International and Comparative Education Commons^™

Retention Issues Of Mature Students: A Comparative Higher Education Analysis Of Programs In The United States And Ireland, Kim Bullington Sibson, Dr. Dennis Gregory, Brian-Patrick D. Kurisky

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Retention of students is an issue that challenges colleges and universities around the world and South Africa is no exception. A comparative look at Ireland and the United States shows that there are many similar tools used to retain mature students, and, at the same time, many different ones are used depending on particular situations. A brief retention literature review dealing with mature students is provided as well as examples of retention strategies used in both countries. While these strategies may not fit for South Africa, they may serve as a point of departure for similar activities there.

Sustaining Higher Learning, Benjamin Ashby Johnson

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Discovering The Potential Of Service Learning In Perugia, Italy: An Evaluation Of The Umbra Institute’S La Famiglia Italiana Project, Julie Falk

Capstone Collection

Today, American study abroad programs are increasingly shifting their focus to students’ community engagement efforts, one approach of which is service learning (Stone, 2008). Service learning principles and approach, however, are not always quickly and easily transported into other cultures. As an American pedagogical export, service learning in the study abroad context has the potential to overlook essential factors such as reciprocity, sustainability, and evaluation of student, faculty, and community partner experiences. This type of learning remains unexplored territory in many countries including Italy (Tosi, 2000). As the only American study abroad program of its kind in Perugia, Italy, The …

Rewriting The Upside Down World: A Reflective Curriculum To Provoke Perspective Transformation And Personal Development Among Ecuaexplora Participants, Katerine A. Mcconnell

Capstone Collection

Rewriting the Upside Down World is a reflective curriculum designed to foster perspective transformation and personal development among EcuaExplora participants. EcuaExplora (EcEx) is a volunteer, intern and study abroad organization that places participants in sustainable projects within its portfolio of health, environment and socio-economic development partners throughout Ecuador. EcEx recently expanded from its base in Guayaquil to include a broader network of Ecuadorian NGO partners in Quito and across the country. The widespread location of its project sites, often in remote areas of the jungle, Sierra and coastal regions, precludes one-on-one gatherings for reflection on participants´ experiences in the field. …

Hmgt 610: French Hospitality January-Term Abroad, Bradi Lenentine

Capstone Collection

January-term faculty-led courses abroad are a new initiative at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). As a former graduate of the hospitality management program, and now a graduate intern at the Center for International Education at UNH, I believe a January-term hospitality management class abroad is needed. Research focused on the purpose of January-term using NAFSA and IIE publications, and the hospitality management program‟s curriculum, mission and structure were examined. The research supported from an academic and financial viewpoint, a January-term hospitality management class abroad, to increase the accessibility of hospitality management students studying abroad. The paper is based on …

Building A Bridge: Customized Programs And First-Year Undergraduate Students, Deborah Lake

Capstone Collection

Vermont-based SIT Study Abroad is a service provider in over 40 countries offering study abroad programs to undergraduate students. New trends in the study abroad field have driven some of the focus of study abroad participation from the junior year abroad to first-year undergraduate students. While higher education institutions push for more students to study abroad, limited resources and the desire for a wider variety of program types lead them to third-party providers such as SIT Study Abroad. This capstone paper examines the new focus on first-year undergraduates and the necessity for SIT Study Abroad to offer customized programs to …

Reciprocity And Reflection: Creating An Evaluation Plan For Proworld Belize, Kelly Kocher

Capstone Collection

The evaluation plan for ProWorld Belize is intended to focus on the primary principles of service-learning, which include reciprocity between the community served and the service providers, as well as reflection on the interaction between the program participants and the community served. This plan aims to facilitate ProWorld’s mission to empower communities, promote social and economic development, conserve the environment, and cultivate educated compassionate global citizens, by addressing the needs for mutual relationships and intentional self-reflection in service-learning. This plan offers assessment tools for including community partners in the evaluation process of ProWorld Belize’s programs and for evaluating the cross-cultural …

Building A Global Village: Intercultural Communication For The International House At The College Of New Jersey, Stephanie Holleran

Capstone Collection

The International House (I-House) at The College of New Jersey plays an integral part in welcoming international exchange students to New Jersey and the United States. It is a venue for international students to live and interact with TCNJ students on a daily basis. However, in previous years, the programming for the International House residents has been sparse. A living-learning community must successfully marry living with learning to ensure that students gain the full benefits of living with students from around the world.

Building a Global Village is an intercultural communication supplement to the International House experience that begins to …

Perceptions Of Access To Education: Inclusion And Exclusion For Non-Karen Refugees In Mae La Camp, Matthew Gross

Capstone Collection

Mae La refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border is the largest of the seven “Karen” refugee camps in the area and is considered the center of education for refugees. Continued fighting inside Burma between the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the ethnic armies as well as the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis in 2008 have greatly altered the demographics in Mae La refugee camp. Perceptions of Access to Education: Inclusion and Exclusion for Non-Karen Refugees in Mae La Camp attempts to understand, through qualitative data, how non-Karen speaking refugees perceive their access to education. Is education in Mae …

Digital Storytelling: Enriching Reflection And Reentry For Princeton In Africa Fellowship Participants, Stephanie C. Hooper

Capstone Collection

Princeton in Africa’s digital storytelling reentry project was designed to fill gaps in reentry programming by encouraging returned fellowship participants to reflect on their experiences living and working in Africa and by helping them identify areas of personal growth and transformation. This project also aims to strengthen the connection Fellows feel to the Princeton in Africa community and their cohort of Fellows. The digital storytelling project will assist the organization with marketing, recruitment, attracting attention from potential partner organizations, engaging donors and other program needs. A pilot digital storytelling project took place at the end of the 2010-11 fellowship year …

International Student Orientation: Designing An On-Going Program For Soka University, Diana Ueda

Capstone Collection

The United States continues to host more international students than any other country in the world. Not surprisingly, universities in California hosted the largest number of international students with 94,279 (Open Doors, 2010). With more than 40 percent of its students consisting of international students, Soka University of America (SUA), located in Aliso Viejo, California, is one of the universities contributing to the influx of international students. As the number of international students increases, it becomes more crucial to have a structure in place to support these students, especially as they encounter many adjustment issues. Institutions can play a major …

A Mixed Methods Study Of How The Transition Process Impacts The Autonomy Of Pre-Service Secondary Mathematics Teachers, Linda Kasal Fusco

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This mixed methods study sought to identify the impact that transition into the practice of teaching had on the autonomy of pre-service secondary teachers of Mathematics.  It was based on the belief that a Mathematics teacher’s autonomy depended on: beliefs about Mathematics and how it was learned, reflections on the teaching practice, and social constraints of a secondary school culture. Data was collected between January 2009 and March 2010.  In Phase I (Quantitative) the participants (N = 30), selected from ten State University of New York teacher preparation colleges and universities, completed five instruments to quantify the three factors of …

Children‘S Protagonism At The Centro Cultural Da Criança: A Case Study, Claudia Protasio Ceccon

Dissertations

This dissertation provides a thick description and discussion of how child protagonism, participation and autonomy were implemented in an out of school center – The Children‘s Cultural Center – in a favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The researcher visited the center for more than two years, twice a week from February 2008 to June 2009, and once a week from June 2009 to July 2010. She conducted in-depth interviews with educators and children, recorded observation sessions in the activity rooms, and observed actualization sessions for educators and family days. This study describes the perspectives and expectations of the Center‘s …

Editor's Notes And Front Matter, Suzanne Majhanovich

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

No abstract provided.

Cosmopolitanism, Globalization And The Field Of Adolescent Literacy, Helen Harper, Thomas W. Bean, Judith Dunkerly

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

In this article we discuss the current nature and circumstances of cosmopolitanism and what it means to the field of adolescent literacy. Drawing on contemporary scholarship, cosmopolitanism is understood as: 1) the local experience or condition of globalization, what has been called ‘internal globalization,’ and, 2) as a disposition or sensibility that ensures productive and peaceful relations in light of globalization or any circumstance that creates dynamic and culturally diverse contexts. From a critical review of the key documents in the field, we argue that for many adolescents their lives and literacies now, and especially in the future, will be …

Learning In A Credit Crisis, Or A Crisis Of Credit? Microcredit Lending, The Grameen Bank, And Informal Learning, Robert Mcgray

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

Popular economic discourses have developed a lexicon which will often refer to economic downturns as a credit crisis. Kojin Karatani’s recent reworking of Marx’s analysis of the credit system however forces us to consider that credit itself may be the problem – a problem referred to here as the crisis of credit. This essay is a critical theoretical analysis of the way in which microcredit lending programs constrain informal learning so that people learn in a crisis of credit. After tracing the roots of microcredit to neoliberal gender reforms, I identify and critique three underlying justifications of the crisis of …

General Agreement On Trade In Services And Higher Education In China, Xiaobin Li, Linbin Zhao

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

The Chinese higher education system is the largest in the world. Having an understanding of the Chinese system helps to provide a better understanding of international education. This article discusses the commitments China has made under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), these commitments’ implications for Chinese higher education, and Chinese attitudes towards foreign education. It also discusses the recent development of international cooperation in Chinese higher education. Chinese are interested in learning from developed countries, the demand for higher education continues to grow in China, and most Chinese scholars believe internationalization is beneficial. Indications are Chinese higher …

Understanding Chinese International Students At A Canadian University: Perspectives, Expectations, And Experiences, Zuochen Zhang, George Zhou

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

The objective of this study was to understand perspectives, expectations, and experiences of Chinese international students studying in the graduate and undergraduate programs at a Canadian university, paying special attention to the challenges these students faced in the process of acculturation. Multiple data gathering techniques were used for the quantitative and qualitative data, including a survey questionnaire, individual interviews and focus group discussions. Findings related to the participants’ adjustment to the new environment include English language proficiency, previous education background, communication with other students, and understanding of the local culture. The study found that participants experienced various challenges in their …

Faculty Perceptions Of Chinese Graduate Students’ Communication Challenges In The Science And Engineering Disciplines, Jim Hu

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

This paper reports the findings of in-depth interviews with six science and engineering faculty members at a major Canadian university regarding their experiences with and perceptions of Mainland Chinese ESL graduate students’ challenges in using English in the disciplines. Results suggest great cultural and linguistic challenges of the students; however, helpful guidance and interactive feedback-based conferencing could lead to student progress. Nevertheless, the faculty longed for English and technical writing courses for ESL graduate students. The faculty did not perceive plagiarism to be a major issue among Chinese ESL graduate students and adopted an educational approach toward sporadic inappropriate textual …

Multiple Cultures, Multiple Literacies, And Collective Agencies: Chinese And Pakistani Immigrants’ Perceptions Of Family Literacy Support, Zheng Zhang, Nazia Bano

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

Challenging the deficit view of immigrant families’ roles in family literacy support, this study is situated in the multiliteracies theoretical framework, which celebrates marginalized, yet diverse, literacy practices in immigrant families. This study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to map diverse family literacy practices in Chinese and Pakistani families. It explores whether and how available educational institutions have been inclusive of immigrant families’ multiple cultures and multiple literacies. Adopting a bottom-up advocacy approach, this study also invites Chinese and Pakistani families to envision family literacy programs by themselves. It brings to light immigrant families’ potential collective agencies in …