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)

 

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.

 

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

 

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: Understanding Global Capitalism

A talk and discussion with William I. Robinson, a scholar-activist researching on  globalization and transnationalism issues. This presentation is focus  on current crisis of global capitalism.

Thank you to Mousumi Mukherjee for the link

 

Internet and geopolitical conflicts: The World Wide Web as political issue

Recent news are an example of the ways that virtual spaces are also places of symbolic political conflict. Nation states and their national geography exist virtually in the web as well as in the material world. See for instances the  news about the end for Yugoslavia domains . This is rather relevant for education if we consider with Douglas Kellner that:

The Internet and emerging forms of technopolitics also point to the connection between politics and pedagogy. Paulo Freire has long argued that all pedagogy is political and politics contains a pedagogical dimension (which could be manipulative or emancipatory). ["The Conflicts of Globalization and Restructuring of Education”]

Thanks to James Thayer for the links

From Babylon & Beyond by Meris Lutz in Beirut posted September 18, 2009:

Facebook users in the Golan Heights, which was captured from Syria by Israel in a 1967 war, now find themselves at the center of a new, virtual skirmish over the disputed territory.

Until recently, Facebook users in Golan towns were listed as living in Syria, prompting more than 2,600 Israelis to form a group called “Facebook, Golan residents live in Israel, not Syria.” Now, users are allowed to choose whether their hometown is listed as part of Israel or Syria.[...]

This is not the first time Facebook has been dragged into geopolitical conflicts, as the tech blog VentureBeat points out. They face similar decisions over disputed lands such as Kashmir and Taiwan, and will likely face more as the site expands globally.

 

A Post-American World: The Rise of China, CBS Sunday Morning

Thanks to Daniel Araya for the link:

Post-American World With The Rise Of China And Other Economies, The “Golden Age” Of American Influence May Be Coming To An End. Aired on CBS Sunday Morning, August 17, 2008.

 

GLOBAL: Vast rise in student mobility_China gets higher education and US gets Walmart

From PSD Blog – The World Bank Group by Ryan Hahn posted Fri, Oct 17 2008:

The U.S. gets Walmart, and in return, China gets…Harvard. At least that’s part of the story told by a graph in a recent publication from Campus France (Hat tip: University World News). China is by far the largest importer of educational services in the world, at least by student numbers. The U.S. absorbs nearly a quarter of China’s mobile students. For more visuals on student exchange, check out International Student Mobility. [ read pos

 

World Development Report 2009: Reshaping economic geography (WB)

About the Report

Places do well when they promote transformations along the dimensions of economic geography: higher densities as cities grow; shorter distances as workers and businesses migrate closer to density; and fewer divisions as nations lower their economic borders and enter world markets to take advantage of scale and trade in specialized products. World Development Report 2009 concludes that the transformations along these three dimensions–density, distance, and division–are essential for development and should be encouraged.

The conclusion is controversial. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. A billion people live in lagging areas of developing nations, remote from globalization’s many benefits. And poverty and high mortality persist among the world’s “bottom billion,” trapped without access to global markets, even as others grow more prosperous and live ever longer lives. Concern for these three intersecting billions often comes with the prescription that growth must be spatially balanced.

Complete Report Table of Contents & front matter Complete report Part 1 | Part 2
Geography in motion: The Report at a Glance – Density, Distance, and Division
Overview