Has the Recent Violence Against Indian Students in Australia had an Effect on Indian American Students’ Decision to Study Abroad in Australia?

There has been a flurry of news over the past few months about several incidence of violence against Indian students studying in Australia and the effect this has on higher education and the economy in Australia. Specifically, over 70 attacks on Indian students have occurred in Australia over the past year or so and this has sparked outrage in India as well as a swift “zero tolerance” response in Australia. Last week a nine-member delegation from Australia began a nine-day itinerary of India in an effort to mend relations and improve the image of Australia and its higher education system. I have copied and pasted the following from the July 7th Wall Street Journal article “Australians Travel to India to Talk About Student Safety” to highlight the impact these attacks can have on Australia:

“The issue is important for Australia's economy because the education of foreign students has become big business, generating 15.5 billion Australian dollars (US$12.54 billion) in 2008, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in May.

Foreigners now make up 25% of students, up from just under 10% in 1997. Indian students represent about 18% of the 542,000 foreigners studying in Australia, second only to those from China, according to data from the Australian Council for Private Education and Training. The higher-education sector is now Australia's third-largest export earner behind coal and iron ore.

In the state of Victoria, education is the biggest export earner and many of the attacks have occurred in Melbourne, Victoria's capital.”

Those of you who have not been following these developments in Australia may want to do a simple internet search or link to a few articles I have highlighted below:

“Australians Travel to India to Talk About Student Safety” from the July 7th The Wall Street Journal

“Punjab government seeks data of students studying in Australia” from June 10th The Times of India

“Indian Students Claim Epidemic of Racist Violence in Australia” from June 4th VOANews.com

“Indian students describe Sydney attacks” from June 3rd issue of ABC News

“Indian students unsure about studying in Australia” from May 29th ABC Radio Australia

It should be noted that Australia is not the only country where Indian students as well as others have been attacked or have experienced racism.

In answer to the question “has the recent violence against Indian students in Australia had an effect on Indian American students’ decision to study abroad in Australia?”…I don’t have an answer and I think it would be a bit challenging (but not impossible) to measure. Some immediate thoughts are that most U.S. students are not aware these attacks on Indian students even occurred. Indian American students may be more informed on the situation in India than their peers as it has received significant media attention in India and I’m guessing in Indian media outlets (as well as in the WSJ) here in the United States. As many IHEC Blog readers know, I have a strong research interest in diversifying the U.S. study abroad student profile and I’ve written about and compiled an annotated bibliography on heritage seeking in a study abroad context. What I don’t know and I need to investigate is “to what level do college and university level students in the U.S. keep up to date on news in countries of their heritage?” I will certainly try to seek answers to this question but if anyone has any leads for me please leave a comment.

Anyway…this question has been floating around in my head the last month or so as I’ve been reading about this situation and I thought I post to IHEC Blog about it.

International Education and China

I’ve written about China and related topics here on IHEC Blog several times in the past. To blog on international education and public diplomacy and not mention China from time to time would be an oversight. It’s been a very busy several weeks for me and I’m still clearing out my Google Reader and sifting through the numerous Google Alerts I receive. Last night I found 30 minutes spend on these activities and I found several articles related (in part or in whole) to international education and China. Here are a few of the select articles that might be of most interest to IHEC Blog readers:

"Mainland's preferential policies help boost Cross-Straits cultural exchange", experts from the July 13th issue of China View

"Don’t forget China during Indian dilemma" from the July 14th issue of Campus Review (subscription required but good abstract)

Guest column: "Insights from China reinforce call for citizen diplomacy" from the July 8th issue of the Des Moines Register

"Progressive education comes to China" posted July 12th to The Comment Factory

"Chinese-student patriotism in U.S." from the July 14th issue of The Daily Texan

"College abroad becoming a bargain" from the July 7th issue of China Daily

You can link to all previous IHEC Blog posts that touch on China or Chinese students studying abroad here.

A Brief History of Research on Education

Educational research has changed dramatically in both its stated objectives and techniques since the late nineteenth century. From its early beginnings in the ivory towers of many research universities to the present day, educational research has not only undergone a variety of transformations but it has been a topic of significant scholarly, societal and political debate over the years. This brief essay will provide a historical overview of the key transformations educational research has gone through since the late nineteenth century until present day by focusing on important individuals who lead these efforts. It is not an attempt to validate or discredit certain educational scholars or the research approaches they embraced. It will primarily focus on the development of educational research in the United States with particular attention to the University of Chicago.

THE BIRTH OF EDUCATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY AND RESEARCH

The study of and research on education traces its roots back to the late 1830’s and early 1840’s with the revival of the common school and it is the first time that both school supervision and planning were influenced by systematic data collection.[1] These data collection efforts, according to Robert Travers, involved “an examination of the ideas on which education was based, an intellectual crystallization of the function of education in a democracy, and the development of a literature on education that attempted to make available to teachers and educators important new ideas related to education that had emerged in various countries.”[2] Horace Mann and Henry Barnard were early pioneers in educational data collection and in the production and dissemination of educational literature during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Additionally, they held prominent educational leadership positions by being the first secretaries of educational boards of Massachusetts (Horace Mann) and of Connecticut (Henry Barnard).[3] In many ways, the trends in the early history of educational research were components of the trends in American culture of the time.[4]

The founding of Johns Hopkins University as the first research university in 1876 set the stage for new elite research universities to be founded such as Stanford University and the University of Chicago.[5] Additionally, the Morrill Act of 1862[6] allowed for the establishment of ‘land-grant’ colleges and universities, many of which would rival the more established elite institutions on the east coast in research and knowledge production, across the United States. As Ellen Condliffe Lagemann points out, research universities quickly became the leaders in creating and disseminating new knowledge, the professionalization of many professions and they became the “spawning grounds” for research on education at the end of the nineteenth century.[7] During this time period, there was a belief that the social world could be “acted on and changed through scientific practices …and that teaching and the social welfare professions embodied scientific analysis and planning.”[8] The restructuring of higher education in the United States from a focus on teaching to a new focus that included both teaching and research activities lead to new schools of thought and approaches to science. Professors at universities were now expected to teach and to plan and conduct original research.[9] Numerous pioneers of American education began their work and research in the major research institutions of the day. Perhaps one of the most well known of these scholars was John Dewey, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago from 1896 to 1904, who introduced a new approach to the study of education and became a leader in pedagogy. Dewey’s experimental Laboratory School was based more on psychology than on behaviorism which had long influenced educational research activities.[10] John Dewey’s progressive education philosophy opposed testing and curriculum tracking and relied more on argument than on scientific research and its evidence.[11] He worked to combine philosophy, psychology and education. Surprisingly, John Dewey never proposed future areas of inquiry or suggested future research directions in his writings and he never published any evidence on the effects his Laboratory School experiment had on children.[12] Dewey’s influence on educational practice outside of his Laboratory School was quite limited and overestimated.[13] Ellen Condliffe Lagemann summed up John Dewey’s legacy on educational research as follows: “to suggest that Dewey had served as something of a cultural icon, alternatively praised and damned by thinkers on both the right and left, might capture his place in the history of education more accurately than to say he was important as a reformer. Certainly, his ideas about a science of education did not create a template for educational study.”[14] In 1904, John Dewey left the University of Chicago for Teachers College at Columbia University where he remained as a professor of Philosophy until his death in 1952.

Within five years of John Dewey’s departure, Charles Judd arrived in 1909 to serve as Chair of the School of Education at the University of Chicago. Charles Judd differed substantially from John Dewey in his approach to educational research. Charles Judd, a psychologist, sought to bring a rigorous and scientific approach to the study of education. Judd was a proponent of the scientific method and worked to integrate it into educational research. This was evidenced by the University of Chicago’s School of Education reorganization into the Department of Education within the Division of the Social Sciences shortly after Judd’s arrival on campus. Judd’s preference for quantitative data collection and analysis and his emphasis on the scientific method, with a particular focus on psychology, was one of the leading schools of thought on educational research during the early decades of the twentieth century.

In 1904, the same year that John Dewey left the University of Chicago for Teachers College at Columbia University, the psychologist Edward Thorndike, also of Teachers College, published An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements which argued for a strong positivistic theoretical approach to educational research. Thorndike held a similar epistemological approach to the study of education to that of Charles Judd at Chicago. Thorndike favored the separation of philosophy and psychology. He did not care for the collection of data for census purposes but rather the production of statistics and precise measurements that could be analyzed. Thorndike became a very influential educational scholar and his approach to educational research was widely accepted and adopted across academia both in the United States and abroad.[15] What Ellen Condliffe Lagemann describes as “Edward Thorndike’s triumph and John Dewey’s defeat” was critical to the field and to attempts to define an educational science.[16]

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND THE INTER-WAR YEARS

The inter-war years were a time of transformation in educational research. By 1915, the study of education had been established at the university level with 300 of the 600 institutions of higher education in the United States offering courses on education. This time period also experienced an increase at the doctoral level of study which saw enrollments higher than any other discipline other than chemistry.[17] While faculty at institutions such as Harvard, Teachers College and the University of Chicago, which had dominated the educational research landscape decades earlier, continued to make significant contributions to the study of education, there were scholars at many other institutions making additional valuable contributions to educational research scholarship. At the conclusion of World War I the focus on educational reform in the United States began to change to a more social control and efficiency and there was an opportunity for many educationists to provide guidance to public schools in the United States.[18] Disagreement among educational research scholars persisted during this time period and there was little consensus on the aims of education. With the population of the United States growing rapidly and the demographic make-up of its people changing due to the arrival of immigrants from across the globe coupled with the migration of African Americans from rural areas and the Southern states to the urban cities in the Northeast and Midwest the student bodies at public schools were diversifying at a rapid pace. The arrival of new immigrants to the United States coincided with the “testing movement” that emerged during World War I when the United States Army was testing its recruits. The most prominent psychologists of the time, including Edward Thorndike, were either involved with or supported the Army’s testing. The testing movement attracted both psychologists and sociologists alike and it was the sociologists, primarily in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, who challenged and actively researched the racial differences in intelligence quotients. Otto Klineberg from Columbia University also played a leading role in studying racial and cultural differences in intelligence quotients and their measures.

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH – POST WORLD WAR II AND THE FUTURE

Educational research continued to flourish in the years and decades after World War II ended. During this time period, the growth in schools of education and in the number of courses on education at institutions of higher education continued to rise. Additionally, more academic journals with a focus on educational issues emerge as a means to disseminate new knowledge. These exciting changes in educational scholarship were not confined to the ivory towers in the United States. Even as Europe was rebuilding, the study of education across the continent was on the rise and in the United Kingdom, for example, the rise of professional graduate degrees in education was significant.[19] Scholarly debates on the aims of education as well as epistemological discourse persisted.

In the decades after World War II, and in particular at the start of the 1960’s, a post-positivist movement in educational research starts taking shape.[20] While positivistic approaches to educational research continued to be put forth during the post-war years and continued to be favored by many social scientists, we start to see the introduction of, and in some case the reemergence of, other epistemological approaches.[21] Constructivism, functionalism and postmodernism theoretical frameworks, among others, have offered strong criticisms of positivism.[22] Vigorous debates on the virtues of the various theoretical perspectives about knowledge, science and methodologies have played a very important role in educational research. Frequently, these critical discussions and analyses have found both a platform and a captive audience in the field of comparative education. These philosophical debates continue today both in and outside of academia.

The United States federal government also began to take a much more active role in educational research in the post-war years. Specifically, in 1954, the United States Congress passed the Cooperative Research Act. The Cooperative Research Act was passed as a means for the federal government to take a more active role in advancing and funding research on education in academia.[23] Additional legislation and federal initiatives during the 1950’s and 1960’s that supported and/or funded educational research and provided a means for the dissemination of new educational knowledge included the National Defense Education Act of 1958 and the establishment of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) in 1966. These are but a few of the many examples of the new role the federal government was playing in educational research during this time period. To be sure, the federal government has continued to play a significant role in educational research since this time period. Since the 1970’s, according to Robert Travers, “virtually every bill authorizing particular educational programs has included a requirement that the particular program be evaluated to determine whether the program was worth the money spent upon it.”[24] For a long period of time, public focus on education and schools focused on resource allocation, student access, and the content of the curriculum and paid relatively little attention to results.[25] This new “evidenced-based movement”[26] is one that remains with us today. Patti Lather describes the evidenced-based movement as “governmental incursion into legislating scientific method in the real of educational research” and that the federal government’s focus on evidence-based knowledge is much more about policy for science than it is about science for policy.[27] The federal government has a vested interest in and support for “applied research” over “basic or pure research”. This, of course, is challenging for social scientists and educational researchers who are positivist in their approach to science and knowledge.[28]

A distinctive form of research emerged from the new assessment or evaluation movement in recent decades. Educational assessment, in many ways, is a form of “action research”.[29] Action research does not aim to produce new knowledge. Instead, action research aims to improve practice and in the context of education it aims to improve the educational practice of teachers.[30] Action research, as Richard Pring points out, “might be supported and funded with a view to knowing the most effective ways of attaining particular goals – goals or targets set by government or others external to the transaction which takes place between teacher and learner.”[31] Action research proponents, Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba, highlight that “the call for action…differentiates between positivist and postmodern criticalist theorists.”[32]
A new and interesting approach to educational research can be found today at the University of Chicago. The Department of Education at the University of Chicago was closed in 1997 to much surprise around the world. Despite the closing of the Department of Education, a sprinkling of educational research activities by faculty and available education course offerings can be found in a variety of academic departments and professional schools. In addition, the University of Chicago has also operated the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School under the Center for Urban School Improvement since 1998. Campus interest in urban schools and educational research led to the creation of a new Committee on Education in 2005, with a home in the Division of the Social Sciences, chaired by Stephen Radenbusch who joined the faculty in the Department of Sociology and whom the University lured from the School of Education at the University of Michigan. The University of Chicago Chronicle highlighted the arrival of Stephen Radenbusch and noted that the Committee on Education “will bring together distinguished faculty from several departments and schools considered to be among the best in the world into common research projects, seminars and training programs. The committee will engage faculty and graduate students from such areas as public policy, sociology, social service administration, economics, business, mathematics and the sciences to collaborate on the most critical issues affecting urban schools.”[33] The interdisciplinary focus of Chicago’s Committee on Education and its Urban Education Initiative plans to create a “Chicago Model” for urban schools that will “draw on and test the best ideas about teaching, learning, school organization, school governance, teacher preparation, and social service provision.”[34] While interdisciplinary research and collaboration is no stranger to the University of Chicago, it is a new and innovative approach to the study of education. The Committee on Education at the University of Chicago is highly quantitatively driven and data focused.[35] If this interdisciplinary approach to educational research is successful and is modeled by other institutions of higher education, both in the United States and abroad, it will be interesting to see if a positivistic approach similar to that found at Chicago is followed or if a more relativistic approach is pursued. Either way, interdisciplinary collaboration may very well be the next chapter in the history of educational research.

CONCLUSION

From its inception, educational research has been a subject of debate. Educational research has grown significantly over time and the variety of theoretical approaches that have been implemented in the research has diversified greatly over time. This essay identified many, but certainly not all, of the key transformations in educational research from the late nineteenth century to present day. Also, this essay is not an attempt to recommend one theoretical approach over another in the study and research of education. Rather, it is an attempt to provide a brief history of the types of educational research efforts and to highlight the epistemological debates that have occurred during this time period.

REFERENCES

Bowen, J. 1981. A History of Western Education; Volume III: The Modern West. London: Methuen.

Cohen, D.K, and C.A. Barnes. 1999. “Research and the Purposes of Education,” in Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lagemann and L.S. Shulman, 17-41. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Committee on Education. 2008. The Role of the Committee on Education. Chicago:
The Committee on Education, University of Chicago. http://coe.uchicago.edu/about/index.shtml.

Fuchs, E. 2004. Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Educational Congresses in the early twentieth Century. Pedagogica Historica 40, no. 5: 757 784.

Greenwood, D.J., and M. Levin. 2003. “Reconstructing the Relationships between Universities and Society through Action Research” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and
Yvonna S. Lincoln, 131-166. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Hamilton, D. 2002. ‘Noisy Fallible and Biased Though it be” (On the Vagaries of Educational Research). British Journal of Educational Studies 50, no. 1: 144 164.

Harms, W. 2005. “Radenbusch to Chair New Committee on Education,” The University of Chicago Chronicle. May 26. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050526/raudenbush.shtml.

Hofstetter, R. and B. Schneuwly. 2004. Introduction Educational Sciences in Dynamic and Hybrid Institutionalization. Pedagogica Historia 40, no. 5: 569-589.

Kliebard, H.M. 1986. The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Lagemann, E.C. 2000. An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Lather, P. 2004. Scientific Research in Education: A Critical Perspective. British Educational Research Journal 30, no. 6: 759-772.

Lincoln, Y.S., and E.G. Guba. 2003. “Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 253-291. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Popkewitz, T.S. 1998. The Culture of Redemption and the Administration of Freedom as Research. Review of Educational Research 68, no. 1: 1-34.

Pring, R. 2000. Philosophy of Educational Research, 2nd ed. New York: Continuum.

Suskie, L. 2004. Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc.

Travers, R.M.W. 1983. How Research Has Changed American Schools: A History from 1840 to the Present. Kalamazoo, MI: Mythos Press.

NOTES

[1] Travers, R.M.W. How Research Has Changed American Schools: A History from 1840 to the Present. Kalamazoo, MI: Mythos Press, 1983), 7.
[2] Ibid, 7-8.
[3] Bowen, J. A History of Western Education; Volume III: The Modern West. (London: Methuen, 1981), 360.
[4] Ibib, 21.
[5] Both Stanford and The University of Chicago were founded in 1891.
[6] The Morrill Act of 1862 is sometimes referred to as the Morrill Land Grant College Act .
[7] Lagemann, E.C. An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 9; Hofstetter, R. and B. Schneuwly. Introduction Educational Sciences in Dynamic and Hybrid Institutionalization. (Pedagogica Historia 40, no. 5, 2004), 571.
[8] Popkewitz, T.S. The Culture of Redemption and the Administration of Freedom as Research. (Review of Educational Research 68, no. 1, 1998), 4-5.
[9] Lagemann, 19.
[10] Ibid, 21.
[11] Cohen, D.K, and C.A. Barnes. “Research and the Purposes of Education,” in Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lageman and L.S. Shulman. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999), 19.
[12] Ibid, 20.
[13] Kliebard, H.M. The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 31.
[14] Lagemann, 42.
[15] Fuchs, E. Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Educational Congresses in the early twentieth Century. Pedagogica Historica 40, no. 5, 2004, 773; Lagemann, 42.
[16] Lagemann, 22.
[17] Ibid, 20 and 103.
[18] Ibid, 20; Travers, 351.
[19] Hamilton, D. ‘Noisy Fallible and Biased Though it be” (On the Vagaries of Educational Research). British Journal of Educational Studies 50, no. 1, 2002, 145.
[20] Ibid, 160.
[21] Ibid, 159-160.
[22] Pring, R. Philosophy of Educational Research, 2nd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2000), 90; Greenwood, D.J., and M. Levin. “Reconstructing the Relationships Between Universities and Society Through Action Research” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2003) 143-144.
[23] Lagemann, 184-186; Travers, 532-534.
[24] Travers, 539.
[25] Cohen, D.K, and C.A. Barnes. “Research and the Purposes of Education,” in Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lagemann and L.S. Shulman, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999), 29
[26] The “evidence-based movement” is also sometimes referred to as the “accountability movement” or the “evaluation movement”.
[27] Lather, P. "Scientific Research in Education: A Critical Perspective". British Educational Research Journal 30, no. 6, 2004), 759.
[28] Greenwood and Levin, 145.
[29] Suskie, L. Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide. (Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2004), 8.
[30] Pring, 133-136.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Lincoln, Y.S., and E.G. Guba. “Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2003), 268.
[33] Harms, W. 2005. “Radenbusch to Chair New Committee on Education,” The University of Chicago Chronicle. May 26. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050526/raudenbush.shtml.
[34] Committee on Education. 2008. The Role of the Committee on Education. Chicago: The Committee on Education, University of Chicago. http://coe.uchicago.edu/about/index.shtml.
[35] Stephen Radenbusch is known as quantitative methodologist and he is an expert on hierarchical linear models.

Growth of Research on U.S. Students Abroad

One of my main interests/activities in the field of international education has been compiling annotated bibliographies on a variety of topics and primarily on U.S. students studying abroad. All of my bibliographies are available on my consulting website here. Five years ago I decided to count and chart the number of research based articles, reports, books and presentations per decade found on the three main annotated bibliographies focusing on research on U.S. students abroad which you can access here. The following chart shows the steady increase in research based literature on U.S. students abroad from 1950 through 2003.

I’m slowly working on updates to my bibliography work in this area as well as creating new bibliographies including one on international education and public diplomacy/soft power. I’m also researching and searching for more international education literature from the late 1800’s up to the start of World War II. I’m finding some very interesting pieces from this time period and it is largely unknown to both colleagues and researchers in the field that I communicate with. Additionally, I believe that there are still many pieces of literature from the 1950’s and 1960’s (and possibly into the 1970’s) that are waiting to be discovered. I plan to eventually update the chart above as I discover new resources but it will be in several years. For now, I stand by my review and count as documented in the chart above!

On a related note…back on July 24, 2008 I posted to IHEC Blog on what I believe to be the first research study on outcomes of study abroad conducted by Roxana Holden and published in 1934. Holden analyzed statistics and statements from alumni participants of the first ten years of the Junior Year Abroad programs. You can read more of my post entitled “First Research Study on Outcomes of Study Abroad” here.

If anyone knows of any older research or avenues I should pursue in my quest to locate historical literature on international education please contact me...I want to hear from you!

Notes:
[1] Data for the chart was compiled from a review of the three main research bibliographies on study abroad (U.S. students). Weaver, Henry D. (Ed.). Research on U.S. Students Abroad: A Bibliography with Abstracts. (Council on International Educational Exchange; Education Abroad Program, University of California; Institute of International Education; and National Association of Foreign Student Affairs, 1989); Chao, Maureen. (Ed.) Research on U.S. Students Abroad, Volume II, A Bibliography with Abstracts 1989–2000. (NAFSA: Association of International Educators/SECUSSA (Section on U.S. Students Abroad) 2001); and, Comp, David. (Ed.). Research on U.S. Students Abroad, Volume III, 2001 to 2003 with Updates to the 1989 and Volume II Editions. (Loyola Marymount University, 2005).
[2] The 2000-2003 total includes research identified through May, 2003. A conservative estimate is that by the end of 2009 there may well be over 1,000 research-based articles, reports, books and presentations on U.S. study abroad.

Very Early Years of Standards of Good Practice in U.S. Study Abroad Programs

As many IHEC Blog readers know, I’m very interested in the history of international educational exchange with a primary focus on mobility of students and scholars to and from the United States. I recently came across some of my research notes for my chapter “Assessment of and Standards for Study Abroad” that I co-authored for the forthcoming book A History of Study Abroad: 1965 to Present and thought I would share this very short piece on the early stages in developing standards of good practice for U.S. study abroad programs:

In the immediate years after World War II, colleges and universities in the United States that previously halted their junior year abroad programs began to revive their programs and started to establish new junior year abroad program offerings. Under the leadership of the Institute of International Education, a joint institutional collaborative effort to revive junior year abroad programming was initiated in 1945 and the first meeting of the “General Junior Year Committee” met on October 10, 1945. (Hoffa, 2007, p. 159) The committee, renamed the “Council on the Junior Year Abroad”, then held annual meetings for several years to “review the various programs and establish policies on recognition, criteria and academic standards.” (Bowman, 1987, p. 15) During the early 1950’s the Social Science Research Council, funded by the U.S. Government, carried out the first series of studies in the field. These studies were primarily evaluative research studies and they intended to illustrate the best way to conduct exchange programs. (Bowman, 1968, p. 177)

Bowman, J.E. (1968). Research in Educational Exchange Problems-Step One: Defining Our Problem., CIEE Occasional Paper on International Educational Exchange No. 14, New York: Council on International Educational Exchange.

Bowman, J.E. (1987). Educating American Undergraduates Abroad: The Development of Study Abroad Programs by American Colleges and Universities. New York: Council on International Educational Exchange.

Hoffa, W.W. (2007). A History of US Study Abroad: Beginnings to 1965. A Special Publication of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad and The Forum on Education Abroad.

I find it fascinating that colleges and universities in the United States acted so quickly to reestablish and develop new junior year abroad programs so quickly after the end of World War II. I was equally impressed that the field of international education collaborated to establish the “General Junior Year Committee” and later the “Council on the Junior Year Abroad” that focused, in part, on standards of good practice.

If anyone knows where documents (reports, meeting minutes, photos, notes or other documents of interest) from these committees are housed I would love to hear from you!

UC San Diego Extension Researches Global Volunteer Service

My recent research efforts lead me to an interesting summary of a survey conducted by the University of California San Diego Extension on global volunteer service. I have not read the full report (as I can’t find it available in PDF format online) so I am simply copying and pasting below the most interesting findings from the UC San Diego Extension press releases that I found.

“Two-thirds of high school students and about half of the college students surveyed say they have participated in discussions in the past year related to traveling to other regions to provide volunteer service, whereas less than half of the adult population, and only one-quarter of retirees, say they have done so.”

“About 40 percent of Americans say they're willing to spend several weeks on vacations that involve volunteer service, with another 13 percent desiring to spend an entire year.”

“Overall, the survey found that over two-thirds (69 percent) of Americans have participated in donating money or time to a global cause, up from the 48 percent in a spring 2008 poll conducted by UC San Diego Extension.”

“While 26 percent of Generation Y want to hop on a plane and help out in Africa or Europe, about 36 percent of retirees and baby boomers would choose staying in North America for their volunteer vacations.”

The overall top ten international desired destinations for volunteering are:

1. Africa (17%)

2. East Asia (12%)

3. South America (9%)

4.(tie) Mexico (8%)

4.(tie) Western Europe (8%)

6. Eastern Europe (7%)

7. Central America (6%)

8. Pacific islands (5%)

9. Australia (4%)

10. Middle East (3%)

You can access the UC San Diego Extension press releases and other articles relating to this research here.

Fellowship/Scholarship Resources for International Students in the U.S.

The following is a short but growing list of fellowship/scholarship resources available for international students who are currently or are planning to study in the United States. If you have or know of any resources that should be added to this list please e-mail me at international.ed.consulting@gmail.com.

Institutional Fellowship/Scholarship Resources for International Students

Brooklyn College
http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/1302.htm

Drexel University
http://www.drexel.edu/fellowships/search/noncitizen.html

Georgetown University
http://www12.georgetown.edu/sfs/cges/docs/Aid_for_Non-US_Citizens.pdf

Grinnell College
http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/SocialCommitment/awards/internationalstudentopps/

Ohio State University
http://oia.osu.edu/content/view/136/212/

University of Iowa
http://research.uiowa.edu/dsp/main/?get=internat_students_funding

University of Missouri
http://fellowships.missouri.edu/internationals.html

Willamette University
http://www.willamette.edu/dept/saga/national/non_us.html

Non- institutional Fellowship/Scholarship Resources for International Students

Fellowships for Non-U.S. Citizens by Mobility International USA (MIUSA)
http://www.miusa.org/ncde/financialaid/fellow

Financial Aid for Undergraduate International Students by NAFSA: Association of International Educators
http://www.nafsa.org/students.sec/financial_aid_for_undergraduate

Funding for U.S. Study by the Institute of International Education (IIE)
http://www.fundingusstudy.org/

International Education Financial Aid
http://www.iefa.org/

Selected Funding Opportunities Open to Non-US Citizens by Camille Stillwell for the National Association of Fellowship Advisers (NAFA)
http://www.ltsc.ucsb.edu/urca/scholarships/SelectedFundingSourcesNon-US.pdf

As I learn of new resources I will be adding to this document which is available on my International Higher Education Consulting website here.

IHEC Blog is Going on Vacation - Until Next Week

I'm heading out of the office for a short vacation over this holiday weekend with my wife and kids to visit family in Door County, Wisconsin. I would like to say we will be getting a little R&R but with three very young children this will not be the case. I am looking forward to turning another year older on the 4th...

IHEC Blog and Twitter posts will be inactive until next Monday or Tuesday when I return to the chaos that is life in Chicago! Door County, in case you were wondering, is a most beautiful part of Wisconsin and it is the Cape Cod of the Midwest. You can learn more about Door County here.

Call for Applications: Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies MOVE Postdoctoral Grant in Mobility Studies

I was alerted to the following opportunity from the June 29-July 3, 2009 issue of IIE.Interactive Newsletter. The Swill Forum for Migration and Population Studies has announced a call for applications for the MOVE Postdoctoral Grant in Mobility Studies. I have copied and pasted information below directly from IIE.Interactive about the MOVE Postdoctoral Grant in Mobility Studies it provides an excellent summary about this unique opportunity:

Call for applications: Post-Doctoral Grant (70%) in Mobility Studies
Deadline: August 30, 2009

MOVE is the Swiss interdisciplinary network for mobility studies, linking the universities of Neuchâtel (leading house), Berne, Lausanne, and Zürich. In addition to having created the Swiss Chair for Mobility Studies (a visiting professorship), MOVE offers four grants for post-doctoral studies on topics related to the mobility of persons, ideas, goods and institutions. Three post-doc research fellows have already been appointed and are working on issues related to the mobility of migrants (Bern), health practices (Zürich), and urban forms (Neuchâtel). The candidate who will be awarded the grant offered in the present call will be based at the University of Lausanne to conduct research on the mobility of higher education programmes and institutions, also called transnational or cross-border education.

The position starts in autumn/winter 2009-2010 (no later than January 2010).

Research area

While the mobility of students crossing national boundaries is not a new phenomenon, the globalising education industry relies today upon additional forms of cross-border education such as "programme mobility" and "institutional mobility." The mobility of educational models and institutions has indeed been fast increasing since the turn of the millennium, most notably with the opening of branch campuses of international universities in the Asia-Pacific and Middle Eastern regions. This trend, alongside the intensifying movement of students, academic staff and curricula across borders, is both a response to, and a constitutive dimension of, globalisation. Given the mounting significance that an educated human workforce has for economic development in the current knowledge economy, such tendencies are expected to continue, especially in response to the needs for enhanced educational standards in the fast-growing developing economies of Asia and the Middle East.

Candidates with an interest and experience in this or a closely related field are invited to apply. In addition to carrying out his/her own research, the successful applicant will supervise and monitor two doctoral students working on the transnationalization of academic institutions. Given the current prominence of this phenomenon in Gulf countries, some knowledge of that region would constitute an advantage.

For more information, including duties and application procedures, please contact Dr. Peter Voll at peter.voll@unine.ch or visit: www.migration-population.ch/page27832.html.

The African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE)

During my recent research efforts I came across the website of The African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE). ANIE is a relatively new independent, non-profit and non-governmental network/organization created to improve the international dimension of African higher education. According to ANIE’s website, the main objectives of the network are as follows:

* To contribute to the development and understanding of internationalization of higher education in Africa through high impact research projects and publications

* To inform policy decisions related to the international dimension of higher education in Africa with high quality research evidence

* To build/strengthen and sustain Africa’s research capacity on internationalization of higher education

To achieve these objectives, the network brings together African scholars to take the lead in developing priority research programs and enhancing use of research findings for policy formulation and policy development in the African higher education sector.

You can link to the ANIE website here. Additionally, ANIE will be holding their first annual conference on September 3-4, 2009 with “Trends, Challenges and Realities of Internationalization of Higher Education in Africa” as the theme. You can learn more about the ANIE conference here.