What Does an Anthropologist of Educational Policy Do? Methodological Considerations

Although Margaret Mead (Hughes, 1952; Mead, 1961), Manuel Gamio (1916), and other leaders of 20th-century anthropology often made pronouncements regarding what schooling should and shouldn\u27t do-in essence proposing to be educational policymakers of a sort-the turn of anthropology to the study of policy and particularly education policy is relatively new (Shore & Wright, 1997). It follows that what an anthropologist of educational policy implementation should do is therefore not yet depicted all that clearly or in detail. The groundbreaking work of Sutton and Levinson (2001) and their contributing authors in some senses stands out as an important exception to that claim, but its task was more to theorize why this subfield should develop rather than to explicate particular methodological moves, although it does often accomplish the latter. (See in particular Quiroz [2001] and Sutton [2001] for lengthier treatments of methodology.) The easiest way to illuminate what an anthropologist of educational policy implementation does is to share examples of it, and most of this chapter is constituted by autobiographic depictions of three cases-the first from Thirusellvan Vandeyar\u27s study of technology education policy implementation in South Africa and the second two from Edmund Ted Hamann related to the creation of a novel binational educational project in Georgia (USA) and to Maine\u27s and Puerto Rico\u27s implementation of a short-lived federal education initiative known as the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) project

‘Windows’ on Teachers’ Beliefs and Attitudes about School ICT Policy Statements

Evidence from research, policy and practice reveals that information and communication technology (ICT) does improve teaching and learning. Recent studies have shifted focus to acknowledge teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about ICT as the factor that determines change in classroom practice. The inclusion of teachers in developing a school-based ICT policy that mirrors their beliefs and attitudes may pave the way for successful ICT integration. However, there is a death of research that explicates exactly how to develop policy that is inclusive of all teachers at a school. This study used an interpretivist paradigm to explore teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about school ICT policy statements. Using an exploratory case study design that was grounded in Q-methodology provided the ideal setting for the systematic study of subjectivity of policy. Data was garnered through Q-sorts, interviews and analysed by means Q-methodology factor analysis methods. Findings were threefold: First, Q-methodology enables policy makers and practitioners to experience both real differences in discourse and consensus of opinion. Second given the opportunity, teachers have the inherent ability to deconstruct and critically engage with policy statements according to their own professional beliefs and attitudes. Third, teachers as previously excluded actors may be included in the policy decision making process and a school-based ICT policy may be formulated to represent a shared vision of all teachers. And, fourth Q-methodology offers education policy analyst an opportunity to gain insight into the beliefs, attitudes, opinions and values of different actors in policy analysis studies. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n14p33

Rural Latino High School Students Considering Identity and Belonging Through Comparative Study of Newcomer Youth in South Africa

Precipitated by an arranged but unusual classroom activity — eight Latina immigrant high school students in the rural u.s. Midwest interviewing a visiting South African scholar of immigration and transnationalism — this study captures their deliberations as the consideration of youth immigration to South Africa compels their own autobiographic reflections on who they are, where they are \u27of\u27, and with what ethnic groups or nationalities they feel affiliation or welcome. For purposes of bracketing, it also juxtaposes the students\u27 voices with those of the three coauthors: their classroom teacher of Spanish as a heritage language, the visiting scholar from South Africa, and a professor from the nearby university who is the teacher\u27s doctoral chair and was host of the South African scholar\u27s visit. Studenti di origine latino-americana di scuole superiori rurali considerano l\u27identità e l\u27appartenenza attraverso uno studio comparativo di giovani neoarrivati in Sud Africa Piombati in una organizzata quanto insolita attività scolastica — otto studenti immigrati di origine latino-americana di una scuola superiore nel Midwest rurale degli Stati Uniti che intervistano docenti di immigrazione e transnazionalismo provenienti dal Sud Africa in visit a — questo studio coglie le loro riflessioni: la considerazione dell\u27immigrazione giovanile in Sud Africa impone loro riflessioni autobiografiche su chi sono, da dove provengono, e con quali gruppi etnici 0 nazionalità si sentono affiliati o accolti. Ai fini della sospensione di giudizio, si giustappongono anche Ie voci degli studenti con quelle dei tre coautori: il loro insegnante di spagnolo, loro lingua d\u27origine, lo studioso in visita dal Sud Africa, e un professore della vicina università che è presidente del corso di dottorato ed è stato ospite della visita dello studioso sudafricano. Parole chiave: Giovani immigrati - Tramnazionalismo - Latinos – Scolarizzazione e identità - Giustizia sodale - Midwest degli Stati Uniti - Sud Afric

Organization of Schooling in Three Countries

It has been more than 30 years since Britan and Cohen (1980) assembled a number of leading anthropologists in a joint call for an anthropology of bureaucracies. Their call was a refinement and rearticulation of a more enduring concern in anthropology, illustrated in particular in the work of South Africa-born, British anthropologist Meyer Fortes (1938) who was interested in what McDermott and Raley (2011: 46) have summarized as the acquisition of kinds of people by social structure. One starting point for an anthropology of organizations that sees schools as a particular kind of organization meriting direct scrutiny is the anthropology of bureaucracies. Schools are very clearly bureaucracies (hence the directing of participants into so many role categories) that are embedded in further bureaucratic webs — for example, school districts and state departments of education in the United States, the federal Secretaria de Educación and the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de fa Educación (the teachers union that also has state governance responsibilities) in Mexico, and the panoply of entities (e.g., Department of Basic Education, provincial departments, and school districts) that have educational jurisdiction in South Africa

A Novel Tetrameric PilZ Domain Structure from Xanthomonads

PilZ domain is one of the key receptors for the newly discovered secondary messenger molecule cyclic di-GMP (c-di-GMP). To date, several monomeric PilZ domain proteins have been identified. Some exhibit strong c-di-GMP binding activity, while others have barely detectable c-di-GMP binding activity and require an accessory protein such as FimX to indirectly respond to the c-di-GMP signal. We now report a novel tetrameric PilZ domain structure of XCC6012 from the plant pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc). It is one of the four PilZ domain proteins essential for Xcc pathogenicity. Although the monomer adopts a structure similar to those of the PilZ domains with very weak c-di-GMP binding activity, it is nevertheless interrupted in the middle by two extra long helices. Four XCC6012 proteins are thus self-assembled into a tetramer via the extra heptad repeat α3 helices to form a parallel four-stranded coiled-coil, which is further enclosed by two sets of inclined α2 and α4 helices. We further generated a series of XCC6012 variants and measured the unfolding temperatures and oligomeric states in order to investigate the nature of this novel tetramer. Discovery of this new PilZ domain architecture increases the complexity of c-di-GMP-mediated regulation

Articulating cultures: socio-cultural experiences of black female immigrant students in South African schools1

Contests of space and place in South African „schoolscapes‟2 are now not so much about „race‟ as it is about nationalism and territoriality. While the politics of belonging unfolds and overtly manifests itself, a more covert, insidious and worrisome issue is that of the erosion of the social and cultural mores of Black3 immigrant students. Utilising social constructivism, case study approach and narrative inquiry, this study sets out to explore the socio-cultural experiences of Black female immigrant students in South African schools. It was found that the socio-cultural context of South African „schoolscapes‟ represented a site of contamination and shame; was marred by conflict and contained elements that worked towards the erosion of cultural and social mores of Black female immigrant students.Keywords: Immigrant students; socio-cultural; migration; xenophobia; schoolscap

What Does an Anthropologist of Educational Policy Do? Methodological Considerations

Although Margaret Mead (Hughes, 1952; Mead, 1961), Manuel Gamio (1916), and other leaders of 20th-century anthropology often made pronouncements regarding what schooling should and shouldn\u27t do-in essence proposing to be educational policymakers of a sort-the turn of anthropology to the study of policy and particularly education policy is relatively new (Shore & Wright, 1997). It follows that what an anthropologist of educational policy implementation should do is therefore not yet depicted all that clearly or in detail. The groundbreaking work of Sutton and Levinson (2001) and their contributing authors in some senses stands out as an important exception to that claim, but its task was more to theorize why this subfield should develop rather than to explicate particular methodological moves, although it does often accomplish the latter. (See in particular Quiroz [2001] and Sutton [2001] for lengthier treatments of methodology.) The easiest way to illuminate what an anthropologist of educational policy implementation does is to share examples of it, and most of this chapter is constituted by autobiographic depictions of three cases-the first from Thirusellvan Vandeyar\u27s study of technology education policy implementation in South Africa and the second two from Edmund Ted Hamann related to the creation of a novel binational educational project in Georgia (USA) and to Maine\u27s and Puerto Rico\u27s implementation of a short-lived federal education initiative known as the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) project

Organization of Schooling in Three Countries

It has been more than 30 years since Britan and Cohen (1980) assembled a number of leading anthropologists in a joint call for an anthropology of bureaucracies. Their call was a refinement and rearticulation of a more enduring concern in anthropology, illustrated in particular in the work of South Africa-born, British anthropologist Meyer Fortes (1938) who was interested in what McDermott and Raley (2011: 46) have summarized as the acquisition of kinds of people by social structure. One starting point for an anthropology of organizations that sees schools as a particular kind of organization meriting direct scrutiny is the anthropology of bureaucracies. Schools are very clearly bureaucracies (hence the directing of participants into so many role categories) that are embedded in further bureaucratic webs — for example, school districts and state departments of education in the United States, the federal Secretaria de Educación and the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de fa Educación (the teachers union that also has state governance responsibilities) in Mexico, and the panoply of entities (e.g., Department of Basic Education, provincial departments, and school districts) that have educational jurisdiction in South Africa

Rural Latino High School Students Considering Identity and Belonging Through Comparative Study of Newcomer Youth in South Africa

Precipitated by an arranged but unusual classroom activity — eight Latina immigrant high school students in the rural u.s. Midwest interviewing a visiting South African scholar of immigration and transnationalism — this study captures their deliberations as the consideration of youth immigration to South Africa compels their own autobiographic reflections on who they are, where they are \u27of\u27, and with what ethnic groups or nationalities they feel affiliation or welcome. For purposes of bracketing, it also juxtaposes the students\u27 voices with those of the three coauthors: their classroom teacher of Spanish as a heritage language, the visiting scholar from South Africa, and a professor from the nearby university who is the teacher\u27s doctoral chair and was host of the South African scholar\u27s visit. Studenti di origine latino-americana di scuole superiori rurali considerano l\u27identità e l\u27appartenenza attraverso uno studio comparativo di giovani neoarrivati in Sud Africa Piombati in una organizzata quanto insolita attività scolastica — otto studenti immigrati di origine latino-americana di una scuola superiore nel Midwest rurale degli Stati Uniti che intervistano docenti di immigrazione e transnazionalismo provenienti dal Sud Africa in visit a — questo studio coglie le loro riflessioni: la considerazione dell\u27immigrazione giovanile in Sud Africa impone loro riflessioni autobiografiche su chi sono, da dove provengono, e con quali gruppi etnici 0 nazionalità si sentono affiliati o accolti. Ai fini della sospensione di giudizio, si giustappongono anche Ie voci degli studenti con quelle dei tre coautori: il loro insegnante di spagnolo, loro lingua d\u27origine, lo studioso in visita dal Sud Africa, e un professore della vicina università che è presidente del corso di dottorato ed è stato ospite della visita dello studioso sudafricano. Parole chiave: Giovani immigrati - Tramnazionalismo - Latinos – Scolarizzazione e identità - Giustizia sodale - Midwest degli Stati Uniti - Sud Afric

Loss of learning space within a legally inclusive education system: institutional responsiveness to mainstreaming of pregnant learners in formal education

This study investigated how education stakeholders in South Africa and Zimbabwe responded to the policy of mainstreaming pregnant learners in formal schools. The study sample consisted of pregnant and former pregnant learners, mainstream learners, parents, teachers and community representatives on school governing boards. The major findings were that: sociocultural beliefs of the community on pregnancy were more influential to educational access and participation of pregnant teenagers than the official school policy; stakeholders at both schools were found to have inadequate knowledge and political will to assist pregnant learners; and the South African school provided a more open response to teenage pregnancy, in contrast to concealment at the Zimbabwean school. The paper posits that the policy on mainstreaming pregnant teenagers in formal schools is largely a form of political symbolism. An all-inclusive approach to policy formulation and implementation is recommended as an intervention strategy to the problem.Key words: Teenage pregnancy, action science, policy, theory, practice