Halla B. Holmarsdottir

The Choice of English as Medium of Instruction and Its Effects on the African Languages in Namibia.

In 1995 Birgit Brock-Utne was asked by NIED (National Institute for Education and Development) in Namibia to make a study of the situation of the African languages after Independence in 1990. Five years later the study was followed up by Halla Holmarsdottir as her thesis for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Comparative and International Education. The study was supported by the Nordic Institute of African Studies. This article is built on both these studies, which shows that the enormous work that has gone into making English the official language of Namibia, has born fruits. However, Holmarsdottir in her 2000 study also found that teachers overestimate their knowledge of English and in fact recent teacher graduates are not significantly more proficient in English than those who have been teaching for some time. Both studies reveal that many people around the country have grave concerns that the Namibian languages are losing a battle against English. One notable example of this development is the drop in the number of students studying African languages at the University of Namibia. In 1995 there were 100 students taking Oshindonga, and in the academic year 1999–2000 there was one.

Icelandic: A Lesser-Used Language in the Global Community

A small nation in the middle of the North Atlantic, Iceland currently has a population of 265,000 (1996). The Iceland language has changed very little since the island was settled some 11 centuries ago. Despite the relatively small number of people who speak the language and irrespective of the globalisation efforts by the international community, which includes the ever-increasing influence of English worldwide, the Icelandic language and culture are stronger than ever. The current volume and variety of publications of Icelandic works in all areas have never been as great. Icelandic is a living and growing language. Growth in vocabulary, in response to recent phenomena like the introduction of new technology, has primarily come about with the development of new words from the languages roots. The near absence of Latin, Greek and, more recently, English or Danish words in Icelandic, is striking. Icelands language policy is not only a governmental policy. It is a policy that comes from the grassroots with the government and official institutions viewing their job as one of service to the people of Iceland. Icelanders are very proud of their language and are extremely determined to continually develop and preserve it for future generations.

The Dialectic between Global Gender Goals and Local Empowerment: girls' education in Southern Sudan and South Africa

The start of the Education for All (EFA) movement ushered in a new era in education, an era linked to research on issues such as ‘global governance’ or the ‘world institutionalization of education’. This global governance not only affects the way in which educational systems are influenced, it also involves how we view and define various issues within education. One of the major goals of the EFA movement, which has been accepted as part of the global consensus of ‘what works’, is the focus on gender equality, and in particular on the role education can play in empowering women and girls. This article is an attempt to understand key issues related to gender and education, and in particular the objective is to provide a critical analysis of how the global consensus in relation to gender and empowerment can be understood in a local context. The data reported on here are from fieldwork conducted in Southern Sudan and South Africa, and in this article we attempt to shed light on the local realities in relation to global gender goals.

Growing Up Global

This volume comes at a time when there is a great need to take stock. With the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 2014 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which formed the blueprint for the majority of the world’s countries and development institutions coming to a close in 2015, it is an important time to assess and reflect.

The Quality of Equity? Reframing Gender, Development and Education in the Post-2020 Landscape.

The year 2015 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, with a goal to contribute to gender equality globally. As scholars continue in their quest to ‘take stock’ of the ways in which gender and education work in tandem to achieve greater gender equality, we observe a revival in interest regarding conversations on gender and education. These conversations cover a gamut of related issues, including teaching and achievement as well as a number of intersecting issues such as gender-based violence. Within the conversation has been a continued focus on the role of equity primarily defined as access and opportunity. This paper explores the context of quality as it relates to equity in education and addresses the problems that are still left on the margins. Our goal is to take stock and assess the strength of evidence and to provide directions for future research.

COMPARE Forum: The idea of North-South and South-South collaboration

The idea of having a Compare Forum focusing on the above title was first discussed with one of the Editors of Compare during a PhD defence in Oslo in 2011. The PhD dissertation itself was linked to a larger project in which researchers from the North (Norway) and the South (South Africa) had been collaborating in educational research for over 10 years. Despite the fact that North-South collaboration is not a new issue on the agenda (King 1985) it is still a timely topic to explore, particularly given the recent growth and moves towards North-South-South collaboration or even South-South Cooperation in Education and Development (Chisholm and Steiner-Khamsi 2009). Thus, any discussion of research collaboration, whether North-South or South-South, is seen as an ideal topic for comparative education, particularly when exploring why there should be collaboration at all and if so what are some of the challenges. While it may be argued that the difference between North-South and South-South collaboration may simply be a question of geography, King (1985) reminds us that collaboration is not necessarily between equals and that collaboration at times ‘appears to be a process initiated in the North, and in which the South participates, as a counterpart’ (184). Ultimately, the differences go beyond simple geographic location to issues of funding and power, something that each of the contributions will touch upon in their own way. While cooperation may mean working with someone, it does suggest that one partner provides information or resources to the other, while collaboration suggests a more equal partnership in which researchers work alongside each other. For the majority of our contributors, we use collaboration as opposed to cooperation, although the literature is not always so clear on this distinction. Ultimately, this Forum allows researchers from very different backgrounds (geographically and academically) the opportunity to explore some of the issues of collaboration between researchers/academics in the North and the South. The four contributions to this Forum have taken different Compare, 2013 Vol. 43, No. 2, 265–286, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2013.765274

Mapping the Dialectic Between Global and Local Educational Discourses On Gender Equality and Equity

It may be argued that in 1990 the global campaign on education began with the start of the Education for All (EFA) movement, a result of the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand. This brought about a new era in educational research focusing on issues such as the “world institutionalization of education” (Meyer and Ramirez 2000), “global governance” (Mundy 2006), or more recently the “harmonization of education” (Trohler 2010).

The Sustainable Development Goals and the Role of Youth-Driven Innovation for Social Change

This volume comes on the heels of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ratified in 2015 by 193 member states that comprise the UN General Assembly, which represents the latest global effort to address the plethora of development challenges facing countries worldwide. The new agenda for action comprises 17 ambitious goals, 169 targets, and over 300 indicators that address a trinity of ecological, social, and economic issues, the protection of human rights, and the importance of partnership, all of which were developed through a worldwide participatory process. There is an explicit emphasis that the SDGs should be inclusive and leave no one behind and that all nations should be engaged in efforts to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.

Youth at the Margins of Citizenship

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English the noun “margin” appears to be objective and uni-dimensional (horizontal). The word describes an object in our physical world: at “an edge or border of something”, “a line determining the limits of an area”, “a boundary line or the area immediately inside the boundary”, or “the blank space that surrounds the text on a page” (Thompson, Fowler, & Fowler, 1995).

Moving Beyond the Numbers

A global campaign on education began with the first World Congress on Education held in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990. As a result of the World Congress, we have witnessed an ushering in of a global agenda on education. The global campaign culminated in the start of the Education for All (EFA) movement when delegates from 155 countries, as well as representatives from roughly 150 governmental and non-governmental organizations, committed themselves to achieving EFA and, in turn, reaffirmed the notion of education as a fundamental human right.