EDST Holiday Dinner

EDST hosted a very successful holiday dinner at UBC on December 13. We welcomed our staff, faculty, students, and a number of professors emeritus to celebrate the EDST community and the year’s achievements.

NITEP at Heiltsuk College

The University of British Columbia’s Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP) is excited to announce Heiltsuk College as the new host of the NITEP rotating field centre as of September 2012! Heiltsuk College and the UBC Faculty of Education’s NITEP will partner to offer arts/science and education courses for the next four years (2012–2016), allowing students to remain in their home community of Bella Bella, for years 1–3. The students will transition to the UBC Vancouver campus for their final year in order to complete their Bachelor of Education Degree.

For more information, please visit the NITEP website.

Contesting White Supremacy

Don’t miss Dr. Tim Stanley, on Tuesday, November 22, when he will present his book Contesting White Supremacy: School Segregation, Antiracism and the Making of Chinese Canadians, new from UBC Press. He will give a presentation on his book and other projects at 12:30–2 p.m. in the Ponderosa G Lounge. That evening there will be a reception and talk at 5–7 p.m. at St. John’s College, UBC Point Grey Campus. See the EDST website and UBC Events calendar for more details.

IOP 2012 – Call for Proposals

Investigating Our Practices 2012. 15th annual conference. Co-sponsored by the Faculty of Education and the BC Teachers’ Federation. Saturday, May 5, 2012, Scarfe Education Building, 2125 Main Mall. Practicing teachers, graduate students, teacher candidates and university educators from different educational contexts convene at UBC to share their investigations, understandings and questions. Proposals for presentations can be submitted online at eplt.educ.ubc.ca/iop-cfp. The deadline for submissions is February 20, 2012. Registration fee: $25, $15 for students. Lunch and refreshments included. For more information, visit www.eplt.educ.ubc.ca/iop or contact Judy Paley at 604.822.2733, judy.paley@ubc.ca.

Olympic Games Impact Study

British Columbia’s economy grew in 2010 with new businesses, jobs and an increase in visitor spending, all likely related to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, says a University of British Columbia study that measured the impact of the Games.

More information on the report is available on the UBC News Release.

Sports Mega-Events Conference

EDST faculty member Rob Vanwynsberghe will co-chair a conference on sports mega-events in November 2011. This second annual two-day think tank will meet to hear presentations for two days, on the subject of event impacts, leverage, and legacy. The event itself is not open to the public; following the event, each paper will be revised and the discussants will edit and collect them as a book for publishing by the University of Texas Press.

Interview with Professor Hans Pechar

CHET presents a video interview with Professor Hans Pechar (University of Klagenfurt, Vienna) about the Humboldt Myth and the Bologna process in Europe, filmed September 6, 2011.

Views: “Revolutions Yet to Happen”

EDST Professor André Mazawi has written an article, “Revolutions Yet to Happen,” that appears in Inside Higher Ed, September 8, 2011.

“The overthrow of the Tunisian and Egyptian rulers, following widespread demonstrations for regime change—subsequently spreading from Algeria to Yemen, as well as to Libya, Syria, Jordan, and Bahrain—has raised hopes for a new political dawn across the Arab region. . . .”

The entire article can be read online.

Hans Pechar: The Humboldt Myth and the Bologna Process

On Tuesday, September 6, the Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education & Training (CHET) will host a presentation by Hans Pechar, on “The Humboldt Myth and the Bologna Process.” The presentaiton will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Ponderosa H, Room 123. See the event poster for an abstract.

Graduate Student Paper Award

Congratulations to Tara Gibb who was awarded the Best Graduate Student Paper Award for her paper “Straddling Federal/Provincial Government Relations: The Work Of Adult Additional Language Education For Immigrants’ Employment Retention” at the 2011 Annual Conference for the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (CASAE) held at OISE, University of Toronto, June 9–12, 2011.

Community Service Learning: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

At the University of Alaska, Anchorage, on July 14, 2011, EDST Associate Professor Shauna Butterwick presented her paper “Community Service Learning: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” based on her 2010 Faculty of Education HSS grant research into Community Service Learning.

SSHRC Award to Rob vanWynsberghe

We congratulate EDST assistant professor Rob vanWynsberghe, who received a SSHRC Aid to Workshops and Conferences Grant. The award will be used to support a two-day workshop entitled Sport Mega-Event Impacts, Leveraging and Legacies.

EDST Alumna Appointment

Ann Marie Vaughan, an EDST Higher Education alumna, has been appointed President of College of the North Atlantic by the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, effective August 1st.

Ms. Vaughan completed her MA studies at EDST in 1998.

News Release: Premier Names New President of College of the North Atlantic

Images of Identity: Self and Other in School Textbooks of the Palestinian Authority

On June 1, 2011, EDST presented Dr. Samira Alayan speaking on “Images of Identity: Self and Other in School Textbooks of the Palestinian Authority.” The study analyzes representations of self and “Other” in ministry-approved history textbooks for secondary level in Palestine. Samira Alayan holds a PhD in the sociology of education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a research fellow at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Braunschweig, Germany. Her research focuses on education in the Middle East in conflict and post-conflict settings.

If you want to learn more about the topic, read the abstract (.pdf) and the event poster.

Guest speaker: “Globalization and Educational policies"

The Department of Educational Studies was pleased to present a talk by visiting guest speaker, Professor Abdeljalil Akkari of the University of Geneva, Switzerland where he is an associate professor in the Department of Education. Professor Akkari’s talk, “Globalization and Educational policies: The challenge of diversity,” explored two-tiered educational systems emerging from educational policies. His main research interests now focus on teacher education and reforms of educational systems in a comparative perspective. The talk was arranged by Dr. André Mazawi of EDST.

A detailed description of the event is on our website.

Killam Teaching Prize awarded

EDST Professor André Mazawi was awarded the Killam Teaching prize last week at UBC’s convocation ceremonies.

Pictured below (L–R) are Dr. Michelle Stack, Dr. Deirdre Kelly, Dr. André Mazawi, Dr. Claudia Ruitenberg, Dr. Garnet Grosjean, and Dr. Shauna Butterwick.

Global tourism can harm communities

Research by EDST Professor Jo-Anne Dillabough was featured in UBC Reports, vol. 5 no. 3. Heather Amos wrote an article about Professor Dillabough’s research on how tourism impacts local communities:

“Dillabough studies the global tourist industry, where tourism develops from outside of a country and investors, such as a large North American hotel chains, can gain financial success with little benefit for the people who live there. This work emerged out of some earlier research on male youth subcultures, which Dillabough made into a book, Lost Youth Culture in the Global City: Class, Culture and the Urban Imaginary.

Today, she looks at how the global tourist industry has changed the dynamic of local communities in Morocco and what this means for the young boys growing up in the area.”

Read the entire article on the UBC Reports website.

UBC Reports is a monthly electronic and print publication produced by UBC Public Affairs.

Journalists and academics as public educators

Michelle Stack, EDST professor, writes about journalism and academe in an article for “Academic Matters” magazine. In the article, “Journalists and academics as public educators,” Dr. Stack argues that journalism and academe have much in common, both being networks of knowledge that facilitate the noisy, messy process of democratic conversation.

The full text of the article is available online.

Academic Matters is Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associates’ (OCUFA) journal of higher education, published two times a year in print and on the web.

AERA Awards

Dr. Anish Sayani, sessional instructor at EDST, was selected for two awards at the American Education Research Association (AERA) Conference 2011. The awards committee selected his dissertation for the Robert Kottkamp Outstanding Dissertation Award for his "narrative-ethnographic study of the lived experiences of marginalized high school students" which they called a "ground breaking" and "significant" study. The award was announced at AERA on April 8th.

Dr. Sayani was also selected for the Divison A AERA Outstanding Dissertation Award for his dissertation, Pathologies and complicities: High school and the identities of disaffected South Asian "Brown boys." This award was announced at AERA on April 10th.

Dr. Blye Frank presents research at EDST

The recently appointed Dean of the Faculty of Education, Dr. Blye Frank, visited the Department of Educational Studies on April 19, 2011 to present his recent research into models of masculinity, and to meet EDST faculty and staff. Many EDST members listened to the talk, which focused on masculinity and health, then shared refreshments and conversations with Dr. Frank.

Dr. Blye Frank has been appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Education at UBC for a five-year term, effective April 1, 2011. Dr. Frank is an experienced educator and administrator who brings a strong commitment to excellence in research, teaching and academic leadership. He has an active research career and is currently conducting research in the areas of men, masculinities, and health. Dr. Frank served as principal investigator in the Exemplary Schools Project, a federally funded study on successful schools in Canada. He has held major research grants from the Social Science Humanities Research Council of Canada for research in the area of masculinity and schooling. He has been involved in several international projects in Tanzania, Turkey, Pakistan and currently with a World Bank funded project in medical education reform in Kazakhstan. Frequently invited to present papers and keynote addresses to academic and professional conferences at the local, provincial, national and international level, Dr. Frank has appeared as an expert witness on human rights issues and has served on a number of local and national boards.

American Education Research Assocation conference

Dear EDSTers,

The 2011 American Education Research Association (AERA) Conference was held between Friday, April 8 and Tuesday, April 12 in New Orleans. The theme of the Annual Meeting was largely, although not exclusively, about reconsidering education as the public good in the era of neoliberalization, privatization, and marketization, thus stimulating a new dialogue about the contributions that education research can make to the public sphere. EDST presenters included Dr. Mark Aquash, Dr. Jo-Ann Archibald, Dr. Jo-Anne Dillabough, Dr. Amy Metcalfe, Dr. Taylor Webb, Dr. Kalervo Gulson and myself, Ee-Seul Yoon.

With the two invited professors from Australia and Sweden, Dr. Dillabough, Dr. Webb, Dr. Gulson & I participated in the symposium focused on Education Markets in Morocco, Canada, Australia, and Sweden: Youth, Identity, and Globalization. This symposium provided much-needed understanding of both locally specific and globally shared experiences and challenges that school choice has faced, and is facing, in an era of neoliberal globalization and new imperialism. It showcased ethnographic accounts of the relationship between education marketization and young people’s identities in urban areas of Australia, Canada, Morocco and Sweden. Furthermore, it identified emerging trends in these four countries: new school choice discourses and varying school types, such as identity schools, mini schools and free schools. Each scholar presented their novel, interdisciplinary conceptual tools which both guided their ethnography of youth and markets and helped interrogate illusive concepts, such as ‘choice,’ ‘community,’ ‘best school,’ ‘self-care’ and ‘freedom,’ in the cacophony of market discourses. The following list includes the titles of the papers presented:

• “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Freedom of Choice and Young People in Swedish Multicultural Neighborhoods (Nihad Bunar, Stockholm University)
• Education Marketization in a Global City: New Challenges to Young People’s ‘Community’ Belonging (Ee-Seul Yoon, The University of British Columbia)
• Global Tourism and the New Imperialism: Illusions of Choice and Young Working Lives in Morocco (Jo-Anne Margaret Dillabough, The University of British Columbia)
• The “Best School” or the “Right School”? Framings of School Value in Australia (Joel Austin Windle, Monash University)
• Afrocentric Schooling, Globalized Policy and the “Care of the Self”: Reimagining Marketization and Student Identity (Kalervo N. Gulson, University of New South Wales, Australia, & Taylor Webb, The University of British Columbia)

Chair: Ee-Seul Yoon & Jo-Anne Margaret Dillabough (The University of British Columbia)

Following the symposium, we had the opportunity to eat and talk. If you want to know more about this symposium or any paper, feel free to email me at eeseul@interchange.ubc.ca.

Faculty of Education Congress Members

EDST professors Mona Gleason and Daniel Vokey will participate as members of the newly formed Faculty of Education Congress. The Faculty announced all the members of the Congress this week. The Congress is a new deliberative body that brings a wide range of perspectives to issues of Faculty-wide significance. The Faculty acknowledges the commitment these colleagues have made to serving the Faculty and wishes them success in this new endeavor. The Congress will have its first meeting in April.

Explorations & Education

A UBC Faculty of Education Conference, “Explorations & Education” will be held on Friday, April 1 2011, 9:00 am–5:00 pm.

The keynote speaker, Maria LeRose is an MA student in ECPS and an Adjunct Professor at the UBC Faculty of Medicine. Maria is a documentary producer and interviewer with an extensive interest and experience in education. Her address will focus on education in our daily lives.

The conference is hosted by graduate students from the Graduate Student Council of the Faculty of Education, the Department of Educational Studies and the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy. See the event poster [pdf] for details and schedule.

EDST Professor is a team recipient of CIHR Grant

EDST congratulates Jennifer Chan, Associate Professor, who is one of seven international co-investigators on a research team which was awarded a four-year grant from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for $406,716. This operating grant is in support of the team’s research project, Living in “transnational spaces”: Gendered vulnerability to HIV of Chinese immigrants in Canada and the implications for future interventions.

The study’s objective is to understand the contrast between Chinese immigrants’ risky sexual behaviours, and silence surrounding sex and HIV. The study findings will help develop education programs, services and policies on global health governance.

The Making of a Generation (book launch)

On Friday, February 25, Professor Lesley Andres will present her new book, The Making of a Generation, as part of the Public Culture series of Educational Studies. The book launch will be held at 4:30pm in Ponderson G, Lounge, UBC Vancouver campus.

Secondary school graduates of the late 1980s and early 1990s have found themselves coping with economic insecurity, social change, and workplace restructuring. Drawing on studies that have recorded the lives of young people in two countries for over fifteen years, The Making of a Generation offers unique insight into the hopes, dreams, and trajectories of a generation.
Although children born in the 1970s were more educated than ever before, as adults they entered new labour markets that were de-regulated and precarious. Lesley Andres and Johanna Wyn discuss the consequences of education and labour policies in Canada and Australia, emphasizing their long-term impacts on health, well-being, and family formation. They conclude that these young adults bore the brunt of policies designed to bring about rapid changes in the nature of work. Despite their modest hopes and aspirations for security, those born in the 1970s became a vanguard generation as they negotiated the significant social and economic transformations of the 1990s.

Professor Lesley Andres

Visit the EDST Website for details on upcoming speakers in the series.

First Nations Education Policy in Canada

Dr. Fallon

Dr. Gerald Fallon, EDST professor, and coauthor Dr. Jerry Paquette of the University of Western Ontario, introduced their new book, “First Nations Education Policy in Canada”, at a book launch event hosted by EDST on February 10th.
From the publisher:

How can First Nations schools in Canada offer a curriculum that is at once authentically and deeply Aboriginal while comparable in content, quality, and standards to provincial and territorial education? First Nations Education Policy in Canada is a critical analysis of policy developments affecting First Nations education since 1986 and a series of recommendations for future policy changes.
Jerry Paquette and Gérald Fallon challenge the fundamental assumptions about Aboriginal education that have led to a Balkanized and ineffective educational system able to serve few of the needs of students. To move forward, the authors have developed a conceptual framework with which to re-envision the social, political, and educational goals of a self-governing First Nations education system. Offering a sorely needed fresh perspective on an issue vital to the community, First Nations Education Policy in Canada is grounds for critical reflection not only on education but on the future of Aboriginal self-determination.

Dr. Paquette participated in the launch through Internet video conference call. Congratulations to the authors on this achievement.

Carrie Hunter, student profile

After years teaching chemistry and more years working as a trainer in the pharmaceutical industry, I left Ontario to pursue a PhD in EDST. I am interested in the intersection between The Knowledge Based Economy and Lifelong Learning. I am the GAA for CHET (Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training), a Research Assistant for the School of Medicine and I invigilate exams for Access and Diversity. I am active on the EDST Student Council, the PhD Management Committee and the Public Culture Committee, as coordinator of Wonderful Wednesdays’ Student Speaker Series. I have 2 teen sons, 2 cats and an unhealthy relationship with licorice candy. *grin*
I am posting a daily blog at LLLandtheKBA@blogspot.com in which I ruminate about readings I have been doing into Lifelong Learning and the Knowledge Based Economy. I encourage anyone interested in these issues to join me in dialogue there.

Methodologies: Truth, Lies and Indeterminacies (and Everything Else)

On February 10th, EDST faculty member Taylor Webb will participate on a panel discussion about methodologies, in UBC Faculty of Education’s Scarfe building, Room 310, from noon to 2:00pm. Please see the attached poster image for the complete list of panelists.

First Nations Education Policy in Canada: Progress or Gridlock? (2010)

2011 Public Culture Series presents a Book Launch. Feb 10, Professors Gerald Fallon, UBC & Jerry Paquette, University of Western Ontario: First Nations Education Policy in Canada: Progress or Gridlock? (2010). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Time: 4:30 pm, light refreshments provided. Location: EDST, 2044 Lower Mall, Ponderosa G, Lounge. Via Skype, meet Jerry Paquette and join the conversation in person with Prof. Gerald Fallon.

Abstract: How can First Nations schools in Canada offer quality education that is authentically and deeply Aboriginal yet meets the curriculum content requirements and standards of the provincial and territorial systems? This book addresses this question through and in-depth critical analysis of the major policy issues affecting First Nations education, with particular focus on developments that occurred since the mid-1980s. The authors challenge fundamental assumptions about Aboriginal education that have led to a balkanized and ineffective educational system, thus failing to meet the needs of its students. In response to this gridlock, the authors have formulated a conceptual framework that re-envisions the social, political, and educational goals of a self-governing First Nations educational system. Based on the underlying principles and vision within this framework, that author presents a series of recommendations for future policy changes. First Nations Education Policy in Canada lays the groundwork for a new conception not only in Aboriginal education but also of the future of Aboriginal self-determination.

See the EDST website for scheduling details and the lineup of future speakers.

Gender and Higher Education in Times of Globalization

Dr. Nelly Stromquist

On March 10, 2011, as part of the Public Culture Series of Educational Studies, Dr. Nelly Stromquist of University of Maryland will give a talk, “Gender and Higher Education in Times of Globalization.” The typical US university encounters globalization primarily through competition with other universities for prestige and resources. These are the rewards they hope to gain by securing major funding for research, by emphasizing scientific and technological discoveries and marketable products, and by attaining top ranks in comparison with institutional peers at home and abroad. In this context, what types of knowledge are considered relevant? What spaces are left for critical thinking and voices? What specific challenges does gender face in research universities? My presentation will attempt to place challenges and possibilities in balance.

Dr. Stromquist holds a PhD degree in International Development Education from Stanford University and a master’s in political science from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She specializes in issues related to social change and gender, which she examines from the perspective of critical sociology. Her research interests focus on the dynamics of educational policies and practices, gender relations, and equity, particularly in Latin America. She is author of numerous articles and several books. Among the books as sole author, most recent are Feminist Organizations and Social Transformation in Latin America (2006); Education in a Globalized World. The Connectivity of Economic Power, Technology, and Knowledge (2002); and Literacy for Citizenship: Gender and Grassroots Dynamics in Brazil (1997). She is also editor of La construcción del género en las políticas públicas. Perspectivas comparadas desde América Latina (2006); Distant Alliances. Promoting the Education of Girls and Women in Latin America (with Regina Cortina, 2000), Globalization and Culture: Integration and Contestation Across Cultures (with Karen Monkman, 2000). She was a Fulbright New Century Scholar during 2005–06 and is former president of the Comparative and International Education Society.
[Update]
A video recording of Dr. Stromquist’s talk is now available on the EDST website.

Todd May: Friendship as Resistance

Professor Todd May

On January 10th, as part of the Public Culture Series of Educational Studies, Professor Todd May of Clemson University, South Carolina gave a free lecture, “Friendship as Resistance: A struggle against consumerism and entrepreneurship in neoliberal times”.

Congratulations on a very successful genuinely public intellectual event, which generated a good deal of dialog and thought, bringing out students, faculty and most importantly, living up to what our Department is all about, opening space for discussion of matters crucial to education and social justice. I wish to commend Shayna Plaut and Jeannie Kerr for their thoughtful provocations of Todd May’s talk. I also thank Dr. Claudia Ruitenberg for her tireless efforts to bring Todd here. Thanks as well go to Kjell Rubenson, Nora Timmerman & Carrie Hunter, and Roweena Bacchus of the Public Culture Committee, The Democracy Cluster, Policy Studies Cluster, & SCPE and Don for hosting the wine & cheese. I counted some 45 in our audience from across the campus.

Please provide feedback to the Public Culture Committee about this event, its format and ways to increase our dialog and community. Also, see the Jan.–March 2011 lineup of speakers in the Series on our website announcing future talks in the Public Culture Series.

Professor Leslie G. Roman, Chair, Public Culture Committee

Nadine Fabbi, Student Profile

Nadine C. Fabbi is currently enrolled in the EdD program in EDST as part of the 2009 Cohort, and works as the Associate Director of the Canadian Studies Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. For her doctorate she is researching Canadian Inuit political mobilization in the Arctic region—both geopolitical self-determination and emerging strategies in educational policy. In 2010 she was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from University of the Arctic and the Government of Canada for her proposal, “Arctic Educational Policies and their Impact on Canada’s Leadership Role in the Circumpolar World.” In 2007 Nadine utilized a Government of Canada Faculty Research Grant, “Inuit Homelands in Canada” to design the first Task Force on the Arctic. In 2009 she was awarded a Program Enhancement Grant to take 13 University of Washington students to Ottawa as part of the first Task Force on Arctic Sovereignty co-taught with Professor Gallucci. Nadine has travelled to Alaska, the Yukon, Greenland, Iceland and Siberia and has taught two summer programs on Inuit homelands for the University of Alberta. In 2008 she was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the International Council for Canadian Studies in recognition of her contributions to Canadian Studies. Read more about Nadine and her work at the Canadian Studies Center: http://staff.washington.edu/nfabbi/index.shtml.

ALGC Students on Campus

In July 2008, several members of the 2006 Cohort of the Adult Learning for Global Change (ALGC) program had the opportunity to meet face to face. The occasion was a course on Lifelong Learning, taught by Dr. Kjell Rubenson on the UBC Vancouver campus. The seminar gave us an opportunity to connect on a more personal level with the program, the participants, and the university. We also had a chance to hear presentations by researchers in addition to Dr. Rubenson such as Dr. Tara Fenwick (now at the University of Stirling, UK) and Dr. Garnet Grosjean (UBC) on current learning projects at both local (provincial) and international scales. Pictured in the photograph, L. to R: Jackie Regan (Windsor, ON), Rowena delRosario (Edmonton, Alberta), Vivian Hermansen (Campbell River, BC) and Fereshteh Dastani (Shanghai, China). The ALGC program was an important rung in our lifelong learning “ladder”—and these interpersonal connections will never disappear.