Diane Brook Napier

Does Context Still Matter? The Dialectics of Comparative Education.

This introductory article serves as a hermeneutical tool for interpreting the subsequent articles in this special issue, which explores the nature and roles of comparative education in the 21st century within the context of a changing world order and the growing prominence of comparative education in the Asia-Pacific region. A review of the evolution of different genres of comparative educations reveals the importance of contextual considerations as a constant ritornello (a refrain or instrumental interlude) in comparative education research. Reflections on comparative education in dialectical perspectives in this article provide new impetus and enlightenment on contemporary issues in education and society. Seeing comparative education as a dialectic process enhances the openness of comparative education to challenge the status quo perception of issues, and provides a compare-and-contrast perspective to identify polemic interpretations, such as empirical epistemology which can be viewed as a subjectivity that rejects the transcendental sources of knowledge. Dynamic secularism can be a friend of, and coexist with, religion as it ironically provides more opportunities for more religions to co-exist harmoniously under secularism than many countries that adopt a national religion. The dialectics of comparative education opens up a new role for comparative education to accommodate polemic perspectives to co-exist and to recognize the equal importance of universality and particularity.

Issues of gender, equality, education, and national development in the United Arab Emirates

In recent years, interest in educational issues in the Muslim world has grown rapidly. This interest runs parallel with a media-led exploration of all things Muslim and the ideas that are fundamental to the tenets of Islam. This trend in examining the educational issues that exist in countries that are predominantly Islamic in history, culture, and belief, is part of a wider awareness of the educational elements of a globalized system of commerce, communication, education, and modernization. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has embraced many facets of globalization, striving to become a regional power and a new financial and commercial hub in the Middle East and a high-tech center in a globally oriented society. Along with other Arab nations, the UAE has recognized the strategic role played by education in national development and modernization.

Education, Social Justice, and Development in South Africa and Cuba: Comparisons and Connections

Despite different ideologies and degrees of development, Cuba and South Africa share aspects of a historical legacy of colonization, racism, slavery, liberation struggle, revolution, and postcolonial development. A close relationship binds their leaders, President Fidel Castro and former President Nelson Mandela. They share many contemporary human resources development priorities designed to promote peace, social justice, and equality including programs in education, literacy, teacher training, housing, healthcare, community development, and environmental conservation. As South Africa proceeds through another decade of transformation and post-apartheid rule, her relationship with Cuba features in the development agenda as the country balances internal needs with competitiveness in the global arena, as President Castro noted in his Matanzas Rally address on July 26, 1991: “[H]ow far we slaves have come!” (Mandela and Castro, 1991: 41).

Thinking about the significance of Nelson Mandela for education

We have arrived, almost inevitably, at the point where Nelson Mandela’s significance for education needs to be scholarly discussed. In the period building up to and in the wake of his death in December 2013, it had become clear that the world had in Mandela a figure of historical significance. This significance is emphasised for many in the absence of leadership they see in in relation to some of the world’s most egregious and seemingly intractable conflicts and challenges. Adam and Moodley (2005), for example, in their book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ask, ‘what would have happened in the Middle East had a Palestinian Mandela or Gandhi provided unifying moral and strategic leadership[?]’ (ix). What he had accomplished in his life in facilitating the settlement of the South African question, the world’s pre-eminent case-study of the Du Boisian problematic of the twentieth century – the problem of the ‘colour-line’ – forever positions him as one of the contemporary era’s most important figures. He stands in this sense, rightly alongside of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But we are now in the enormously interesting situation, beyond the predictable flurry of hagiographies and romances that are now available, of having to say what this historical contribution constitutes. Fortunately, new scholarship is emerging which begins, articulately, to craft a way of entering into this new discursive space. The work of the literary theorist Elleke Boehmer (2008) is valuable for this task, as is that of Schalkwyk (2013). Both begin to separate out the personal, social and political in Mandela’s thinking to surface the texture of his logics in a way that allows one to understand him much more analytically. Out of this emerge frameworks for use. Boehmer, for example, presents him as a post-colonial humanist. We are now required to engage with this scholarly development around Mandela in education, and so, in this Forum, we begin the difficult task of

Global Competition, Local Implications: Higher Education Development in the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is undergoing rapid modernization in all sectors. This young nation, formed in 1971, united seven sheikdoms (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm al-Quwain, Ajman, Fujairah, and Ras al-Khaimah) and transcended ancient rivalries and disputes to amalgamate the interests of survival and development in a volatile region. Being fortunate to have vast wealth from oil reserves, the UAE subsequently embarked on policies for accelerated modernization in all sectors, and expansion of education at all levels—including higher education, in which the trends mirror many of those in the transformation of higher education worldwide. Investment in higher education is seen as crucial for a number of purposes: for national development and global competitiveness; for the citizenry to attain improved living standards and achieve democratic participation; for meeting labor force needs and internal national development goals; and for the nation to participate in the global arena of education and economic activity. In the UAE, regional influences and development strategies are also important in shaping decisions about higher education. Within the broad landscape of global higher education transformation, the case of the UAE is distinctive as it reflects both global and regional trends and influences, and embodies several internal characteristics that impinge on higher education policy and practice.

Introduction: Global Issues

The twelve chapters in this volume are organized into five loosely geographic sections, each reflecting particular ways in which local, group, and indigenous identities have been affected by a dominant discourse.

Vision for the New Global Teacher: Reflections from a Comparative Education Perspective

The Global Teacher/Orbital Classroom Initiative seeks to address updated teaching needs in the current era of a changed globalisation landscape, to foster the goals of democracy, global citizenship, intercultural education, and international understanding. Undergirded by philosophical and theoretical considerations and insights from decades of educational scholarship, an international group of participants set out to develop appropriate and relevant competences and pedagogical approaches to foster development of a more worldly Global Teacher, and to eventually provide practical operationalisations for use in an Orbital Classroom connecting teachers and students in many countries and settings worldwide. This chapter incorporates main features of the initiative and explicates the rationales for it in light of contemporary educational research writing calling for updated policy and practice in the new millennium and in terms of addressing current global level initiatives such as EFA, MDGs and GEFI, as well as rationales for teachers themselves. The importance of context in all of its complexity is emphasised, as are the global-local-dialectic and comparative interdisciplinary approach which are recommended as standard desirable practices. These notions are illustrated in the example of teaching about the contemporary migration crisis impacting Europe. The many challenges entailed in effective implementation and sustainability of the Global Teacher Initiative are enumerated, including the overarching need for recruitment, support and training of teachers as participants, and the means of sustainability.

Many More Hills to Climb

As South Africa moves through a third decade of democracy, the legacy of Nelson Mandela remains a powerful force, as he was the new nation’s first President and champion of a non-racial democracy for a better life for all. Mr. Mandela’s words in speeches, writings and observations galvanised sentiment over the goals for transformation, and how these might be achieved in all sectors including education.

Linguistic Dominance and the Challenges Worldwide for Minority Languages and Voices

The chapters collected in this book were developed from papers presented at the XV World Congress of Comparative Education Societies held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June of 2013. The overall theme of this conference, New Times, New Voices, calls for a forward-thinking, change-oriented perspective on comparative and international education and, in our interpretation, also an inclusive one.

Qualities of Education

Conceptions of the quality of education are as old as education itself. All education seeks to achieve some form or version of quality even if the objectives of education range from those promoting development and amelioration of societal conditions, to those aiming to improve the capacities of individuals and groups, to those seeking to use education as an instrument of subjugation or control. In other words, quality is a highly complex concept, open to many interpretations and operationalisations. Quality, per se, defies simple definition.