ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE VANCOUVER CONFERENCE OF THE
COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SOCIETY JUNE 11-13, 1998


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Conference Theme

Comparative and international education is enjoying a renaissance. Globalization has infused the ever-present need to learn about each other with an urgency and emphasis like no other in history. At the same time, the postmodern attack on metanarratives and totalizing discourses has infused our scholarship and practice with doubt about much orthodox wisdom. Even the meaning of "comparative" and "international" is in question, accompanied by vigourous contests over who will control "education." For some, education is an instrument of social justice and a bulwark against corporate hegemony. For others it is a commodity to be bought and sold on a "free" market. At the dawn of a new century. Vancouver is a perfect place to examine the extent to which old certitudes have crumbled and new ideas have arisen.

In recent years many conferences have been organised around the themes of "borders," "borderlands," "globalisation" and "internationalisation." At the 1998 CIES we wanted to Dance on the Edge. We wanted to explore topics infused with risk, perspectives that challenge conventional wisdom, stories with ludic qualities, ideas that strut, fumble, twist and turn. We wanted to hear about research that gazes into the unfathomable future of the 21st century. We wanted to redress historic imbalances and hear about First Nations and Aboriginal perspectives, about theory and practice that unites mind and body or reaches across the Pacific to Asia, Oceania and beyond.

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ADAM-MOODLEY, Kogila - University of British Columbia
Education for Multicultural Citizenship and Non-racialism: Comparing South Africa.

South Africa represents one of the most obvious multicultural societies in the world. Its multiculturalism, however, has been received in very ambiguous ways. During the apartheid era, cultural and linguistic diversity were coopted by the state for divide and rule purposes. Ethno-racial difference constituted the basis for residential segregation as well as separation of all institutions where diversity was fostered and celebrated. Multiculturalism therefore acquired a very negative connotation in the new South Africa. The post apartheid state forges ahead with nation building and the cultivation of an inclusive non-racial citizenship. In the process of doing so, the present South African government seems poised somewhere between denying the importance of group specific realities and having to realise the importance of "difference" in coping with the apartheid legacy. While the state cannot ignore language, culture and identity, its central problem is how to reconcile "difference" in coping with the apartheid legacy. While the state cannot ignore language, culture and identity, its central problem is how to reconcile "difference" with common citizenship.

This paper seeks to explore the Western debate about ethnicity in its relationship to the unique South African historical context. This debate crystalizes in two predicaments. 1) multiculturalism and minority rights as communitarian in nature, resisting the forces of modernity and globalised uniformity; 2) classical liberals advocating neutrality on cultural issues in the same way that religion has been relegated to the private sphere. How can recognition of group rights and cultural survival be reconciled with nation building?

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ADUTWUM, Yaw - University of Southern California
Education Reform In Ghana

Ghana is located on West Africa's Gulf of Guinea only a few degrees north of the Equator. Before colonization the territory was comprised of various nation states, the most powerful of which was the Asante Kingdom. The first contact between the local people and Europeans date back to 1472 when the Portuguese first landed on its shores In 1842, the coastal areas became a colony of Britain. After incessant wars with the Asantes they were finally defeated and the British extended their rule further inland.

There are about 52 dialects spoken in Ghana and the official language is English. The current population of Ghana is 18 million. Like other countries in Sub Saharan Africa, Ghana has had a tumultuous political history. After its first president Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown on February 24th 196h The country did not sec. political stability till 1981. After overthrowing the government of Dr. IJilla Limman the Jerry Rawlings undertook an economic crusade to transform Ghana's economy with the assistance of the World and the IMF. The Structural Adjustment program introduced in the country has had tremendous progress even though a lot remains to be done in opening up economic opportunity to rural farmers and the urban poor.

The first school of which written records are available dates back to 1752. It was established by Reverend Thomas Thompson. During the colonial period schools established by the missionaries were focused on training clerks and interpreters for the colonial administration and the clergy for missionary activities. Attempts at introducing vocational and agricultural education were not successful (Foster, P. 1964) The accelerated Education Plan introduced by Nkrumah's government boosted education in the country. Currently there am four universities and one University College. In 1987 the government introduced an education reform program as part of a World Bank sponsored Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) These reforms reduced the 17 year pre-university schooling to 12 years closely aligned with the US K-12 system.

The study will use historical research to analyze the impact of the education reform on the following:

a) Equity and equality access for rural students and girls.
b) Overall improvement of access to primary and secondary schools.
c) Cost sharing in higher education.
d) Making curricula relevant to the needs of the country.

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AFROOZ, Dr. Gholam Ali - International Institute for Adult Education Methods
Islamic family education in cross-cultural perspective: The Philosophy of Marriage

In an overall sense, what is probably termed as the main objective of marriage in Western communities is but the consequential result in an Islamic moral educational system. Within this holy structure, one should enjoy mental serenity, intellectual maturity and social compatibility On sensuality aspect, one should psychologically be able to control one's carnal desires if and when necessary. In Islamic terms, the most successful spouses are those who were in control of such temptations before the vow of marriage. They are among those who did not indulge themselves in illegitimate premarital relations. Alter being married too, they are in a better position to satisfy all their mental, intellectual inherent sexual needs together with all their inescapable, affectionate feelings within the frameworks of a family structure. This can be fully maintained through securing the mental serenity of the spouse. The rates of separation or divorce in such families are in the minimum if not nil. Nothing illustrates better the significant role of mothers than the Islamic moral educational standards in the upbringing of children. Girls are, therefore, expected to accept multi-dimensional responsibilities simultaneously They are to play the role of a confident spouse, perform motherly contributory task and prove to have the capability of offering general as well as expert services These should all be made available in a package presentable to the community without endangering the very core of a social life most respectable. Boys, on the other hand, should be brought up to play a managerial role as a dedicated spouse and devout father. Nonetheless, the role of father is by no means to resemble that of a mother's. Most likely, he is expected to make and maintain a dignified financial arrangement for the family. As a simile, a family unit is a rose garden,. children as flowers, mother the gardener and father the protector, escort and the guardian in an Islamic moral educational system. In an Islamic family system the spouses jointly play a responsible role in raising the children and make home a happy place of prosperous social activities.

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AGBO, Dr. Seth - State University of New York, Potsdam College
BOCKARIE, Dr. Abu - University of British Columbia
The Culture of the University and the Marginalized Majority: Adults in Higher Education at the Edge of the 21rst Century

Although adults are rapidly becoming the predominant age group in North American university and college campuses, the culture and customs of higher education institutions inhibit accommodation for the adult clientele by focusing attention primarily on traditional age students. By tradition, universities and four-year-colleges work hard to remain protected from external interference and therefore are unwilling to break the cultural mystique and behavioural codes built over time. In North America today, adult students, twenty-two years and older form about 60 per cent of the student population but higher education establishments still consider adult students as peripheral to their central administrative and educational function. By and large, the administrative structure, the organization of the curriculum, the instructional and learning methods and materials, and standards used to judge performance continue in most cases to be extensively influenced by models originally developed for the traditional student. Academic attitudes concerning adult students that were acceptable a decade ago may have lost their currency at the edge of the twenty-first century.

This paper seeks to answer the question whether based on the prevailing adult education philosophy and practices, universities and colleges are actually meeting the social, cultural and academic expectations of adult students. In this paper, we assert that higher education establishments can no longer perceive their primary function to only be to prepare the young to enter contemporary society. Cultural adaptation, the most dominant method for change to accommodate the adult clientele, is unfortunately very slow in most higher education establishments. To stay in touch with the educational needs of an increasingly non-traditional clientele, higher education establishments should avoid the inherent cultural clash between education and continuing adult education by discarding outdated notions that the two cultures are at odds with each other. In order to bridge the cultural gap between the traditional notions of the university and the values of adult higher education, adult educators should find a common ground which forms the basis for pursuing mutual goals and interests of both traditional and non-traditional students. A more effective approach to preparing all students for the twenty-first century is to require both flexibility and incentives, to be alert to ongoing social, economic and cultural change, and resilience in responding to new educational challenges and opportunities.

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AQUIRRE Y RIVERA, Susana - Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Women and Politics of Education in Mexico

The national economic crisis of the past decades has affected many aspects of the daily routine of a large amount of women. When we review some of the characteristics of higher education (formal education), we find that for many years, women have been deprived of a higher professional role in society due to economical, social, familiar and labor restrictions. In their constant struggle to meet their goals in life, Mexican women have tried to acquire knowledge in order to face their personal and professional obligations as well as those of their family. Education offers knowledge to cope with such obligations.

But my work goes beyond that, so I ask this question: Is this type of education really "preparing" women well enough to work in a professional field which comprises everything? Or, without thinking what their vocation might be, are we just offering them multi-skills so that they can fit in a working field?

Today, both formal and informal education go through a series of important changes that allow women to meet their goals and occupy executive posts, but simultaneously we find that they are starting to think about their personal situation with a different point of view. Where is higher education leading to? It is true that women have opened and recuperated their positions in society, but at the same time we find that not all women that start a higher education always graduate due to different factors. Therefore, we must ask us: what will their fate be?

Our nation' s traditional myths demand that the role of women should be the traditional one, i.e. that they must raise a family. On the other hand, women are demanding social liberation with professional goals in mind. Then, what do higher education institutions offer? A traditional education for non-thinking women? An education where women ask questions and demand changes? Or do they offer another type of education to acquire multi-strategies to cope with a daily existence? It seems that the educational and economical situations have produced two different Mexicos: a modern one and a marginal one. The latter is one where higher education will reject many women and later on, the working opportunities will be reduced. What will Mexico has to do regarding education?

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ALAGOZIAN, Edwin - University of California, Davis
Globalization in Armenia and the Schooled Citizen

Recent studies on the role of schools in expanding the increasingly global reach of capitalism have extensively utilized researcher-centered theoretical and methodological models. To this end, voices from constituents who have endured the conditions that have been studied have become rendered as marginal; and have had minimal impact on the researcher's findings. What are the implications for studying the impact of schooling on the increasingly global reach of capitalism from researcher-centered perspectives? How does excluding or rendering insignificant the voices of those who have endured the effects social, cultural, and economic transformation limit our understandings of how schools impact the increasingly global reach of capitalism?

This study seeks to transcend the theoretical and methodological limitations of researcher-centered inquiry on how the institution of schooling impacts globalization. Utilizing a critical cultural studies lens, this postcolonial ethnography examines the perspectives of school administrators, educators, and students in an Armenian community and seeks to form multifaceted understandings of how the institution of schooling impacts globalization. Issues examined include the emergence of certain themes throughout an individual's schooling experience and the implications of these themes in the development and legitimation of specific social and cultural processes that construct the global citizen. The following questions inform the investigation: What social and cultural processes have gained prominence in the institution of schooling in Armenia that have contributed to the social construction of the global citizen? How has the global citizen become legitimated through these processes? How have these processes supported or opposed nationalism in Armenia? And finally, what efforts are currently being made by oppositional groups in Armenia toward organizing movements in schools that seek to resist the construction of the global citizen?

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ATLEO, Marlene R. - University of British Columbia
Transformational Theory and Indigenous Interests in Adult Education: Maturity, Morality and Modernization.

Transformational Theory has made significant gains in providing a comprehensive, evolving synthesis of the field of adult learning for democratic ideals. This year Transformational Theory comes into its own in that the First Conference will be held in New York and a Consortium will be struck to advance a research program and promote the theory. Mezirow's own personal development seems to be the heart of this inductive theory development in adult education and community development. Mezirow's reflection on his epiphany upon reading Freire's early work seems to be at the heart of Transformative Learning theory. Critiques of Mezirow's theory in process may have missed the central organizing feature of the theory itself: Jack Mezirow, a man of history provides the central organizing orientation. The theory promotes dialectical reasoning as the peak of mature adult development and the emancipatory social goal democracy.

In this presentation, I will examine the relationship between democratic ideals as such developmental maturity and moral citizenship as they relate to international development that is focused on the "modernization" of indigenous peoples. In particularly, I will examine the changing value orientations of the colonizer in the new orientation to the colonized engaged in communicative action rather than strategic communication in the context of environmental press. I will further examine the need for indigenous peoples to understand their own constitutive interests in this new partnership. To achieve this examination I will take a pluralistic rational constructivistic approach that may aid us in understanding the need for theory that can accommodate diversity as a strategy for sustainability of personal and social systems well as explain universals in which adult education has stake.

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ATLEO, Umeek (E. Richard) Ed.D - Malaspina University College
The Tloo-aua-nah Principle for Education: A First Nations Perspective

One literal translation of Tloo-qua-nah is "we remember reality". In precontact times among the Nuu-chah-nulth it was, in part, an effective educational system for the whole family and community. Today, in a multicultural, multi-value society, an obvious problem is the differing perceptions of'reality'. Not only are there different perceptions of reality today, there is, in educational circles, disagreements about which parts of reality to study.

The Tloo-qua-nah principle for education is inclusive. It admits everything, omits nothing, and simultaneously declares the unity of opposites while affirming their separation. The affirmation of all reality, good and bad, love and war, love and hate, love and pain, male and female, life and not this life, joy and grief, peace and trouble, young and old, the ugly and beautiful, and everything in between such polarities are not without 'teachings' or ha-huupa. The Tloo-qua-nah principle as a philosophy has implications for innovative curriculum and pedagogy in education, particularly for First Nations students.

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BECKETT, G.H. - University of British Columbia
Different Perspectives on Writing

The "whole language" approach has become a common practice in many North American English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms as many second language educators have become convinced that listening, speaking, reading, and writing are part of children's general developmental process. They should not be viewed as discrete skills such as penmanship, phonics, and spelling that can be taught in isolation. They should be taught in meaningful context for real communication with the emphasis on process rather than product (Freeman and Freeman, 1992; Law and Eckes, 1990). However, as Gunderson (1998) shows, many immigrant parents have serious concerns about the whole language approach in education. Little research has been conducted to find out the effect of such an approach on the direct recipients, i.e., the students. My presentation will be an attempt to fill this gap by reporting secondary school ESL students' perspectives on whole language approach with emphasis on writing. Specifically, the study was conducted for my doctoral dissertation in a secondary public school in Western Canada. The data were gathered from 74 Chinese immigrant students and their teachers over a four-year period through observations, interviews, parent-teachers meetings, ESL departmental meetings, students journal entries, and school documents such as course outlines, course evaluations, and departmental handbooks. The data analysis showed that the student participants viewed writing differently than their teachers who viewed writing as a cyclical process, in which students work through pre-writing, organizing, drafting, evaluating, revising, and editing stages at their own pace without their errors being corrected by the teachers. The different perspectives regarding what counts as writing and how writing should be taught/learned will be discussed epistemologically at both macro and micro levels. Implications of the findings as well as suggestions for practice will also be discussed.

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BISHOP, Ann - University of British Columbia
The Agonies of Online Learning

The promoters of Web education would like to convince policy makers, educators and students that it's not just as good as education conducted face-to-face, it's even better. I disagree. From my experiences as a Web student and an educator, the best of Web education is far from equaling the quality of classroom education. It's not even better than old-fashioned correspondence education.

Not only is online education radically different, the continually changing technology makes everyone a novice, which means a great deal can go wrong. To those who would give or take a Web course, I say caveat emptor. There is much to consider before putting your reputation online. I felt obliged to write about my negative experiences with Web education to counteract the forces who believe it should expand at the expense of face-to-face education and even replace it altogether. Second, it's time someone critiqued Web education from the learner's point of view. Although there's great deal of literature written about Web education, most is funded directly or indirectly by the computer and telecommunications industry. With this bias, few articles question the benefits of Web education and fewer still do so from the learner's point of view.

In examining what can go wrong in Web education, I use the lenses both of an adult student and of an adult educator. In doing so, I hope to convince would-be Web educators and Web students to learn all they can about the negative effects of Web education and the factors needed to make it tolerable.

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BLUNT, Adrian - University of Saskatchewan
LI, Guofang - University of Saskatchewan
Dancing On The Edge of Cross-cultural Academic Discourse: A Study Of Chinese Graduate Students' Learning Experiences

This paper reports an investigation of the graduate learning experiences of students from the People's Republic of China (PRC) attending the University of Saskatchewan. Adjustment to Canadian culture and social practices are factors known to influence international students' performance and most universities have cultural adjustment and local orientation programs and support services in place. However, relatively little is known about other factors more closely associated with the daily intellectual work of foreign students which may be more important determinants of academic success. Further, this knowledge gap contributes to faculty not having an understanding of the causes of students' academic difficulties and thus limits their capacity to effectively respond to advisee's needs.

The proposed paper will report on research in progress to support an institutional development project to internationalize the university's curricula and teaching. The two foci of the research study are, the learning experiences of PRC graduate students, and the nature of their working relationships with academic and research supervisors. The purpose of the study is to identify those learning and academic study related factors which directly influence student performance and program completion.

The investigators, a male Canadian faculty member and a female PRC doctoral candidate, designed the study to test three broad propositions which individually, and collectively, contribute to advisor-advisee incongruence and help to explain student success or failure: (1) PRC graduate students are trained in research traditions that differ from those of their new Canadian departments; (2) within disciplines, there are important differences between academic discourses in China and Canada; and 3) PRC students' lack of fluency in English compounds learning problems and disciplinary differences between advisors and advisees.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted by the graduate investigator with three PRC graduate students. An equal number of faculty who had recently encountered professional difficulties with the work of, or the satisfactory progress of, a PRC advisee were interviewed by the faculty investigator. The interviews were transcribed and the constant comparative method was used to identify common themes within the data from each of the two groups of respondents.

The data analysis is not yet completed, however, the results obtained to date indicate that PRC graduate students and their advisors hold different conceptions of, among others, the: (1) role of the advisor, (2) preferred processes for guiding and directing graduate learning, (3) structure of an academic argument, and (4) meanings underlying discussions around epistemological issues.

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BRAUNDY, Marcia - University of British Columbia
Technological Literacy and Employabilty Skills for Women

Technical skills development for women is being touted the world over as a necessity for bringing the skills of half the population to bear on issues from waste management to food security. It is also suggested to enhance the livelihoods of those who, in almost every country, make up the majority of those in poverty. In UNESCO, Canada, the United States and Australia in Jamaica, Grenada and Pakistan, programs have been developed to meet this need What is being delivered what ways does it meet the needs? When discussion turns to Technological Literacy, many would focus on hardware skills: computer training, engineering skills, tool skills. While these are important and necessary, the ability to determine and participate in design processes which include critical thinking about potential consequences, the consideration of ethical issues, and to develop strategies which include full-cost accounting, will also prove useful in programs to assist women.

We will experiment with just such a model and examine the ways that the concepts of "employability skills" can be built into learning about skills used in the environmental sector, or forestry, or learning how we learn.

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BUTTEDAHL, Paz - University of British Columbia
Education at the Summit of the Americas: A mirage or are we all coming to our senses?

The Second Summit of the Americas was held in Santiago, Chile on April 18 - 19, 1998. This was an important event, as much of the contents of the agenda were the result of serious and sophisticated negotiations held amongst representatives of each of the countries in the Americas, over a period of two years, where long standing issues of concern in interamerican relations were resolved in a rather amicable manner.

All countries in the Americas, as they move towards the New Millennium, have implemented radical economic reforms in order to become more competitive in the international markets. Influenced by the dictates of the International Monetary Fund, pressures from International Markets, and the long standing shadow of the USA, they appear to have fully embraced a neo-liberal economic model. Such a model has been hostile and neglectful of social policies, thus social issues have been swept under the carpet in many of the industrialized countries. However, in the Americas, particularly Chile and Argentina, the public discourse is one of change, modernization, growth with equity. There is as well an expressed concern for investments in social capital, so a significant effort is made to raise the visibility of the social questions throughout the economic discourse.

As an example, two central themes at the Second Summit of the Americas were education and social capital. In the final declaration , signed by the 39 Heads of State, it was established that 8.5 billion dollars will be allocated throughout the region in the next five years which includes Canada, to educational reform, and other components of social policy.

This paper will focus on the massive educational reforms that are undertaken within the Americas, will attempt to explain the rationale behind the importance attributed by all governments to education, and discuss the extent to which the investments being made will point to successful qualitative and quantitative results, based on the stated policies about equality and poverty alleviation.

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BUTTERWICK, Shauna - University of British Columbia
Principles for Successful Employment-Related Training Programs: Lessons Learned from Canadian, American and European Studies

This paper presents the results of an analysis of a large number of evaluation studies that examined the effectiveness of labour market training programs in Canada, the United States and Europe. The analysis is organized around four themes: (i) programs that focused on school to work transition, (ii) programs that focused on welfare to work transition, (iii) programs that focused on employability skills, and (iv) programs that focused on improving employment opportunities and narrowing the income gap for members of designated equity groups. As a result of the analysis of these studies, principles for effective training are identified within each of these arenas, as well as for an overall effective training system. Interpreting what has been found in studies, which evaluate the effectiveness of training programs, requires that consideration be given to how success is defined and by whom. This analysis is based on an orientation to adult education principles that consider learners as knowledgeable agents, actors in their own lives and capable of learning and changing.

These principles are offered with some caution and recognition of the dangers of ignoring the importance of context when developing policies and programs for different regions of Canada and different economic realities facing other countries in the world. This analysis is also grounded in the recognition of the limitations of labour market training as a policy response to a range of complex issues related to economic restructuring, structural unemployment, technological change and globalization trends. Labour market or skills training, although important, cannot in and of itself, address the problems emerging from these aforementioned influences. Training is only one of many strategies and should be viewed as part of a comprehensive and more holistic approach, which includes such interventions as community economic development, job creation through economic measures and work-sharing strategies.

Up-to-date knowledge of the changes taking place in different labour markets, both job loss as well as job creation is crucial. Training is not the goal, rather it is the means to an end, and must be linked to economic initiatives that create good jobs, jobs that pay a living wage and that utilize, rather than waste, the talent of workers.

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CARAGATA, Lea - Wilfred Laurier University
The experience of Schools of Social Work in international Development and Education

This paper argues for the importance of an international or global perspective in social work education. This position is supported by a brief review of the history of social work and social work education which demonstrates social work's multi-disciplinary and international origins. While following from this was a period during which social workers from the so-called developed world exported western "expertise" the authors suggest that mutuality and reciprocity guide moot of the current international exchangee. The social work colonialism of earlier decades appears to be at least on the wane.

This paper reviews the participation and activities of Schools of Social Work in the United States and Canada with respect to international development. The findings of a survey are reported and the activities of several Schools of Social Work which have linkages with Schools of Social Work in 'developing' countries or are active in other aspects of international development are described .

The paper argues that there are three significant reasons why Schools of Social Work should undertake such roles :

1) the nature of social work practice enables a positive contribution to international social development
2) such efforts benefit the host or 'developing' country and fulfil social work's mandate to *Fork on behalf of poor and
3) the School of Social Work benefits by:

• supporting and enabling international and comparative research
• providing for the possibility of international practicum settings and enabling students to see the development of social work theory and practice issues at a global level
• contributing to a north-south dialogue.

The paper concludes with the suggestion that as globalization and a neo-liberal economic ideology become yet more dominant, the issues and challenges associated with social development become similar in so-called 'developed' and 'developing' nations. Broader global understandings of these issues are necessary which can only be achieved by cross-national research which documents these trends and impacts.

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CARPENTER, Susan - University of British Columbia
Cross-cultural Communication in the University Student/Academic Adviser Relationship

During the advising process, the faculty or departmental adviser and university student must interact in a one-to-one setting to solve problems and plan the student's program. Consequently, communication is the medium through which academic advising takes place. There are three levels upon which communication takes place: ontological (thinking), relational (interacting), and discursive (talking) (Mortensen, 1994). Although communication is meant to be direct and easily comprehended, on each level, each person brings to a conversation previous experiences, outlooks, and ways of communicating. Subsequently, what Is said is not always what Is thought or understood. The majority of ethnic minorities and international students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) are Chinese. Therefore, the majority of cross- cultural communication which occurs, here between students and advisers, is thought to be eastern versus western. While eastern communication is geared toward respecting authority, thereby not questioning it in order to "save facets)", western communication expects, and somewhat admires, vocal assertiveness. These differences in expectations could pose problems for Asian students who do not realize the adviser is waiting for them to disclose substantial information about their individual circumstances or desires. Inadequate advising may result if the adviser is not aware of the entire picture or if students go away feeling misunderstood or mistreated.

For this presentation, as well as her Master's thesis, the author created a survey using three of Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance) in an attempt to measure culture's effect on the adviser/advisee relationship. The pilot study of 200 surveys was presented at the CIES conference last November. Now over 1200 surveys have been collected from undergraduate students at UBC to be analyzed. Results reveal how students from different cultural backgrounds differ in their assumptions of interacting with academic advisers and to what extent Hofstede's (1980) dimensions of cultural differences are representative factors of these students' assumptions. Recommendations for future research and ways of improving the adviser/advisee relationship will also be discussed.

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CHAN, Jacqueline Kin-sang - The Hong Kong Institute of Education
The Decision Making of Teachers in Teaching General Studies in Primary Schools in Hong Kong

General Studies is a newly adopted curriculum which integrates Social Studies, Health Education and Primary Science taught previously as separate subjects in primary schools in Hong Kong. The aims and objectives, contents, teaching strategies and evaluation of the new curriculum are different from the three previous separate subjects with the direction moving towards a more integrated and student-centered approach in preparing children for a comprehensive education in the course of primary education.

The decision making of teachers is primarily related to their underlying beliefs and values. Also, in planning to deliver the lessons, teachers usually make their decisions according to the content knowledge and students' characteristics. As the newly adopted General Studies Curriculum requires different approaches of teaching, the teachers' decision making in implementing the new curriculum may also be different from that of the past.

This paper aims to reflect teachers' decisions in teaching a new integrated curriculum -- General Studies in Hong Kong. Interviews and observations will be used as the tools to triangulate the data obtained. Analysis of the data was based upon the data observed in the classrooms and the responses of the teachers during in-depth interviews. The result of this study may suggest ways for curriculum change and implementation and decisions in teacher education.

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CHEN, Pei-Ying - University of Southern California
A Policy Analysis of the Expansion of Vocational Education and Economic Growth in Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s

The economic growth in Taiwan in the last three decades is well-known throughout the world. The average annual growth rate has been around 10% since the 1960s. With the lack of physical capital and natural resources, human resources become important to economic development in Taiwan. In terms of managing labor force, Taiwanese manpower planning was initiated in 1966 to predict the types and quantity of labors according to future needs of the industrial sector. Manpower planning is assessed as a successful policy due to its accuracy of projection of labor and its effective implementation of managing the educational sector to produce the exact number of the expected labors (Woo, 1991; Young, 1994).

The expansion of vocational education is prominent along with the initiative of manpower planning. However, from the evidence of several studies, it seems that expansion of vocational education did not directly reflect economic needs (labor force) in general, neither did it benefit individuals. The mismatch of Taiwanese vocational education did not ruin the developmental policy or strategies; but rather, it proved positive to economic growth. This paper, thus, is to reexamine the relationship between the expansion of vocational education and economic growth in Taiwan during the 1960s and 1970s. Two kinds of perspectives are employed to analyze the dual goals of Taiwanese developmental strategies--growth and stability. One perspective is the micro level view concerning individual earnings, relevance of vocational education curriculum to jobs, and expectation of vocational education graduates to further study. The other is the macro level perspective regarding unemployment rate, stabilized wages, and foreign investment in Taiwan. How these two levels of influence worked together to create Taiwan's economic success in the 1960s and 1970s is the main analysis of this paper.

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CHEN, Shenghong H. - University of British Columbia
A Comparison of Development of Higher Education in Canada and China: A Historical View

There is no highly developed or widely agreed picture of the international context in which universities operate, but every single university experiences its historical development, from embryonic form to mature stage. Higher education as a social institution has become a truly global institution with extreme longevity. Over its historical development, there are common characteristics among universities around the world, and there are striking differences between them as well. "Comparative education theory is helpful in suggesting frames for thinking about universities in relation to their distinctive national cultural and historical contexts." (Ruth Hayhoe, 1993)

From these concerns, this article tends to provide a historical view about the evolution of higher education in both Canada and China. Recognizing the tremendous differences in culture and history between these two nations, the article compares the historical development with respect to teaching curriculum, institutional pattern and institutional change during the periods of 16th Century B.C. - 1840, 1841 - 1910, 1911 - 1948, 1949 - 1977, and 1978 - present. The focus of the article is not on the differences in the histories of higher education between Canada and China. Rather, it aims at presenting a chronic description of the evolution of higher education in the two nations, from its birth to growth, to expansion, to standstill, to merge, and for some to an end.

Since Chinese higher education has a history extending over 3000 years, and "The History of Chinese Education is almost the History of China." (Howard Gait, 1951), the focal periods established here are based on historical events that happened in China, which have far-reaching implications for the history of Chinese higher education. However, it by no means ignores specific events symbolizing the state and development of higher education in Canada.

The article represents an attempt to help readers gain insights into how and to what extent historical events affect the evolution of higher education which in turn shapes and reflects national life. The other attempt is to stimulate further comparative research. One of the concerns is that how we integrate insights into certain common stages that all universities have gone through in spite of their identifiable roots.

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CRAWFORD, Dr. Leslie - University of Alberta
Metaphoric Teaching and Learning: Cross-Cultural Dance Lessons

In this presentation, I would like to speak about the power of the metaphorical voice in cross-cultural teaching and learning. The first step of this doctoral research study included a phenomenological investigation into my own teaching and learning practices. Using narrative inquiry, movement, and art, I came to understand how these ways of knowing can be used to bridge the body/mind split, and how they can, in turn, lead to transformative learning. Using the insights I had gained through my own self-study, I put theory into practice and introduced these ways of knowing into a unique one-month intensive course I developed for Korean teachers at the University of Alberta.

I have collected data from this course from 1994-1997. During the course, the teachers participate in five imaginative ways of using art and storytelling. Through these ways of knowing which would be an aspect of the "subjugated knowledges" Foucault speaks of, participants are able to access their own wisdom. Hans-Georg Gadamer says in Truth and Method that "aesthetic experience is a playful experience, and yet a se rio us one in which human subjectivity loses itself. The work of art has its true being in the fact that it becomes an experience that changes the person who experiences it" (1975:102). Examples of art work that I will show will give evidence that many participants (including myself as the reseacher) found themselves engaged in a transformative learning experience in which they were able to discover things they wanted to change in their personal or professional practices. For example, one participant said: "Through this course I realized that I was a dictator, not a teacher". I believe this research is of critical importance because metaphoric learning not only bridges cultural differences, it can help to give educators insights into how they can create new possibilities fo learning for themselves and, consequently, for their students at a time in our century when we so desperately need to find new ways of envisioning inclusive pedagogical practices that can serve to create a more peaceful and optimistic future.

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CROWTHER, Jim - Heriot-Watt University
MARTIN, Ian - Heriot-Watt University
SHAW, Mae - Heriot-Watt University
Adult education - on the edge or at the edge

As adult educators, we position ourselves firmly within the popular education and social purpose traditions - although we understand the distinctions, and sometimes the tensions, that may exist between these. Historically, radical adult education has grown out of the struggles of ordinary people for democracy, equality and social justice. These struggles continue - and adult education should be, once again, at their cutting edge.

As globalisation proceeds and the millenium approaches, we want to reassert the importance of taking a principled position of unambiguous social and political commitment. This is an Important and urgent task because, in our view, adult education is in danger of losing its way - not so much dancing on the edge as falling off it.

In order to argue why adult education is on the edge, we need to develop the language of critique. In this respect, we wish to critique of six particular trends in current policy, theory and practice which have the effect of de-radicalising adult education and divorcing our work from popular struggles: " the hegemony of technical rationality and narrowly conceived and (ironically) economistic forms of vocationalism and 'competence'; " the commodification of knowledge and the marketisation of education systems; " the growing emphasis on the 'facilitation' of individual learning - as distinct from purposeful educational intervention (and our own agency as educators); " the tendency to celebrate experience rather than test its significance and locate it systematically within the dialectics of agency and structure; " the 'postmodern turn' in the theory of adult education which, all too often, seems to cut it off from its historical roots in social purpose and political struggle; * rhetorical assertions about the importance of' active citizenship' in the 'learning society' which take no account of context, contingency and differentials of power.

The overall effect has, in our view, been a disastrous loss of vision, a narrowing of interests and technicisation of the curriculum, and, above all, a debilitating reductionism in the debate about the values and purposes which should inform and guide our work.

In order to argue why adult education should be at the edge, we need to develop the language of possibility. In this respect, we seek to demonstrate, by way of practical examples, how we can counter these trends in our work as teachers, researchers and writers: by rehistoricising the project, reviving the debate, stretching the discourse, problematising the rhetoric, changing the argument, listening to both old and new voices from the margins. Moreover, we argue that the contradictions of the current policy context and the politics of research open new opportunities (as well as constraints) for counter-education and alternative forms of teaching and learning. Particular reference is made to the current conjuncture in Scotland where we believe that the imminent prospect of a Scottish Parliament heralds the possibility of a new kind of relationship between the political culture of the state and the cultural politics of social movements in civil society. Radical adult education has always operated at this particular cutting edge, i.e., within the dialectics of this uniquely creative - if marginal and precarious - space. As the millenium approaches, this is where we need to be.

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DIXON, G. - University of British Columbia
HU, Jim - University of British Columbia
Cooperative Early Childhood Education: A Bridge to Intercultural Communication

This paper presentation reports on a study which developed from assessment to description of two early childhood education centers involved in a cooperative education program between Canada and China. Of central concern to the study was to achieve an understanding of the cultures of education in the two centers, respectively located in Canada and China, through the eyes of exchange teachers. In particular, the study explored: what were the beliefs of teaching and learning at the two centers, and how did the teachers at the two centers practice curriculum and instruction, and how did socio-cultural factors impact on such beliefs and practices.

Two Chinese early childhood teachers who visited the Canadian center for 3-4 months and one Canadian early childhood teacher who taught at the Chinese center for two terms were interviewed, using semi-structured interview guides. The questions covered such areas as the participants' (a) pre-departure expectations and activities, (b) on-site activities, problems, thoughts and feelings, and (c) post-visit reflections and practices. Also interviewed was an administrator at the Canadian center on her views of curriculum and instruction. Meantime, observation was conducted of the classes at the two centers.

The study found that teaching at the Canadian center appeared to be spontaneous, was typically theme-based, child-centered, and was aimed at the development of life skills; whereas the teaching at the Chinese center appeared very formal, teacher-centered, and was designed for the memorization of prepackaged knowledge. However, thanks to the exchanges, innovations are taking place especially at the Chinese center. Further, the study found the interviews not only represented dialogues between the researcher and the teachers but also developed dialogues between teachers and administrators, teachers and teachers, teachers and parents, and most important of ail, "Canadian" culture and Chinese culture. The understandings that follow are essential especially for educators from different cultures to learn from each other and in times of necessity, to tolerate each other.

The presentation will also share practical experience gathered from the study participants with those who may wish to teach overseas.

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DORNER, Celine - Pacific Lutheran University
Gender differences in the prediction of college mathematics course performance

The results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) show a significant gender gap in the mathematics portion of the assessment, with males performing better than females in all twenty-one participating countries. This paper indicates the dangers of basing important decisions such as admission to programs, scholarships and course placement on the basis of such tests. We must be very careful in the use of these results, particularly for prediction purposes.

In the United States, the Scholastic Achievement Test in Mathematics (SATM) has had a significant gender gap for many years in all fifty states with males scoring higher than females. The SATM is commonly used in the prediction of college performance. However, it has long been observed that women earn higher college grades than expected on the basis of their scores on ability or achievement tests (Wagner & Strabel, 1935). In general, most researchers have uncovered the same finding: Ignoring gender and predicting grade point average (GPA) from a single equation for both men and women usually leads to a gender bias that systematically underpredicts grades for women (Linn, 1973, 1978). This raises both legal and ethical questions because the use of a single equation to select applicants for admissions or to award scholarships may adversely impact women. Fairness clearly requires us to address this issue.

The Mathematics Placement procedure at Pacific Lutheran University (FLU) was studied to see how well and how fairly it predicted grades in four freshman mathematics courses. Using statistical analysis, it was found that the national phenomenon of gender difference in SATM scores and gender difference between predicted and actual grades in mathematics classes existed at FLU. Variables used in the predictor equation and other variables available through the mathematics placement survey and admissions data were studied. Using regression analysis, an introduced dummy gender variable, and interaction variables, some variables were found to exacerbate gender effects while others neutralized gender effects The use of a combination of the best predictor variables produced a surprising result. Instead of the two equations as past research recommended for avoiding the gender under-over prediction phenomenon, only one equation was necessary.

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EGAN, John - University of British Columbia
Whose Movement Is It Anyway: The Metamorphosis Of AIDS Prevention Education In Vancouver, Canada

Problem: Due to ignorance or animus government entities are often unable to adequately respond to health crises in marginalized communities. The North American Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome/Human Immunodeficiency Virus (AIDS/HIV) epidemic is an example of this. A dearth of government services necessitated that community initiatives fill gaps in services. But as such initiatives become established (and more formal in structure), a shift from community-centered priorities to those more closely aligned with government policy, often emerges. These shifts from a community's own customs and practices (including communication modes and styles) to the mainstream can be exclusionary. To what extent has this phenomenon occurred with respect to AIDS prevention education in Vancouver?

Methodology: Documentation of such events can be challenging. Current staff of a (co- opted) community group will support the current paradigms, since those opposed to the structuralization of such groups are often excluded. Those whose interests are no longer those of the group are often perceived to be "dinosaurs" or "too radical", and their experiences are summarily denigrated. One can often render a history of such a process by reviewing the material output of the group in question. For AIDS prevention, the printed materials--flyers, posters, wallet cards, and advertisements--constitute a genuine discourse on the evolution of the community response to KIV/AIDS in Vancouver. Using a foucaldian frame, these materials have been analyzed, asking how these documents may demonstrate whose interests were being represented.

Results: Though likely not malicious in intent, AIDS prevention in Vancouver is no longer internally serving those most at-risk for HIV infection. Organizations such as AIDS Vancouver have evolved from volunteer-only, community-based entities into professionalized, more mainstream organizations, often sharing similarities in structure with government agencies. That government funding is the primary source of revenue for many such organizations is perhaps not coincidental. The impact of this transformation may be the ensuring that persons who engage in high-risk activities do not access vital services. The impoverished and working classes, the illiterate, substance abusers, and men who have sex with other men (but who do not self-identity as homosexual) are particularly vulnerable.

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ELMALLAH, Amin - California State University, Sacramento
GEZI, Kal - California State University, Sacramento
The Politics of Financing Education in California

The problem of financing public education in the United States has been the focus of considerable controversy with the State of California providing a useful example. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the major factors contributing to this controversy in California, identify the roles of the key players in the decision making process and analyze the implications of this process to the notions of equity quality efficiency, choice and future financing strategies.

The problem has been complicated by several factors. First, the 1043 school districts in California vary in size, resources, student makeup, problems and special needs. Second, the change from local control to state control, brought about by proposition 13 (The Tax Limitation Initiative), produced a new set of political players and a change in the agenda of allocating resources to education. Third, The Serrano decision, which ushered a new role for the courts in determining educational finance in California, led the Legislature to require equity in educational expenditures by all school districts. Fourth, the infighting between Democrats and Republicans in reflected an increasing competition for resources among the Legislature, urban, suburban and rural school districts.

The main players now in deciding the direction and extent of financial allocation to education are the Legislature, the Governor, professional organizations, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state board of education, the courts and a host of non-education pressure groups.

One of the implications of shifting financial decisions from the local authorities to the state, has been the competition of not only among the various interests such as education, health, safety and welfare in gaining a major share of state resources, but also between K-12 schools and higher education. Since state resources are limited by the economic conditions of the state, new private funding sources had to be explored such as school-business partnerships and university fund raising programs which have implications for curriculum decisions and institutional choices. While the original Serrano decision led to parity in the basic aid to school districts, the Serrano III court decision excluded supplemental state grants to districts from equity considerations resulting in many inequities. The tireless efforts of tax spending advocates and the finance reform advocates have had strong implications for financing equity, choice and efficiency in education.

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ENGLESBERG, Paul Ed.D. - Western Washington University
Teaching and Learning in Tribal Schools: Voices of Non-Native Teachers

On some Indian reservations in Washington State, tribally-run schools provide an educational option for native students. Many of the teachers are non-Native and most enter the schools with little or no familiarity with the culture and background of their students. How do these teachers see their work, their students, and their relationship with the community?

Rios (1993, 1996) and Artilles (1996) have pointed out the need for research on teacher thinking that takes cultural context into account. In their investigations of the beliefs and thinking of teachers in multiethnic and inner-city settings, researchers have suggested several frameworks for understanding the variety of teacher orientations, from resistant to culturally responsive teachers (Gillette, 1996; Hamilton, 1996; Valli, 1996). Studies of successful teachers of Native Alaskan children (Kleinfeld, 1972) and African American children (Ladson-Billings, 1994) have identified some very similar dimensions that characterize effective teaching. These studies provide some conceptual frameworks and background for the current study examining the thinking and orientation ofnon-Native teachers in tribal school settings.

In-depth interviews were conducted with elementary and high school teachers at two tribally-run schools. Their experience ranged from one to fourteen years; many were able to compare their experience teaching in the tribal school with teaching in other school settings. Teachers were asked to describe their experiences and discuss how they viewed their process of adaptation and change. Interview transcripts were analyzed by searching for patterns and categories of teachers' thinking about their practice and their students, teachers' attributions of student success/failure, and teachers' orientations to the community.

In order to teach effectively and develop positive relationships with the students and community, these teachers made many adaptations, both internally and overtly in their practice. Teachers saw important internal changes occurring in their beliefs and understandings about students' abilities, motivation, and achievement and in their perspectives about individual and cultural differences. They related these adaptations to a variety of external changes in pedagogy including instructional strategies, curriculum, assessment, and managing behavior and control issues. To varying degrees, tribal school teachers develop perspectives that differ from the assimilationist orientation that has been prevalent in public schools. This study explores their perspectives on tribal schools, the native community, and Indian-white relations and how these perspectives are connected to their relationships with their students.

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FALK, Cliff - Simon Fraser University
ROSENTHAL, Alex - B.C. Institute of Technology
Critiquing Ma(u)lling and Boutiquing your Self: The Moral Economy of International Educational Reform

(No Abstract Available)

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FISHER, Robert M. - University of British Columbia
Culture of Fear: Toxification of Landscape-Mindscape as Meta-Context for Education in the 21rst Century

A growing body of literature from diverse sources has been collected for over ten years, indicating the necessity for educators and community leaders to take a serious look at the implications of increasing global 'fear' both psycho-sociologically and politically. Traditional Western definitions and conceptualizations of the nature and role of' fear' (a "feeling or emotion"), trapped within the hegemony of psychology and patriarchal Creek philosophy, are no longer adequate to an integral understanding of the phenomenon of ‘fear' itself. An entire deconstruction and reconstruction of the concept of 'fear' is called for. A preliminary documentation of the confusion about 'fear' is presented in the author's recent publication The 'Fear' Encyclopedia The author will present a summary of the growing literature across disciplinary boundaries that indicates 'fear' is becoming recognized by researchers as a critical social and political concept that constitutes the core root of all oppression. Several authors and researchers have labeled the culture of 'fear' as a meta-context in which to understand environmental toxification and the toxification of psyche-social space. Some critical theorists have argued, like the notion of' power in understanding oppression, 'fear' is a complementary foundational concept of equal importance in understanding the dynamics of terrorism/violence and the development of totalitarian organizational systems.

Some theoretical perspectives on 'fear', as a part of late capitalism and a'wound culture', suggest that overt political uses of 'fear', although often brutally destructive in totalitarian-run countries (e.g., Colombia), may not in the long-term be the most dreaded 'enemy' of humanity. The pervasive chronic "low-grade fear" in North American culture is thought to be equally destructive and more dangerous because it cannot easily be seen below what looks like "freedom and democracy". However, good evidence is accumulating that the negative impact of 'fear' on the overall health of North Americans is immense. Our worst problem in North America (a la de Becker's findings) and Europe (a la Furedi's findings) is that people's perception of 'fear' and risk, is so out of proportion with the actual reality and this is leading to a cultural paranoia of mistrust and continued social fragmentation in an addictive search for private "comfort and security". The impact of a culture of ‘fear' on innovative learning and formal and non-formal educational settings will be discussed with input from the participants and their experiences internationally. Various ways of recognizing 'fear' in psychological, sociological and political frameworks will be discussed, along with strategies of how to intervene in what one author called "fear: the cancer of society': A few international grassroot initiatives moving toward a "fear-free" society will be mentioned as well as some of the author's grassroots community work as co-founder of The In Search of Fearlessness Centre and Research Institute of Alberta, Canada.

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GHIARA, Ranjeeta - California State University
Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges: Teaching Gender and Development the Poststructuralist Way

It is becoming increasingly important for higher education to prepare students to live in a diverse and changing world. Yet resource allocation in higher education, dictated by the constraints of a fiscal crisis, results in what appears to be a contradictory imperative to accomplish more with less. With budget cuts, program elimination and a host of other changes is it possible for higher education to better prepare students for the next century ? We argue that a poststructuraiist pedagogical approach could make this possible.

The beginning point of poststructuralist analysis is the recognition that our perceptions of the world are socially constructed and ordered and that they shape our ways of knowing and ordering experiences. For example, poststructuralist feminist scholars have documented the fact that women and men experience global processes differently and yet men's experiences have traditionally been presented as the "true" experience. As a result women's experiences and understandings that do not fit into this male defined pattern are ignored and their validity is denied. Poststructuralist analysis enables students to observe how global processes are shaped by socially constructed hierarchies of gender, race, ethnicity, class and religious identification.

We think it is time for poststructuralist scholarship to change the way we teach. The first task ahead of us then is to define this pedagogical approach keeping in mind that as educators we set the terms of the discourse and the way that students will come to think about the material we are presenting. We begin to conceptualize this approach as the blurring and deconstruction of false dichotomies created in academia such as those between research and teaching, academic disciplines and learning and teaching. First, we need to bridge the gap between research and teaching. Second, we need to be willing to cross interdisciplinary lines if we wish our students to cross conventional disciplinary boundaries. Third, we think it is important to think about teaching and learning as a truly collaborative effort by reinforcing the idea that there are a multiplicity of knowers and ways of knowing. I examine and develop this approach further in the context of a specific course (Gender and Development) that I have taught.

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GROSJEAN, Garnet - University of British Columbia
Choreographing Cooperative Education: Learning the Moves in the Labour-Market Line Dance

Universities world-wide are beginning to choreograph curricula to respond to the lure of the labour- market line dance. The economy's insatiable appetite for employees adapted to 'creative, flexible and innovative' workplaces demands graduates with relevant 'employability skills.' Recent policy debates reinforce these demands for transferability between education and labour market contexts. Terms such as relevance, responsiveness, vocationalism, employability skills and marketability are common currency. Many academic areas struggle to respond. But in cooperative education, continuous transferability between educational and workplace contexts is taken-for-granted.

Cooperative education (co-op), alternates between academic and workplace education and training. In its various forms- sandwich programs, work-experience, certain forms of apprenticeship, and polytechnical programs--it is a world-wide phenomenon. Supporters argue that co-op work experience provides continuous learning and progressive outcomes for students who might otherwise be denied access to higher education. Critics view it as a process in which individual students are screened to feed the production needs ofbusiness. While it is seen by some as an answer to the relevance debate serious questions can be raised about co-op. Do these programs meet the general education needs of students as well as providing employability skills? Or are they a source of cheap labour for employers? Does co-op education reinforce or resist existing structural inequities in society? Is co-op an answer to the neoliberal retreat of state support for educational institutions? Or does it represent a subsidy for capital?

The voices of those with the most at stake--individual students--are largely absent from the debates. They need to be heard. We might learn something from them. Upon completion of their degree, co-op students tend to waltz off with jobs in their field of study while other students remain wallflowers. In Canada (the best place in the world to live according to a recent UN survey) youth unemployment remains at 17.5 per cent, four years into the recovery(McGarry, 1997). Even among the elite who are university graduates, more than 9 per cent of young people are out ofwork. We need to ask: What do co-op students know that others don't? How have they figured out the moves of the labour-market line dance? This paper reports on a study of co-op education--and students--at a major Canadian university.

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GUO, Shibao - University of British Columbia
Freire's Critical Literacy Theory and Adult Literacy Education in China

This presentation will use three aspects of Freire’s literacy theory to critically analyze adult literacy education in China. These three aspects are: Freire's critical view on literacy, pedagogy of the oppressed, and conscientization. According to Freire(1973, 1974, 1985), acquiring literacy does not involve memorizing sentences, words, or syllable - lifeless objects unconnected to an existential universe - but rather an attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in one’s context. Literacy education is emancipation and empowerment. He rejects the idea of using primers in literacy training and he criticizes the "banking concept" of education. He considers the problem of teaching adults how to read in relation to the awakening of their critical consciousness, which is achieved through conscientization. Conscientization involves a process of moving people from naive and magical perceptions of reality to one that is predominantly critical.

The purposes of adult literacy education are identical to the purposes of adult education in China. They both focus on politics and production. Adult literacy education is for domestication rather than emancipation. It is to train labourers rather than for critical consciousness. Some other issues are also identified in accordance with Freire's critical literacy theory. Reading primers are used in China to teach illiterates; examinations are used for evaluation; and rote learning is employed. It is clear that these are in contradiction with Freire's critical literacy theory. In light of Freire's critical literacy theory and the reality of literacy education in China, this presentation will also explore some suggestions to improve adult literacy education in China.

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HASANALI, Parveen - St. Thomas University
A New Power Paradigm within a Religious Community: The Example of Ismailism in North America

This study deals with issues related to the shifts that occur within a religious community through secularization and sociocultural changes. In the process of responding to globalization and diversity, there is a tendency to standardize rituals and practices to maintain the status quo, or to legitimize new power relations that are not directly related to religious expertise. Using the premise that the systematic control of religiosity occurs within an institutional structure that draws it power and legitimacy through the "management" of consent, this study will focus on the experiences within immigrant communities in North America. Such occurrences are most strongly visible in immigrant communities who are not just displaced from the "center" but who reinvent the "center" operating within the advantages of first world cultural dominance and progress. Weaker versions of such managed cultures are maintained in developing countries that are the recipients of progress and another base for the theoretical recognition of diversity within a particular global culture. The study will examine the means by which the status quo remains undisturbed, or is transformed into an effective tool of bureaucratic control, while operating within a global and diverse religious culture.

This study will draw examples from one such global culture, and look at the transformation of Ismailism in modern discourse. Some of the issues raised in the study are (i) global Islamization and how this affects non-Arabic cultures and indigenous literatures; does global uniformity of teachings respond to individual spiritual search which is recognized as a cornerstone of Ismailism? is it relevant to the local cultures of diverse groups? (ii) De-spiritualization of daily public religious practice and ritual, how are these related to the power structure of the community? how does it affect the role of the Al-Waez (preacher) as the disseminator of the da'wa (Mission) on which the roots of Ismailism are based?

The study will primarily examine examples from the Ismaili communities in Canada and the United States.

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HENRICKSON, Leslie - University of California, Los Angeles
On The Edge of Culture and Chaos

Technological advances are often touted in terms of the "latest and greatest" gadget or gizmo. The Internet brings us to the cutting edge of global communication systems. The format of Wired, the hi-tech magazine, promotes a frenzied tension between gaining access to the power of computing, and forever being behind the times, the cutting edge is always beyond-our-grasp. The fienzy of the cutting edge inspires our worst Luddite fears, damn the machines because they alienate humanity. The frenzy inspires our strongest desires, a technophilia that is perpetually upgraded.

Without reflexive caution, the tension's false dichotomy can contribute to a hardened cultural reality. Thus, the intellectual and economic gaps already in place between the haves and have-nots remains a cultural "tradition". The intellectual gap is between those who have access to learning about the technology and those who do not. The economic gap is between those who have access to using the technology and those who do not. Reflexivity would examine the assumptions behind the science and technology promoted and would examine the sociocultural relationship to science and technology. A cautious reflexivity would help to understand and to promote the features both of technology and of the culture of technology that make access equitable.

This paper examines the role of science and technology in maintaining a tradition. This entails examining what it means for something to "be" a tradition and for something to become a "tradition". Cultural features which support tradition are discussed. Assumptions of traditional science are compared to these cultural features. The reflexive examination continues by comparing and contrasting traditional science with the "new and improved" science of chaos theory. Chaos theory entails different assumptions than traditional science. Therefore, the relationship between chaos theory assumptions and cultural features supporting tradition are different. I examine this difference. Particular attention is paid to the impact this changed relationship has on policy formation and the role of education.

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HOWE, Edward R. - University of British Columbia
Secondary School Teachers' Conceptions of Critical Thinking in British Columbia and Japan - A Comparative Study

The concept of critical thinking has received much attention among educators internationally, yet critical thinking is an important skill that remains largely undeveloped in traditional teacher-centered secondary school classrooms. Presently, there is much research in progress on the meaning of critical thinking, on the transferability of critical thinking skills to a wide range of subject areas, and on methods of teaching critical thinking. However, there is still some debate exactly what is meant by the term "critical thinking". Previous attempts to define critical thinking have encompassed both its form and function, including the skills and strategies as well as the levels of complexity involved.

Often critical thinking has been linked to creative thinking, and problem solving as well as inductive and deductive reasoning. While "critical thinking" is highly espoused by educators and employers both in B.C. and Japan, there has been little examination of the way critical thinking is actually understood within these two education systems. Until now, there has been no comparison of different conceptions of critical thinking held by teachers in B.C. and Japan. In order to foster critical thinking by students teachers must first critique present educational practices and the beliefs underlying them. To understand the nature of critical thinking, educators must be asked fundamental questions about the nature of knowledge, learning and the process of thinking. Therefore, having regard to the foregoing, the purpose of this study is to compare and contrast B.C. and Japanese secondary teachers' conceptions of critical thinking.

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HU, Jim - University of British Columbia
Writing Academically: Experiences and Perceptions of Chinese Graduate Students of Sciences and Engineering

Despite a recent focus on the academic writing experiences of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) graduate students in humanities and social science (HSS) contexts (e.g., Casanave, 1995; Leki, 1995; Prior, 1991, 1995), similar research in science and engineering (S&E) settings has been much less. This presentation reports on a PhD dissertation study in progress which explores the academic writing experiences and perceptions of 14 mainland Chinese S&E graduate students at a large Canadian university through qualitative case studies. By focusing on how they attempt to produce course assignments and research proposals in specific disciplines, the study aims to achieve an understanding of the meanings, challenges, and needs of these students and how the writing challenges could be explained by way of socio-cultural differences.

The study was conducted in four phases from January 1997 to April 1998. Study Phase I located the site. Study Phase II studied two Chinese doctoral students in Wood Science using 3 semi-structured interviews. Study Phase III conducted 3-5 semi-structured interviews with each of 12 Chinese S&E graduate students. Study Phase IV had one interview with each of 7 S&E faculty members regarding their comments on Chinese students' writing. To complement the interviews, course outlines and students' written drafts were collected.

The presentation provides preliminary results and findings of the study. It also provides tentative insights into what universities and departments could do to help address the challenges and needs of an increasing number of mainland Chinese graduate students studying at English-speaking universities in North America, particularly with respect to their writing.

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INABA, Hisako - Michigan State University & University of Tokyo
Cross-Cultural Learning of Japanese Married Women who Live in the United States

Over the last 30 years, research in sojourners' successful adaptation to cultures different from their own has focused on their characteristics such as empathy, respect, overseas experience, listening skills, tolerance for ambiguity. These researchers found out that some sojourners can successfully work and live in cultures other than their own. This capacity is called intercultural competency. In order to find out how these sojourners learn how to become interculturally competent, Edward W. Taylor (1994) suggested that we need to take the sojourners' learning process into consideration. He claimed that Mezirow's transformative learning model (1991) can explain the learning process of intercultural competency. Taylor's suggestion was based on his research on 12 Americans. Could Taylor's model be applicable to other populations such as Japanese, especially married women, whose purpose for staying in the United States is considered secondary to accompanying and caring for their husbands and children?

The reason for selecting this particular population is based on various studies indicating that Japanese identity is not independently formed but is "merged " with others. It is highly contextual and relational. For example, Rosenberger (1 992) suggested the Japanese self-concept consists of three components: "ki" energy, the dyadic relationship embodied in the giving and taking of indulgence, and the context signified by related sets of terms such as outer/inner, front/back, and tatemae (meaning on stage) /honne (meaning off-stage). The question I was trying to answer was what kinds of cross-cultural learning occur as a consequence of a foreign experience, and how these women sojourners retained or revised their self concept.

This presentation reflects the preliminary results of an ongoing research project that consists of in-depth interviews with Japanese married women who lived in the United States and returned to Japan. The tentative result shows that Rosenberger's three components changed during and after the stay. These women vividly remember incidents which led them think about their culture, race, ethnicity, identity, gender, relationship with in-laws, husbands, and children, as well as other concepts. Some women demonstrated Mezirow's perspective transformation. Their efforts to internationalize themselves and their children change not only in themselves but also in family and friends.

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ITO, Katsuhisa - University of Pittsburgh
The Social Cartography Project at the University of Pittsburgh: A Geographer's Assessment

The Social Cartography Project at the University of Pittsburgh (Z 992-1998) claims to have presented a new methodology for mapping ways of seeing in the discourse of comparative education. The project advocates an opening of intertextual space for every narrative in the scholarly discourse and seeks to open dialogues among perspectives using social cartography. Since the project was launched, numerous maps have been made under the rubric of "social cartography". From a scientific cartography standpoint, the mapping process is more like a technical issue. But as a visual presentation, those maps made under "social cartography" don't necessarily share iconographical characteristics, and they have numerous forms as visual presentations. This kind of creative or artistic visual presentation is incomprehensible from a realist, or scientific cartography standpoint.

As a positivist geographer, I find the most moot point of "social cartography" to be its metaphorical, or loose mapping process. In this concern, Liebman & Paulston (1996, p. 80) seek to legitimate the use of "social cartography" in their contention that "the constructed social world cannot be measured but it can be viewed, reported and compared". However, as Torres (1996, p. 424) argues from a critical modernist point of view, "without measurement we cannot compare and contrast the time/space evolution of a given phenomena" (as cited in O'Dowd, p. 7).

In this presentation, through an evaluation of the mapping productions of the Social Cartography Project, I will explore the possibilities of this innovation in comparative education from a positivist geographer's standpoint, and re-evaluate social cartography's claims of providing a useful tool for opening up visual presentation.

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JAVAM, Mohammad - Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Who Should Teach in Our Schools?

Studies in school effectiveness and improvement have pointed to the role of teachers as agents of changes. There are claims that positive outcomes in student learning can only be achieved through effective teachers. The quality of any education system is depend upon the quality of teaching and availability of competent teachers. The question "Who is an effective teacher" has long been debated. In "Apology" when Socrates posed the question "who should teach our children?" he asked an early version of this basic question. The question leads us to consider a key approach to teaching effectiveness and characteristics of the effective teacher. Definition of the effective teacher are often bounded by time and place. Therefore, it is not describable independent of contextual factors. In other words, teaching involves a deep engagement with the surrounding social and cultural environments. As priorities change, different kind of teachers move into and out of the effective teachers' spotlight. What a society expects from an effective teacher, and what kind of individuals can be considered as effective teachers depend largely on the culture within which that teaching is carried out. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, for example, being knowledgeable in Islam and committed to Islamic values and principles, are important criteria for being considered an effective teacher. These are significant criteria for selecting candidates for pre-service teacher education, and important considerations when designing programs, developing curriculum, and preparing content for teacher education. However, there are some less culturally dependent aspects of teacher effectiveness which have been identified by researchers in the field of education.

My paper describes the concept of teaching, effective teacher and the knowledge base necessary for competent teachers based on the findings of inquiries done in the fields of teaching and teacher education.

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KIM, Song-mi - University of California, Los Angeles
Exploring the process of the moral socialization of teacher candidates in South Korea

My study will explore the moral socialization of teacher candidates in South Korea. In the present study, moral socialization refers to the acquisition of educational beliefs, values, and attitudes that the teaching profession ideally requires. I will analyze the socialization process of teacher candidates through the lens of symbolic interactionism which explains adult socialization in a group life. According to this perspective, the socialization of teacher candidates occurs through individual candidates' interpretive process in which students selectively acquire value orientations; they also make meanings that direct their conduct as well as that of others. In this interpretive process, teacher candidates are influenced by those who take on importance to themselves--significant others. Tn addition, they incorporate their significant others into one generalized other -- a group perspective. In order to better understand the socialization process of Korean teacher candidates, I will review literature on three areas: socialization theory, recent research about teacher socialization, and work on Korean teacher education and its cultural foundations. First, symbolic interactionism will provide a conceptual framework with which I will analyze the socialization process of teacher candidates. Recent research about teacher socialization will show how the proposed area under study is included in or excluded from ongoing discourse. Furthermore, an understanding of the cultural foundations of Korea' s teacher education is necessary to better understand Korean field sites in which cultural and institutional factors act together to influence the moral socialization of teacher candidates. I will combine quantitative and qualitative methods: questionnaires and focus groups. I will administer the questionnaire to approximately 200 teacher candidates. The questionnaire I will use has been developed by the Study of Educators of Education (SEE). For the focus group discussion, I will have two focus groups, each with seven participants. By using both quantitative and qualitative methods, I will be able to more accurately understand what is going on in the field sites. I believe that these combined methods will enhance the credibility of my study.

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KOSHIMURA, Margane - Michigan State University
Financing Strategies for Equalization in Basic Education

This paper is a review of financing strategies for equalization in basic education, including the expansion of access to basic education and more equal opportunity for quality basic education. It is based on an examination of a wide range of financing strategies actually implemented in a number of countries in recent years. Financing strategies were categorized in four major areas across government and non-government resources: equalization in the allocation of existing educational resources; mobilization and targeting of additional educational resources; reducing the private cost of access to quality schooling; and improved utilization of existing resources.

For each financing strategy by government or non-government resources, the paper attempts to explain how it works, assess its equalization impact on input and output, identify outstanding issues, and summarize key lessons learned in its implementation. The major objective is to identify promising strategies and facilitating conditions for promoting equalization in basic education. The review is based on published studies in the English literature. These studies cover low-income countries such as Sub-Saharan African nations, Tanzania, Kenya, and China; middle-income countries such as Malaysia, Chile, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Thailand, and Zimbabwe, as well as high-income countries such as the United States, Great Britain, France, Sweden, and Japan.

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LAI-BOVENKERK, Yuan - University of British Columbia
Experiences and Perspectives of Seventeen Immigrant Chinese-Canadian Women on their Involvement in the Education of their Children with Disabilities: Voices Seldom Heard in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia

Parental involvement in the education of children with disabilities has played an important role to date in advancing the children's right to an appropriate education. It has also been an integral part in developing educational programs for these children. Yet, limited involvement from ethnic minority parents in North America has been documented. Research indicates that minority parents do want to be involved; yet, current structural barriers, the parents' cultural practices and beliefs, and the attitudes and communication skills of educators have contributed to the limited involvement. The present paper examines the experiences and perspectives of seventeen immigrant Chinese-Canadian mothers on their involvement in the education of their children with disabilities in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Little is known about parents of Chinese extraction who have children with disabilities in North American. As Chinese has become one of the largest ethnic groups in the Lower Mainland, there is a need for educators that serve children with disabilities to better understand parental experiences and perspectives on education in order to plan better services for Chinese-Canadian children and their involved parents. Qualitative research methods were employed to gather and analyse the data. As social realities are socially constructed and negotiated, they are open to multiple interpretations. As such, there is no intention to present coherent, smoothed-over accounts of the mothers' experiences and perspectives. Rather, personal biases and the mothers' positions will be presented in the written text for the reader to scrutinise. The data are combined by interviews, questionnaires, field notes, and documents. Analysis of the data has generated some major themes: a belief that they know their children well and could thus make a unique contribution to their children's educational programs; the implications of speaking English as a second language in interacting with educators; comparing educational practices in Asia and those in B.C. as they experience them; a preference for a friend-like parent-teacher relationship and for caring teachers for their children; and their ways of dealing with conflicts with educators. The findings clearly call for a move to utilise the Chinese-Canadian parents as resources much more than the degree that is realised at present.

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LILIEHOLM, Robert, K.B. Paul, T.L. Sharik, and R. Loether - Utah State University
Study Abroad Courses in Uganda's Kibale National Park: Sustaining Ecosystems through Education

Kibale National Park (KNP), located in western Uganda, offers a rich diversity of tropical flora and fauna. The Park's mid-altitude, moist tropical forest supports 11 of Uganda's 20 non-human primate species, some of which occur in very high densities. The region around KNP is home to seven national parks and numerous protected areas. Located within KNP is the Makerere University Biological Field Station (MUBFS), with an extensive 25-year research history and a mandate to assist KNP in protecting the ecosystems of the region through management-relevant research.

While KNP and MUBFS have received much visibility within Uganda, East Africa and the tropics as an important biological resource, both institutions face formidable obstacles in meeting their respective conservation mandates. For KNP, severe human population pressures around the Park, coupled with chronic shortages of capital, personnel, and other resources, make maintaining current Park resources problematic, let alone ensuring their long-term viability and protection. For MUBFS, declining donor support make it increasingly difficult to fund research programs and operations. Together, these challenges highlight the need for revenue-generating activities that can bestow direct and tangible benefits to KNP, MUBFS, and surrounding communities.

This paper examines the contributions that study abroad programs can make to resource protection efforts in the KNP region. Direct benefits include income generated through course fees, meals, housing accommodations, miscellaneous purchases, and staff and instructor fees. Indirect benefits include the increased awareness of the region's economic, scientific and ecological value by study abroad participants, local communities, institutions, and policy makers. Since the challenges facing KNP and MUBFS are common throughout Africa and much of the developing world, the issues and opportunities discussed here have widespread application.

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MANG, Esther - University of British Columbia
Using Psychoacoustics of Sung and Speech Sounds as the Investigative Tool for Cross-cultural Research on Music Education

The Problem of Musical Discourse
Music is rooted in culture. The concept of "music" could therefore, be significantly different from one culture to another, and some cultures even have no word far "music" (Blacking, 1995; Walker, 1996). Nattiez (1971) suggests that "what is musical in reality, is every phenomenon which a cultural group agrees to regard as such" (p. 97). Hence, even for Western Europeans, the concept of "music" has undergone drastic revisions over time (Walker). Being a cultural artifact, distinctive musical styles are cultivated and refined through musical discourse among the people within the community who adopted the same set of codes. Hence, parallel to that of linguistic discourse, musical discourse may often appear to be private.

As a cultural construct, music may impel different cultures with distinguished conception about the nature of the discourse. Some epistemological differences between Western European and Chinese's conceptions about music are discussed: (1) the concept of "harmony" as a principle of musical discourse, (2) auditory sensation versus psyche-aesthetic approach to musical interpretation; and (3) the relations of speaking and singing as structural components in a song. Some researchers maintain an intrinsic relation between musical culture and its acoustic environment (Walker, 1990, Clark, 1989). Other researchers argue for a direct interaction between natural spoken language and music processing (Terhardt, 1974; Divenyi, 1979; Deutsch, 1991; Deutsch, Kuyper, & Fisher, 1987; Deutsch, North, & Ray, 1990). They hypothesize a learning phase in auditory perception where an internal representation of musical pitch is acquired from the linguistic environment one grew up. Hence, using the source-filter theory and psychoacoustics of sung and speech sounds as the investigative tool, I attempt to demonstrate acoustic links between linguistic and musical expression, and how they influence cross-cultural musical learning and teaching.

Research on music education should be allied with the nature of musical discourse.
As all studies of discourse focus on human experience situated in a sociohistorical matrix (Gee, Michaels, & O'Connor, 1992), research on music education should move towards cross-cultural perspectives which address the uniqueness of cultural context.

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MARKER, Michael - University of British Columbia
Indigenous Knowledge in the Academy: "The Only Good Indian is a Commodified Indian."

This paper examines the problems and contradictions that arise when academics attempt to exploit disembodied aspects of indigenous knowledge in an academic context. Too often such practices only promote an indulgence in the exotic; meanwhile more critical and genuine approaches to the history and reality of First Nations people are overlooked or avoided. In the realm of indigenous knowledge, context and authority are central concerns. There are fundamental tensions between the conventions of academic freedom and indigenous imperatives regarding knowledge.

Traditional teachers and elders are generally uneasy trying to impart knowledge in a classroom; they prefer an outdoor context where the learning can be connected to intricate patterns of relationships in the natural world. This research examines case studies from the Lummi reservation and Western Washington University and notes the ways that ways that "knowledge as commodity" is affecting tribal people.

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MATHER, Jacqueline - University of Technology Sydney
Profit or Prophet? The Discourse of Change

Throughout the twentieth century disability service provision in Australia has been typified by ongoing change brought about by a number of factors, including government policy shifts, funding changes, new ideological understandings of 'disability' and evolving community standards. Also the role of employees within organisations and the conceptualisation of service clients (or 'consumers') has changed and this is reflected in the language and practices used to meet the goals and vision of organisations.

The research study aims to contribute to knowledge of workplace learning by conducting an analysis of what (and how) stakeholders of four disability organisations have learned about organisational change during the last decade. To do this an examination of the ideological and epistemological frameworks which underpin changes in the disability sector has been necessary. The focus of the research was to determine the relationship between different levels of power and influence and individual learning, and to investigate the juxtaposition of conflicting 'world views' through the language and discourse of workplace change.

There is a growing interest across a variety of disciplines in the ways in which language use is linked to wider cultural and social processes, and accompanying this is an appreciation of language analysis as a method for studying social change. Fairclough (1992) proposes a model which draws on language analysis and social theory and this is a useful conceptual tool for studying the shift in the social functioning of language in disability service organisations.

The methodological procedure for the study includes the interviewing of staff, consumers and management to elicit their interpretations of change events. A Critical Reference Group made up of people who have disabilities has guided the analytic process and shaped the emerging understandings of the data collection. Skill building has been identified as an important outcome for individual members and 'real' participation in the research process, in terms of' voice' has been tantamount to ongoing involvement particularly by intellectually impaired members.

Results at this stage indicate that there has been a reconceptualisation of roles and activities in disability organisations, constituted to some extent by changes in language practices. These changes have also affected the social relations and social and professional identities of people working in the target organisations.

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MUHAMAD, Mazanah - Universiti Putra Malaysia
OMAR, Othman - Kolej UNIKOP
Education in Transition: Scenario of a Developing Nation

Higher and continuing education system in Malaysia is undergoing major changes. What are the changes? Why? This paper reports a study that framed the present ambient of the system. Specifically, it examines the issue of education in transition by addressing the following questions:

• What is the profile of higher and continuing education?
• What is the changing scenario? Why?
• What are the challenges of the changing scenario?
• What are the provisions to navigate those waves of change?

The institutional dimension of higher and continuing education was classified according to the purposes the agencies were created (Houle, 1992, Apps, 1990). The study is embedded with issues related to Change Theories and Planning Programs to cope with the change (Caffarella, 1994, Cervero and Wilson,.1994, Sork and Caffarella, 1989, Boone, 1985, and Houle, 1972).

Sixty-four institutions purposively sampled responded to a survey. The instrument asks for detail of programs conducted that include title, rationale, facilities, challenges and constraints. The questions are both closed and open-ended. Data were analyzed using the SPSS for descriptive statistics. Secondary data (written documents and reports) were also collected.

1. Mapping the field of higher and continuing education h relation to the programs sponsor shows that providers can be categorized according to the country's major organizational set up; the public and private sector.

2. Majority of private educational institutions are new players in the field. Their programs are more markets driven.

3. The programs offered reflect the country's needs for; skilled manpower for the expanding industrial needs, the use of information technology to improve work efficiency and quality, and efficient managerial capability.

4. Forces in the country such as industrialization and globalization of education, liberalization of education, Malaysia's vision of a new industrial nation, the information technology agenda and the economic turndown in Asia put education on the edge.

5. Issues of concern to the providers can be inferred into matters related to; learners and their participation, facilities and resources for learning, and cost and funding.

The educational system is changing to meet the country's needs and interests in response to changing situations and challenges.

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NEWMAN, Charles - University of Southern California
Observations on World Bank Economic and Education Policies In Sub-Saharan Africa: The need for primary education

Donor agencies have had a significant impact on shaping economic development in the developing world. Using sectoral approaches these multi-lateral institutions have prioritized human resource development as a means of alleviating poverty. The World Bank (as the leading multi-lateral economic donor) has been primarily responsible for economic development plans implemented by developing countries.

In sub-saharan Africa, World Hunk policies have not succeeded in solving the region's economic crisis. In contrast, the living standards of most Africans have decreased since the implementation of World Bank development plans. Having recognized the failure of previous development plans, the World Bank in the 1990's promulgated a new approach to improving human resource production and alleviating poverty in sub-saharan Africa. Education became the new focus for increasing economic development. "Education produces knowledge skills, values, and attributes. It is essential for civic order and citizenship and for sustained economic growth and the reduction of poverty," (WDDIP, xi),

This paper will examine the history of the World Bank's economic development policies in sub-saharan Africa. Specifically, the paper will focus on Rostow's Capitalist Growth Model of economic development (in the 1970'8) and Structural Adjustment Plans (SAP's) (1 980'9-1990'9). This paper will further examine the World Bank's history of educational policies aimed al human resource development and poverty alleviation, hi analysing World Bank educational policies, the payer addresses the new Bank approach emphasizing the promotion of primary education.

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NINNES, Dr Peter - University of New England
Learning a New Dance: The infiltration or otherwise of Foucault's ideas in scholarly articles in comparative and international education.

Early work in comparative and international education, and much recent work, has been dominated by positivist, functionalist and modernist theoretical approaches. These approaches represent an old dance. In the last decade the work of critical theorists and critical sociologists of education, representing a newer dance, has begun to impact on the field, but the work of other new dancers, for example, post-structuralists, has been rarely cited. In a sense, the uneven nature of this learning of new dances, that is of the take-up of critical and post-structural approaches, is surprising, given the significant insights which the latter provides into issues such as the nature of knowledge, the relationships between knowledge production, legitimation and transmission, and between power, culture, and the state. These are all issues and theoretical perspectives which can fruitfully and usefully be explored by comparativists and internationalists. One post-structuralist, Michel Foucault, has much to say about the nature of institutions such as schools, the nature of knowledge, the relationship between dominant, totalizing knowledges and subjugated, local knowledges, and the ways in which knowledge and power interact to create hierarchies of dominance and subordination. This paper aims to examine the extent to which the theoretical and philosophical contributions of Foucault inform the work of comparative and international educationalists. The paper reports on a content analysis study of research, review and theoretical articles published in three major comparative and international education journals in the period 1993-1997 (Comparative Education Review, Comparative Education and International Journal of Educational Development). The analysis aimed to identify the proportion of articles which make reference to critical theorists, critical sociologists of education, and post-structuralist writers, with particular reference in the latter case to Foucault. It concludes by reflecting on the significance of the findings as a window on the nature and direction of scholarship in Comparative and International Education on the cusp of the 21st century.

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NOBES, Susan - University of Alberta
Citizenship and Service Education-Canadian and International Perspectives

In Canada some school jurisdictions are implementing service education as an approach to the promotion of positive community membership and citizenship for youth. In some districts, it is a requirement for high school graduation. Service education is forming the basis for programs aimed at enhancing career and leadership training opportunities for gifted and talented youth as well as non-academic students. This is viewed as separate from traditional work experience or work study programs. It takes place in the non-profit sector. Service education appears as a curriculum objective in a variety of elementary through secondary school programs of study (curriculum guides).Moderate to severely challenged special needs adolescents are participating in service learning that includes opportunities that would be closed to them in competitive employment settings. University and college programs are designing academic courses that are complemented by additional credit service education experiences. Businesses are getting their staff involved in projects like Reading Mentorships, for children at risk of failure in school. The Judicial system uses forms of service education for certain offenders as an alternative sentence. In short, service education is an important practice locally and nationally. Edmonton is hosting an International Conference on Volunteer Effort in August,1998.There is a growing awareness of the potential for global improvement through service education. World perspectives and initiatives will be showcased at this conference.

The paper as proposed for the CIES conference will examine through the writer's recent doctoral research, aspects of school facilitated service education in Canada in relation to the aims and struggles of involving youth in healthy community building in South Africa and Eastern Europe. The writer visited Poland in 1996 and will draw on this experience as well as recent literature on the stated need for teaching citizenship education in eastern Europe. (Osler, Rathenow and Starkey,1995) At the 1997 Alberta Conference on Volunteer Effort, a South African speaker shared his hopes to use volunteerism as a means to transform adolescent liberation fighters into agents for community development and supporters of good governance (Pederson,1997) Are there pockets in Canada, perhaps among our indigenous peoples, where this kind of rebuilding needs to take place, and will these youth be similarly empowered to create positive change? This paper has the potential to be a thought provoking and relevant course offering, with an invitation for conversation extended to participants.

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ODOCH, Paschal W. - University of British Columbia
The Community Development Practice: Implications to Future Education and Training from Ugandan Experience

While the 1970s and 1980s witnessed the rapid emergence of regional community development strategies, the 1990s appear to be a decade in which a more sophisticated application and determination of insights commonly referred to as locality-based, self-development, has become the objective of many communities. Additionally, Sautoy (1960), one of the pioneers in African community development asserts that while the fundamental principle of community development [self-reliance] is relatively easy to understand, it is its application to particular contexts that pose the most challenge. Now, at the dawn of the 21st Century, community determination anchored on self-reliance faces myriad challenges that include the content, relevance, access, and quality of learning required for the acquisition of effective knowledge and skills for the achievement of desired long-term community development goals. This study set out in 1995 to investigate and describe the strategy and methods applied for mobilizing community resources by DISSA, an adult community development initiative - DISSA in northwestern Uganda, East Africa.

Using a single explanatory case study design, the research applied a qualitative approach corroborated by documentation and survey questionnaires as sources of data. Based on the established works on community development and adult education that are linked to community development initiatives, the study analyzed the central ideas and principles of community development against the community development practice that was discovered in the field. In addition, the study draws a relationship between community 'development organisations that utilize the central ideas and processes of community development initiatives: cultural continuity, decision-making processes, consciousness-raising, community participation, local control and management, self-reliance, capacity building, equity, living within ecological limits, diversity, cooperation and collaboration, and appropriate indicators of progress, with relevant adult education practice [including social action, collective action, conscientization and transformative learning to achieve their collective goals.

The major finding of this investigation is that the encouragement and promotion of participatory local-level planning and development processes are integral to long-term improvement of communities faced with the challenge of collective development. Implications for a case by case professional education and training programs as well as for the practice for

community development are delineated in four categories: advocacy; capacity building; empowerment; social mobilisation. The study recommends that future research in community development education and training for social action, change and localization should consider participatory research as it combines social investigation, educational work and action.

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PACINO, Maria A. - Azusa Pacific University
Cross-Cultural Education: The Challenge in American Schools and Implications For Global Democracies

The nature of demographics due to immigration and migration along with social and political changes in the United States and other pluralistic democracies, make it imperative that schools adopt a cross-cultural approach to teaching and learning. Educators must meet the needs of immigrant children. as well as encourage students to become empowered, productive, ethical citizens in the participatory democratic process. Such change requires a shift in paradigms from the melting pot theory to cultural pluralism which allows individuals to acculturate through an additive rather than subtractive process. Informed citizens in pluralistic societies cannot afford to remain monolingual and monocultural a global marketplace, international agreements, such as NAFTA; the internet and other technologies require a higher level of literacy and the ability to communicate effectively across cultures.

It falls upon schools. as agents of society, to create learning environments; which respect and nurture cultural differences, while preparing students for their role as future leaders. While this paper will focus on cross-cultural teaching and ]earning in the United States of America, its implications can apply to other global democracies. Philosophical and sociological perspectives of this paper include Dewey's progressivist and democratic view of education, Christine Sleeter's model of "schools in a multicultural and democratic society," and Paulo Freire's views on liberatory, democratic literacy. Theoretical underpinnings (praxis) of teaching and learning are based on James Banks' models of transformation and social action curriculum and Christine Bennert's "conceptual model of a comprehensive multicultural curriculum."

The paper will include a brief historical perspective of the development of cross-cultural education in schools in the United States of America; examples of K-12 multicultural curriculum; as well as pedagogies used by schools of education in preparing future teachers for the challenges ot'2lst schooling in pluralistic societies. Ultimately, the goal of teaching and learning in democratic nations is to ensure educational equity for all citizens. 'The experiences of students and teachers are important sites for constructing a pedagogy of transformation and social justice." (C. Sleeter and P. McLaren (1995). Multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and the politics of difference).

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PAWLIKOWSKI, Gwen - University of British Columbia
1972 was a good year for adult education

Where were you in '721 If you were working in the field of adult education, chances are that wherever you were, you were smiling. 1972 was a year in which governments started to pay attention to adult education in new ways. Three reports, two from Canadian provinces and one from Unesco, have been analyzed to show the new respect adult education was getting. As a field, it grew, developed and blossomed, particularly with regard to leisure, technology and the environment. After being ignored for many years, adult education was finally benefiting from all the changes that rocked the world in the 60s. This paper offers a look back at the changes documented in 1972, a year kinder in many ways to adult education than the 1990s have been. This presentation is being offered in the spirit and mood of 1972. Be prepared to leave all 1990s demands for efficiency and seriousness at the door.

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PRATT, Dan D. - University of British Columbia, and Kelly, M., Wong, W.W.
Toward a Chinese Model of Teaching

Most of the research on teaching in adult and higher education takes culture and social norms for granted. For example, in Kember's (1996) recent review of conceptions of teaching in higher education, there is little or no evidence that the researchers had any concern for the underlying cultural and/or social contexts. In contrast, our work, conducted in Canada and Hong Kong, suggests that Chinese models of teaching are a direct reflection of the cultural heritage and social norms that characterize Chinese societies. These models stand in sharp contrast to Western models of teaching that dominate much of the literature in adult and higher education today.

A General Model of Teaching
A general Chinese model of teaching differs from North American models of teaching in several ways. First, there is a profound respect for basics, that is, the foundational knowledge of one's art, craft, or discipline. Basic knowledge is considered a necessary and respectable foundation for all learning, and worthy of both the teacher's and students' time and effort. Second, teacher and learner relationships are consistent with other social structures, which clearly spell out each person's responsibility and duty. This contrasts with much of Western society, where learners move between authoritarian schooling and libertarian society. Third, each model assumes a dialectical relationship between different (but equally important) forms of knowledge: perceptual, rational, practical, and moral. Thus, all instruction must start with memorization, then progress to understanding and application, before allowing learners to question or critique the knowledge to be learned. There is no rush to critical thinking or problem solving before the learner has progressed through earlier stages of knowledge. Fourth, successful learning is largely attributed to effort, rather than skill, ability, or individual differences, as in the West.

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PRYER, Alison - University of British Columbia
HOCKING, Brent - University of British Columbia
Embodied mindefulness: A cross-cultural dialogue on teaching and learning

Cartesian thinking, upon which most Western educational theory and practice is founded, results in a dualistic, atomistic, static conception of the world, a world where mind is separated from body, and self is separated from other. If educators are to grasp the complexities of Asia-Pacific intercultural narratives, they must reclaim an understanding of participants in context. This calls for ecological and holistic approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. We believe that the concept of embodied mindfulness is crucial to developing alternative, ecological approaches to teaching and learning.

Embodied mindfulness is an awareness of the ways in which our bodies and minds are present in our everyday activities. A curriculum that recognizes the embodied nature of mindfulness insists that "notions of self and mind must be woven through the entire human body and through the web of relationships in which that self takes shape" (Davis, Sumara & Kieren, 1996).

In our discussion of embodied mindfulness we will draw on the cognitive theory of Maturana and Varela (1992), the enactivist theory of Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991), the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty (1962), and the work of curriculum theorists Davis, Sumara and Kieren (1996). We will contextualize our exploration of embodied mindfulness by retracing parts of our journeys -- geographical, intellectual, professional and spiritual. We both have different points of contact with Asia, and hope to create an intercultural dialogue by reflecting on our journeys -- in East and West -- and on our own experiences of embodied mindfulness. In this presentation we will each discuss our own particular interests: Mindfulness and pedagogy in the higher education classroom; and, Embodied mindfulness and the curriculum of the traditional Buddhist meditative art ikebana (Japanese flower arranging).

We will examine the ways in which a pedagogical practice that is characterized by embodied mindfulness supports a view of people in their lived environment that is fluid and dynamic, and provides an alternative to the essentializing and eroticizing of different cultures.

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RABY, Rosalind L. - California State University
Education and Identity for Ethnic Minorities in the Siberian Far East

Over the past decade, the region known as the Siberian Far East underwent a transformation in regards to education and ethnicity revitalization. Various minority ethnic groups, some of whom are indigenous to the region, initiated a struggle to preserve their language, culture, and religion from assimilation and repression. Post 1991, revitalization efforts, while plentiful, were hampered by the reality of post-Soviet multilingual/multicuItural populations that forced indigenous ethnic groups to contend with their own revitalization efforts and the often conflicting agendas of other regional ethnic groups. Unlike other areas of the former Soviet Union, minority groups in the Siberian Far East, were hindered by underrepresentation of ethnic indigenous in education, making it a reality of the native Siberian being a minority in their own land. This paper will examine five stages of development that underscored the relationship between cultural revitalization, language acquisition and ethnic identity for various ethnic minorities in the Siberian Far East. These stages examine: (1) limited socialization of linguistic/cultural knowledge; (2) vocalization and implementation of linguistic/cultural revitalization; (3) reinforcement of altered minority/majority configurations via language/culture laws; (4) ethnic-based conflict based on rejection of radical social change; and (5) institutionalization of revitalization agendas.

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RENNER, Dennis K. - Adrian College
Predicting the Longevity of Indigenous and 'Small Nation' Cultural Access to Electronic Media: A Comparative Analysis

It is difficult to draw conclusions applicable to communication policy formation for a particular "small nation" or indigenous people from studying the evolution of the uses of electronic media in diverse parts of the world, yet the sweep of historical experience suggests that pressures to restrict less-profitable programming for new media technologies almost always increase with the maturation of a given media system. This paper seeks to distinguish factors that seem to predict how long access for indigenous and "small nation" cultural content will be sustained as the new media systems mature. I identify the factors that seem necessary for permanent programming to serve the cultural needs of indigenous peoples and small nations. Such factors can be helpful in formulating policy initiatives and political strategies to preserve pluralistic uses of the new media technologies.

My paper pulls together what can be learned from the evolution of pluralistic access to mass media under different conditions:

1) in the Netherlands, which established the broadcasting system with the greatest longevity in providing pluralistic access;

2) in the United States, where pluralistic access to radio in the early decades of broadcasting was diminished by federal policy outcomes in favor of the commercial- industrial model for content authority. (The potential for pluralistic content has been restored somewhat by the new switching capabilities and expanded channel capacities of digital and internet technologies, but the pattern of increasing restrictions on less profitable or unprofitable uses of technologies as systems mature seems likely to be repeated.)

3) in the many regions of the world where indigenous broadcasting has been operative.

Relationships to Existing Theories: Theories of cultural dependency, media imperialism, and political economy offer interpretive frameworks for comparative analysis that can support cross-cultural generalizations about which factors impede or enhance the survivability of other uses of the new media, given the globalization of commercial entertainment content.

The basis upon which I propose to address the problem
My comparative approach will synthesize from recent literature, including John L. Hiemstra's Worldviews on the Air: the Struggle to Create a Pluralistic Broadcasting System in the Netherlands (1997), revisionist broadcast and telecommunications policy history in the United States in works like Robert W. McChesney 's Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: the Battle for the Control of U.S Broadcasting, 1928-1935, and Donald C. Brown's book, Electronic Media and Indigenous Peoples: a Voice of Our Own (1996). My comparative framework will be drawn from the methodologies of comparative political history and analysis of the policy process in political science.

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RIDEOUT, William M., Jr. - University of Southern California
Educational Reform in Senegal: It's Policy Not Practice

Senegal's affiliation with France, initiated by French traders in 1638, was the most extensive of any former French colony in Africa. Under colonial rule, the school system which evolved, with minor deviations, faithfully reflected its French model. Since achieving autonomy in 1958, and independence in 1960, Senegal's educational system has experienced two striking national policy reforms. However, the magnitude of these reforms very marginally influenced how the bulk of the schools operated; they continued to focus on training an indigenous elite which if placed in comparable positions, could compete with those who graduated from the French system.

The first of these reforms occurred in (1970s) when a peaceful educational "revolution" occurred and was acknowledged as an "Etats Generaux de 1'Education" (EGE). This national conference, a "bottom-up" rather than the traditional Francophone "top-down" modus operandi, was, pursuant to bureaucratic manipulations following the conference, "captured" by the government bureaucracy and it gently faded away. The policies and recommendations derived from the EGE were impressive and promising.

The second reform, this time orchestrated by the Government of Senegal, occurred in 1996, and was to create a Basic Primary Education (BPE) system for those youths, age 9 or over, who had not attended school. It is supposed to be a model which in 3 years can provide unschooled youths with the "basic needs education" required to improve their adult lives. Entities wanting to participate in this partnership can create a BPE school, assume specified budgetary and administrative obligations, and develop school programs which can provide desired "outcomes". All BPE schools are to be evaluated and ultimately their "operational findings" are to be consolidated into a national BPE model which will function in juxtaposition with the regular primary system.

The policy creating this new "sub-system" is an outstanding Francophone model; the implementation to date cannot measure up in part because the policy is based on conceptual factors which haven't yet been operationalized in the administrative structure. Moreover, evaluation to date of the 50 plus models now operating appears inadequate to permit identification of most desired characteristics evolving which subsequently are to be generalized into the new national BPE model.

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ROSSATTO, Cesar A. - University of California, Los Angeles
The Classroom Construction of Time in a US-Brazilian Context

Time is a hegemonic construction that can be alienating to disenfranchised students. As social institutions, schools mediate the production of dominant time concepts. The temporal practices in schooling construct and limit students temporal subjectivities. School shapes how students learn time through the distribution of curricular and student activities. In other words, students’ ideas about time are both formed and restricted by the kinds of temporal experiences that a school provides. For example, students in affluent US schools spend their time engaged in much different kinds of work activities than students in poor schools. This is a problem because students in poor schools only learn to spend their time in repetitive tasks and not on creativity, knowledge production, or critical thinking. The limitation of their temporal practices and subjectivities will make difficult for them to succeed in a competitive world.

This is a comparative study of low-achieving, inner city students in the US and Brazil. I collected qualitative data on the ways that classroom teachers controlled the time allocation of students activities. What I was looking for was the normative temporal order of the class as dictated by the teacher. I also observed how students either resisted or conformed to these activities. In addition to classroom data, I interviewed students to explore their personal histories and temporal desires as a way of deepening my understanding of the students temporal classroom behavior.

My preliminary findings show that in both contexts the normative temporal order consisted of spending time executing repetitive activities where the steps are given and the outcomes are already known, such as practicing mathematical exercises. The teachers justified their allocation of time to these activities by saying that they would lead to future economic rewards. The students identified as conformers reported that they assimilated to the repetitive activities now so that they could make economic gains later. The students identified as resisters said that they did not foresee a bright economic future for themselves. Instead, they desired to spend their futures with family and friends.

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RUBENSON, Kjell - University of British Columbia
Lifelong learning: public policy or public rhetoric: An analysis of reviews of national policies for education

This study is part of an appraisal of the series of reviews of national educational policies in OECD member countries conducted by the Educational Committee of OECD. Country reviews are undertaken at the request of national Ministries and are voluntary. It focuses on adult education and training within the context of lifelong learning. The analysis utilizes the following criteria:

Ö Is lifelong learning as a master concept for educational policy reflected in the reviews, and if so how?

Ö How comprehensive are the reviews in terms of adult education and training and lifelong learning?

Ö What range of adult education and training issues, findings, and recommendations is found in the reviews?

Ö What similarities and differences arise among countries with regard to adult education and training issues?

Ö Based on the analysis an attempt is made to assess a) what has been learned about the impact on adult education and training of different policies and approaches, and b) the conditions which account for the successes.

The analysis is based on an examination of country reports published in the OECD series Review of National Policies for Education: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland; France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland; Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.

The paper starts with a discussion of issues on which the Reviews may be assessed in terms of adult education and training, within the broader context of lifelong learning. The review shows that none of the sixteen country reviews focused mainly on adult education and training. At best, the topic was treated rather briefly in the country reports and/or examinations. Generally, discussions of this topic lack the depth usually found in national reviews. This lack is particularly noticeable as OECD produces information on adult education as part of its series Educational Statistics.

The reviews provide limited information on which to assess a) what the impact of policies and approaches to adult education and training have been, and b) the important conditions accounting for the successes. However, the reviews do provide indications of emerging issues and areas to be addressed in a future policy agenda. Discussion of these areas will start by considering the status of lifelong learning and adult education and training.

The analysis of 16 country reviews reveals a major discrepancy between bold policy declarations on lifelong learning from national governments and intergovernmental organizations, and the coverage and approach by OECD's Educational Committee to OECD member countries' reviews. It would be tempting to dismiss this discrepancy as merely reflecting the time lag between the adoption of policy on the one hand, and what is covered in the national reviews on the other. However, this account does not explain why recurrent education, which was a key idea within OECD for many years, is not reflected in the reviews. Also, there is little indication that recent reviews are taking the matter any more seriously than their precursors.

The discrepancy could be seen as an example of the use of vague lofty concepts in policy documents and/or grand speeches which have little real impact on the actual policy and planning process. Further, the few references to lifelong learning that do appear in the reviews indicate that examiners share different and limited understandings of its meaning.

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RUST, Val D. - University of California, Los Angeles
Theory in Comparative Education

This is a preliminary account of an ongoing project regarding comparative education at UCLA. For the past year, we have been assessing the theoretical orientations of those who publish in journals such as the Comparative Education Review, Comparative Education, and the International Journal of Educational Development. We have been in the process of sending surveys to several hundred authors of articles in these journals asking them to specify their theoretical orientation and to provide information about a number of issues related to theory related to their particular article. In the paper I shall outline our research design and give some very preliminary outline of the results although we have not coded all of the information to this point. I shall also make some reference to the match between research strategy and theoretical orientation of the authors.

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SAMONTE, Quirico S. - University of East Michigan
Social Science and Policy Making: Thoughts for Comparative Educators

Policy-making is a complex process that sometimes involves a number of factors. When it comes to policy-making in education, to what extent are comparative educators involved as principal formulators of new directions in curriculum development? In this connection, there is ground to believe that comparative educators, if consulted at all, probably play a rather minimal role in policy making. The papers presented at the 50th anniversary of the Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan, provide some interesting insights about the dilemma of the social scientist who, according to the papers presented, plays a rather insignificant role in a number of important national policies. This paper attempts to highlight some of the determinants that influence policy, the role (or lack of it) of social scientists, and possible implications for comparative educators.

Some topics covered at the symposium on social science and policy making which will be highlighted in this paper include (1) uses/misuses of social science in early childhood education policy, (2) uses/misuses of social science in welfare reform, (3) uses/misuses of social science in social security and the graying society, and (4) social science research and policy making as processes.

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SCHREINER, William - University of Southern California
Increasing External Efficiency in the Botswana Primary and Secondary Curricula

Per pupil expenditures in Africa in 1983 were roughly $50 per primary and $250 per secondary school pupil in Africa. Although these figures may have been higher in Botswana, especially for junior secondary (JS) students, this indicates a ratio of approximately 5:1. With abundant evidence supporting the fact that returns to primary education are higher than to secondary, it is clear that greater external efficiency can be realized by reducing the disparity between spending at primary and JS levels. Even though universal education through Form II is the goal of the national education plan, "Education for Kagisano" (social harmony), holdouts by parents, dropouts and girls who leave school because of pregnancies can all benefit tremendously from a higher quality primary education with their first language (L1) or the national first language (N1L) of Setswana as the language of instruction. Another method for increasing education's rate of return is to avoid the failure of too much specialization. Within any level of education, the more general the curriculum the higher the returns to education will be. This supports a general curriculum at the primary and JS level that will create school-leavers who are able to maintain and improve traditional family agricultural enterprises, and who can be more easily trained for available wage jobs because their education has made them more flexible. The failure of manpower forecasting and the lower social rate of return on technical education, such as the Brigades in Botswana, further supports the proposal for more comprehensible input along a broader spectrum at the earliest levels of education.

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SCHUETZE, Hans G. - University of British Columbia
SLOWEY, Maria - University of Glasgow
Higher Education and Lifelong Learning: Perspectives, Policy and Practice.

Recent policy reports from several international organizations and many industrialized countries mirror a renewed interest in lifelong learning. They emphasize that ubiquitous technological change, economic restructuring and global competition - all related and mutually reinforcing - require more and more continuous learning, both formal and non-formal. Only a small number of policy documents and scholarly writings are concerned with other dimensions such as equality of access and opportunity, democratization of the workplace and of society, social cohesion,sustainable development etc. Thus, the original policy emphasis of the first generation reports in the 1960s and 1970s has largely been replaced by rather narrowly defined economic considerations and arguments.

Under the general theme of the session, the panel will address three topics: Firstly, some of the major policy and literature documents will be analyzed to show the development between the first generation and the present second generation of arguments in support of lifelong learning. A second part will concentrate on the intended and real role of higher education, namely the demand for lifelong learning opportunities in post-secondary institutions, often coming from non-traditional groups, the institutional responses from universities and non-university institutions to this demand, and the barriers that individuals seeking access and relevant programs are still likely to experience.

The third topic concerns the difficulty of discussing the topic in a comparative way. The relationship of higher education and, lifelong learning is a complex topic - even when discussed in the context of a national system and thus from the relatively secure planks of agreed upon definitions of terms and of the background of an ongoing discussion in which the main players are familiar with each others' positions and principal arguments. It becomes more difficult still if the theme is discussed from the perspectives of different national systems, traditions and cultures. The panel will reflect some of the difficulties and of the differences and variations that exist between countries.

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SCHUGURENSKY, Daniel - University of California, Los Angeles
Adult education and the modernist project in the era of globalization

This paper discusses some of the challenges for adult education theory and practice in the current context of globalization, post-fordism and neoliberalism. The first section explores the impact of four interrelated phenomena (globalization dynamics, the emergence of an information-based society, the retrenchment of the welfare-state, and the hegemony of market-oriented policies) on adult education. Globalization dynamics (including its promises and threats) are analyzed in the economic, cultural and political spheres, with a particular emphasis on the debates on citizenship, the stance of universal human rights in an increasingly polarized world, and the inversion of means and ends in human development. Different future labor market scenarios, discourses on human capital formation and the logic of global corporate capital, as well as the implications of state retrenchment and market-friendly policies for adult education, particularly regarding issues of equity, diversity and quality are also discussed in this section.

The second part explores the hypothesis that, at the verge of the 21^st century, there is a need for a new social contract. In developing the basis for this contract, and in examining the emancipatory possibilities of the modernist discourse at the edge of a new century, the field of adult education has a crucial role to play, and the writings of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire -with their insights and shortcomings- could be particularly illuminating in this regard. Thus, an overview of Freire's production, including his main contributions to adult education and the most recurrent criticisms to his work, is presented.

Finally, it is argued that in the formulation of the new social contract, a critical review of the modernist project, promoting its progressive agenda and rejecting its exclusionary and predatory logic, should be seriously undertaken. At the same time, lessons learned by popular educators during the last two decades could be extremely useful in assisting the development of individual citizens and emancipatory social movements.

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SEGAWA, Megumi - University of British Columbia
The Cultural Adaptation of Japanese College Students in a Study Abroad Context: An Ethnographic Study

Using in-depth interviews and participant-observation, I examined everyday experiences of fifteen female Japanese students who participated in a study abroad program in Canada. I attempted to investigate (1) the nature of cultural learning in the participants of this study during their sojourn and (2) how different social networks in the sojourn context affected the processes of their cultural learning and adaptation to the sojourn environment. I employed models of cross-cultural adaptation based on a perspective of cultural learning social skill acquisition as theoretical framework. During the first few months of their sojourn in Canada, students without previous international sojourn experiences seemed to be physically and emotionally vulnerable.

Some students also experienced emotional ups and downs which was in line with previously published accounts of the characteristics of the sojourner's adaptation process. A close association of the Japanese students within their group throughout their sojourn resulted in the formation of an ethnic enclave in the foreign university dormitory community. This provided a support network for most of the Japanese students, but at the same time, caused interpersonal conflicts within the group. The strong group solidarity also negatively affected the relationship between the Japanese students and their Canadian peers in the dormitory. In order to maintain positive relationships with others in the new environment, the Japanese students in this study had to adapt not only to the socio-cultural characteristics of the host environment, but also to the norms and values of their own group. Although they encountered a number of challenges while in Canada, the process of overcoming difficulties and absorbing new experiences enabled them to grow personally and intellectually. Towards the end of their sojourn and after returning to Japan, the students recognised positive changes in their attitude and behaviour which they attributed to the different experiences they had through their study abroad. Several findings of my study indicated that theoretical propositions in the cross-cultural adaptation literature adequately describe the participants' adaptation to a new environment. However, my study also showed how the unique nature of the students' sojourn environment had a significant impact on their adaptation processes.

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SPENCER, Bruce - Athabasca University
Labour Education On The Cusp: A Five-Country Comparison

What kind of labour education is needed in the twenty-first century? Are unions, and other providers of labour education, developing a coherent response to economic globalization? Is organized labour capable of blending the traditional objectives of workers' education with new technologies and new opportunities available at the cusp of the new century?

This comparative study of labour education in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America seeks to answer these and related questions.

This paper will:

Review the nature and purposes of labour education
Link that to the provision of tools, issues and labour studies courses
Examine the connections between labour education and worker education/training
Suggest a new model of labour education is emerging which meets, in part, both the criticisms raised at the close of the nineteenth century and the challenges of the twenty-first century.

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ST. CLAIR, Ralf - University of British Columbia
Waltzing while the ship goes down: Community adult education in Scotland and BC

Community adult education is the trapeze act of education. Sustained aloft merely by the strength of their commitment to social action, practitioners undertake risky maneuvers without the safety net of an institution. That commitment is derived from a history of social action reaching back several hundred years and reinforced by a vision of possibility forged during the 1960s and 70s. Yet the awe inspiring acts of community educators like Freire and Martin Luther King were made possible by a belief that the state, if sufficiently pressured, would respond to the call for justice. A belief which can no longer be taken for granted as the 20th century-- the century of the state-- draws to a close.

In this paper I argue that the liberalisation of the state erodes the opportunity for community adult education and the potential for meaningful change to occur. I compare Scotland, where adult education is firmly entrenched in state education departments, with BC, where there is a fragile diaspora of provision. I argue that the state, while constraining in some respects, provides a context for the development of oppositional forms of education and protects the shoots of resistance until they are ready to grow alone. I show that professional roles within the state provide creative opportunities for community work, and that precarious contract work in the private or non-profit sector cannot fulfill that requirement.

Finally, I believe that the liberalisation and reduction of the state cannot be compensated for by focusing our efforts on new social movements or adult learning. To become caught up in the glamour of postmodernity and post Fordism is to ensure that we are, in the end, waltzing while the ship goes down.

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STOVEL, Laura - University of British Columbia
Fighting the "cleansing": NGO approaches to improving inter-ethnic relations through education in post-war Bosnia

The 1992-95 Bosnian war left the country radically divided. Those ethnic divisions that existed before the war were sharply heightened after three years of an intentionally divisive war-time policy, chillingly called "ethnic cleansing." With the exception of multi-ethnic cities like Sarajevo, most towns and rural areas are highly segregated. The scars and anger keeping communities apart are still strong and government educational policies are, for the most part, entrenching the divisions. In the years immediately following an ethnic war, when peace is tenuous and hostilities threaten to re-erupt, it is important to understand what non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can do, through their educational programs, to diffuse the tensions and address some of their sources.

This interdisciplinary paper examines educational efforts by both local and international NGOs in Bosnia to reduce inter-ethnic tensions and address stereotyping and prejudice. It seeks to explain why these programs, which range from civil society and human rights education to professional training and peace education, take the form that they do. It explores the constraints and possibilities facing these programs, the relationship between local and international NGOs in carrying out this work, and the language used to describe work which, to North Americans, would seem to be relevant to multicultural and anti- racism education.

During a recent trip to Bosnia and Croatia, I collected manuals and outlines which describe a variety of such programs. I am in the process of analyzing those documents, looking for patterns and relationships that might reveal why they take the form that they do in their efforts to improve interethnic relations. Although the focus is on Bosnia, I am also analyzing and comparing three programs in Croatia, which is a distinct, but related, post-ethnic war context. Historical analyses, background interviews, and my personal experience during two trips to Bosnia and Croatia provide the general background for the analysis. Political and psychoanalytical writing on ethnic nationalism; theoretical work on identity, multiculturalism and anti-racism; and comparative work on peace education and post-war reconciliation, provide theoretical frameworks.

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TALBANI, Aziz - University of Memphis
Modernization and Religious Education: Management of knowledge in Ismaili Community in the Western Societies

The Migration of Ismailis from East Africa occurred over 25 years ago, during last 25 years community has gone through many significant changes, and one of those changes are reflected in the management of knowledge and shift of control over the interpretation and dissemination of pedagogic knowledge.

Historically, Ismailis always prided themselves as promoters of knowledge and science. In the past, when Ismaili Imams ruled over North Africa and Egypt (9th to 13 the century), they established institutions of higher learning and promoted all academic disciplines. Being a highly diverse group of people, their communities always promoted learning. In the Indian sub-continent, they created the philosophical and spiritual works, known as ginans.

The present study examines changes in the current power discourse amongst the Ismaili community residing in Canada and the USA. The study analyzes the discourse of knowledge and shifts of control over its management and dissemination in the community. In modern times, the establishment of bureaucratic institutions have eliminated the need for specialized theologians or religious doctors to interpret religious rituals and beliefs. Now, the focus is more on the management of rituals and control over knowledge discourse. Hence, an important shift has occurred: the role and function of religious teachers and preachers, known as waezen, has been diminished and bureaucrats, who offer honorary time, who may come from any professional (rarely religiously trained) or non-professional background, are managers of rituals and the construction of knowledge discourses in the community. Theoretically, the Imam (the spiritual head of Ismailis) has the power to change or introduce religious doctrine and rituals. In practice, bureaucrats in the institution exercise tremendous power to interpret and disseminate knowledge. This control is maintained by withholding, emphasizing certain fragments and de-emphasizing other fragments of information, and through mis/interpretation of values and beliefs to fit the secular and commercial interest of the oligarchy. Hence, the emergence of new institutions, such as the Institute of Ismaili Studies, and transformation of old ones, like Tariqah and Religious Education Boards, fit into the new power structure of the community and their role seems to maintain status quo and gives new powers to bureaucrats. There is process of secularization of faith in which traditional emphasis on spiritual and moral values is neglected and mundane and ephemeral is encouraged. Hence, this presentation will cite examples from the current situation to illustrate knowledge and power discourse in the community.

The Appropriation of Dissent in Contemporary Educational Discourse: Teachers as the Guardians of the Status Quo

Among academia, there has been an on-going debate regarding the role and function of educational systems in society. Bourdieu's assertion that the primary function of education is cultural reproduction, or Foucault's claim that education is engaged in regulating social discourses substantiate educational systems as cultural agents that are engaged in maintaining existing power relations in society. Modern educational systems, like their predecessors in medieval times, are sites where specific discourses are regulated, reproduced and sometimes created. The purpose of the dissemination of these knowledge products is to produce an efficient and productive work force and citizenry that believe and promote the political ideology of a nation. Modern educational systems, primarily in the form of public education, are institutions that are owned and operated by the state, and even private educational institutions receive legitimacy through their compliance with state ideology and the promotion of the same discourse.

The paper argues that teachers are agents of reproduction and help maintain status quo through teacher certification, their lack of control and participation in decision-making processes and the development of curricula. As the result, social and political change is controlled in society.

Research has exhibited that females perform less well and chose less to pursue careers in mathematics and science than males (Leonard & Jiming, 1995). Recently this research has been further supplemented by data showing that female and male performance in mathematics and science within North America differs based on cultural differences (Catsambis, 1994). This paper examined performance and choice to pursue careers in mathematics and science between genders taking into account cultural differences in gender roles and environmental factors (interest, achievement, and opportunity), social factors (socioeconomic status, parental education), and the relationship of each ethnic group to the host society. This paper brought attention to the forces and negative consequences facing ethnic minority women particularly when examined in the form of imposition and the relation of particular minorities to the host society. Jipson, Munro, Victor, Jones, and Freed-Rowland (1995) describe imposition as "..those concerned with the relations of power and with the processes that privilege one form of knowing and being over another." This imperfect balance of power in relation to gender is exacerbated further in situations involving cultural differences. Identification of the bias, possible causes, and potential consequences are first steps in the direction of social change.

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THOMAS, Lynn - University of British Columbia
The Pacific Cultual Literacy Project

This presentation will report on the results of the Pacific Cultural Literacy Project, which examines how secondary school students from around the Pacific region view their relationship with this emerging economic and cultural region. The Pacific Cultural Literacy Project was developed to establish the degree to which students living in this area have begun to sense the emergence of a Pacific community, and whether they see themselves as a part of this community.

The study involves 1235 secondary school students from 11 different countries and 2 states in the Pacific region. These countries are: AotearoaflrTew Zealand, Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Solomon Islands, the United States (\with both California and Hawaii participating), and Vietnam,

The students, aged 14-17 years of age, were asked to draw and label a free-hand map of the Pacific region, and respond to one of 7 prompts during their geography, history or social studies classes. These 7 prompts were concerned with community, economics, culture, migration, ethnic tension, history and education in their part of the Pacific region.

This presentation will focus on the students' hand-drawn maps of the Pacific region, and will give a short overview of the student responses to the prompts which have been analyzed to date, that is community, culture and ethnic tension. The students' comments reflect a wide range of awareness of issues such as colonialism, native rights, immigration, environmental challenges, and global peace.

In terms of the maps, we looked at what students included in their drawings. We are interested in students' geographical knowledge and awareness of the region in a general sense, so we counted countries and cities that were labeled. We are also interested in the perspectives chosen, as in which continents and large country or countries are present.

Using an interpretive framework, the study also examined what was at the centre and margins of the maps, whether it was indeed the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic, and the distances across the Pacific Ocean. The conclusions to this reading of the maps relate to what the students imagine to be the points of proximity, connection and isolation among Pacific countries.

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TIBERGHIEN, Jennifer - University of California, Los Angeles
The Power of Unarmed Prophets: Nongovernmental Organizations as Carriers of Human Rights Education

At the edge of the 21st century, there is an increasing need to recognize and understand new partners in education. This paper explores the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in human rights education. Despite the increasing salience of the human rights discourse in a variety of social, economic, and political phenomenon, little is known about the status of human rights education in both formal and informal education. This study adopts an institutional approach at the global level to analyze the worldwide expansion of NGOs in human rights education from 1895 to1995. NGOs, though often small in scale and poor in resources, use diverse methods to reach their local constituents.

Globalization and technology have increased their possibilities to hook up with diverse actors: international organizations, governments, academia, media, and private businesses. Human rights education has become increasingly institutionalized in terms of professional training classes, regular journals and bulletins, publications, library and documentation centers, scholarships, and award programs.

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TOUCHIE, Bernice - University of British Columbia
Colonization or Solidarity?: Aboriginals on the Web

The effects of Aboriginal use of the Web is as uncertain and unpredictable as other technologies. The internet use ranges from nonparticipation to complete adaptation. Some relish the newfound ability to share cultures, to be updated, and to be included in a 'community' which was never before possible. Experience has revealed that equalitarian no longer means colonialist postures but means localist cultural-developmental planning and designing. The literature varies from optimism in the novel connectism and solidarity links to pessimism by potential cultural interruption. Rather than a concern for the techno-hype the Aboriginals take pride in their situatedness in both space and time as an aspect which sustains spirituality.

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VERTINSKY, Patricia - University of British Columbia
Bodies of Memory: Educating the Body in the Contested Space of the War Memorial Gym

Recent studies of history and memory, such as Les Lieux de Memoire series have set out to unpack the ways in which nations and localities have memorialized their past. An important question to be raised in reading Death So Noble, a recent study of Canadian war memorials, is what is really being memorialized here? First nations people are never represented in these memorials. Women are rarely memorialized either. When it comes to war memorials, it is consistently one kind of body - we might call it the militarized body - the young, white heterosexual male body holding the standard of the universal ideal - which takes precedence.

This paper analyzes the relationship between body, space and the public sphere in the context of the War Memorial Gym - a building dedicated in 1951 to this University's fallen war heroes, two world wars and which has remained the central location of both Athletics and Physical Education ever since. This presentation will examine how the University of British Columbia has constructed its own myths of origin through commemorative symbols such as the War Memorial Gym and what that construction reveals about UBC's values and aspirations as a pedagogical institution and environment for adult education.

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WAHAB, Zaher - Lewis and Clark College
Lok Jumbish: Education Of, By, and For the Masses

Rajasthan is one of the least developed and poorest of India' s 22 states. The state's dubious distinction can be documented by studying poverty rates, percentage of labor force in subsistence agriculture, unemployment, underemployment, the number of scheduled castes/classes, health-hygiene-sanitation, roads and electricity, calorie in-take, per capita income, life span, illiteracy, quality of life, and so on. Conventional education simply reflects and reinforces the state's overall underdevelopment. A mere 20% of women and 35% of men are literate, 55% of the 6-14 year olds are out of school, 55% of the pupils drop out by the fifth grade and only 30% of the age group completes primary education. About 10% of the villages have no schools whatsoever. The education that is offered is largely substandard, irrelevant and/or dysfunctional. Both public education and the state itself are in a crisis.

In response, the Government ofRajasthan has attempted various schemes such as 'Operation Blackboard,' 'Education For All,' 'Total Literacy by the Year 2000,' and more recently Lok Jumbish (people's movement) in 1986. Lok Jumbish is a collaboration between the Swedish International Development Authority, the Government ofIndia, and the Government ofRajasthan. The campaign was actually launched inJune 1992, and is to continue indefinitely. Lok Jumbish's essential features include: decentralization, localization, democratization, indigenization, mobilization of rural women, gender equity, diversification, universalized access to quality primary education, utilization of both formal and nonformal education, school construction with local material, labor, expertise, and contribution, education through and for mass mobilization, integrated curriculum, incorporation of schooling and social services, adult (re) education, enhancing professionalization of teachers, the establishment of village education committees, ensuring universal school enrollment, improved retention, improving children's health, and instituting a drastic overhaul of every aspect of schooling in rural areas. Lok Jumbish is indeed a radical departure from mainstream education/schooling in India.

Lok Jumbish schools may operate independently, collaborate with government schools, and/or cooperate with the many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) helping the rural population. Indications are that the effort is having a profound impact on schooling and other aspects of life throughout Rajasthan. This paper, based on a just-completed study trip to India, has profound theoretical and practical implications for educational reform anywhere.

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WALKER, Sarah - University of British Columbia
Choreographing Connections: Bringing a Sense of Place into the Conversation

Amidst the whirlwind of technology designed to facilitate mobility, communication and ease in our society lies a fragmentation of identity. Questions regarding our self-identity and roots sift down through our busy lives and urge us to search for connection wholeness and validation. Our obsession with the promotion of the capable individual is tempered with a concern for the "other". One of these "others" is the environment which sustains and surrounds us. In the West, we are heralded with predictions of environmental crises on a regular basis, accompanied by directives admonishing how to live in communion with the eco-system and with each other. Concern for the community around us, be it urban or rural, is growing. One theme of this concern is embedded in the term place.

A sense of place is an understanding and appreciation of the place in which I live and the web of connections between it and its inhabitants. It is being aware of the impact I have on the world around me and allowing myself to root in and connect with it. Place can include people, objects, or geographical boundaries. It is the sense of connection that defines the limits. Such an awareness of self aids me in my search to be grounded and whole where I stand. Comprehending place is thus an entry point into a fuller understanding of identity and voice.

As an educator, it is my hope to nurture similar awareness in the classroom. Education is not simply a commodity to be bought or a piece of paper to obtain. It is a process of growing and learning who I am, what shapes me, and where I fit into this world. In a society which is increasingly mobile and unattached to particular places, whether by choice or necessity, the difficulty of being displaced needs to be examined. Exploring one's sense of place addresses this dilemma. In this paper, I will present and critique ideas on place from the perspectives of bioregionalism, environmental philosophy, and Christianity, three of the bodies of literature which discuss the idea of place. This is a preliminary journey into conceptions of place, a journey I continue to explore in my current research. My ultimate goal is not to convince an audience of my personal definition of place. Rather, it is to encourage reflection. Awareness of our connections and commitments can only enrich our understanding of self and identity.

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XU, Gongli - University of British Columbia
TV University in China: A "Mutation" of Open Education or A "Clone" of Conventional Schools?

The recent exposure to distance education as a means of open learning and lifelong learning launched among Chinese distance educators a profound deliberation on the practice in the field and a search for the best model for the Chinese open learning system. Contra the notion of open learning, TV universities in China increasingly resort to measures of conventional schools, such as, organizing students into classes, multiplying face-to-face classroom instruction hours, expanding instructor corps, and tightening up student advancement regulations so as to sustain the quality and quantity of distance education (Gu, 1996). Therefore, a number of distance educators (Han, 1996; Gu, 1996; Lu, 1996; Ma, 1996) point out that China's open education has deviated from the underpinnings of open and distance learning: access, student- centredness learning and flexibility. They describe these practices as a "mutation from distance education" and as serious snags to the further development of the Chinese open education system.

Scholars in China generally attribute the problems TV universities face to the use of distance education as an economic expediency (Wang, 1992), the implementation of standardization policies and strive for parity of esteem with conventional universities (Fu, 1992), structural rigidities, financial, technological and personnel difficulties (Ding & Pen, 1997). There seems to be a consensus for a need of a clean break from traditional conceptions of teaching and learning and perspective transformation, yet few have touched upon what exactly are the conflicting values that are embedded between the open learning philosophy and the traditional Chinese conceptions, and not least important, the contemporary political ideologies.

This paper challenges the "mutation" proposition and the tendency to understand the problem in terms of structural and technological issues. By employing Rowntree's (1992) notion of open learning (comprising a philosophy and a method), the paper questions if there has ever been a parallel development in these two major aspects of open learning in China.

Particularly, by exploring Chinese historical, social, cultural and political milieu in which distance education has been adopted, the paper argues that since distance education was basically introduced to China as an expedient technology to expand its higher education system (Wang, 1992) and therefore the notions such as "openness" and "distance" were compromised for its promise to broad coverage, wide recruitment, less investment and rapid benefits. More important, the paper points out that it is not much the conventional Chinese wisdom on "knowledge", "teaching" and "learning" but rather the political concerns that would inherently conflict with the ideologies such as "self-directness", "individualization" , "educational democratization". On this basis, the paper maintains the biggest challenge to building a truly open learning system in China lies in the extent of China's readiness for open learning, not only in economic and technological terms but more importantly, in philosophical and political terms.

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ZIMMERMAN, Roy - University of California, Los Angeles
The Debate Over English Only Instruction in America's Classrooms

In June of 1998 California voters will go to the polls to decide the fate of millions of public school students. Proposition 227, otherwise known as the English Language Education for Immigrant Children initiative, is the latest attack on bilingual instruction. It rekindles a debate which has plagued Californians since the days of the Gold Rush. As a result, over 1.4 million limited-English-proficient (LEP) students now face the prospect of entering an English-only classroom within 60 days of enrolling in a California public school. California school administrators and teachers are opposed and formally challenging this law for a number of reasons: students would be forced into classrooms based solely on English proficiency regardless of differences in age, cultural background, and academic ability. They would be instructed only in English by teachers prohibited under threat of a lawsuit from using a second language in the classroom. These are just a few examples of why some educators object to the initiative.

Consider the plight of Lelia Mendoza. She came with her family to Los Angeles from El Salvador in August 1997 and entered Cesar Chavez Middle School which has been experimenting with the English only methodology proposed by the Unz initiative. As soon as she was classified as being non-proficient in English, she was placed into classes where the instruction was entirely in English. The results of her English immersion have been disastrous. Once a model student who was actively involved in her studies and extra-curricular activities, Lelia is now failing many of her classes, experiencing severe emotional distress, and is reluctant to attend school. Her parents are very concerned and unsure about their options. Even though they cannot afford private tutoring to assist her in her English language acquisition, they see it as the only way for her to survive in the public school system. The case of Lelia is prescient; thousands of California students will face similar problems if forced into English only instruction.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and political implications of the English-Only Initiative. The paper analyzes the proposal in detail and outlines not just its pedagogical flaws but also its unconstitutionality according to United States law.

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