Research in Comparative
and International Education

ISSN 1745-4999

Volume 4 Number 2 2009

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

Editorial, page 124
Robyn Iredale, Carmen Voigt-Graf & Siew-Ean Khoo. Teacher Migration to and from Australia & New Zealand, and the Place of Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu Teachers, pages 125‑140
Brad K. Mazon. Creating the Cosmopolitan US Undergraduate: study abroad and an emergent global student profile, pages 141‑150
Nitza Davidovitch & Yaacov Iram. The Struggle for Legitimacy: academic colleges on the map of higher education in Israel, pages 151‑163
Brenda J. McMahon & David Zyngier. Student Engagement: contested concepts in two continents, pages 164‑181
Ararat L. Osipian. ‘Feed from the Service’: corruption and coercion in state-university relations in Central Eurasia, pages 182‑203
Müge Ayan Ceyhan. Vacillating between Opposing Conceptions of Personhood: individualism and conformism in Turkish educational practices, pages 204‑210
Hulya Kosar Altinyelken. Educational Challenges of Internal Migrant Girls: a case study among primary school children in Turkey, pages 211‑228

Editorial

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.124

Last year one of the founding members of the editorial board of Research in Comparative and International Education, Tony Sweeting, died after a long struggle with illness. From the start he was a very enthusiastic supporter of RCIE, and he will be greatly missed by those of us who worked closely with him in the journal’s early stages and by his colleagues around the world who appreciated his scholarship, good humour, and friendly demeanour towards everyone with whom he came into contact.

Antje Barabasch of the University of Magdeburg has joined the international advisory board of RCIE and is planning a thematic issue for 2010, the details of which will be announced shortly. Later this year (RCIE 4[3]) we shall publish a thematic issue on inclusive education, and for 2010 we are planning an issue on the evaluation of higher education. The editorial board is keen to receive proposals for future thematic issues to be included from early 2011 onwards, and of course we are always glad to consider papers for the two general issues published each year. The board is particularly interested in papers from young scholars whose work has a bearing on methodological issues in comparative and international education, as well as papers reporting research findings.

David Phillips

Teacher Migration to and from Australia and New Zealand, and the Place of Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu Teachers

ROBYN IREDALE Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
CARMEN VOIGT-GRAF University of the South Pacific/Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
SIEW-EAN KHOO Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.125

The international mobility of teachers is gaining increased attention as particular developing countries become significant sources of supply for more developed countries that have shortages. Most attention so far has focused on Africa’s contribution to the United Kingdom workforce. This article examines the patterns of teacher migration for Australia and New Zealand generally, with the aim of providing a context within which to view Pacific Island teacher mobility. Australia and New Zealand are potentially important as destinations for Pacific Island teachers, as sources of teachers to these countries and as partners in the development process, which involves the training and support of teachers. Three quite different cases, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu, are used as examples to begin to understand what is happening in the Pacific. While Vanuatu has little international mobility of teachers, Fiji does experience quite an outflow but this is mainly linked to the political instability which has racked the country since the 1980s. The Cook Islands is quite unique in its overall level of out-migration but the outflow of teachers is not a significant issue. Neither Australia nor New Zealand recruit explicitly from these three countries but they do benefit from the inflow of small numbers of teachers in their general migration programs.

Creating the Cosmopolitan US Undergraduate: study abroad and an emergent global student profile

BRAD K. MAZON Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, University at Buffalo, USA

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.141

Undergraduates in the USA bring to college a wide array of backgrounds, resources, and supports that make it more or less likely that they will participate in study abroad during their undergraduate career. This study investigates the experiences of undergraduates who have studied abroad, as well as the elements that facilitate the study abroad experience. The data suggests that students must overcome a number of constraints in order to study abroad. While the paths to study abroad are divergent, a number of common individual and institutional factors affect students’ likelihood for successful participation in a study abroad experience while at college. The data indicate that students must have at their disposal the necessary tools to overcome significant hurdles to study abroad. Institutions of higher education play a crucial role in facilitating not only the study abroad process itself, but also the pre-existing mindset, goals, and sense of agency that students possess in order to take advantage of study abroad opportunities.

The Struggle for Legitimacy: academic colleges on the map of higher education in Israel

NITZA DAVIDOVITCH Ariel University Center of Samaria, Israel YAACOV IRAM Bar Ilan University, Israel

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.151

This article addresses a unique relationship evolving between the two major categories of higher learning institutions in Israel: the country’s universities, and the colleges that were established in their shadow. The history of higher education is outlined, stressing the initial dominance of the research universities, and explaining the gradual transformation of its elitist orientation into a more populist one. The article further explains how that transformation led to the establishment of colleges as affiliates of their ‘parent’ universities, functioning under their full supervision, describing how that model eventually led the Council for Higher Education (CHE) to encourage (in 2000) the development of non-university higher education institutions to secure equal opportunities to broad groups of population. The article goes on to analyze the methods of curricula and teaching development in the colleges, touching upon the development of graduate programs in non-university institutions. It concludes that the initial intention of the CHE to establish a dual system of research universities and popular colleges is developing into a monistic system following the research university concept and model.

Student Engagement: contested concepts in two continents

BRENDA J. MCMAHON Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA
DAVID ZYNGIER Education Faculty, Monash University, Victoria, Australia

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.164

The challenge of student engagement has been recognised as a serious issue in both Australian and Canadian education. This empirical and qualitative study seeks to understand the experiences of two groups of students; the first beginning their high school years and the second reflecting back on successful university and less than successful high school experiences. Students are traditionally objectified and omitted from the discourse on student engagement. Providing a forum for student voice in both continents, we compare and contrast the various and sometimes contested understandings of what an authentic or generative student engagement might mean for both school leadership and classroom practice. Adopting a critical pedagogical perspective, this descriptive article seeks to compare answers to the following question: How is engagement defined and enacted by students within these different environments?

‘Feed from the Service’: corruption and coercion in state–university relations in Central Eurasia

ARARAT L. OSIPIAN Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.182

Education in Central Eurasia has become one of the services most affected by corruption. Corruption in academia, including bribery, extortion, embezzlement, nepotism, fraud, cheating, and plagiarism, is reflected in the region’s media and addressed in a few scholarly works. This article considers corruption in higher education as a product of interrelations between the government and academia. A substantial block of literature considers excessive corruption as an indicator of a weak state. In contrast to standard interpretations, this article argues that in non-democratic societies corruption is used on a systematic basis as a mechanism of direct and indirect administrative control over higher education institutions. Informal approval of corrupt activities in exchange for loyalty and compliance with the regime may be used in the countries of Central Eurasia for the purposes of political indoctrination. This paper presents the concept of corruption and coercion in the state-university relations in Central Eurasia and outlines the model which incorporates this concept and the ‘feed from the service’ approach. It presents implications of this model for the state-university relations and the national educational systems in Central Eurasia in general and offers some suggestions on curbing corruption.

Vacillating between Opposing Conceptions of Personhood: individualism and conformism in Turkish educational practices

MÜGE AYAN CEYHAN Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.204

Based on one and a half years of participant observation at Bakış School, this article aims to explore two different sets of educational practices, one which seemingly promotes sameness, obedience and conformity, and the other difference, entrepreneurialism and individualism. By way of discussing the shifting cultural values, beliefs and lifestyles in Turkey as a result of post-1980 capitalist modernization, this article provides an account of the way in which larger macro forces impact the classroom values and educational practices in Bakış School. The ethnographic evidence indicates that teachers were far from fully comprehending the concept of the individual the school aims to promote, and therefore vacillated between opposing perceptions of personhood. From the point of view of comparative education research, this article argues that long-term participant observation provides us with intricate data, and clearly reveals the difficulties of putting educational reforms into practice in cases where the underlying philosophy is not fully comprehended, or maybe even desired by the recipient society.

Educational Challenges of Internal Migrant Girls: a case study among primary school children in Turkey

HULYA KOSAR ALTINYELKEN Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies (AMIDSt), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

doi:10.2304/rcie.2009.4.2.211

This article seeks to investigate education-related challenges encountered by internal migrant girls studying at primary schools in Turkey. From the perspectives of participants, the emerging themes included adaptation, language, low socio-economic status, peer relations, discrimination and bullying. These challenges seem to have direct or indirect influence on academic achievement, school belonging, integration within the new social environment and self-esteem. The findings indicate that internal migrant girls are among the most disadvantaged children, since not only migration experience but also low socio-economic status and gender bias put them at risk of educational underachievement. Their educational challenges need to be acknowledged and taken into consideration by policy makers and educators to make sure that schools are capable of guaranteeing equal educational opportunities for all.

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