The following videos from our 2018-2020 Brown Bag Series are available on our OISE YouTube channel:
- How International Tests Distort Education Policy Worldwide, presented by Dr. Martin Carnoy (January 9, 2020)
- Literacy and language instructional practices with immigrant-origin youth in the U.S., presented by Dr. Carrie Symons (November 5, 2019)
- International Students’ Education Research in the U.S., presented by a panel of doctoral students from the MSU College of Education (February 6, 2019)
- Democracy of the Dead: Dewey, Confucius, and Intercultural Philosophical Dialogue, presented by Dr. Kyle Greenwalt (October 30, 2018)
- Conducting an International Job Search, presented by Dr. Charles Mathies (October 25, 2018)
- Conducting and Funding International Research, presented by a panel of doctoral students from the MSU College of Education (September 25, 2018)
Below are videos and podcasts from a select number of OISE hosted events from previous years. Click on any of the following presentation titles or on the + signs to learn more and to access corresponding multimedia:
Research Talks
Publishing research in comparative education
Presenters: Presenters: Gail Richmond, Riyad Shahjahan and Brendan Cantwell
April 25, 2018
Abstract: This session is targeted mainly at graduate students but also open to the wider college community. We will learn about publishing strategies of international comparative work in the field of education. The three panelists, Dr. Gail Richmond (Co-editor of the Journal of Teacher Education), Dr. Riyad Shahjahan, and Dr. Brendan Cantwell (Co-editor for the international journal Higher Education) have strong experience in publishing and editing with highly ranked international journals. They will talk to us about their experience and give us strategic advice as well as being available for questions from the audience. Whether you are unsure about how to select journals for your international work, whether you are a publishing novice and curious about the different steps of publishing international comparative work, or whether you need advice how to prepare your international work properly for publication, you will benefit from this panel.
Playing to Learn: Integrating Development and Research in Rural Tanzania
Presenters: Maregesi Machumu and Bethany Wilinski
March 19, 2018
Abstract: In this talk we describe ongoing development work and research we are doing as part of the Tanzania Partnership Program (TPP), MSU’s interdisciplinary sustainable development project. We present a series of ongoing research and development projects that we have undertaken in response to the introduction of educational playgrounds at primary schools in TPP project villages. The overarching aim of these projects is to support teachers’ use of play-based learning in the primary and pre-primary grades and to develop a model for research-informed development and cross-cultural collaboration. Dr. Maregesi Machumu is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology and Curriculum Studies at Dar es Salaam University College of Education. His research interests are linking play and sports and learning, early literacy, curriculum development and professional development. Dr. Machumu has also worked with the Tanzania Partnership Programme as a partner and consultant in the construction of school playgrounds in Lindi and Arusha regions. Dr. Bethany Wilinski is an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at MSU. Wilinski draws on critical policy frameworks and employs ethnographic methods to study policy enactment in early childhood settings. In particular, she examines early childhood workforce issues and the lived experiences of pre- and in-service pre-kindergarten teachers in the U.S. and Tanzania. In addition to her domestic work, Wilinski studies pre-primary teacher education policy in Tanzania and leads projects for MSU’s Tanzania Partnership Program.
Can Sport Play a Role in African Youth Development?
Presenter: Leps Malete
March 13, 2018
Abstract: Many African countries are grappling with low academic achievement, low transition rates to college and high youth unemployment and related challenges of youth disaffection as well as high internal and global migration. This calls for innovation strategies that can enhance school outcomes and give youth skills and competencies they can use to thrive and construct novel socioeconomic pathways for themselves after school or college. The Alliance for African Partnership youth sport and entrepreneurship project is a 24-months sport-based, life-skills and entrepreneurship intervention program aimed at mitigating poor academic achievement, enhancing life skills and entrepreneurial tendencies in urban youths aged 15-19 years old. The project, which involves an international multidisciplinary team of researchers is currently being piloted in Botswana, Ghana and Tanzania. Guided by Positive Youth Development through sport and other frameworks from business entrepreneurship and community sustainability, the overall objective of the project is to enable youth to view themselves as entrepreneurs and agents of positive change. Participants are expected to: 1) Absorb Lessons from Sport Participation; 2) Develop Life-Skills 3) Learn Basic Entrepreneurship Skills. The experimental group receives an after school activity based life-skills, study skills and entrepreneurship curriculum. The control group goes through supervised sports. After 18 months all participants will be exposed to the intervention. Quantitative and qualitative methods including data reduction, descriptive statistics, and regression models will be used to address the hypothesized relationships. In addition to long-term tracking of participants, project partners in the participating countries are also exploring national youth funding programs for youth projects.
Network Analysis of Global Citizenship Attitudes
Presenters: Raphaela Schlicht-Schmälzle, Vohla Chykina, and Ralf Schmälzle
February 27, 2018
Abstract: Global citizenship, like all abstract concepts, is hard to define, operationalize, and measure. Previous efforts to clarify the concept of global citizenship refer to an ideology that is somewhat incompatible with an exclusive national identity. But how can citizenship attitudes and identity be studied? The recently proposed Causal Attitude Network model offers a new way to think about and study attitudes, suggesting that attitudes are represented as networks of causally connected evaluative reactions toward individual issues. In this model, individual nodes can influence each other, giving rise to a dynamic system of citizenship-related beliefs or attitudes. To examine this system, we apply network analysis to data from the European Values Study (EVS). Specifically, we investigate the network structure of 33 reactions to issues regarding citizenship, immigration, and national and international politics, finding a strongly connected network of issue-related attitudes. Community analysis identifies clusters of closely related items, but also connections between clusters that suggest that different attitudes form bridges between different aspects of global citizenship. Next, centrality analysis reveals attitudes that are strategically positioned in the network to have a strong influence on the broader belief system. A final simulation study derives hypotheses regarding how changes in single attitudes, for instance due to education or persuasion, may impact the overall citizenship identity. We conclude that network analysis can improve our understanding of the structure of citizenship ideology, its fuzziness and dynamics, and discuss future opportunities to study attitudes in the context of citizenship education.
High Participation Systems of Higher Education
Presenter: Brendan Cantwell
February 7, 2018
Abstract: Participation in higher education has swelled in every high and middle-income country in the world, and there is now a global tendency towards “high participation systems of higher education.” Since 2013, Brendan Cantwell has worked with Simon Marginson from the Institute of Education in London and Anna Smolentseva from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow on a wide-ranging project to understand the dynamics of high participation systems. The result of this work is an edited volume that will be published late in 2018 by Oxford University Press. The book, which includes contributions from 17 scholars working in 9 different countries, advances 17 propositions about the drivers of participation, system governance and structure, and social equity. Eight national case studies then examined the propositions. In this presentation, Brendan Cantwell will present the book’s overall findings and discuss the conceptual, methodological, and procedural considerations that went into developing this comparative research project.
Crafting Engaging Science Environments
Presenter: Barbara Schneider
January 17, 2018
Abstract: Recently, both the United States and Finland have developed new science standards that stress the value of instructional activities that are interesting, challenging, and relevant to students’ lives and futures. Of particular interest are the classroom messages and instructional tasks in classrooms that have discouraged women, underrepresented minorities, and individuals with special needs from pursuing careers in STEM fields. This project is a collaboration between researchers and teachers in the United States and Finland that uses the experience sampling method (ESM) delivered via smartphones and an innovative single-case design to test the effects of project-based learning on students’ situational social and emotional experiences. Working with teachers, we have developed six science units that are being tested and refined for eventual scale-up. Next year, a larger randomized field test will be conducted in which the intervention will be implemented in 40 classrooms in twenty treatment high schools, affecting nearly 2,000 students representing diverse backgrounds (with matched control populations). This work, from its design to implementation, is being jointly undertaken in Finnish schools with similarly aged students.