October 25, 2017

Human Rights Education: Mapping the Field
Dr. Monisha Bajaj, University of San Francisco

In this talk, Monisha Bajaj discusses the field of human rights education (HRE)--its origins, development and currents trends in research and practice. She will provide information about the rise of the field and how it has gained popularity while also tracing different perspectives on what constitutes valid human rights education scholarship. Dr. Bajaj will also highlight insights and lessons from her new book Human Rights Education: Theory, Research, Praxis that seeks to be a foundational textbook for students and scholars of HRE.

Monisha Bajaj is Professor and Chair of International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco. Dr. Bajaj is the editor and author of six books, including, most recently, Human Rights Education: Theory, Research, Praxis (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), as well as numerous articles. She has also developed curriculum—particularly related to peace education, human rights, anti-bullying efforts and sustainability—for non-profit organizations and inter-governmental organizations, such as UNICEF and UNESCO.

November 14, 2017

The Politics of Gender Knowledge: In Pursuit of Equality and Justice at the United Nations
Laura Turquet, UN Women
Co-sponsored by Gender and Women Studies

Cutting-edge policy research, innovative new ideas and robust evidence are critical ways in which UN Women works to build knowledge on gender equality and women’s empowerment. High quality research is essential to assuring evidence-based policy making in all development fields essential to supporting gender equality including education, health care, the economy, and good governance. This presentation introduces how UN Women’s data-based flagship report, Progress of the Worlds Women, is produced and the role it plays in producing and disseminating high-quality gender statistics into policy-making. UN Women is an active member of the Interagency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS), which coordinates work on such data across the UN. This group’s work has included the development of a minimum set of 52 gender indicators, as well as new guidelines for measuring violence against women and girls. In addition, UN Women is collaborating with other agencies in a global gender statistics program called Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE). Preview data from the upcoming 2018 report focused on families will be presented, and contextualized in light of ongoing work at the United Nations to bring gender knowledge and knowledge about gender into the mainstream of policy-making around the world.

Laura Turquet is the Manager of UN Women’s flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women. She has worked at UN Women (and its predecessor organization UNIFEM) for eight years, and was the lead author of the 2011 report In Pursuit of Justice and a co-author of the latest edition, Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights. She is currently working on the next edition of the report, focusing on Families in a Changing World. Before that, she worked for various NGOs, women’s organizations and research institutes on different aspects of gender equality and women’s rights. In 2013, MS. Turquet co-edited a book (with Rosalind Eyben) titled Feminists in Development Organizations: Change from the Margins. In 2016, she co-founded the UN Feminist Network, which brings together feminists from across the UN system, creating an informal political space to strategize on catalyzing transformative change ‘from within’.

Black, White, and Everything in Between: How Traditional Race Understandings Rise and Fall in Brazilian Universities
Jeaná Morrison, Drexel University

The purpose of this study is to examine self-identified Black quota students’ racial management in Brazilian universities under an affirmative action policy that simultaneously creates and restricts opportunity. Legislated in 2002 and deemed constitutional in 2012, Brazil’s affirmative action policy supports universities’ rights to use reserved spaces for underrepresented students based on characteristics such as, race, ethnicity, and type of primary school attended. The race-based quota system has allowed more Black students to attend quality universities, however, race continues to be a complex issue in Brazil where more than half of its citizens identify as multi-racial and people use several terms to identify themselves. As a result, this complicates understandings of race in general and who should benefit from quotas in particular. To apply for a reserved quota space, students must self-identify as Black or Indigenous. Thus, negating the reality of Brazil’s pluralistic racial construction and debunking the age-old “myth of racial democracy”. Using a critical ethnographic design, data collected from interviews, observations, and critical discourse analysis reveal that student interpretations of their racial experiences in higher education contexts both reinforce and disrupt traditional notions of race. These experiences reflect convoluted relationships with colonialism, slavery, miscegenation, and knowledge production. Therefore, this presentation will elucidate how current attempts to address centuries of social injustice are multi-faceted projects that must contend with complexities of the past, present, and future.

Jeaná E. Morrison is a fifth-year PhD candidate in Drexel's School of Education. She is a native Philadelphian with a professional background in college preparation for low-income and first generation students. Her research centers the interplay between identities and policies of equity and access within higher education contexts.

Teacher Education, Technology and Education Reform in the United Arab Emeriates
Dr. Joyce Pittman, Drexel University

This presentation used a mixed method, cross-cultural case study to explore and examine professional development strategies for preparing educators in the pedagogical use of instructional technologies (PUIT) in teaching and learning environments by comparing perceptions of educators’ groups in the United States and in the United Arab Emirates. The research emerged within a unique partnership between a prominent U.S. based consulting firm led by corporate and educational researchers and United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education leaders aiming to transform the educational infrastructure of the UAE using Information Technology in Support of the Ministry of Education’s Educational Change/Reform Vision. The lens of intersectionality will be used to explain how the project emerged, was implemented and what was learned from this 21st century global partnership by sharing the various factors related a reform project. The results suggest that the United Arab Emirates PUIT professional development efforts have 10 strategies that participants perceived as critical gaps in the existing PD initiatives and 18 others that are highly desirable. The United States PUIT professional development strategies were driven systems using a wide number of technological means to communicate, complete administrative functions and engage Web-based tools and strategies. Moreover, by comparison, educators in both countries shared exceptionally similar concerns about training in the pedagogical use of technology to transform the teaching and learning landscape use of emerging technologies. Findings further suggest that U.S. PUIT systems could benefit by expanding infrastructure, policy and training got teachers in pedagogical methods to diversify strategies to address the needs of an increasingly diverse learners. In addition, a recommendation was that the United Arab Emirates PUIT systems must concentrate on using a more strategic approach to preparing their educators, selecting and integrating emerging technologies to improve communications and to promote autonomous learning by the students and teachers including those with learning or physical disabilities.

Joyce Pittman is an associate clinical professor at Drexel University, School of Education, Policy, Organization and Leadership. Currently, Joyce is the Principal Investigator for the-sub-grant, U-Penn-Drexel Global-Teach Connect, Title VI funded project at the University of Pennsylvania, the Middle East Center and the South Asia Center. Her background as a researcher is widespread. Dr. Pittman has served on the Pennsylvania Association of School Superintendents (PASA)- Board of Governors and Chair Research & Development Committee since 2013. Moreover, her work research with and service to WCCI - World Council on Curriculum & Instruction as a Board of Directors member is recognized worldwide through UNESCO NGO activities. Dr. Pittman was a principal investigator on the UAE Technology Blueprint Reform Project and Implementation R&D Coordinator – Celt Corporation, Dubai. Later, she was appointed Director Center for Teaching and Learning Technology (CTLE), Office of Vice Provost & Chief Academic Officer Government of Al Ain – United Arab Emirates University and was Acting Chair, College of Education/Associate Graduate Professor – Abu Dhabi University in the UAE.

Separate and Unequal: High School Education in a "Gypsy" Village
Andria Timmer, Christopher Newport University

In Hungary, the education system has largely failed the Roma minority. Residential isolation, discrimination, and a manufactured sense of cultural difference create a climate wherein which Roma youth are often segregated into ethnically homogeneous schools or classrooms and have significantly less access to quality education than their majority counterparts. Fighting segregation and increasing access to schooling for the Roma has largely fallen under the purview of nongovernmental organizations. Activists working within educational NGOs across the country have waged legal battles, established tutoring programs, developed dormitory programs for Roma, and have even founded schools that will serve disadvantaged, primarily Roma, children. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of the educational divide and describe in detail one such intervention program, a high school located in a town with a large Roma population. The express purpose of this school, which I call Előrelépés Secondary and Vocational School, is to bring high quality education to those who are usually excluded from it. Előrelépés has been the recipient of both copious praise and harsh criticism. I argue that this school, as well as other similar schools, will not likely make huge inroads in terms of increasing the number of well-educated Roma youth but perhaps has the greatest potential to span the divide between the Roma and non-Roma in Hungarian society.

Andria D. Timmer is an assistant professor of anthropology at Christopher Newport University. Her research concerns civil society in Hungary. Her recently published book, Educating the Hungarian Roma: Nongovernmental Organizations and Minority Rights, explores civil sector action to provide quality education to Roma youth. Currently, Dr. Timmer researches how humanitarians have responded to refugees entering Hungary.

Women in Global Science: Advancing Careers Through International Collaboration
Kathrin Zippel, Northeastern University
Co-Sponsored by Institute for Women's Health and Leadership Sex & Gender Research Forum

Scientific and engineering research is increasingly global, and international collaboration can be essential to academic success. Yet even as administrators and policymakers extol the benefits of global science, few recognize the diversity of international research collaborations and their participants, or take gendered inequalities into account. In this presentation of her research on women in global science, Dr. Kathrin Zippel considers systematically the challenges and opportunities that the globalization of scientific work brings to U.S. academics, especially for women faculty. Focusing on STEM fields as a case study, this presentation explores how the gendered cultures and structures in academia have contributed to an underrepresentation of women. While some have approached underrepresentation as a national concern with a national solution, Zippel highlights how gender relations are reconfigured in global academia. For U.S. women in particular, international collaboration offers opportunities to step outside of exclusionary networks at home. While not to be mistaken for the panacea to gendered inequalities in academia, Zippel argues that international collaborations can be key to ending the steady attrition of women in STEM fields and in turn help develop a more inclusive academic world.

Kathrin Zippel is Associate Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University. She has published on gender politics in the workplace, public and social policy, social movements, welfare states, and globalization in the United States and Europe. Her book The Politics of Sexual Harassment in the United States, the European Union and Germany (Cambridge University Press) won several awards. Her current research explores gender and global transformations of science and education. Dr. Zippel is a co-chair of the Social Exclusion and Inclusion Seminar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and was a residential fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program J.F. Kennedy School. She served as co-PI of Northeastern’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant. She held a Humboldt Research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich; was a guest at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the WZB Social Science Research Center in Berlin, and the European University Institute in Florence. Dr. Zippel received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a post-doc at the European Union Center of New York at Columbia University.

Social Justice Education: Transforming Teacher Education in the US and Vietnam
12:00 pm EDT
Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building, Room 112
33rd and Market Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Dr. Nguyen Duc Chinh, University of Danang, Vietnam

In the agenda of social justice, educating teachers for equity has emerged as a trend or an approach to teacher preparation. In the US, social justice has been integrated into teacher education programs that aim to prepare teachers to teach in ways that contribute to lessening inequalities both within and beyond the school setting. However, this progressive trend of teacher education has been unexplored in many countries, including Vietnam. As inequalities in education and in the broader society have become a topic of concern in Vietnam, social justice discourses need to be introduced to teacher education in this context. As such, this research study was conducted in order to explore how pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language developed dispositions for social justice by being engaged in local communities. The findings show that engagement in communities helped the cohort of pre-service teachers discover inequalities between families inherent in their attitudes and investment in children’s English learning. Based on the perceived inequalities observed in local communities, the cohort of pre-service teachers developed their dispositions for social justice appropriate to the Vietnamese context. The study offers implications for social justice language teacher education in Vietnam.

Dr Chinh Nguyen is a lecturer of language education in the College of Foreign Language Studies at the University of Danang, Vietnam, earning his MA in TESOL from the University of Queensland and his PhD in education from Monash University, Australia. In the academic year 2017–2018, he is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. His scholarly interests include second language teacher education, identity in language teaching, sociocultural issues in language education, and social justice in education.

Global Citizenship Education in a Neo-Nationalist Era: Possibilities and Problems
William Gaudelli, Teacher’s College, Columbia University

This presentation explores what is possible and problematic of global citizenship education (GCED) in the onset of a neo-nationalist era signaled by the rise of right-populism. The paper briefly traces the recent globalist period (1990-2016) with respect to its educational features; and specifically explores the rise of neoliberalism covalent with globalization that drives the ‘global education’ enterprise coupled with enduring, humanistic efforts to teach for peace, justice and sustainability in a fragile, planetary society. This paper draws upon two recent related studies, the first being those encompassed in GCE: Everyday Transcendence (Gaudelli, 2016) and a forthcoming multinational study of global education in three global cities. The question that the author seeks to address is the prognosis for GCED in the next decade given the wider social changes underway that both buttress and confound efforts to teach for and about global citizenship.

William Gaudelli is professor and chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research areas include global citizenship education and teacher education/development. Dr. Gaudelli has published over 50 scholarly pieces in journals, including Teachers College Record, Teaching Education, Theory and Research in SocialEducation, The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, The Journal of Aesthetic Education and Teaching and Teacher Education along with two books. His third book, Global Citizenship Education: Everyday Transcendence, offers an analysis of global citizenship education in various locales globally. Dr. Gaudelli is a frequent keynoter at international conferences and guest lecturer at various universities, having previously served as an executive board member of the John Dewey Society and College and University Faculty Assembly for the National Council for the Social Studies.

Exploring the Intersections and Implications of Gender, Race, and Class in Educational Development Consulting
Carly Manion, OISE, University of Toronto

The broad field of international educational development has long engaged academics in consultancy work. These workers have contributed research and analysis that have influenced the design, implementation and evaluation of educational development projects and programs around the world. Yet, despite their numbers, roles and influence, there are no existing studies that focus on educational development consultants as a particular group of actors, one whose members share the consultancy or contract work experience, but one whose members also differ in terms of gender, race, class and other social positions, including geographical locations. Drawing on feminist and intersectionality theories, this paper explores the influence of gender, race and class, as intersecting and dynamic social categories, on the consultancy work of academics in the field of development education. More specifically, the study is guided by two main research questions: A) What historical and contemporary patterns exist in terms of who participates in development education consultancy work? B) In what ways do gender, race and class positionings influence development education consultancy opportunities and experiences of academics in Northern and Southern institutions? To answer these questions, a mixed methods approach is used involving a web-based survey, semi-structured interviews and documentary and online database analyses. The sample is drawn from Northern and Southern academics engaging in development education consultancy work as well as several major employers (e.g., multilateral and bilateral development agencies, the private sector, philanthropic organizations and civil society) and recruitment agencies. The aim of the analysis is to uncover patterns whereby gender, race and class and other categories of social difference (each having spatial and temporal specificities) intersect and influence who does what type of educational development consultancy work, what their experiences are, and what these patterns suggest in terms of power relations, knowledge production and legitimacy in the field of international educational consulting. While the study is ongoing, preliminary findings will be integrated into a broader discussion of the opportunities and challenges of educational development workers.

Caroline Manion is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Her research interests include equity and social justice, gender, intersectionality, school improvement, the politics of education, civil society and social movements, and educational multilateralism and governance. Dr. Manion’s research has been supported by a variety of agencies and organizations, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the International Development Research Centre of Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency (now Global Affairs Canada), and she has provided contract services, including educational program development and evaluation for such groups as the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, British Council, UNESCO, UNICEF, Ontario Ministry of Education, United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, the Hewlett Foundation, and Open Society Foundation.