M. Fernanda Astiz

Making Citizens of the World: The Political Socialization of Youth in Formal Mass Education Systems.

Unique cross-national data on adolescents’ civic skills, knowledge, and political attitudes are used to examine the democratic processes of modern mass schooling, effects of national political systems, and patterns of youth political socialization in 27 nations. Compared to the generally weak reported effects on mathematics and reading achievement, we find robust effects of schooling on youths’ civics knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Secondly, there is empirical support for the importance of a supra-national political culture, beyond that of unique national cultures, in the political socialization of youth. Lastly, there is evidence of an emerging common polity among youth across nations. The results extend notions of the institutional influence of mass public schooling on the political socialization of youth.

Comparative education research framed by neo-institutional theory: a review of diverse approaches and conflicting assumptions

The rise in globalisation studies in comparative education places neo-institutional theory at the centre of many debates among comparative education researchers. However, uncertainty about how to interpret neo-institutional theory still persists among educational comparativists. With this uncertainty comes misinterpretation of its principles, variations and explanatory power. Two problematic misconceptions prevail: (1) the belief that the ‘world culture’ strand is the only version of neo-institutional theory applicable to comparative education research; and (2) the assumption that the global homogenisation of society, culture and schooling is a goal of researchers applying neo-institutional theory to comparative education phenomena. This article addresses these misconceptions, elucidating neo-institutional theory and its applicability to comparative education research. Our findings suggest that neo-institutional frameworks for comparative education research are useful, but that complementary approaches and methods are also necessary.

School autonomy in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina : evidence from two school districts

This article provides empirical evidence of policy adoption, outcomes and consequences of decentralization and school autonomy initiatives enacted in Argentina during the 1990s. The study examines what school autonomy meant in Argentina and how it was adopted at the provincial and school levels. Using qualitative data on school districts of the Greater Buenos Aires, the study analyzes the role that organizational and political factors play in the implementation of school autonomy reform. Given that previous studies showed that reform praxis varies across environments, this research looks comparatively at the outcomes of the reform process across organizational systems (i.e. provincial and former national) and diverse local sociopolitical environments.

Education for Citizenship: The Argentine Case in Comparison.

This article considers how Argentina produces its citizens following its transition to democracy in the early 1980s. We ask how the schooling system is preparing the next generation to participate in the democratic political process, and the responsibilities of nation building in a world that has become more politically and economically entangled. The study reported here engages in content analyses of 1990s education law, curriculum standards and textbooks used in Argentina’s schools.

The Challenges of Education for Citizenship: Local, National, and Global Spaces

For more than 2 decades, citizenship education has been enthusiastically embraced as a way to instill values of democratization and civic involvement almost everywhere in the Western hemisphere. This widespread interest in civic instruction is coupled with a revival of the study of civil society and citizenship in academia, within various interest groups, and as a policy goal around the world. While not completely representative of the recent and increasing academic production on the topic in comparative education, the books reviewed in this essay are part of this renewed attention to citizenship education studies. They are an important contribution to the discussion in three areas of knowledge: philosophy, pedagogy, and comparative education. As indicated in the title of this essay review, what binds these books together is not only that all of them address, in one way or another, citizenship education but that they also speak to the present challenges facing education for citizenship, as schools are expected to compensate for problems of other social and political institutions (Tyack and Cuban 1995). First, I discuss each book individually and draw attention to its strengths and weaknesses. Second, I identify some of the limitations that cut across all the volumes and propose

Autonomía educativa en la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina: comparación entre dos distritos escolares. Una perspectiva neo-institucionalista

This article provides evidence of how decentralization and school autonomy policies were adopted and adapted in Argentina during the 1990s. It also addresses the consequences of their implementation at the provincial and school levels. Applying a neo-institutional framework, the study analyzes the role that organizational factors play in the implementation of school autonomy reform across diverse socio-political environments in the province of Buenos Aires.