Global Education Review (Mercy College, New York)
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Rural Education in a Global Context
Get PDFIntroduction to Rural Education in a Global Context, Global Education Review, Volume 2 #
The One Laptop School: Equipping Rural Elementary Schools in South India through Public Private Partnerships
Get PDFThis articleΓÇÖs purpose is to report on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) program in South India that provides information and communication technology (ICT) to rural elementary schools. The article examines the current status of rural, government-run elementary schools in India by reviewing reports like the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in India. Challenges like teacher absences, student drop-outs, lack of electricity, lack of separate toilets for genders, and a lack of teaching resources will be discussed. To meet these challenges, the article will describe the rise in popularity of IndiaΓÇÖs PPPs. Then the article moves to a case study investigation of a PPP, called the SSA Foundation, which implements a ΓÇ£one laptop per schoolΓÇ¥ program in rural areas in the Indian States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Using ethnographic data from field research, the case study includes a description of how the students in a rural Karnataka elementary school use their schoolΓÇÖs laptop. The school is situated in a small village where most travel is non-motorized.┬á Walking, usually without shoes, is the main form of transportation.┬á A bicycle is considered a luxury.┬á Most villagers work in the surrounding ragi and millet fields; laboring, often with only simple tool blades. Wood fires are the main source of fuel for cooking.┬á In this village, the schoolΓÇÖs laptop has become a prized possession. The case study offers a ΓÇ£thick descriptionΓÇ¥ (Geertz, 1973) of how the village schoolΓÇÖs students use the laptop for learning basic computing skills and for learning English. ┬á Keywords: elementary schooling; educational technology, Public Private Partnerships, rural India, sociotechnical narratives ┬
Lost in Translanguaging? Practices of Language Promotion in Luxembourgish Early Childhood Education
Get PDFLuxembourg maintains by far the largest proportion of foreign immigrants in Europe. This is also reflected in the population of children. About 50% of children under the age of four are foreign nationals. Accordingly, the question of how to deal with linguistic diversity represents one of the biggest challenges in the professional debate about early childhood education in Luxembourg. The article will refer to this issue on the basis of several insights stemming from an ethnographic study in Luxembourgish daycare centers which was conducted between 2009 and 2012 by the working group Early Childhood: Education and Care at the University of Luxembourg. The study explored practices professionals apply to come up with the superdiverse and translingual environment in order to meet the political expectation of promoting foreign childrenΓÇÖs competences before they enter school. Based on the empirical investigations of everyday language use in center-based early childhood education, the article will not only characterize two different modes of language promotion (institutional monolingualization in one language and institutional monolingualization in several languages) but also highlight the ambiguities of those language promotion practices which, although facing a translingual environment, are still based on a multilingual standard
The Meaning of Roots: How a Migrant Farmworker Student Developed a Bilingual-Bicultural Identity Through Change
Get PDFThousands of children and teens labor as migrant farmworkers across the United States. These youngsters, many who are immigrants, face challenges in completing their education and breaking the cycle of agricultural work. Such barriers are influenced by geographic instability, poverty, and sociocultural marginalization. Beyond these factors, and the focus of this article, is the challenge of bilingual-bicultural identity negotiation experienced by young farmworkers in and out of the educational context. This question is explored through the case study of Manuel (a pseudonym), a teen farmworker in Florida. Manuel emigrated from Mexico at the age of 12, and is a speaker of Spanish, Otomi (an indigenous language), and English. Although he recently completed high school, he struggled to adjust to life in the U.S. and acquire English. Manuel provided interviews and autobiographical writing in 2008, when he was age 14 (grade 8), and again in 2012, when he was 18 (grade 11). His parents, also migrant farmworkers, contributed an interview in 2012. A qualitative, thematic analysis was applied to the data. Themes that emerged included: resistance and acceptance of personal and cultural-linguistic change, the need to acostumbrarse (get used to it) with respect to these changes, the desire to salir adelante (get ahead) and the pathways to do so (e.g., finish school, learn English), and ManuelΓÇÖs developing bilingualism and his shifting attitudes towards it. Overall, ManuelΓÇÖs story offers deep insights into the realities in which the bilingual-bicultural social identity of a migrant farmworker student develops and interacts in and out of school settings
Informal learning in SME majors for African American female undergraduates
No full textThis research investigates how eight undergraduate African American women in science, math, and engineering (SME) majors accessed cultural capital and informal science learning opportunities from preschool to college. It uses the multiple case study methodological approach and cultural capital as the framework to better understand their opportunities to engage in free-choice science learning. The article demonstrates that African American women have access to cultural capital and informal science learning inside and outside of home and school environments in P-16 settings. In primary and secondary schools, African American girls acquire cultural capital and access to free-choice science learning in the home environment, museums, science fairs, student organizations and clubs. However, in high school African American female teenagers have fewer informal science learning opportunities like those such as those provided in primary school settings. In college, cultural capital is transmitted through informal science learning that consisted of involvement in student organizations, research projects, seminars, and conferences. These experiences contributed to their engagement and persistence in SME fields in K-16 settings. This research adds to cultural capital and informal science learning research by allowing scholars to better understand how African American women have opportunities to learn about the hidden curriculum of science through informal science settings throughout the educational pipeline
Thematic Analysis of Teacher Instructional Practices and Student Responses in Middle School Classrooms with Problem-Based Learning Environment
Get PDFProblem-based learning (PBL) environment is a student-centered instructional method based on the use of ill-structured problems as a stimulus for collaborative learning. This study tried to gain an understanding of teachersΓÇÖ instructional practices and studentsΓÇÖ responses to such practices in middle school classrooms with PBL environment through qualitative analyses. A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive thematic analyses was employed and applied to field notes and transcripts of video observations of four PBL classrooms. To do so, a codebook was created based on the descriptions of roles of teachers and students in PBL classrooms in literature, and was then applied to inductive codes that emerged from the data. This study identified a number of specific instructional practices of teachers, as well as responses that students might engage in during PBL instructions. Being able to articulate these roles is an important step in helping new PBL teachers learn to facilitate student-centered classrooms
Secondary Teachers\u27 and Their Supervisors\u27 Perceptions of Current and Desired Observation Practices
Get PDFThe purpose of this research is to provide insight on how to improve current classroom observation practices in order to meet the needs of teachers, promote professional growth, and develop effective supervision practices.This study built upon previous research which identified four key components of a classroom observation process that promotes instructional growth and development: instructional improvement practice, purpose of observation, professional trust, and reflective thinking (Ginsberg, 2003; Card 2006). These dimensions were used in this study and results were analyzed by teacher, by supervisor, and then compared by teacher and supervisor.The participants in this study consisted of 263 faculty from one junior-senior high school district in Nassau County, New York grades 7-12. Subjects were asked to respond to a 38 question survey, which asked teachers and supervisors to respond to how frequently they experienced a specific behavior, and how desirable or important they believed that behavior was as an action that would help improve teacher performance.The research showed that teachers and supervisors agreed on important practices that promote instructional improvement of teachers, but they disagreed on the extent to which it existed in their current process. Supervisors demonstrated higher scores for existence of practice when compared to teachers. Professional trust represented the largest mean change score for existing practice
Children Interactions in Literacy Tutoring Situations. A Study with Urban Marginalized Populations in Argentina.
Get PDFThe study analyzes the conversational exchanges through which child tutors mediate literacy abilities and knowledge to young children, in the framework of the project ΓÇ£From Child to Child: a Tutor-Child Literacy Program,ΓÇ¥ that is being carrying out in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The analysis considers the conversational moves deployed by both participants in the dyad, as well as the relationship between the tutor and the tutee. Likewise, it takes into account longitudinal variations in the interactions that were registered between the first tutoring sessions and the tutoring sessions that occurred after one year of the program. The tutoring sessions were video-taped and the different types of conversational moves deployed by the tutor and tutee were analyzed using a system of categories especially developed. Subsequently, the distribution of the categories of the tutee and tutorΓÇÖs interactional moves in the corpus was analyzed quantitatively. Results show significant longitudinal differences in the quantity of conversational moves: the tutors and the tutees increased their participation in the performance of the activities. Indeed, the results demonstrate an increase in all of the conversational moves that the tutors utilize to promote the learning of the younger children
The Influence of Parental Education and Family Income on Children\u27s Education in Rural Uganda
No full textThis article investigates the effect of parents\u27 literacy levels and family income in Uganda on the quality and nature of parents\u27 involvement in their children\u27s primary education. A mixed-methods study with an ethnographic element was employed to explore the views and opinions of 21 participants through a qualitative approach. Methods for data collection included observation of family routines and practices, semi-structured interviews with parents and children, and review of relevant documents. Vygotsky\u27s socio-cultural historical theory and the Feinsteinian concept of intergenerational transmission of educational success offer the basis for the investigation.
Findings indicated a significant relationship between parents\u27 income and literacy levels and the quality of support to their children\u27s education. Household poverty emerged as a major obstacle to educational success for children across the three socio-economic categories of family studied. Compromised lack of time for parent-child interaction proved to be the main obstacle as parents spent significant hours in non-academic matters for the day-to-day survival of their families. Parental illiteracy showed negative associations with children\u27s literacy competence and subsequent success in primary school