Thayer-Bacon, Barbara J.

English

University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Trace

International EducationVolume 42 | Issue 2Editorial CommentsBarbara J. Thayer-BaconFollow this and additional works at: http://trace.tennessee.edu/internationaleducationCopyright © 2014 by the University of Tennessee. Reproduced with publisher's permission. Furtherreproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.http://trace.tennessee.edu/internationaleducation/vol42/iss2/1This Editorial Comments is brought to you for free and open access by Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted forinclusion in International Education by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, pleasecontact trace@utk.edu.Recommended CitationThayer-Bacon, Barbara J. (2013). Editorial Comments. International Education, Vol. 42 Issue (2).Retrieved from: http://trace.tennessee.edu/internationaleducation/vol42/iss2/1SPRING 2013 3EDITORIAL COMMENTS:Our Fall 2012 issue of International Education was an open issue that included diverse topics.  This Spring 2013 issue is an open issue as well, because we want to make sure our authors have their work published in a timely manner. Our Fall 2013 issue will be a themed issue with the focus on poverty.  We continue to expand and strengthen our editorial board to help us maintain high standards and give authors helpful feedback from scholars with expertise in the diverse topics our contributors submit to us.  We continue to anticipate that, by inviting more top scholars in diverse fields of education to the board, we will attract more submissions from diverse fields of study in education with an international focus. Please help us spread the word, and thank you for your support. We hope you continue to appreciate the quality of the work you find within the covers of this journal.This issue begins with an essay focused on the continent of Asia, in particular the People’s Republic of China.  In a comparative study between U.S. and Chinese middle-school students, Haichun Sun (University of South Florida, USA), Haiyong Ding (Shanghai University of Sport, China), and Ang Chen (University of North Carolina – Greensboro, USA) explore in “Nothing But Being There Matters” the extent to which learners in these two different cultures engage in differentiated motivation processes.  The authors explore the extent to which students differ in expectancy-value motivation in physical education through a quantitative study that includes 813 students from the U.S. and 806 students from China.  The study’s findings inform us about the potential to develop intrinsic-value based across-cultural motivation strategies as well as the cultural sensitivity of applying motivation strategies focusing on expectancy of success, attainment value, and utility value.In our second essay, Ping Liu (California State University, Long Beach, USA) explores the perceptions of 4th-6th grade teachers and students about classroom goal structures in an elementary school in China, in an essay titled “Perceptions of the Teacher-Student Relationship.”  Thirty-nine teachers and 111 students responded to a survey that is then analyzed quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The findings suggest that the teachers and students viewed classroom goal structures and teacher’s role differently. Both groups agree that is it necessary for teachers to shift their roles according to settings to better support learners.Staying on the continent of Asia but turning to Hong Kong, in “Building Education with Hong Kong Characteristics,” David Jaffee (University of North Florida, USA) examines some of the unique national forces prompting educational reform in Hong Kong universities.  This includes the extension of undergraduate degrees from three to four years and the development of a General Education curriculum that was launched in fall 2012.  Jaffee describes the process of reform, compares similarities and differences among the General Education programs, and considers the role of interdisciplinarity in course design and development.With our fourth essay, we shift our focus to Latin America with another research project focused on higher education. In “Instructional Coaching in Guatemala: Reflection for Reform,” Donald Wise (California State University, Fresno, USA) and Jeff Zwiers (Stanford University, USA) describe the participation in INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION4one of the programs of the Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID), Reforma Educativa en el Aula (Education Reform in the Classroom). The program was designed to improve instructional coaching in order to build teachers’ habits of reflection and action research.  The authors describe a set of leadership courses for the instructional coaches and the reflective action research that they conducted to apply their learning to their respective settings.  Wise and Zwiers also provide their own reflections of the process and recommendations for future applications in other settings. In our fifth essay, we shift from educational leadership and coaching instruction in Latin America to the perspective of college-age students in “Global Perspectives on Peer Sex Education for College Students,” by Chandra Story (Oklahoma State University, USA) and June Gorski, (University of Tennessee, USA).  Once establishing that sexually transmitted diseases and infections continue to be a public health problem at the global level, and that a large percentage of those affected by AIDS are 15-24 year olds, the authors explore various peer sex education strategies for college-age students and approaches to evaluate different programs.  They find that peer sex education is being espoused by non-governmental organizations as a viable solution to this problem, but there is a lack of research on the cultural implications of peer education.  The authors recommend that developers of peer education programs need to critically deconstruct United States models and customize programs for particular settings and diverse cultures.Our book review for this issue, written by Scott Ellison, (University of Tennessee, USA), is about Michael A. Peters’ Neoliberalism and After? Education, Social Policy, and the Crisis of Western Capitalism.  We think this review will be interesting to many of our readers who are bringing strong critiques to neoliberalism and its influences of educational policies and programs that impact countries around the world.  Our Guidelines for Contributors can be found on the final page of this issue. I invite your contributions to this journal and look forward to hearing from you. Our Spring 2014 issue will also be an open issue to help us insure accepted manuscripts are published in a timely manner.  We appreciate your excellent submissions and encourage more scholars to send their work our way.Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon

Editorial Comments

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