek analyzes how the United States has moved from the tragedy of 9/11 to what he calls the farce of the financial meltdown. [includes rush transcript]

 

Report: The State of Food Insecurity report for 2009

This is the link to the recent State of Food Insecurity report for 2009 published by the FAO.  Education as policy priority needs to be consider as inextricably link to a complex array of social policies and often subordinated to other basic public needs.

From FAO website:

“This report comes at a time of severe economic crisis. Countries across the globe are seeing their
economies slow and recede. No nation is immune and, as usual, it is the poorest countries –
and the poorest people – that are suffering the most. As a result of the economic crisis,
estimates reported in this edition of The State of Food Insecurity in the World show that, for the first
time since 1970, more than one billion people – about 100 million more than last year and around one sixth of all of humanity – are hungry and undernourished worldwide.

• Foreword
• Full publication

 

Article: Review backs later formal lessons (BBC)

Thanks to James Thayer for the link

From BBC, Friday October 16, 2009:

Children should not start formal learning until they are six, a review of primary education in England says.

Instead the kind of play-based learning featured in nurseries and reception classes should go on for another year, the Cambridge Primary Review says.

There is no evidence that an early introduction to formal learning has any benefit, the review says, but there are suggestions it can do some harm.

Ministers say a starting age of six would be completely counter-productive.

Most children start primary school in England aged four, and a large proportion are taking advantage of free, part-time pre-school places in local schools and privately-run nurseries from the age of three.

Too much too young?

The kind of learning that goes on there follows the government’s “Early Years Foundation Stage”, which currently runs to the age of five and is a play-based curriculum which includes some early literacy and numeracy goals.

COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE Five years old: England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands Six years old: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark (6-7), France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Irish Republic, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden (6-7) Seven years old: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania Source: Eurydice

Continuing this informal but structured learning for a year or so would bring children in England in line with many European countries, where school starts at six or even seven, and standards are often higher.

A similar step has already been taken in Wales and Northern Ireland where a play-focussed curriculum has been extended to the end of Key Stage 1, when children are aged seven. But Scotland follows the English model. “This would give sufficient time for children to establish positive attitudes to learning and begin to develop the language and study skills which are essential to their later progress,” says the review, which is based on six years of academic work.

It stops short of calling for the age of compulsory schooling to be put back to age six, but does call for an open debate on the subject. (read full here)

 

Are we witnessing a key moment in the reworking of the global higher education & research landscape?

A fascinating article presented by the Global Higher Education Blog. It is very interesting to point that the framing of the object of debate is formulated under the assumption of one national higher education system. I don’t believe that this assumptions is adequate in the case of the US. The debate on the global north on the relative decline of their system, also needs to consider the fact that many prominent universities that composed their national systems are also global institutions .  The  relative decline of public research  investment towards universities in national systems in the global north in relation to universities institutions in  the global south seems connected to the fact that nation states are pushing forward national and international agendas of innovation. Agendas that require increasing  investments to create or expand their own national capacities of research.

From Global Higher Education by Kris Olds:

Over the last several weeks more questions about the changing nature of the relative position of national higher education and research systems have emerged.  These questions have often been framed around the notion that the US higher education system (assuming there is one system) might be in relative decline, that flagship UK universities (national champions?) like Oxford are unable to face challenges given the constraints facing them, and that universities from ‘emerging’ regions (East and South Asia, in particular) are ‘rising’ due to the impact of continual or increasing investment in higher education and research.

Select examples of such contributions include this series in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

• ‘America Falling: Longtime Dominance in Education Erodes‘ (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)
• ‘Asia Rising: Countries Funnel Billions Into Universities‘ (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)
• ‘Asian Universities on the Rise: a Comparison With U.S. Institutions‘ (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)
• ‘Scientific Research: Asian Countries Expand, U.S. Holds Steady‘ (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)
• ‘Singapore: Teaming Up With Foreign Universities for Innovative Research‘ (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)
• ‘China: Attract Talent First, and Outstanding Universities Will Follow‘, (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)
• ‘South Korea: Government Support for Research Builds Industries‘, (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 October 2009)

and these articles associated with the much debated THE-QS World University Rankings 2009:

• ‘Rankings 09: Asia advances‘ (Times Higher Education, 8 October 2009)
• ‘UK boosts standing but Asian countries ’snap at our heels”, (Times Higher Education, 8 October 2009)
• ‘Rankings 09: Beacons of excellence‘, (Times Higher Education, 8 October 2009)

The above articles and graphics in US and UK higher education media outlets were preceded by this working paper:

• ‘The Global Competition For Talent: The Rapidly Changing Market for International Students and the Need for a Strategic Approach in the US‘ (by John Aubrey Douglass and Richard Edelstein, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California – Berkeley, October 2009)

a US report titled:

• Sizing Up the Competition: The Future of International Postsecondary Student Enrollment in the United States (by the American Council on Education, September 2009)

and one UK report titled:

• International Benchmarking Study of UK Research Performance 2009 (by Evidence Ltd., a Thomson Reuters business, for the UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, September 2009)

There are, of course, many other calls for increased awareness, or deep and critical reflection.  For example, back in June 2009, four congressional leaders in the USA:

asked the National Academies to form a distinguished panel to assess the competitive position of the nation’s research universities. “America’s research universities are admired throughout the world, and they have contributed immeasurably to our social and economic well-being,” the Members of Congress said in a letter delivered today. “We are concerned that they are at risk.”….

The bipartisan congressional group asked that the Academies’ panel answer the following question: “What are the top ten actions that Congress, state governments, research universities, and others could take to assure the ability of the American research university to maintain the excellence in research and doctoral education needed to help the United States compete, prosper, and achieve national goals for health, energy, the environment, and security in the global community of the 21st century?”

Recall that the US National Academies produced a key 2005 report (Rising Above the Gathering Storm) “which in turn was the basis for the “America COMPETES Act.” This Act created a blueprint for doubling funding for basic research, improving the teaching of math and science, and taking other steps to make the U.S. more competitive.” On this note see our 16 June 2008 entry titled ‘Surveying US dominance in science and technology for the Secretary of Defense‘.

Taken together, these contributions are but a sample of the many expressions of concern being expressed in 2009 in the Global North (especially the US & UK) about the changing geography of the global higher education and research landscape.

(read full here)

 

Video: Anne-Marie Slaughter on International Networks

An interesting video, on the consequences of global networks for governance. Here we see Anne-Marie Slaughter explains why global networking is crucial to world diplomacy

Thanks to Daniel Araya for the link:
http://bigthink.com/annemarieslaughter/anne-marie-slaughter-on-international-networks