Education and Diversity: Historical and Comparative Perspectives
NYU-Ghana, Summer 2014
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman
Phone:
Email: [email protected]
Office hours:
This course compares the way that contemporary societies have addressed
differences of race, ethnicity, religion, and gender in their educational
systems. We will examine these questions through the lens of history,
exploring how these societies—and their schools--have changed across time.
We will place special emphasis upon Ghanaian education, interspersing our
classes with site visits to schools, state agencies, and non-governmental
organizations. At the end of the course, we will ask how Ghana and the
United States might learn from each other in a globalizing world of flux,
opportunity, and danger.
Course Requirements
1. Attendance: I expect all students to be present and on time for class. If
you must be absent or late, please contact me beforehand.
2. Weekly readings in Ghana: I expect you to complete all of the readings
for each class. A few of the readings will be posted on “Blackboard”; the
remainder you can access via “JSTOR,” or will come from three books:
Jonathan Zimmerman, Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the
American Century (Harvard University Press)
Jonathan Zimmerman, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools
(Harvard University Press)
3. Point of View (POV) papers: For each class session, I ask that you submit
a SHORT (2-3 pages, maximum) response to a question that appears on the
syllabus. Please note: I do not accept late papers.
4. Final paper: On August 1, two weeks after our return to the United States,
I will ask you to email me a final paper on the following theme:
You have been asked to deliver a lecture at the U.S. Department of
Education entitled: “Diversity in Education: What the United States
Can Learn From Ghana, And Vice Versa.” Please submit a draft of
your lecture, which should provide specific examples of ideas and
institutions that the nations might adapt or borrow from each other.
We will exchange outlines and other ideas as the semester progresses. Please
note: I do not accept late final papers, either.
Grading:
Weekly questions/answers: 40%
Term paper: 40%
Class participation: 20%
Course Schedule
June 30: Teaching and Learning: International Perspectives
Zimmerman, Innocents Abroad, ch. 1.
Jonathan Zimmerman, “ “Money, Materials, and Manpower’: Ghanaian InService Teacher Education and the Political Economy of Failure, 19611971” History of Education Quarterly 51:1 (February 2011), 1-27.
Richard Tabulawa, “International Aid Agencies, Learner-Centered
Pedagogy & Political Democratization: A Critique,” Comparative
Education 39 (Feb 2003), 7-26.
POV PAPER DUE: How do concepts of “good” teaching vary across
cultures and societies? If you were an American teacher in another
society, how might these readings affect your decisions and behavior in
the classroom?
July 1: “Practical” education? Vocationalism, Class, and School
Zimmerman, Innocents Abroad, ch. 2
S. Yamada, “Socio-moralist vocationalism and public aspirations: Secondary
education policies in colonial and present-day Ghana,” Africa Today
(Fall 2005), 71-94.
Jenna Burrell, “User agency in the middle range: Rumors and the
reinvention
of the Internet in Accra, Ghana,” Science, Technology, and Human
Values 36:2 (March 2011), 139-159.
POV PAPER DUE: Should schools prepare children for future
employment? If, so, how?
July 3: Questions of Inclusion: Race, Gender, and More
Zimmerman, Innocents Abroad, ch. 3
George J. Sefa Dei, “The Challenge of Inclusive Schooling in Africa: A
Ghanaian Case Study,” Comparative Education 41 (August 2005), 267289.
Hannah Warren, “ . . . the donor community, they are not sensitised about
these kinds of gender things’: Incorporating ‘gender’ into the work of a
Ghanaian NGO,” Gender and Development 20:3 (November 2012), 505516.
POV PAPER DUE: Should schools around the world promote equality
across race and gender? Why? As an American teacher overseas, what
steps might you take to fulfill this goal?
July 7: Teachers and Teacher Professionalism
Zimmerman, Innocents Abroad, ch. 4
Seidu Alhassan and Vincent Adzahlie-Mensah, “Teachers & Access to
Schooling in Ghana,” Create Pathways to Access, Research Monograph
No. 43 (September 2010).
R. Bosu, et. al., “School leadership and social justice: Evidence from Ghana
and Tanzania,” International Journal of Educational Development 31
(January 2011), 67-77.
POV PAPER DUE: How do concepts of the “professional” teacher vary
across the globe? What might Americans learn from the rest of the
world—and vice versa—about teacher professionalism?
July 9: History Wars
Zimmerman, Whose America, chs. 2, 5.
Laura Dull, Disciplined Development: Teachers and Reform in Ghana (New
York: Lexington Books, 2006), ch. 4.
Helen Yitah and Mabel Komasi, “Authenticity, Past and Present in Ghanaian
Children’s Literature” Children’s Literature in Education 41 (March
2010), 1-11.
POV PAPER DUE: Compare the purpose of history instruction in the
United States and Ghana. Why does history “do, ” in schools? Most of
all what should it do?
July 11: Language Wars
Jonathan Zimmerman, “Ethnics Against Ethnicity: European Immigrants
and Foreign-Language Instruction, 1890-1940,” Journal of American
History 88 (2002), 1383-1404.
Hermann Giliomee, “The Rise and Possible Demise of Afrikaans as a Public
Language,” Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 10 (2004), 25-58.
Kristin Rosekrans, et. al., “Education reform for the expansion of mothertongue education in Ghana,” International Review of Education 58:5
(October 2012), 593-618.
POV PAPER DUE: Why does school language policy cause controversy
in so many societies? What might the United States learn from the ways
that other nations address language in their schools?
July 14: Religion in the Schools
Zimmerman, Whose America, 131-185.
George J. Sefa Dei, “Learning Culture, Spirituality and Local Knowledge:
Implications for African Schooling,” International Review of Education
48 (September 2002), 335-360.
John F. McCauley, “Africa’s new Big Man rule? Pentecostalism and
patronage in Ghana,” African Affairs 112:446 (January 2013), 1-21.
POV PAPER DUE: How does American policy regarding religion in
schools differ from Ghana and from other parts of the world? Should
the United States become more like the rest of the world, in this regard?
Or should it try to retain its own pattern?
July 16: Speaking of Sex
Zimmerman, Whose America, 186-211.
Georgina Yaa, “‘Children of the Street’: Sexual Citizenship and the
Unprotected Lives of Ghanaian Street Youth,” Comparative Education
48
(2010), 41-56.
Eric Y. Tenkorang, “Myths and misconceptions about HIV transmission in
Ghana: What are the drivers?” Culture, Health and Sexuality 15
(March-April 2013), 296-310.
Astrid Bochow, “Let’s talk about sex: Reflections on conversations about
love and sexuality in Kumasi and Endwa, Ghana,” Culture, Health and
Sexuality 14 (November 2012), 515-526.
Richard A. Shweder, “What about ‘female genital mutilation’? And why
understanding culture matters in the first place,” Daedalus 129 (2000),
209-222.
POV PAPER DUE: How did sex education develop in the United
States? What could or should we learn from the rest of the world?
July 18: Doing Good? International aid organizations and education
Julie Resnik, “International Organizations, the ‘Education-Economic
Growth’ Black Box, and & the Development of World Education
Culture,” Comparative Education Review 50 (May 2006), 173-95.
Sylvia Bawa, “Autonomy and policy independence in Africa: a review of
NGO development challenges,” Development in Practice 23:4 (June
2013), 526-536.
Tobias Denskus and Andrea S. Papan, “Reflexive engagements: the
international development blogging evolution and its challenges,”
Development in Practice 23:4 (June 2013), 455-467.
W. F Fisher, “Doing good? The politics and antipolitics of NGO practice.
Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997), 439-464.
POV PAPER DUE: How have international non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) tried to influence education in the developing
world? What advice or suggestions would you give an NGO about
education in Ghana, in light of your experience here?