SIGnatures

GLOBAL LITERACY AND SUSTAINABILITY MIDDLE EURASIA EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTAL

AFRICA

EAST ECONOMICS

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

ICT4D HIGHER

EDUCATION

GLOBAL MATHEMATICS

EAST ASIA CONTEMPLATIVE INQUIRY

AND EDUCATION EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES AND THE ACADEMY

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

EDUCATION AND HUMAN POTENTIAL

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

CIES CULTURAL CONTEXT OF

GLOBALIZATION RELIGION & EDUCATION

LATIN POST-FOUNDATIONAL APPROACHES EDUCATION AMERICA LARGE-SCALE AFRICAN AND FINANCE OF EDUCATION DIASPORA SOUTH ASIA IN EDUCATION LANGUAGE EARLY CHILDHOOD CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC

CROSS-NATIONAL STUDIES

PEACE DEVELOPMENT TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE TEACHING PROFESSION

EDUCATION

ISSUES

TEACHING

COMPARATIVE

EDUC ATION

Ideas

Networking

Inclusive

Global

AND EDUCATION

Research

Mentoring

Education

SIG natures

10th Anniversary COMMEMORATIVE PUBLICATION OF SIGnatures

2006 -2016 60th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Vancouver, Canada

March 6 - 10, 2015 Publication Coordinated by the CIES Standing Committee on SIGs

Edited by

joan.Osa Oviawe

Table of contents REFLECTIONS N'Dri Assie-Lumumba Mark Bray Kassie Freeman Martin Carnoy Victor Kobayashi Gita Steiner-Khamsi SIGs Committee

THEMATIC SIGS 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

REGIONAL SIGS Africa East Asia Eurasia Latin America Middle East South Asia

13 15 16 18 20 22

African Diaspora Citizenship and Democratic Education (CANDE) Contemplative Inquiry Cultural Context of Education and Human Potential Early Childhood Development Economics and Finance of Education (EFE) Education, Conflict, and Emergencies Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) Global Literacy Global Mathematics Globalization and Education Higher Education Inclusive Education Indigenous Knowledge and the Academy Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) Language Issues Large-Scale Cross-National Studies in Education Peace Education Post-Foundational Approaches to Comparative and International Education Religion & Education Teaching Comparative Education Teacher Education and the Teaching Profession Youth Development and Education

24 25 27 28 30 31 32 33 35 36 38 40 41 43 44 45 46 48 50

N始Dri Assie-Lumumba CIES President Cornell University

Congratulations to the CIES Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on the occasion of their 10th anniversary!

Since the 2006 Hawaii conference, when the first set of SIGs successfully organized their panels and business meetings, SIGs have come to occupy a valuable space and play a prominent role in the CIES intellectual community, providing much-needed opportunities for productive exchange of ideas, networking, mentoring and collaborative knowledge production among scholars, graduate students, and practitioners.

REFLECTIONS

The growing number of SIGs and the richness and diversity of perspectives and thematic foci that they represent constitute significant contributions to CIES and the field of Comparative and International Education. The SIGs are poised to provide further dynamism to CIES in the next decade.

3 Signatures

Mark Bray

CIES President-Elect University of Hong Kong

I congratulate the editor and team who have assembled this special issue of Signatures – and all those who lead in the individual SIGs that have become such an important part of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). This 10th anniversary of the first set of SIG panels in an annual conference is indeed a milestone, and the reflections on growth and development show not only where we have been but where we can also plan to go. The publication highlights both thematic and area-based SIGs, reflecting one dimension of diversity in the field of Comparative and International Education.

REFLECTIONS

I look forward to working with colleagues in the future agenda, and meanwhile express applause and send best wishes.

Signatures

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Kassie Freeman

President, CIES 2004 - 2005 African Diaspora Consortium

Like all CIES changes and accomplishments over the last 60 years, the approval and launch of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) came from the desires of the membership.

A group of scholars and practitioners interested in language issues thought it only natural that individuals across cultures would have a common interest in languages.

They thought it appropriate that there should be some formalized structure for individuals interested in this topic to meet as a group. Individuals in this group began conversations with the CIES leadership to establish a structure to accommodate their desire.

While CIES had not operated or approved such a formalized structure at that time, most of the membership and leadership were members of other organizations that utilized SIGs as a structure for individuals with like interests to meet. Therefore, it was not a contentious issue. The question was one of how to change the meeting structure in a way that would maintain the undocumented defining characteristic of CIES—Welcoming and Engaging All and not Dividing and Marginalizing conversations. The hallmark of CIES has and continues to be to engage its membership in the highest level of research and best practices in ways that can reach the highest number of members.

Consequently, the idea was to phase in SIGs in a way that would maintain that tradition.

REFLECTIONS

In order to ensure that CIES would have a Special Interest Group format that would accommodate the goals of the organization, the membership and leadership approved a process that would begin by piloting a few SIGs. The SIGs have gained momentum over the last ten years, with each CIES leader putting his or her print on improving the value and usefulness of SIGs.

5 Signatures

It is an ideal time to celebrate the reflection and accomplishments of the SIGs. Over the last ten years, following piloting, the SIGs have grown into the Welcoming and Engaging structure that carry forth the defining CIES characteristic. With the guidance and support of the leadership, I am honored to have led the historic membership vote to create CIES Special Interest Groups.

More importantly, it is an honor and a pleasure to see CIES SIGs continue to grow and thrive.

Martin Carnoy President, CIES 2005 - 2006 Stanford University

REFLECTIONS

When we moved forward to create the SIGs ten years ago, we did so to expand the opportunities within CIES for our members with particular intellectual interests to develop presentations and panels to further those interests. Of course, we had had a long history of multi-day panels at our annual meeting on gender studies, and sub area interests in Africa, Latin America, and various parts of Asia had always played an important role. But formalizing these various groups into SIGs seemed like a good idea. It turned out to be a great idea! The SIGs have helped the Society grow, and have, indeed spurred interest in many new areas. The membership wanted this and we were clever enough to listen to the membership. So, on this tenth anniversary of the SIGs, we should modestly congratulate ourselves.

Signatures

6

Victor Kobayashi

REFLECTIONS

President, CIES 2006 - 2007 University of Hawaii

7 Signatures

It was my great pleasure to help host the first Special Interest Group sessions when the Comparative and international Education Society, held its 50th Anniversary Celebration conference in Honolulu, Hawaii in March 2006, Special Interest Groups had been adopted at the CIES Board meeting a year earlier, in 2005, at the previous Conference, held at Stanford University, under the leadership of Martin Carnoy. When I had first heard of the proposal to establish SIGs I was at first puzzled, as I had been a member of CIES from 1961, when the Society was a small group of faculty and students passionately interested in the study of education worldwide, from a comparative point of view. Over the early years, I had gotten to know students and faculty from the then few centers of comparative studies of education such that it was a great pleasure to meet with them, in heated discussions about education in development projects, as well as from a historical perspective. Why would a small organization need smaller groups based on special academic interests?

The Stanford Conference was a milestone in CIES history since it marked the start of an accelerated growth in attendance for it went over the one thousand registration count. This meant, that CIES had reached a magnitude in scale, while still providing intimate spaces for intellectual and professional discussions among students and faculty, and SIGs met that need.

The Hawaii Conference was of such a scale that as President-Elect and organizer of the meeting, I had to work with a professional conference planner who had access to housing and conference spaces that could meet the increased scale of CIES operations. The SIGs provide a wonderful solution to having students and professionals to meet in small group settings, discussing topics in the field of comparative and international and transnational education of mutual concern.

Since then, the society hosted much larger conferences and prove that SIGs make an important contribution to the advancement of comparative and international education.

I also like to think that as a Society SIGs provide us with an enhanced opportunity to meet the important challenges of environmental deterioration and climate change, peace education, and the wellbeing of children and youth and adults that affect all of us as world citizens.

A salute to SIGs on their tenth anniversary!

Gita Steiner-Khamsi

President, CIES 2009 - 2010 Teachers College, Columbia University

REFLECTIONS

The decision of the CIES Board of Directors to expand SIGs, formalize them, and provide them with their own budget was a wise move. It enabled them to generate in-depth debate, build a sense of community in an ever growing Society, and also attracted new members to our professional association who otherwise would not have known about CIES. The membership of the Society doubled over the past fifteen years, from 1,177 in 2000 to 3,345 members in 2015. This SIGs have played a crucial role in this exponential growth. The chairs of SIGs have come up with great ideas on how to stimulate debate, share knowledge, and engage in community building including, for example, establishing publication series, organizing social events, and presenting awards for outstanding contributions to the field of comparative and international education.

Signatures

8

Message from the Standing Committee on Special Interest Groups (SIGs) As CIES SIGs committee members, we are pleased to launch SIGnatures highlighting the work of the 23 thematic and 6 regional SIGs within CIES. It has been a great journey for us as a committee to come together to project the important contributions that the SIGs have made in the last 10 years to advance scholarship and foster a critical engagement with trending issues in education.

The idea of establishing Special Interest Groups was promoted by members who had been meeting informally for many years at various CIES conferences. Thus, their activism, which began years earlier, led to the adoption and formalization of SIGs. The first group of SIGs: Africa, Citizenship and Democratic Education, Cultural Contexts of Education and Human Potential, Globalization and Education, Language Issues and Peace Education were approved in 2005/2006 and they successfully launched their highlighted panels during the 50th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society in Honolulu, Hawaii, hosted by then President-Elect, Professor Victor Kobayashi.

It was under the leadership of Dr. Kassie Freeman as President of CIES in 2004/2005 that the CIES membership voted to approve the creation of SIGs. Additional work followed to finalize the SIG Handbook and Bylaws during the tenures of subsequent CIES Presidents. The work of establishing Special Interest Groups has truly been a collective effort, embodied by a unifying ethos to create vibrant scholarly spaces for engagement and collaboration within CIES. Thus, on this 10th anniversary of the formal launch of SIGs in 2006, we salute the CIES members and leaders who were the catalyst for the establishment of Special Interest Groups!

This commemorative edition of SIGnatures includes the history of SIGs as well as highlights of their accomplishments through out the last decade. The statistics of their collective impact shared in this publication are truly compelling. We hope that CIES members will read this document and find the rich narratives to be a useful reference guide to learn more about SIGs. We have taken several initiatives to help facilitate the work of SIGs. Our first major work as a committee involves launching SIGnatures and deliberating over the SIG bylaws to revise the SIG handbook. This year along with the SIG open house which was an initiative of the conference organizers of the CIES 2015 conference in Washington DC, we are organizing and hosting several events to mark the 10th anniversary of SIGs. We look forward to a vibrant 10th Anniversary Reflection panel, compelling documentaries screened during the Cinematic Spaces of Education Festivalette, SIG chairs’ meeting and Open House at the 60th annual conference of CIES in Vancouver, Canada.

We invite CIES members and conference attendees to attend the 10th anniversary reception which will provide an opportunity to learn more about the publications and projects of various SIGs. We hope to hear from SIG members and leadership about how we can further facilitate the work of SIGs within CIES.

REFLECTIONS

joan.Osa Oviawe (Committee Chair), Cornell University Christopher J. Frey, Bowling Green State University Oren Pizmony-Levy, Teachers College, Columbia University Mousumi Mukherjee, University of Melbourne Jayson W. Richardson, University of Kentucky

9 Signatures

Events Commemorating a

Decade Of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) At CIES You Are Invited!

SIG 10-Year Reflection Panel

SIG Open House

Tuesday, March 8 3:00 pm-4:30 pm Pavilion D

Wednesday, March 9 4:00pm-6:00pm Grand Ballroom Launch of

SIG Anniversary Reception

Tuesday, March 8 7:30pm-9:30pm Pavilion Ballrooms ABC

SIG natures

2nd Annual Cinematic Spaces of Education Festivalette in association with SIGs

see conference program for schedule of screenings

a publication of SIGs

SIG Anniversary Reception funded through a generous grant from the Open Society Foundations Education Support Program

23 Thematic and 6 Regional SIGs

Regional

Thematic African Diaspora SIG Citizenship and Democratic Education SIG Contemplative Inquiry and Holistic Education SIG Cultural Contexts of Education and Human Potential SIG Early Childhood Development SIG Economics and Finance of Education SIG Education, Conflict, and Emergencies SIG Environmental and Sustainability Education SIG Global Literacy SIG Global Mathematics Education SIG Globalization and Education SIG Higher Education SIG ICT for Development (ICT4D) SIG

Africa SIG East Asia SIG Eurasia SIG Latin America SIG Middle East SIG South Asia SIG

CIES members and conference attendees are encouraged to sign up for SIG membership online. The cost is $10

http://www.cies.us/?page=Join

Inclusive Education SIG Indigenous Knowledge and the Academy SIG Language Issues SIG Large-Scale Cross-National Studies in Education SIG Peace Education SIG Post-Foundational Approaches to Comparative and International Education SIG Religion and Education SIG Teacher Education and the Teaching Profession SIG Teaching Comparative Education SIG Youth Development and Education SIG

For more information about the regional SIGs visit

http://www.cies.us/?page=RegionalSIGs and go to http://www.cies.us/?page=TopicSigs

to learn about the thematic SIGs.

CIES Standing Committee on SIGs joan.Osa Oviawe (Committee Chair) Cornell University

Mousumi Mukherjee University of Melbourne

Christopher J. Frey Bowling Green State University

Oren Pizmony-Levy Teachers College

Jayson W. Richardson University of Kentucky

CIES SIGs Activity Report Share of CIES SIGs that reported on different activities (n=29)

76%

USE TECHNOLOGY

55%

PUBLICATIONS

41%

SIG AWARDS

34%

PROJECTS

REFLECTIONS

SUPPORT FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES

11 Signatures

14%

HISTORY HIGHLIGHTS

AFRICA

SIG

REGIONAL SIGS

Peter Moyi University of South Carolina

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Signatures

History As a graduate student, joan.Osa Oviawe initiated the Africa Special Interest Group (ASIG). In 2005 ASIG received approval from the CIES Board. ASIG’s main goal is to foster scholarly exchanges, networking, and deliberation among African scholars, Africanists, the general membership of CIES and other interested parties. ASIG provides a valuable space for critical and constructive dialogue on the challenges and prospects of contemporary African education, as well as on the educational issues faced by people of African descent around the world.

The ASIG was inaugurated at the 50th Anniversary conference of CIES in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2006. The inaugural activities in Honolulu included a special panel, a business meeting and a reception, all aimed at bridging scholarly works and policy. The Association for Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) sponsored the reception; ADEA has continued to be involved through intellectual and social networking activities since then. The Nigerian Ambassador to UNESCO, Professor Michael Omolewa and the Assistant Minister of Education of Kenya, Dr. Kilemi Mwiria, headlined a special panel. An offshoot of that panel was a special issue of the International Review of Education, co-edited by ASIG leaders Martial Dembélé and joan.Osa Oviawe, entitled Quality Education in Africa: Challenges and prospects. This special issue was the basis for ASIG’s three highlighted panels during the 2007 conference. ASIG’s participation in the 2008 conference featured the highlighted panel, African Renaissance and Education for Social Progress: Aspirations, Expectations, and Development Paradigms for Africa in the 21st Century. With the renowned Ali Mazrui as a panelist and other great scholars, ASIG drew a standing-room-only crowd.

A special Issue of African and Asian Studies was published in 2013 titled: “The Owl of Minerva on a Baobab Tree, Schooling, and African Awakening: Half a Century of post-colonial Education for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa” The Co-Guest editors of this special issue are: N’Dri Assié-Lumumba, Ali A. Mazrui and Martial Dembélé and derived from a highlighted panel at the CIES 2011 Annual Conference in Montreal. Ali A. Abdi’s article “Decolonizing Educational and Social Development Platforms in Africa” a winner of the 2015 Joyce Cain Award was published in this special issue.

The global engagement of ASIG includes the regular participation on its panels of the faculty at the Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education at Hiroshima University in Japan and their African teammates on the Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Basic Education Development project for

Chairs joan.Osa Oviawe (2006-2008) Martial Dembélé (2008-2010) N’Dri Assié-Lumumba (2010-2012) Reitumetse Mabokela (2012) Lillian Niwagaba (2013-2014) Peter Moyi (2014- 2016)

sub-Saharan Africa. Education experts from the Education Research Program at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) have also actively participated in ASIG.

Past Chairs and Program Chairs

The ASIG membership and all members of the executive committee are productive scholars who remain deeply engaged in diverse SIG and CIES activities, such as serving as reviewers of paper and panel submissions, participating in various networking activities, and ensuring the SIG’s intellectual vitality.

Three of ASIG’s executive committee members are serving on the CIES Board of Directors, two are past and current recipients of the Joyce Cain Award, and one is past recipient of the George Bereday Award.

Since joan.Osa Oviawe’s initiative in setting the first stage of ASIG’s relationship with ADEA, they have provided unfailing support to ASIG. Thus, ASIG would like to express our recognition of the critical role that ADEA has been playing in supporting our receptions and making consistent contributions in organizing panels on timely topics. ASIG will continue the collaboration through the implementation of ERAA and other forward-looking projects on African education.

ASIG is confident that the incoming Executive Committee, led by Touorizou Hervé Somé and Jody McBrien, will continue the ASIG tradition of quality work. In particular, over the upcoming year, ASIG hopes to continue to increase the SIG membership, specifically targeting our emerging scholars. ASIG plans to pursue programmatic initiatives that focus on mentoring new scholars and graduate students, to ensure a strong intellectual foundation in our next generation of scholars with interests in African education.

Program Chairs Nancy Kendall (2006-2008) Kimberly King-Jupiter (2008) N’Dri Assié-Lumumba (December 2008-March 2010) José Cossa (2010) Peter Moyi (2011- 2013) Desmond Odugu (2014-2016)

Signatures

REGIONAL SIGS

The 2008-2010 Executive Committee, led by Martial Dembélé, embraced the challenge of raising the bar of the already high standards set by joan.Osa Oviawe and Nancy Kendall. Judging by the growth in paid membership and the quantity and quality of panels, they successfully delivered on this challenge. ASIG presented three highlighted panels at the 2009 and 2010 conferences. In addition, ASIG organized respectively three and nine non-highlighted panels during these two conferences. The term was also marked by (i) a peak in paid membership in 2010; (ii) the creation of three new positions (Secretary-Treasurer, Program Chair-Elect and Communications Officers); (iii) making all past Chairs ex-officio members of the Committee; and (iv) updating the SIG’s website. ASIG has also been involved in ADEA’s new initiative titled the Education Research in Africa Award (ERAA).

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History

EAST ASIA

SIG Takehito Kamata University of Minnesota

The East Asia Special Interest Group (SIG) was established based on the contributions and scholarly passions of members of the Japan SIG. The Japan SIG was the only single country-SIG in the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and it was established in 2007 to create opportunities for collaboration on research projects, publications, and grant applications.

In the Japan SIG business meeting at the 57th Annual Conference of the CIES in New Orleans in 2013, the Japan SIG members shared their interest in reflecting a more global research context and expanding the research focus to include nations and states across East Asia. The members discussed the importance of enhancing overall scholarly interests, focusing on covering broad aspects of East Asian education and cultures, adopting a more global research framework, and connecting more scholars, professionals, and students under the name of the East Asia SIG as part of the rapid globalization of today’s education.

The Japan SIG members thought it would be significant to promote research within global and comparative contexts, and they decided to change “Japan SIG” to “East Asia SIG.” The Japan SIG created a task force consisting of the leading scholars who guided the organizational transition from the Japan SIG to the East Asia SIG. Gerald LeTendre, Joseph Tobin, Chris Bjork, Gary DeCoker, and June Gordon were the task force members who supported Sakiko Ikoma (Japan SIG Chair, 2013-2014) to advance the transition process. In addition, JD Parker and Akiko Hayashi supported the transition. In June 2013, the Japan SIG submitted the formal petition to change the Japan SIG into the East Asia SIG. On October 10, 2013, the CIES board of directors approved the petition to expand the regional focus, and the Japan SIG became the East Asia SIG.

REGIONAL SIGS

Hiighlights

15 Signatures

The main goal of the East Asia SIG is to formalize and strengthen communication among scholars, professionals, and students who are interested in research on East Asian nations and states. Since the East Asia SIG was established, we have expanded our network to share ongoing academic and professional research and development. One of our primary scholarly activities over the years has been a book titled Japanese Education in an Era of Globalization: Culture, Politics, and Equity, which was edited by Gary DeCoker and Chris Bjork and published by Teachers College Press during the transition of the Japan SIG to the East Asia SIG in May 2013. The book is based on the Japan SIG network, and its contributors were able to complete the book project with a grant from the Japan Foundation. The contributors held several meetings in Montréal and Hawaii, brainstormed and created the overarching themes, found the publisher, and made intercultural and international scholarship contributions to CIES.

History

SIG Katerina Bodovski Pennsylvania State University

Eurasia SIG aims at exploring educational development in the former Soviet Union and other former socialist countries, impacted by the Soviet legacies. Throughout multiple collaborations, as well as special events during annual meetings, our group has been examining transformations and shifts in educational theory, policy and practice in post-socialist and post-Soviet countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

We have pondered over whether the theoretical and methodological advances that have been made in the field of comparative and international education are applicable to the educational research in the region. Conversely, we are exploring what theoretical and methodological implications educational research in the region can offer to the field of comparative and international education.

Specifically, we are interested in a number of issues ranging from educational quality and equity to educational democratization and internationalization in post-socialist and post-Soviet countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We continue to examine the role educational systems play in the context of the current geopolitical shifts and processes in the region (e.g., Russia-Ukraine conflict, European Union/West integration/ alienation, transition to a market economy and democracy, etc.). We aim to understand how educational systems contribute to the mitigation of geopolitical, ethnic, interregional and other types of conflicts.

Signatures

REGIONAL SIGS

EURASIA

The Eurasia SIG of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES) was founded in 2009 to bring together scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in education in the Eurasia region. Iveta Silova and Erin Weeks-Earp served as first co-chairs. Our goal is to promote scholarship focused on all levels of education in the post-socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. The SIG has become an important venue for sharing current research and dialoguing on education throughout the region.

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Eurasia SIG Workshop, 2014

During the CIES annual meetings, the Eurasia SIG sessions represent a wide variety of academic topics that our members are engaged in. We have had panels discussing transformations of the institutions of higher education in the region; educational reform in secondary education; shifts in preparations of teachers; the experiences of minority students in the Eurasian schools; socio-economic inequality in access to education and in educational achievement; and patterns of student migration in and out of the region. The SIG has established two best graduate paper awards to support emerging scholars who conduct research on educational topics in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. The awards are presented at the annual meetings. The award recipients have an opportunity to publish their papers in the journal European Education: Issues and Studies.

This work has resulted in the forthcoming scholarly volume, “Reimagining Utopias: Theory and Method for Educational Research in Post-Socialist Contexts” (Sense Publishers).

The Eurasia SIG members have carried out several projects that started in the preconference workshops and continued as collaborations throughout the year. Most recently, SIG has provided a platform for two large collaborative projects. One project has examined theoretical and methodological dilemmas of conducting educational research in post-socialist contexts and the ways in which theory and method can be mobilized to better understand educational transformations in these contexts. In particular, through individual case studies and conceptual pieces, the project engaged scholars, researchers, and practitioners to reflect on the theoretical and methodological challenges that they confronted during research design, data collection and analysis, as well as in the presentation and dissemination of research findings.

In addition to these two edited volumes, the Eurasia SIG’s member and a current co-chair (with Serhiy Kovalchuk), Katerina Bodovski recently published a book titled “Across Three Continents: Reflections on Immigration, Education, and Personal Survival” (Peter Lang Publishing). This combination of autobiographical narrative and sociological analysis discusses the author’s firsthand experiences in Soviet Russia, Israel, and the United States.

Another project brings together those SIG members who have had first-hand experiences with and accounts of (post)socialist schooling and childhood as cultural insiders and engages them in remembering and (re)narrating their experiences.

The aim is to utilize personal memories using autoethnography and collective biography to critically examine the experiences of socialist childhood and education. The project will lead to a publication of an edited book, “Memories of Post-Socialist Childhood and Schooling,” and a special issue of European Education: Issues and Studies.

Follow us on Facebook (hyperlink:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/112572595421969/)

REGIONAL SIGS

to learn more about the scholarly activities of the Eurasia SIG members.

17 Signatures

Eurasia SIG 2014

AMERICA

SIG Martina Arnal University of Minnesota

Pablo Fraser Pennsylvania State University Erwin Epstein Loyola University of Chicago

LASIG was inaugurated in 2010 and, along with the Eurasia group, was the last among the regional groups to be inaugurated. Fernanda Pineda founded LASIG in 2010. She, along with Claudia Grigorescu were the first co-chairs of the SIG. Since then, the membership of LASIG has been expanding every year with the inclusion of educators, scholars, students and policy makers from different regions of the world, all connected by their interest in Latin America. Currently, LASIG, with almost 100 members, is the seventh largest overall and the second largest among the regional groups, second only to the Africa SIG. From 2010 to 2013, the structure of the organization consisted of a Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary. However, in order to adapt to a growing membership, the structure of the group was modified in 2013 with the appointment of two Co-chairs, a Secretary, and an Advisor. Currently, LASIG has added two new positions, including Web and Social Media Officer and Treasurer.

In the 2013-2014 cycle, the LASIG Facebook page was started by then Secretary, Ana Solano.

As of 2015, the country of residence of 70% of the LASIG members is the United States, while 21% of the members reside in a Latin American country. Finally, 7% of the members are residing in Canada and 2% in other countries.

The overarching rationale for LASIG is to open a space at CIES conferences for dialogue regarding Latin America’s educational experiences, achievements and challenges. Latin American educators, leaders and scholars will be able to share their research and experiences as we celebrate the accomplishment of goals and the launching of innovative projects in the region.

The LASIG will foster historical, political, and cultural inquiry of education in Latin America. As international and comparative educators, scholars, and students, we believe that growing awareness of the interconnectedness of the region with the rest of the world enriches our understanding of Latin America and its people.

Signatures

REGIONAL SIGS

LATIN

History

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Highlights 2012-2013:

During this cycle, the LASIG Travel Award was established. The award consisted of a monetary contribution for Graduate students whose proposal submitted to the CIES excelled in quality, as determined by the Proposal Review Committee.

2013-2014:

In this year, reflective of a growing membership, the LASIG Travel Award budget was expanded to award more Graduate students.

Additionally, conversations began among the group’s members to partner with other SIGs and standing committees of the CIES. This initiative was reflected in the following year’s activities.

Additionally, LASIG contacted comparative international education societies in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Mexico to explore the possibility of joint collaborations in the future. Then LASIG secretary Ana Solano revamped the LASIG Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/lasigcies/

2014-2015:

In this year, two new awards were created, including the Outstanding Dissertation Award & Outstanding Scholar Award.

Our first Outstanding Dissertation Award was given to Rebecca Tarlau at The University of California-Berkeley. This year marked LASIG’s first time collaboration with five different SIGS (Africa SIG, Global Literacy SIG, Language Issues SIG, Education for Sustainable Development SIG, & Indigenous Knowledge and the Academy SIG) at CIES 2015.

Our partnership resulted in two culminating, public events.

First, we participated in the first-ever cross-SIG expert panel featuring three invited speakers, Dr. Anne-Marie de Mejia, Dr. Birgit Brock-Utne, and Dr. Dan Wagner.

Latin America SIG Members

Second, we held a jointly-sponsored cocktail reception, celebrating our six-SIG collaborative advancement of Ubuntu.

Lastly, in this year, the first Latin American Series draft proposal with Palgrave McMillan was created.

Every year the LASIG has been receiving an increasing amount of proposals. For CIES 2015, LASIG reached a historic record by reviewing 49 proposals.

2015-2016:

The first member-wide survey was created and implemented to determine how to proceed with the Official Guidelines for Nomination, Election, and Succession of the LASIG Board. The official LASIG Bylaws that align with CIES bylaws were created, resulting in an apprenticeship program. The program was created to ensure continuity with leadership; new members will be supported and ‘trained’ before taking role as Co-Chair, a position he/she will hold for 2 years total.

Thus, Secretary, who is elected at our yearly business meeting, will serve in a relay system, serving one year as Secretary, and two as Co-Chair, or a three-year commitment. In addition, two different positions were created this year: the Social Media Officer position and the Treasurer position, both of which will be appointed on a yearly basis.

Finally, two central improvements to our communications were instituted, including a new LASIG website, http://cieslasig.weebly.com, which was designed by our new Web and Social media Officer, and the LASIG Newsletter was officially started, which will be sent to members on a biannual basis, communicating events, opportunities and recent news.

REGIONAL SIGS

Chairs

19 Signatures

Latin America SIG CIES 2015 Award winners

2010-2011: Fernanda Pineda and Claudia Grigorescu 2011-2012: Daniel Friedrich and Alicia "Licho" López 2012-2013: Maria Teresa Tatto and Pablo Fraser 2013-2014: Pablo Fraser and Ana Solano-Campos 2015-2016: Ana Solano-Campos and Martina Arnal

EAST

SIG Nagwa Megahed American University in Cairo

The CIES Middle East Special Interest Group (MESIG) brings together scholars, educators, and development practitioners interested in the study of the region. The MESIG is not associated with any political or religious affiliation. Yet as a group, we celebrate the diverse and rich political and religious multiple perspectives that our members address in their scholarly, professional and voluntary work. Our geographic scope includes the broader Middle East and North Africa region, as well as locales with historic or contemporary ties to the region and their peoples.

Through high quality scholarship, dissemination, and service, we seek to enhance educational policy, programming, and pedagogy, and to foster understanding of the region’s peoples more generally.

The MESIG was established in 2007 through the initiative of several founding members with the support of Gita Steiner-Khamsi. The founding officers were Sina Mossayeb, Reza Arjmand, and Maryam Soltanzadeh.

Today, there are more than 70 registered and unofficial members of the MESIG. During the period of 2010 to 2015, successive officers and chairs of the MESIG were Maryam Borjian; Maryam Soltanzadeh; Zeena Zakharia; Carine Allaf; and Roozbeh Shirazi Currently, Nagwa Megahed and Elizabeth Buckner serve as the Co-chairs of the MESIG.

Hiighlights Almost a decade of its functioning, the MESIG activities have been guided by its collective mission that seeks to a) promote high quality scholarship and dissemination on education in and about the broader Middle East and North Africa region; b) further the collaboration of scholars, educators, and development practitioners working in and on the region; c) enhance educational policy, programming, and pedagogy in and about the region; and d) foster understanding of the region's peoples and their diverse contexts and cultures.

In the pursuit of our mission, several activities and initiatives were undertaken over the past decade. In addition to the MESIG highlighted sessions and business meetings convened during the CIES annual conference, the MESIG disseminates information about research, publications, opportunities, and events among its members through an active listserv and its website. The MESIG also mentors junior scholars and promotes quality emergent scholarship through an annual student paper prize. Moreover, MESIG buttons were created for members to spread the word about MESIG. We also organize annual social dinner to promote our community of learners. In the following, some examples of our undertaken activities are presented to provide a sense of the MESIG thematic foci.

Signatures

REGIONAL SIGS

MIDDLE

History

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An invited session was organized at the CIES conference on May 4, 2011 in Montreal to tackle emerging challenges in the context of the Arab Uprisings, entitled: "The Middle East Uprisings: An Invitation to Reflect on Comparative Education Research."

The session was attended by over 100 participants with diverse viewpoints. The session thus served as an open forum to reflect on the, then emerging, movements across the region.

Zeena Zakharia was the moderator, joined by four roundtable panelists, Roozbeh Shirazi, Hana Addam El Ghali (via Skype), Carine Allaf, and Golnar Mehran. The event created an important conversation in a new format and demonstrated the diversity of approaches, ideas, debates, and concerns within the wider Society. By creating a space for conversation around unfolding events, the session was cited by participants as one of the most meaningful events at CIES, in which diverse voices--faculty, practitioners, researchers, and students, working within and outside the region--could be heard and ideas could be discussed in an open forum.

REGIONAL SIGS

A highlighted panel at the CIES conference on April 26, 2012 in Puerto Rico, entitled "Nationalism and its discontents: Educational policy, curriculum, and inequality in the Middle East," was organized to tackle and trigger a discussion on critical issues pertaining to nationalism and educational revolution, quality and equality in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia. The session was chaired by Carine Allaf and included three presenters, Kevin Richard McClure, Bassel Akar and Nagwa Magahed.

21 Signatures

Two highlighted sessions at the CIES 2015 conference were organized. These included a panel entitled "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? Education Across the MENA After the Uprisings," which featured four presentations by Manar Sabry, M. Najeeb Shafiq, Mark Meehan, and Gareth Smail.

And a panel, entitled "Syrian Refugees: The Challenge of Education" featured presentations by Paul Yoder, and Crissie Monoghan, Fares Karam, Jo Kelcey, Amanda Kibler, Ozen Guven, and Jennifer Mary Blinkhorn.

Additionally in 2015, the MESIG awarded two student paper prizes to Elly Cohen from the University of Minnesota for her paper, entitled "Teaching the Middle East in Minnesota Social Studies Classrooms: Shattering Stereotypes or Perpetuating Norms?" and Shenila Khoja-Moolji from Teacher’s College for her paper, "Thinking with Theory: Engaging Poststructuralist Theories to Teach about Gender, Islam, and Muslim Societies."

Recently and in preparation for the CIES 2016 conference, the Middle East Special Interest Group initiated the organization of joint SIGs' panels at the CIES annual meeting. The MESIG in collaboration with the African SIG and the newly established Education in Emergency SIG planned for a joint panel and a joint highlighted session that include respectively: "Insiders' Reflection on Decades of Comparative Education in Africa and the Middle East: A Geopolitical Perspective" and "Challenges and Opportunities in Bridging the Humanitarian-Development Divide in the Syrian Education Response" to be presented at the CIES 2016 Annual Meeting in Vancouver.

Middle East SIG Highlight Session 2012

SIG Mathew Witenstein University of San Diego

The mission of the South Asia SIG is to create a community of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners interested in educational and social issues related to South Asia and South Asian Diaspora. The group aims to provide the much needed space for discussing and exchanging current research, policy, and best practices from the region and beyond and to serve as a networking forum for graduate students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers. We also publish monthly newsletters for our SIG members to assist in this community-building initiative by highlighting research and practices related to the field of education and development in a South Asian perspective.

The idea of the South Asia SIG emerged from a group of eager scholars and practitioners desiring a scholarly space for important conversations on education in South Asia and its diaspora. The group was nurtured by the founders, and as they passed it on to the next group of leaders, a solid foundation was laid which gave the new leaders and members the opportunity to add dynamic dimensions. The group began with a listserv, a newsletter that is still proudly distributed monthly, and an annual dinner at the conference. The group was nurtured by the founder, Amita Chudgar along with Mousumi Mukherjee, Ameena Ghaffar Kucher and Banhi Bhattacharya as founding executive board members. As they passed it on to the next group of leaders, a solid foundation was laid which gave the new leaders and members the opportunity to add dynamic dimensions.

Hiighlights Over the last five years, SA SIG became more multi-faceted. As the SIG’s numbers grew, we had the capacity to develop annual awards. We were advised by our new Faculty Advisory Board to gradually and carefully add components to the SIG and therefore, we added one each year over the course of three years. This year, the 5th Annual Best Dissertation Award will be handed out and the 4th Annual Best Journal Article Award. In order to celebrate the work of the many excellent practitioners in SA SIG, a member suggested at the Annual Business Meeting that we need to develop an award for exemplary field-based work. This year, the 3rd Annual Best Field-Based Initiative will be awarded.

The combination of SIG membership growth and a greater number of activities and awards created opportunities to involve more members.

Three years ago, the Conference Program Committee was born. This Committee, overseen by the Program Chair develops the SIG Highlighted sessions and also thematically organizes all accepted proposals into sessions. As the number awards grew, there was a need for greater organizational structure to administer them. The Awards Committee, also under the guise of the Program Chair, was established with a Chair overseeing the volunteers reviewing for each of the three respective awards. Thanks to a growing number of proposals the last few years and a high level of involvement by our members, we have had over two dozen reviewers each year.

Signatures

REGIONAL SIGS

SOUTH ASIA

History

22

Three years ago, the SA SIG Board brainstormed ideas to provide cost-effective programming during the conference since lodging, airfare and food are costly. One emergent idea was to have the annual dinner co-sponsored so members could network and socialize cost-free. The SIG secured enough sponsorship that year for both the Annual Dinner and for a new SA SIG Social/Coffee hour held at the beginning of the conference. This event was a huge success and will continue at CIES 2016! The dinner has also become so popular that we had nearly 40 attendees in 2015.

South Asia SIG

Now that SA SIG has considerable structure and a number of years of stability, we have been able to explore other avenues for expanding that support our mission. We have talked extensively about building meaningful connections with organizations in South Asia so that our members can work together with institutions both academic and practitioner-based. We have a longstanding relationship with the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) in New Delhi, UNICEF South Asia Regional Office, ASER India and ASER Pakistan, nayi DISHAA, and with one of our sister organizations, the Comparative Education Society of India to name a few. SA SIG has greater capacity now to outreach and recently co-sponsored an event for the first time with nayi DISHAA. SA SIG has a wealth of excellent scholars and practitioners who contribute excellent work in the academic and practitioner-oriented literature spaces. In 2014 and 2015, this led the Board to explore avenues for capitalizing on this high level of expertise. We decided our first foray in this direction would be to compile a book with rigorous scholarship. This led to several meetings with Palgrave Macmillan and after many conversations with members and proposal revisions behind us, we devised the first book series on South Asian Education entitled “South Asia Education Policy, Research and Practice.”. The first book, entitled “The Practice of Participation in Educational Development: Exploring the Roles, Goals, and Limits of Participatory Action Research in South Asia “ will be available in 2016.

Finally, SA SIG is firmly rooted in, and committed to, the larger CIES community. We currently have two members serving on the CIES Board and in leadership roles in various other committees and SIGs. With our foundation strong and our membership even stronger, SA SIG looks forward to a very successful 2016! Cheers to a productive 2016 CIES Annual Meeting in Vancouver!

REGIONAL SIGS

Latest trends and debates

23 Signatures

SA SIG members are working on a variety of topics as of late. In particular, there has been a large focus on girls education, RTE (Right to Education Act), educational governance structures, teacher education, post colonialism, action research, and inclusive education.

AFRICAN

DIASPORA

SIG

History The newly formed African Diaspora SIG seeks to foster a community of scholars and practitioners to engage with the historical contexts and contemporary educational experiences of Black communities across the globe.

Our SIG cuts across disciplinary lines. It will address the origins of the African continent and the upheaval in the lives of those sold as chattel and transported into slavery as well as the disruption of traditional culture under slavery. It will also address the survival of cultures and traditions that are found across the African Diaspora. It will focus on the historic and contemporary ties among Blacks outside of the African continent and the similarities and differences in experiences of the Diaspora. The rich history engages the geography, culture, social organization, politics and triumphs, and resilience of the African Diaspora in both preserving tradition and adapting to the contingencies of survival in often-hostile situations. As such, a broader analysis of the educational realities of African descendants within and outside the United States offers the opportunity to review similar and different challenges, lessons, and new possibilities.

Kassie Freeman African Diaspora Exchange

To further this engagement the African Diaspora SIG is pleased to announce the establishment of the inaugural Henry M. Levin African Diaspora SIG Lecture, honoring Dr. Levin, William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Past Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) President, for his unwavering commitment to equality and social justice. The inaugural lecturer will be Dr. Ernest Morrell, the Macy Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME), Teachers College, Columbia University. The title of his lecture is, "Educating the African Diaspora: A Critical, Comparative Perspective." We welcome the CIES community to attend and engage with the experiences of the African Diaspora at the 2016 CIES conference in Vancouver.

thematic SIGS

Nafees M. Khan Clemson University

Highlights

African Diaspora SIG Lecture Flyer

Signatures

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CITIZENSHIP

AND DEMOCRATIC

EDUCATION

SIG

Felisa Tibbitts Teachers College, Columbia University Kristina Brezicha Georgia State University David Zyngier Monash University

History The Citizenship and Democratic Education (CANDE) SIG is a community of over 200 educators and researchers from around the world who are interested in themes related to education, democracy and citizenship.

The CANDE SIG addresses many topics of keen relevance in an increasingly interconnected and complex world. As part of the CIES community, this SIG supports an active community of educators and researchers, helping them to share their views and encourage productive debate on various aspects of citizenship and democratic education, in the United States and around the world.

CANDE SIG members address wide ranging themes that are linked with education and the concepts and processes of democracy and citizenship.

Each of these areas is a somewhat contested theoretically and CANDE SIG members are exploring these concepts across a range of different national and local contexts, learning situations and learner groups.

The field of democratic and citizenship education has roots in different social science disciplines, including political science, sociology, psychology and anthropology. CANDE SIG members are interested to know how students, teachers and communities view democracy and related themes. They have also analyzed policies and practice in both the formal and non-formal education sectors. Youth development, textbooks, and pedagogy are commonly addressed in the research of members.

Highlights CANDE SIG members are engaged in research that looks at challenges and even contradictions related to citizenship education and education for democratic citizenship in specific environments, including young democracies, conflict areas and post-conflict communities. Because of this, some CANDE SIG members are focused on themes related to human rights and also the well-being of marginalized groups.

thematic SIGS

The founding chair of CANDE was Doyle Stevick in 2004. Since then, the chairs have included Anatoli Rapoport (USA) (2006-2012) followed by co-chairs Heidi Biseth (Norway) and David Zyngier (Australia) (2012-2014). The SIG has been co-chaired since 2014 by Kristina Brezicha and Felisa Tibbitts, both from the USA.

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The CANDE SIG serves two primary purposes. The first is to foster regular information exchanges among members, which is mainly achieved through the CANDE SIG e-newsletter (issued twice a year) and occasional “e-blasts� to members.

The e-newsletter publicizes the academic efforts of members, advertises conferences and awards and highlights the work of two CANDE members.

In addition to these forms of communication, the CANDE SIG maintains a website and a Facebook group, which today has over 130 active members. The Facebook site is unmoderated and serves as a forum for exchange of ideas and discussion about Civics & Citizenship and Democratic Education (https://www.facebook.com/groups/CANDE.SIG/). A Twitter account (@CANDESIG) was also established to facilitate further communication with our members.

The second major work of the SIG revolves around the annual CIES conference. The CANDE SIG encourages members to submit their paper and poster proposals through the SIG as relevant. Members of the SIG assist in the blind review of submissions and the chairs then organize panels for the accepted papers. The annual business meeting takes place at the conference.

CANDE SIG leadership also coordinates the selection of the best paper by an early career researcher. The Judith Torney-Purta Award is given to a CANDE SIG member who has submitted a paper for the CIES conference and who is either a doctoral candidate or completed her/his doctorate within the previous five years. Dr. Torney-Purta graciously provides the monetary compensation for the prize, part of her ongoing mentoring of new scholars that is deeply appreciated by SIG members. The photo accompanying this insert shows Dr. Torney-Purta administering the award in 2014 to Dr. Michelle Bellino, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Education.

The citizenship and democratic education field is perpetually evolving. The field reflects the considerable diversity that one finds among the research interests of members and which is also reflected among the papers presented at the annual conference.

The CANDE SIG is sponsoring 8 panels this year at the 2016 CIES conference. As with previous years, these promise to be interesting and thought-provoking and we hope to see many CIES members there!

Dr. Michelle Bellino receiving Judith Torney-Purta Award 2014

thematic SIGS

The CANDE SIG has continued to grow and thrive over the years. Membership numbers over 200, making it one of the more successful SIGs of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES).

In recent years, the membership levels have warranted two highlighted panels among the diverse and fascinating panels organized through CANDE for the annual CIES conference.

Signatures

26

CULTURAL

CONTEXT OF

EDUCATION AND

HUMAN POTENTIAL

SIG Cristina Jaimungal OISE, University of Toronto

History The establishment of the CIES Cultural Context of Education and Human Potential (CCEHP) SIG was the result of several members coming together to discuss cultural contexts of education, most notably, the founders—Professor Kassie Freeman and Kelvin Sealey. Instead of focusing on cultural difference as a deficit, CCEHP was planned to concentrate on difference as potential. The conception of the CCEHP was based on this idea and followed with the question: what would it mean to define culture? In particular, what would it mean to define culture without ethnic, interdisciplinary, and geographic boundaries? These questions sparked interest and the SIG membership grew quickly.

Highlights In 2012, Dr. Freeman received the honour of CCEHP SIG Leadership Award.

She maintains that this privilege was due largely to the engagement from SIG members. The new Co-Chairs of CCEHP—Cristina Jaimungal and Maung Nyeu— would also like to recognize Dr. Kassie Freeman for her solid leadership and dedication to the successful growth of CCEHP. Building on this foundation of excellence, Jaimungal and Nyeu will continue to center unheard voice to promote better learning between and about different groups, and as CCEHP continues to be shaped by its members, the Co-Chairs aim to contribute a robust understanding of equity (for example, scholarship on culture, race, gender, indigenous knowledges, language, and disability studies) to the forefront of the conversations on education.

We look forward to an intellectually stimulating time at CIES 2016 with all CIES CCEHP SIG members and the broader CIES community.

Profiles Cristina Jaimungal is a PhD student in the Department of Social Justice Education and Comparative, International, and Development Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).

thematic SIGS

Maung Nyeu is a Doctoral Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).

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Kassie Freeman Leadership Award 2012

AND FINANCE

OF EDUCATION

SIG Iris BenDavid-Hadar Bar-Ilan University, Israel

History

The idea of founding the EFE SIG has emerged last year, and was extensively discussed during the previous annual conference CIES 2015, in Washington, DC. Prof. Lynn Ilon, of Seoul National University, has gracefully agreed to serve as the Co-Chair, and Ji Liu, a research student at Teachers College, Columbia University, joined us as the Secretary.

The idea was initiated after discussions with Prof. Oren Pizmony-Levy, also of Teachers College, Columbia University, and former Chair of the CIES SIGs Committee. Recently, CIES President Prof. N’Dri Assie-Lumumba, of Cornell University, has formally approved our SIG (October 15th, 2015).

With the support of Prof. Henry Levin as well as of other prominent scholars at the field, and with the valuable assistance of emerging scholars, we hope that the EFE SIG will make a considerable contribution to CIES and to the field in general.

EFE Contribution to the CIES The potential impact of the EFE SIG lies in:

raising awareness to the ways in which our children’s right to education and the global balance of power are affected by strategic funding policies; studying the impact of the global learning network on communities and the growth of knowledge; furthering the collaboration of scholars, educators, and policy makers working on issues of Education Finance; enhancing education finance policy at the national and the international levels; advancing the understanding of the impact of knowledge as a resource for societies;

Signatures

thematic SIGS

ECONOMICS

We are delighted to introduce our new Economics and Finance of Education (EFE) SIG, to be launched at the upcoming annual conference CIES 2016 in Vancouver, Canada.

Our SIG focuses on investigating, conceptualizing, and theorizing the links between Economics, finance of education and educational policies. It offers a unique new opportunity for scholars interested in the field, suggesting a broader approach to the Economics of Education and on Education Finance Policy. We aim to extend the perception of Economics and Finance of Education to the global and international levels, in addition to the domestic, national level.

The importance of our EFE-SIG is further highlighted, as it suggests to address Education Finance issues from a comparative perspective.

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fostering understanding of the connections between Education Finance and Strategic Global Policies; disseminating insights gained from education finance research and policy. creating a community for a future generation of scholars and policy makers interested in Economics and Education Finance issues.

EFE Foci The Economics and Finance of Education SIG offers a new opportunity to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners partake in a global study of Economics and Finance of Education, have meaningful conversations, and exchange ideas related to the following topics: Redistribution, political philosophy, economics, and financing schooling systems International aid and mechanisms of redistribution Education finance, economics, and poverty reduction Financing education and theories of justice Theories of learning, knowledge and knowledge economics School finance, adequacy, and equity in resource allocation Equality of Educational Opportunity and its effect on society.

Teachers’ effectiveness, incentives and rewards Charter schools and school based management Higher education finance and learning networks Early childhood finance Special education finance State competitiveness, social cohesiveness and mechanisms of reallocation The abovementioned EFE foci have emerged from an extensive body of literature of the economics and financing of education (briefly discussed below). We appreciate your support and welcome you to join us at the SIG’s business meeting.

thematic SIGS

Iris BenDavid-Hadar, Ph.D. Founder and Co-Chair of the EFE SIG Bar Ilan University.

Iris.hadar@biu.ac.il

29 Signatures

CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES

SIG Julia Lerch Stanford University

Mieke Lopes Cardozo University of Amsterdam Susan Garnett Russell Teachers College, Columbia University

Celebrating its inaugural year at the CIES Annual Conference in Vancouver 2016, the SIG on Education, Conflict and Emergencies was established in late 2015 in response to the growing field of Education in Emergencies and Conflict. Over the years, the number of CIES presentations and panels focused on issues of education, conflict and emergencies had grown tremendously, calling for a specialized forum for CIES members working on these issues. The SIG is organized around a broad range of research and programmatic activities including education during armed conflict and natural disasters; educational reconstruction post-conflict and post-disaster; and the relationships between educational provision and peace-building, transitional justice, and resilience across conflict-affected, post-conflict, and fragile states.

co-chairs Mieke Lopes Cardozo (t.a.lopescardozo@uva.nl) & Susan Garnett Russell (sgrussell@tc.columbia.edu), Secretariat: Julia Lerch (jlerch@stanford.edu)

thematic SIGS

EDUCATION

History

Signatures

30

ENVIRONMENTAL

AND SUSTAINABILITY

EDUCATION

SIG Mousumi Mukherjee University of Melbourne Michael Russell Centenary College

History The Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) Special Interest Group was founded in 2010 as the Education for Sustainable Development SIG by Dr. Ligia Toutant of UCLA. The group was started to provide space to discuss the the intersection between environmentalism, sustainability, and comparative education. The world continues to face growing ecological crisis, including--but not limited to--global climate change, destructive farming practices, and pollution. The ESE SIG was founded on the belief that education provides a key avenue to mitigating and preventing further damage to the social-ecological systems that sustain life. Group members are working in areas as diverse as the discourse surrounding sustainable development in international education policy, the application of environmental education in K-12, practical exposure to traditional ecological knowledge by college students, and how large-scale exams can be used to study the implementation of environmental education globally.

In 2012, the chair position passed to Dr. Oren Pizmony-Levy, who continued to expand the SIG. Under Oren's leadership, the SIG continued to grow as additional connections were made with related SIGs. One of the activities the SIG is most proud of is offering travel grants for graduate students who submitted exceptional papers. To date over $600 has been provided to students to support their participation in CIES. Here is Alexandra Tamiko Da Dalt accepting one of two 2015 graduate student paper awards from Michael C. Russell.

thematic SIGS

Highlights

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Alexandra Tamiko Da Dalt and Michael C Russell

Signatures

In 2014, ESE members elected two new co-chairs: Michael C. Russell and Dr. Mousumi Mukherjee. Under their leadership the group has grown to over 80 members. In 2015, the SIG voted to change its name to the Environmental and Sustainability (ESE) SIG in order to refine its focus on environmental issues. As the ESE SIG begins the second half of its first decade, leadership is looking to expand networks with other SIGs and look for areas of collaboration within CIES. We are also planning to create another leadership position and appoint a SIG Secretary to take responsibilities to enhance communication and collaboration among ESE SIG members throughout the year by publishing newsletters, podcasts and hosting webinars with experts for members. We are seeking an enterprising new graduate student, who can take on this responsibility.

This will be further discussed during SIG business meeting this year at Vancouver in March. If more graduate student members are interested, then we will call for impromptu vote for the position.

LITERACY

SIG Barbara Trudell SIL International Peggy Dubeck RTI

The Global Literacy SIG was founded by professionals in the literacy field, led by staff of the then-International Reading Association (now the International Literacy Association). Over the years, the GLSIG has been chaired by reading and education professionals from both academia and NGOs. The GLSIG is dedicated to exploring the entire range of literacy and reading issues that affect education and development in the world today. Our current focus is perhaps more on the global South than the global North, due partly to the substantial number of bilaterally-funded projects that are currently focused on early grade reading. However concerns related to adult literacy and basic education, as well as literacy and development, are also well represented in the SIG sessions and group panels.

The GLSIG membership is comprised of people who are keen on sharing and learning about issues of reading and literacy, goals which we aim to achieve at each CIES conference.

GLSIG members tend to be well connected to professional networks and communities already, and so the GLSIG does not try to duplicate those. Rather, we focus on ensuring quality CIES conference presentations that will contribute to the research base, professionalism and effectiveness of literacy programs around the world.

thematic SIGS

GLOBAL

History

Signatures

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GLOBALIZATION AND EDUCATION

SIG Will Brehm University of Tokyo D. Brent Edwards Jr. Drexel University

History The Globalization and Education (G&E) SIG held an organizing meeting at the 2005 CIES Annual Conference held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California under the leadership of Esther Gottlieb. The SIG was chartered that following year and was one of the very first SIGs to be authorized by the Society. The first official meeting was held at the 2006 CIES Annual Conference in Hawai'i where Noah W. Sobe was elected SIG Chair. Many of the early organizers were inspired by the observation that the theme of globalization was "everywhere and nowhere" at CIES conferences. The intent was to create a forum for focused conversations on how we could and should conceptualize globalization in relation to education. Early gatherings of the Group attempted to share these understandings in order to inform curriculum and teaching concerns as the study of globalization of/in education was becoming an area of growing importance in university programs of comparative and international education. By the late 2000s the SIG had consolidated its initial vision, providing a forum at CIES for a small group of (usually highly diverse, international) colleagues to meet and discuss these issues. From 2007 to 2010, Sobe and Stephen Carney co-Chaired the SIG. As of August 2015, the SIG had 280 fees-paying members, with almost 500 individuals on the general mailing list of the SIG. Past leadership committee members included: Noah Sobe, Stephen Carney, and Tavis Jules. The 2015-2017 G&E SIG leadership committee includes: D. Brent Edwards, Jr. (co-chair), Will Brehm (co-chair), and Rolf Straubhaar (secretary). The term length for each position is two years, beginning and ending at the CIES conference.

thematic SIGS

The SIG manages a blog (https://globalizationandeducationsig.wordpress.com) and can be reached at GESIG.CIES@gmail.com.

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*. We thank Stephen Carney and Noah Sobe for helpful content for this section.

Signatures

Contribution to CIES The G&E SIG has hosted and organized a range of activities since its inception. Beyond highlighted panels at the annual CIES conference, it has organized keynote addresses to cover important topics in the field: 2011: Christian Maroy (Université de Montréal and Université de Louvain) “Toward post-bureaucratic modes of governance: A European perspective” 2012: Inés Dussel (Principal Researcher - Flacso/Argentina) “The assembling of schooling. Discussing concepts and models for understanding the historical production of modern schooling” 2013: Roger Dale (University of Bristol) “Revisiting the mechanisms of globalization in education” 2014: P. Taylor Webb (University of British Columbia) “The Global Education Machine and the Limits of Policy Scientificities.”

2016: André Elias Mazawi (University of British Columbia) “Unveiling globalization: Landscapes of military conflicts, geopolitics, and teachers’ lives and work” The G&E SIG also has organized a preconference workshop in 2013. That workshop was entitled “New trajectories in globalization studies: Theories, methodologies and teaching” and included presentations by Susan Robertson, Tavis Jules, Peter Jones, Xavier Bonal and Toni Verger.

Outside of the annual conference, the G&E SIG aims for continuous engagement with members throughout the year. In efforts to reach the SIG’s membership, three online seminars have been organized:

Secondly, the SIG launched a podcast series called “FreshEd.” The purpose of FreshEd is to make complex ideas in educational research easily understood. Launched in late October 2015, the show hosts weekly guests who talk about their recent research. Guests have included: Oct. 26: Frank Adamson (education privatization) Nov. 2: Chris Lubienski (education privatization) Nov. 9: Tamasin Cave (lobbying and education privatization) Nov. 16 Tavis Jules (regionalism) Nov. 23 Marianne Larsen (Space) Nov. 30 Mark Bray (Shadow education) Dec. 7 Rattana Lao (Higher education in Thailand) Dec 21: Fazal Rizvi (Asia Rising) Jan 11: William C. Smith (global testing culture) The show can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/freshed-podcast

Key areas of focus Over the yeas, the G&E SIG has maintained its interest in the methodological issues that emerge in researching globalization, as well as theoretical developments in the study of globalization. Additional topics of interest include, but are not limited to, globalization and higher education; theorizing diffusion and translation of education policy; globalization and its impact on the method of comparison as well as on the politics of comparison; issues connected with scale and spatial reach; global educational governance; global citizenship; education and global social justice; and global aid trends and education.

January 2012 Webinar “Ethnography and globalization” with speakers: Kathryn Anderson-Levitt (UCLA, United States), Stephen Carney (Roskilde University, Denmark), and Susan Robertson (University of Bristol, UK).

Online: http://tinyurl.com/gou8a94

November 2014 Webinar, Globalization and Education SIG

thematic SIGS

January 2013 Webinar “Locating the ‘global’ in education” with speakers: Liz Boner (UC Berkeley, Center for African Studies), Amy Stambach and David Mills with Zuki Karpinska (Department of Education, University of Oxford), and Gita Steiner-Khamsi (Teachers College, Columbia University).

November 2015 Webinar “Theory and method in research on educational privatization around the world” with speakers: Chrisopher Lubienski (University of Illinois), Frank Adamson (Standford University) and Tamasin Cave (Spin watch). Online: http://tinyurl.com/ns2njrb In 2015, the SIG launched two new activities to engage members.

The first is an annual SIG book award, which recognizes and expands the reach of theoretically rich research addressing timely and provocative topics in globalization. In its inaugural year, 17 books were nominated. The award will be announced at the 2016 conference in Vancouver.

Signatures

34

HIGHER

EDUCATION

SIG

In 2007, higher education scholars gathered together at the CIES Conference with the goal of creating a special interest group (SIG). The Higher Education SIG (HESIG) was officially created in 2008. HESIG serves as a networking hub for promoting scholarship opportunities, critical dialogue, and linking professionals and academics to the international aspects of higher education. Accordingly, HESIG will serve as a professional forum supporting development, analysis, and dissemination of theory-, policy-, and practice-related issues that influence higher education. The first HESIG officers were Val D. Rust (Co-chairperson, UCLA, USA), W. James Jacob (Co-chairperson, University of Pittsburgh, USA), Sheng Yao (Kent) Cheng (Program Chair, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan), and Jorge Enrique Delgado (Secretary, University of Pittsburgh, USA). Rosalind Raby from the California Colleges for International Education (USA) served as the first Awards Committee Chair. HESIG membership grew fast and soon became one of the largest Special Interest Groups within CIES.

Contribution to CIES Since its creation, HESIG has contributed to CIES with several initiatives that attract extensive attention and collaboration. One of them is the HESIG Annual Awards in the categories of Lifetime Contribution, Best Book in Higher Education, Best Dissertation, and Best Research Article.

Recipients of the Lifetime Contribution Award have been Ruth Hayhoe, Philip Altbach, J端rgen Schriewer, Hans Schuetze, Val Rust, William Cummings, Daniel Levy, and Gerard Postiglione. The Awards Committee consists of 10-12 members. HESIG sponsors the International and Development Book Series that is published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Series co-editors are James Jacob and John N. Hawkins (UCLA). HESIG also publishes Comparative and International Higher Education (CIHE), an online peer-reviewed periodical. CIHE circulates three times a year.

The spring and summer issues are regional in focus (Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, and United States and Canada) and the fall issue is thematic. CIHE is available at www.higheredsig.org. HESIG has participated in some of the Regional CIES Conferences and the International Workshop on Higher Education Reform.

thematic SIGS

Jorge Enrique Delgado University of Pittsburgh

History

35 Signatures

Awardee Gerard Postiglione

SIG Christopher Johnstone University of Minnesota

The Comparative and International Education Society’s Inclusive Education SIG has a relatively short history compared to the society itself. Began in 2009 under the leadership of Dr. Paula Hunt (now an independent consultant with a long track record of work with UNICEF), the SIG sought to connect scholars who were interested in broad access to education for all children in inclusive systems. Dr. Hunt was an emerging scholar at the time she founded the SIG and can be credited with establishing the vision, mission, and initial membership of the SIG. One topic that has been at the forefront of the SIG’s functioning is the relationship between disability and inclusion in the broad sense; that which goes well beyond the North American concept.

In US and Canadian contexts, the term “inclusive education” often means a philosophy and requisite strategies that support students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms. However, the term inclusive education has a more encompassing definition worldwide. In essence, “inclusion” is a more “inclusive” term worldwide than it is in North America.

To this end, the SIG’s second chair, Dr. Florian Kiuppis (2010-2013) facilitated helpful discussions among SIG members.

Dr. Kiuppis’ scholarly work on the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action helped solidify the SIG’s current mission and statement of purpose by stating: “Inclusive Education takes on different meanings depending upon on geographic and situational contexts. The guiding principles are those of the Salamanca Declaration (UNESCO, 1994), according to which Inclusive Education can be considered "[a] developmental approach seeking to address the learning needs of all children, youth and adults with a specific focus on those who are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion".

By using a broad definition of Inclusive Education, we hope to elicit the participation of scholars dealing with the heterogeneity of learners, and interested in educational issues specific to (but not limited by) children who are marginalized due to special education needs. These might include: disabilities, second language acquisition, poverty, racial and ethnic discrimination, social exclusion, etc.”

The SIG continues to operate as an organization that espouses a comprehensive definition of inclusive education. In short, our philosophy focuses on access and success of all children in all systems. This seems like a tall task, but a growing number of scholars in the SIG have contributed significantly to the literature base of this field.

Signatures

thematic SIGS

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

History

36

Highlights The current era of the SIG (2013-2016) was marked by expansive growth in the SIG. Now numbering over 90 members, it is among the fastest growing SIGs in CIES. The SIG’s growth is likely bolstered by increased focus on inclusion in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and a larger presence of the SIG at CIES’ annual meeting. Over the past few years, the SIG has hosted several high profile events at the annual meeting and created new networking opportunities for members.

Beginning in 2014, SIG Secretary Ms, Anne Crylen supported outreach to SIG members who could post their bios on the SIG page. In 2015, the SIG also held its first ever social hour at the CIES annual meeting. Program Chair Dr. Matt Schuelka organized this networking opportunity that drew over 20 members. Finally, the SIG hosted a highlighted session by Ms. Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, Global Disability Advisor for the World Bank.

In 2016, the SIG established relationships with the International Journal of Inclusive Education and International Journal of Disability, Development, and Education for the mentoring of promising inclusive education scholars. This year Mr. Thomas Engsig won the SIG’s “Emerging Scholar” award for graduate students. He will receive pre-submission mentoring from the editorial board of one of the two journals en route to full submission to the journal (both journals maintain the right to juried review and anonymous review of submission).

thematic SIGS

The next era of the SIG will begin at the 2016 annual meeting. The SIG will again host its annual networking event for members and will also hold elections for positions of SIG Chair and Program Chair. All members are welcome to these events and will begin receiving electronic notices about events when the register for the SIG. Please contact SIG Chair Chris Johnstone (johnstone@umn.edu) with any questions.

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KNOWLEDGE AND

THE ACADEMY

SIG Tutaleni I. Asino Oaklahoma State University

Who we are

The Indigenous Knowledge and the Academy SIG consists of CIES members, members of Indigenous communities, and practitioners who want to dialogue about ways to develop and support alternative ways of knowing (knowledge) and how this discourse can interact with, and be used to transform the Academy. At CIES annual meetings and throughout the year, IKA members examine the implications of Indigenous knowledge for transforming: (1) curriculum and instruction (2) knowledge spheres and structures (3) relationships between the academy and (4) Indigenous communities and higher education for the public good

Purpose

IIKA aims to transform the Academy through Alternative Ways of Knowing, thinking and Doing. The overarching rationale for this Special Interest Group (SIG) Indigenous Knowledge and the Academy is to establish a forum whose long term goal is to transform the academy and to engage its members and members of CIES at large through discussions that promote the study of Indigenous educational thought at institutions of higher education in the USA and internationally. By transformation, IKA seeks change that: (1) alters the culture of institutions by examining critically underlying assumptions and overt institutional (2) behaviors, processes, and structures that devalue indigenous ways of knowing; (3) is deep and pervasive, affecting the ethos of the institution as the cradle of learning, innovation and discovery; (4) is purposeful, intentional, and occurs over time.

There is no ambiguity that Indigenous knowledge predates colonialism, yet the legacy of colonialism persists in many contexts and manifests in multiple aspects of knowledge re/production and education. Sixty years ago, in 1956 when CIES was formed, the idea of a SIG focusing on Indigenous knowledge would perhaps have been inconceivable.

The last decades have seen an upsurge of scholarship and shifts in policy throughout the world that challenge the historical and the continued denigration of Indigenous peoples, advocating for representation, sovereignty and change. Today Indigenous peoples directly engage in global conversations about their progress, oppression and aspirations on their/our own behalf. Moreover, many alternative and integrated models of teaching and learning have emerged from and within Indigenous communities.

The current IKA SIG executive board is comprised of co- chairs: Tutaleni I. Asino (Tutaleni.asino@okstate.edu) and Miye Tom (miyetom@gmail.com); Secretary/Communication Office: Yadana Desmond (ynd2104@tc.columbia.edu) and Past Chair: Ladislaus Semali (lms11@psu.edu)

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thematic SIGS

INDIGENOUS

History

38

The IKA SIG was founded on the belief that there is a space to explore and showcase this area of scholarship in order to better connect research, theory, practice and policy. To date, interest has exponentially grown within CIES to explore alternate educational thought, Indigenous knowledges, or non-western epistemologies and how collectively they impact formal, informal and non-formal education, educators and other academic enterprises. IKA provides the forum and venue to interested individuals to share emerging trends, experiences, and concrete approaches to address the salient issues in this area of study.

Highlights Activities

thematic SIGS

For the 2015-16 year, IKA has focused on ways to extend the conversation beyond the annual conference. To this end, we have organized ‘virtual roundtables’, webinars focusing on particular topics relevant to Indigenous Knowledge. Our first virtual roundtable conversation explored two main questions: 1) What is Indigenous Knowledge? And, 2) Who is Indigenous?’ The goal was to explore the richness and diversity of knowledges, and to highlight current and historical challenges, as well as evolving goals of Indigenous education. The three experts who presented their perspectives, research and experience at the virtual roundtable were: Dr. Ladislaus M. Semali, founder of the IKA SIG, Professor of Education at the Pennsylvania State University, and Co-Director of the Interinstitutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge; Dr. Regina Cortina, Professor of Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies and coordinator of International and Comparative Education Degree Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University; Dr. Stephen Wall (White Earth Reservation), Chair of Indigenous Liberal Studies at Institute of American Indian Arts, New Mexico. The Webinar conversation was moderated by Tutaleni I. Asino, and included Q&A from the attendees.

39 Signatures

Another virtual roundtable was conducted in preparation for CIES’s 2016 conference in Vancouver. Guest speakers included Dr. Amy Parent, a member of the Nisga’a Nation who is currently assistant professor, Faculty of Education Simon Fraser University, and returning speaker Dr. Ladislaus M. Semali. The aim of the second roundtable was to introduce and engage CIES and our SIG academic communities in British Columbia in the theme of this year’s conference theme and discuss Aboriginal education in Canada. The conversation was moderated by Miye Nadya Tom, and included Q & A from attendees.

As our SIG and community continue to expand through these efforts, we aim to address in future how the field of Comparative and International Education may incorporate Indigenous perspectives in joint efforts to transform the “Academy through Alternative Ways of Knowing and Doing.”

COMMUNICATION FOR TECHNOLOGY

SIG Jayson W. Richardson University of Kentucky

History The Information and Communication for Technology (ICT4D) SIG is focused on the technology side of international development. Our members are actively researching and working on development projects that center on various aspects of technology in the less developed world.

The ICT4D SIG currently has over 50 members including professors, graduate students, and professionals working in the field. The SIG was started 2008.

The Co-Chairpersons of the ICT4 SIG are Jayson W. Richardson (jayson.richardson@gmail.com) from University of Kentucky, Jeffery Lee (jeff003@msn.com) from Brandman University, and Erik Byker (ebyker@gmail.com) from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Haijun Kang (hjkang@ksu.edu ) from Kansas State University serves as the secretary. Megan Smith (megsimone611@gmail.com) from IREX is the webmaster.

The work, research, and innovating around the topic of ICT4D has not kept pace with stakeholders’ needs. This is a significant problem given the technologically suffused world all students must learn to navigate.

This is despite the fact that most large-scale education initiatives, even those in developing countries, utilize digital technologies to some extent or another. The ever-increasing integration of desktop computers, laptops, and hand-held devices into teaching and learning, is often a response to local demands that are informed by global shifts. As a result, the lack of peer-reviewed, empirical research in the field of comparative education generally and ICT4D specifically, can lead to ill-informed decisions about the use of digital technologies.

As members of the ICT4D community, we believe that creative innovation inspires change, especially in less developed countries. We believe that if used properly, digital technologies are the single most significant and powerful levers for change. We also believe that the future will be an exciting one; especially in transitional communities. We welcome further discussions and hope for more synergistic ICT4D and comparative and international education projects.

Highlights The SIG leaders have edited two special issues focused on the work of its members. First, the ICT4D SIG leaders co-edited a 2015 issue of the Forum for International Research in Education (FIRE) focused on how digital technologies have been used to improve teaching and learning in international development projects (see volume 2, issue 1). Second, in 2014 the ICT4D SIG leadership co-edited an issue of the International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology (see volume 10, issue 2) which highlighted work of its members.

The ICT4D hosts a website which highlights conferences, calls for papers, and various updates about the SIG (see http://cies-ict4d.org/).

Find us on Facebook at Technology 4 Development - CIES Special Interest Group. If you are interested in becoming a member of the ICT4D SIG or if you have ideas on new projects or new collaborations, please contact Jayson W. Richardson at jayson.richardson@gmail.com

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thematic SIGS

INFORMATION AND

40

LANGUAGE

ISSUES

SIG Anna Farrell University of Minnesota Christopher Shepard United States Agency for International Development

History A Platform for Research, Networking and Coordination CIES participants began the Language Issues SIG (LISIG) informally in 2001 as a platform for networking and conference coordination to help plan and organize coherent panels related to language issues in education.

During the CIES conference held at Stanford University in 2005, participants interested in language issues in education convened at a meeting to explore the possibility of starting an official SIG within CIES focused on language in education issues. The meeting was facilitated by Carol Benson and Diane Napier. At the meeting, participants agreed to start a language issues SIG and seventeen members signed up during the meeting.

During the conference in Baltimore in 2007 there were over 80 language-related papers, 29 of which were organized by LISIG. In many other sessions, a number of references were made to language issues in education. We have seen consistent recognition of the role language plays in educational development over the past decade of CIES conferences and LISIG work.

A Listening Philosophy From the earliest LISIG meetings four activities have been central: a continuing commitment to self-reflection, openness, and possibility as a group and as individuals; a keen interest in the problems, the conflicts, the oversights, the oversimplifications and yes the issues of language; a spirited advocacy for inclusion, plurality, multiple languages and multiple meanings; and a foundational belief in the essential value of every person and language that precedes our efforts at understanding and relating to texts and to each other.

Our practices and values have come in part from the places where we continue to live and work, including Almaty, Amherst, Berkeley, Cape Town, Columbia, Chiangmai, Chicago, Lake Forest, Lanzhou, Los Angeles, Manila, Minneapolis, Montreal, New York City, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C., among others.

thematic SIGS

Our LISIG values: the right of all people to literacy and learning in a language that they speak and understand well; multilingualism and plurilingualism; diversity, inclusion and participation; compassion and mutual respect; reflection and listening; curiosity, creativity, and integrity; civic responsibility; sustainability and future generations; history and past generations; local, regional and global environments and senses of place; the exploration of connections between research, practice, theory and policy; the free exchange of diverse ideas and research methodologies; and the seeking of knowledge and understanding collaboratively through a community of scholars.

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Signatures

The role of language in both transmitting and restricting information, values, power, cultures and identities; the reality that nearly half of the world’s estimated 6000 languages are endangered, millions of people lack access to education and media in languages that they understand, and the potential role of education systems to encourage or discourage language shift; The ever-increasing understandings of language through fields as diverse as education, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and biology; The many international, national and local traditions and efforts to preserve, share and understand languages and cultures, including and not limited to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2000), the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2008), the Report by the Director-General on a strategy concerning the role of languages in achieving Education for All (EFA) in the context of sustainable development (2009), and UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day (celebrated annually on February 21).

Contributions to CIES Today LISIG works to advance CIES by promoting new research, long-term research, participatory and local research, applied research, and other innovative research to further understandings of the diverse interrelationships between languages, cultures, education and society; and to promote

collaborative opportunities for scholarship, professional development, and mentoring for practitioners, researchers, theorists, and policymakers engaged with language, education and society.

In addition to issuing Calls for Papers for annual CIES conferences and maintaining a website and social media presence, LISIG has worked to support language issues publications, improved SIG governance, and more effective SIG collaboration. In publications our core effort is the award of the LISIG Dissertation Award, supporting the development of language scholars. Among the many publications that SIG members have supported is Language Issues in Comparative Education: Inclusive Teaching and Learning in Non-Dominant Languages and Cultures, co-edited by Carol Benson and Kimmo Kosonen, and based on expanded papers presented in Montreal at CIES 2011. An LISIG Editorial Board has been established and we are working to develop a resource guide of key trends, changes, debates, recent publications, and seminal works related to LISIG. LISIG established bylaws in 2014, and LISIG members have worked with the CIES SIG committee and other SIGs to encourage more effective SIG operations and information sharing. SIG collaboration in recent years has included co-hosted plenary and round table events with Global Literacy SIG at CIES 2014 featuring Jim Cummins. In 2015 six SIGs co-hosted a reception and a panel: "Linguistic (Neo)colonization, Global Education Agenda, and Local Development Initiatives: Africa and Latin America". At the 60th annual CIES conference LISIG is supporting a pilot SIG symposium to facilitate dialogue among SIGs as they engage with the annual CIES conference theme of taking stock and looking forward. While SIG highlighted and priority conference sessions delve deeply into the issues of an individual SIG, the symposium is an opportunity to engage across SIG borders of identity, geography, theory, method and practice.

thematic SIGS

In our work as a SIG we strive to be mindful of:

CIES 2014 LISIG Business Meeting

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LARGE-SCALE

CROSS-NATIONAL STUDIES

IN EDUCATION

SIG

Oren Pizmony-Levy Teachers College, Columbia University.

thematic SIGS

David Rutkowski Indiana University Bloomington

43 Signatures

Oren Pizmony-Levy and David Rutkowski

History It was in the middle of the CIES 2013 Conference at New Orleans, right after an excellent panel titled “Cross-National Research on Student Outcomes Using Large-Scale International Data,” when a group of us began talking about establishing a SIG dedicated to international assessments such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We soon realized that the SIG could bring together three groups of scholars. The first group used international data to examine innovative research questions about students, teachers, and schools. The second group included scholars and practitioners that developed the sophisticated methodology of international assessments. The third group investigated the politics and reception of international assessments.

A few weeks after the conference, a small team crafted the petition to CIES, with the mission of the SIG being “to promote research related to large-scale cross-national studies in education.” More than fifteen CIES members signed the petition. Currently, three years after the CIES Board of Directors approved the SIG, our community includes more than 60 members.

In the first three years, the SIG leadership focused on recruiting new members and engaging them in preparing the annual program. The first SIG highlighted panel at CIES 2014, titled “International Assessments Under Examination” reflected the diversity of scholarship on the topic. For example, Anna K. Chmielewski (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada) presented her work on changes in socioeconomic achievement gaps in international comparison between 1964 and 2011, and Radhika Gorur (Victoria University, Australia) critically examined the ways in which scholars conducted secondary analysis of PISA. At CIES 2015, the SIG highlighted panels featured papers looking at policy implications of international assessment as well as papers documenting the relationship between social inequality and educational achievement.

This year, following CIES 60th anniversary, the SIG will look to the past and into the future. One highlighted panel will recognize 55 years of international large-scale assessments in a form of a moderated panel discussion among testing pioneers. Another highlighted panel will provide new perspectives on the topic, including a paper about the experience of Japanese reading experts with PISA literacy assessment, and a paper PISA for Schools.

SIG

Maria Jose Bermeo Teachers College, Columbia University

Over the years, the PE SIG has held a variety of inter-disciplinary panels, workshops, networking events, book presentations and school visits during the yearly CIES meetings. Through these spaces the SIG membership has undertaken significant reflection regarding the complex relationship between education and structural, cultural and direct forms of violence, and the transformative possibilities this relationship entails. Past panels have discussed issues of race, class, gender, and dis/ability issues within peace education; situated meanings of peace and violence in diverse contexts; alternative, transformative methods of promoting equitable peace; peace and diversity with a focus on equity, access, and opportunity; building trans-cultural/intercultural borderlands that respect difference; dialogue in peace education practice and theory; human rights education; historical narrative; healing and social emotional learning; the dialectic between peace educator/learner within a framework of critical pedagogy; and the evaluation of peace education through the lens of equity and accountability.

The SIG has provided a platform for sharing new publications relevant to the field and created the opportunity for mentorship for new scholars as they prepare publications for academic journals, such as the Journal of Peace Education. At this year’s conference we will see the presentation of a new edited volume, Peace Education: International Perspectives, edited by Monisha Bajaj and Maria Hantzopoulos, which examines the advances and transformations in the field.

With an interest in supporting ongoing professional development and practitioner reflection, the SIG has also facilitated several workshops throughout the years. Examining such topics as the practice of peace education pedagogy and transformation in the comparative and international education classroom, dance as a medium for peace education, and the relationship between scholarly research and practitioner spaces. This year’s conference will also include a peace education primer workshop, that re-examines the history of the field, it’s key principles and applications, and the systemic challenges faced in practice, facilitated by Michelle Savard and Ayaz Naseem. The PE SIG throughout the years has also placed special importance on encouraging new scholars, offering an annual travel scholarship to support students to participate in CIES conferences, and creating a welcoming environment for new members.

Over the past ten years, the PE SIG has served as a meeting ground for scholars and practitioners who are interested in peace education, and as a platform for dialogue and participation.

Currently, the SIG has an active membership of some fifty students, practitioners, and scholars as well as an email list-serve that reaches more than 100 individuals. We look forward to continuing to develop this global field of scholarship and practice in the years to come.

Signatures

thematic SIGS

PEACE EDUCATION

The CIES Peace Education Special Interest Group (PE SIG) was initiated in 2005 to bring together members of the Comparative and International Education Society with common interests in the study of peace and conflict, human rights, and social justice in education.

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POSTFOUNDATIONAL

APPROACHES TO COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL

EDUCATION

SIG

Daniel Friedrich Teachers College, Columbia University

thematic SIGS

Jonathan Friedman New York University

45 Signatures

History The Post-Foundational Approaches to CIE SIG is a new group that began to take shape in 2013 in conversations among many individuals, among which Prof. Stephen Carney, Prof. Irv Epstein, and Prof. Daniel Friedrich took a leadership role. Our interests converged in the frustration we all felt with the difficulty of finding a space for theoretical explorations that challenged some of the field’s modernist foundational assumptions. We had all had some experience participating in or leading geography-based and theme-based SIGs, yet did not feel at home in such discussions.

While our work was located in different regions, intersected with different disciplines, and sought different outcomes, we all experienced the need to found a SIG in which we were welcomed to experiment with a different set of epistemological and ontological assumptions, and to draw inspiration from alternative intellectual horizons. In 2014 we officially petitioned to start the SIG, and we organized our first panels for the 2015 annual meeting. Prof. Carney and Prof. Friedrich served as SIG co-chairs from 2014-2015, while Prof. Epstein served as secretary. Prof.

Friedrich and Jonathan Friedman are the current co-chairs.

Contribution to CIES As a new SIG, our main activity has been to recruit scholars into our ranks, being quite successful in our efforts. Profs. Carney, Epstein, and Friedrich are also putting together a book series on Post-Foundational Approaches to CIE for Bloomsbury Press. We see this as an opportunity to contribute to the visibility of our members’ scholarship, as well as to the advancement of the field.

Highlights Explorations of social theory, cultural studies, indigenous knowledge forms and religious traditions emanating from the Global South are some of the many areas of intellectual investigation that touch upon the realities of much of the world’s population but have been ignored or largely under-represented within CIE. In rectifying such an egregious omission, there is vibrant debate and discussion as to how the employment of such perspectives can better inform and enhance our understanding of education as a lived experience, which of these perspectives may have particular salience, and under what conditions their significance is clearly apparent. This being said, the purpose of the SIG is not to champion perspectives simply because within certain contexts, they may be viewed as innovative, but to determine how their use can move the entire field forward, by forcing a re-examination of modernist assumptions. In so doing, it is incumbent upon all of us to examine the limitations as well as the potential of new perspectives. If embracing the post-foundational implies moving beyond modernism, the effort must reconcile the use of modernism as a referent point subject to critique, with the challenge of synthesizing new concepts in creative ways.

SIG Elena Lisovskaya Western Michigan University

How it all began “Should we consider launching a special interest group on religion?” asked Robert Osburn, at the time an adjunct lecturer at the University of Minnesota, when he closed his paper presentation at the 2013 CIES conference in New Orleans. This was his first CIES conference, and he wondered if he was a little too brash.

After he sat down, Elena Lisovskaya, Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University, raced over and sat down next to him.

“I have been thinking the same thing for many years!”

The two proceeded to a hotel restaurant where they carried on their discussion, and began to lay the framework for a full launch of the Religion and Education SIG in late Fall 2013.

Thirty petitioners from four continents and 21 different institutions (of higher education and NGOs) delivered a resounding message to the CIES Board: “Contrary to predictions, religion has not lost its influence on social matters and education, in particular, and must be on the table for scholarly discussion and exploration.” The board agreed, and by the next CIES conference (in Toronto) new SIG brochures were distributed and all felt an air of enthusiasm and anticipation.

Osburn and Lisovskaya were named Co-Chairs, with Bruce Collet of Bowling Green State University serving as Secretary. Others who distinguished themselves included Alice Chan from McGill University in Montreal and Annett Graefe from New York University Steinhardt, as they took responsibility for our website and other social media functions. Twenty two members from five different countries helped launch the SIG in March 2014. By July 2015, membership had risen to 38, from nine different countries.

Thirteen paper religion-specific proposals were submitted for the 2014 conference, and 17 for the 2015 conference in Washington DC. The number has grown to 21 for the 2016 conference in Vancouver.

Hopes are high that new scholars will join the effort to utilize scholarly tools for assessing and unveiling developments at the interface of religion and international education.

What questions we are raising Religion and Education SIG provides a forum for comparative examination of the link between education and religion across national, historical, and civilizational contexts. In particular, comparative research on the relationship between religion and human development, identity formation, and citizenship are of great importance in our intensely globalizing world. The scope of research questions and issues within the area is very broad. It includes but is not limited to the following topics:

Signatures

thematic SIGS

RELIGION & EDUCATION

History

46

Religious diversity and its impact on functioning and fulfillment of educational goals across national, regional, socio-economic, gender, ethnic, and other cultural dimensions and contexts.

Understanding the mutual influences among various dimensions of religion (belief, practice, affiliation) and education in all its facets, including its organizational and learner-specific forms and practices.

Investigating the role of religious education on the formation of citizenship values, democratic orientations and interreligious peace across nations and religious denominations.

Exploring the effects of education on religious tolerance and conflict resolution across classrooms and cultures.

Comparative assessment of the forms and institutions of religious education, and their social, political, and cultural outcomes.

Religious education and identity formation in a diverse classroom.

Integration of the expanding studies of religion and education in adjacent fields (sociology, political science, anthropology, gender studies, etc.) into the research agenda in comparative and international education and development.

In Vancouver 2016, Religion and Education SIG will feature two major directions of research and educational practice, which today attract volumes of interest and energy among young scholars in the field. One direction of research informed by and informing educational practice deals with teaching religion and religious literacy in school and cultural pluralism. Another direction examines the role of religious education in building interreligious peace and democratic citizenship. The latter theme has become especially salient in the context of interreligious tensions and conflicts on macro and micro-social levels. Speaking from different research methodologies and cultural/national contexts, the young scholars will discuss if and how religious education in faith-based and/or public educational settings helps maintaining balance between religious pluralism and social cohesion; between religious identity and citizenship formation; and between commitment to common good and respect for religious freedoms and minority rights.

Bruce Collet, Religion and Education SIG 2015

Recent activity Najwan Saada’s article on religious education in public schools was recently published in The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. He teaches at Beit Berl College of Education in Israel. Marc Wisnosky recently earned a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. He researched Orthodox theological education in the USA. Robert Osburn recently addressed South Sudanese leaders who are seeking to help resolve conflict in their home society. Bruce Collet will be a Visiting Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University (Michaelmas term of 2016). He will research forced migration and religiosity. His book Migration, Religion, and Schooling within Liberal Democratic States will be published by Routledge in 2017. Elena Lisovskaya presented Teaching religious cultures, teaching nationalism: the case of Russia’s secular schools at “Lived Religion in the Black Sea Region” workshop sponsored by Region, Nation, and Beyond Research Group and the Swiss National Science Foundation in Kyiv, Ukraine. She recently contributed an article Religious education in Russia: Inter-faith harmony or neo-imperial toleration? for publication to a forthcoming collection of international and comparative research on religious diversity and education.

thematic SIGS

Our leaders

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Robert Osburn, co-chair

Elena Lisovskaya, co-chair

COMPARATIVE

EDUCATION

SIG Allison H. Blosser High Point University

The Teaching Comparative Education SIG of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) was founded in 2012. The CIES TCE SIG brings together scholars, instructors, and practitioners of comparative and international education globally. Membership is open to all registered CIES members. The current co-chairs are Patricia K. Kubow (Indiana University) and Allison Blosser (High Point University).

The Teaching Comparative Education SIG aims:

To create an open forum for collaboration and exchange about the teaching of comparative education in colleges and universities worldwide; To provide a place for teachers of comparative and international education to find course syllabi and materials to guide their own teaching; To continue to collect and build the repertoire of comparative and international education materials used by comparativists worldwide; and To promote scholarship on the teaching of the field and to consider how this teaching (content and pedagogy) occurs at different educational levels (graduate and undergraduate) and in diverse country and cultural contexts.

Highlights One of the main contributions the Teaching Comparative Education SIG has made to CIES is the continued development of the Comparative Education Instructional Materials Archive (CEIMA).

CEIMA is an active site that collects and posts comparative and international education instructional materials from comparativists at universities worldwide. The archive provides an opportunity for CIES members to access course syllabi, assignments, research projects, and other innovative materials for any course, both graduate and undergraduate, that incorporates comparative education. In the process, CIES members learn about the efforts of comparative educators to teach the field to a new generation of students, practitioners, and instructors.

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TEACHING

History

48

With financial support from CIES, CEIMA is now housed on the Teaching Comparative Education SIG website (http://www.ciestcesig.org/ceimahome/) where you can retrieve previously submitted materials and submit your own course materials for the betterment of the field. The book Teaching Comparative Education: Trends and Issues Informing Practice, edited by Patricia K. Kubow (Indiana University) and Allison H. Blosser (High Point University) who co-chair the CIES Teaching Comparative Education SIG, is the newest volume in the Oxford Studies in Comparative Education series published by Symposium Books. With chapter contributions from seminal scholars in the field of comparative and international education, the book examines the ways in which comparative education is being taught, or advocated for, in teacher education within higher education institutions worldwide. It will be available at the CIES 2016 Conference in Vancouver. There will also be a Teaching Comparative Education SIG highlighted session featuring several of the book’s contributors.

In addition, there is a forthcoming special issue of FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education titled, “The Place and Future of Comparative Education in Teacher Education,” which is guest edited by the Teaching Comparative Education SIG co-chairs, Patricia K. Kubow and Allison Blosser.

Teaching Comarative

thematic SIGS

Education SIG Book’s Cover

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DEVELOPMENT

AND EDUCATION

SIG David Balwanz University of Johannesburg

Arushi Terway Teachers College, Columbia University

Youth development and education (YDE), inclusive of secondary education, has received increasing global attention over the past decade. Over the next twenty years, demographic and other expansionary pressures are likely to influence a significant increase in enrollment in secondary education and youth development initiatives – especially in low and middle income countries. However, while secondary education and youth development programs reach similar populations and often seek to address many of the same issues, they are often treated as separate concerns in academic, practitioner, and policy circles.

The Youth Development and Education SIG seeks to provide an intellectually diverse, inclusive and critical space for a CIE students, researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas and experiences related to youth development and secondary education. Such a space would allow for contributions from across academic disciplines and theoretical perspectives and encourage efforts to share YDE research, experiences and practices from around the world. The full YDE statement of purpose can be found on our website.1

History The establishment of the YDE SIG was grounded in two observations: First, an increasing share of the global youth population is gaining access to post-basic education and human development opportunities. Second, at present, issues in (and relationships between) youth development and secondary education are under-researched, under-theorized, and insufficiently debated within the CIE community. Since the early 2000s, youth development and secondary education have emerged as critical topic in the CIE development practitioner and academic communities. Over the past decade, increased dialogue, publication and debate on EFA Goal 3, ‘skills development,’ and inclusion of post-basic education targets in the SDGs have further invigorated research and theorizing on YDE topics.

However, up until 2015, dialogue and exchange on YDE issues did not have a home within CIES. For the above reasons, in late 2014, the present co-chairs queried CIES members regarding their interest in creating SIG focused on youth development and secondary education. Based on member interest, a meeting of interested members and a panel discussion on YDE took place at the CIES 2015 conference in Washington, DC. This year, 2016, marks the first year with YDE highlighted panels at a CIES conference. Though we are less than one year old, our initial engagement with and surveying of SIG members, combined with our review of over thirty paper proposals, provide some initial insight on interests and themes in CIE research on Youth Development and Education.

1 https://youthdevelopmentandeducationsig.wordpress.com/

Signatures

thematic SIGS

YOUTH

Overview

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SIG members and paper proposals generally identify youth as a liminal stage: a fluid state in between childhood and adulthood.

Many panels define youth in terms of this liminal status as opposed to fixating on age. Paper proposals reviewed were more likely to focus on post-secondary non-tertiary education and training (ISCED IV) than on formal secondary education. The majority of papers are based on empirical research or evaluation of programs conducted in middle and low income countries. In the majority of proposals submitted, research and program rationales were framed from a perspective that limited access to further education and formal sector work were two of the most critical challenges facing youth.

However, one paper, presenting research on narratives of success from the perspective of rural communities in Indonesia asks, That diploma of yours, ‘what is it for?’

Out of the nine YDE panels created, we identified three main themes. The first theme, non-cognitive skills, was the topic of several panels in which researchers looked at programs which sought to develop such skills and used a variety of methodologies to measure skills. Papers hypothesized the value of non-cognitive skills (framed variously as 21st century youth competencies, developmental assets or socio-emotional learning) in promoting youth employability and resiliency in settings with limited access to formal sector employment or in the context of crisis and post-conflict reconstruction. The second theme, youth economic and livelihood preparation/work readiness, was more explicitly focused on youth to work transition and, in most panels focused on post-secondary pre-tertiary vocational training, often for informal sector work. The third theme, out-of-school youth, emphasized the large number of out-of-school youth globally, identified factors which explained youth vulnerability, and in most cases, offered a review of interventions designed to improve the well-being or life chances of out-of-school youth. Other paper submissions included research on social capital, marginalization, and youth education in conflict-affected and fragile contexts. Four papers presented new research on sexuality, sex education and violence – including a paper titled, (S)exclusion in the sex ed classroom: negotiating discourses about young people's needs in Ethiopia

It could be argued that paper submissions evidence the dominance of research and programming framed by the above themes. Many of the papers presented are based on research or evaluation of USAID-funded projects. USAID policy currently prioritizes a focus on youth work readiness and out-of-school youth (to the exclusion of formal secondary education – a priority expressed by many YDE SIG members). A critical review of the paper submissions could argue that in most cases youth issues are approached from perspectives which individuate youth and offer constructions of youth which highlight deficiencies as opposed to assets. Even so, a large number of paper submissions identified the varied and contextually-specific social and structural constraints facing youth and youth education programs.

The 2016 YDE highlighted session will feature a paper titled Theorizing post-colonial education in Africa: student engagement experiences from Nigerian private secondary schools and implications for educational change. In the abstract, the author, Chizoba Imoka states that the paper is about “Nigerian youth leaders who aspired to become youth leaders within their communities but [who] upon graduation came to find out that they were ill equipped to do so because they had learnt nothing about their culture, social context or the social issues in society.” Imoka’s paper highlights some of the complexities and inter-connected issues on which the YDE SIG seeks to promote dialogue: the research acknowledges the dialectic between the global and the local, interrogates the influence of unequal power in the structuring of social relations, and while identifying a role for secondary education and youth agency, identifies the (normative and empirical) contradictions inherent in social change efforts.

As we evolve and grow over the next year, the YDE SIG will continue to seek out members with a desire to contribute to and enrich dialogue and debate over issues in youth development and secondary education.

Submitted by: David Balwanz and Arushi Terway, YDE SIG co-chairs

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thematic SIGS

Member Quotes

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“I have worked on youth based projects for nearly ten years, focused on helping not only educate youths but to help empower them to be leaders and contribute civically to their nations.”

Signatures

“There is far too little discussion among education practitioners in secondary education. Generating a community of practice and discussion around this topic will facilitate information. There is more robust attention and discussion within youth development but little cross-fertilization to allow for learning across [secondary education] youth development practitioners.”

[Why are you participating in YDE?] “[To] learn from others on how they are tackling issues and have a body to share ideas with.”

SIGs

thematic SIGS

OTHER

Contemplative Inquiry Early Childhood Development Global Mathematics Teacher Education and the Teaching Profession

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SIGs

Networking Collaboration

Connections