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141. Can Science Diplomacy Advance STEM Education Particularly for Women in the Middle East?

Author:
Steven G. Greenbaum and David P. Hajjar
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
In a world of diverse transnational priorities across the globe, the advancement of science is seen by many countries as a solution to promote a knowledge-based economy, yet few resources are actually committed to this policy. For example, countries in the Middle East face a range of social, political, economic and security challenges that are unparalleled in the world. Many of these countries are trying to manage their economies during declining oil and gas prices which have now had a negative impact on their ability to make local investments in science and technology. Unemployment is high, political upheaval is often at the core of civil war, and the last priority of government officials is the development of science and technology expertise. Except for Israel, most Middle East nations are underperforming in science in this region of the world where only 1% of their expenditures include research and development (R&D). Science diplomats and/or health attaches have tried to assist countries in the Middle East to address the short-falls in scientific and technological program development. These efforts have been welcomed, but the results have been marginal. One way to remedy the situation is for these countries to grow their scientific communities, and this includes the encouragement of a highly under-developed workforce, viz., women and ethnic minorities. Enabling this largely neglected and under-utilized intellectual resource to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is the focus of this article.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Education, Gender Issues, Science and Technology, and Women
Political Geography:
Middle East and United States of America

142. Returning Education to the Schools and Parents

Author:
Vicki E Alger
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Independent Institute
Abstract:
President Donald Trump has called for major changes to federal education policy. During his bid for the White House, he vowed to cut wasteful federal spending on education while preserving funding for services; he pledged to champion school choice; and he promised to return educational policymaking to the state and local level. “We cannot have the bureaucrats in Washington telling you how to manage your child’s education,” he said in a television campaign ad. All of these goals can be accomplished during the Trump administration, but not without a major overhaul of the US Department of Education (ED).
Topic:
Education
Political Geography:
America

143. Institutional Reform of State Agencies in the Arab Region: Educated but Unemployed: The Challenge Facing Egypt’s Youth

Author:
Adel Abdel Ghafar
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The state was the subject of political and political economic analysis in general in the post-independence period. This was also the case in the Arab region, where new states emerged with cumbersome civil bureaucracies and large military and security apparatus, and with huge powers to control the management and direction of (natural and human) economic resources. It was as if the burden of economic and social modernization had been placed on those newly independent States in the face of traditional societies lacking the social classes capable of advancing modernization, be they bourgeois or national proletariat. Despite the decline of the development models of the state by the seventies, the Arab state has continued to be the focus of analysis of development and modernization with the flow of oil money and the emergence of rentierism in most, if not all, the Arab countries, whether direct producers of oil or receivers of oil through secondary flows. This has placed emphasis on the importance of the state as a holder of wealth and as a source of distribution for different social strata.
Topic:
Education and Reform
Political Geography:
Egypt

144. Building Capacity in Science, Technology, and Innovation for Africa’s Transformation: The Role of Higher Learning and Research Institutions

Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)
Abstract:
African countries have shown interest and willingness in developing their economies through an approach driven by science, technology, and innovation (STI). Agenda 2063 and the Common African Position on Agenda 2030 identify STI as a key enabler to achieving development blueprints. In response, Africa adopted a 10-year Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy (STISA– 2024). The ACBF’s Africa Capacity Building STI Survey (2016) confirms the importance of STI strategies and capacity development in African countries. And institutions of higher learning play a key role in designing, implementing, and evaluating STI policies and in creating and using STI products and services.
Topic:
Education, Science and Technology, Capacity, Innovation, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Africa

145. Trending Conditional Cash Transfers in Girl’s Education

Author:
Jessica Ruch
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) in health and education programs have been rapidly growing over the past two decades. They’ve expanded to over 40 countries and are increasingly used to target and improve girl’s education. The volume of CCTs in development projects worldwide raises the question: can they address the greatest barriers to equal education? According to Dr. Michelle Morais de Sae Silva, CCTs have sought to adapt to “identify the ideal balance between cash incentives and conditions that would maximize the kind of behavior that is believed to enhance poor families’ human capital.”(1). Unlike social welfare programs and unconditional cash transfers, CCTs’ conditionalities were established to break intergenerational transmissions of poverty by investing in human capital (2). Analysis of Latin American CCTs illustrate positive impacts: increased educational outcomes (enrollment and attendance), decreased child labor, small improvements to short-term poverty and a shift from agricultural labor to non-agricultural employment (3).
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Poverty, and Welfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

146. Strategic Insights: Whiskey over Books, Again? Anti-Intellectualism and the Future Effectiveness of Army 2025

Author:
Dr. Don M. Snider
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Crossing the Plains on an expedition to Utah [in the 1850s], Major Charles A. May searched the wagons in an effort to reduce unnecessary baggage. When he reached the wagons of the light artillery battery, Captain Henry J. Hunt proudly pointed out the box containing the battery library. “Books,” May exclaimed. “You say books? Whoever heard of books being hauled over the Plains? What the hell are you going to do with them?” At that moment Captain Campbell of the Dragoons came up and asked permission to carry a barrel of whiskey. ”Yes, anything in reason Captain, you can take along the whiskey, but damned if these books shall go.
Topic:
Education, Military Affairs, and Ethics
Political Geography:
United States of America

147. The Untapped Potential of English Teaching

Author:
Megan Metrick
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
Public Diplomacy (PD) at the State Department shows signs of going through a serious rethink. The push to be more strategic in our programming has taken off. Public Diplomacy officers can rattle off the Integrated Country Strategy goals with the best of them. More rigorous program planning and evaluation may be coming to a cloud platform near you soon (see the excellent article by my colleague Carissa Gonzalez in the previous issue of The Ambassadors Review). Social media regulations are in the Foreign Affairs Manual. EducationUSA and American Spaces have slick branding, unified looks, and centralized websites. These new strategies and tools are great, and in many cases, long overdue. However, as we redesign Public Diplomacy for the 21st century (albeit we are already well into that century), we should go back to the basics for a moment, and remember why we’re here.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Education, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

148. Youth in the Middle East

Author:
Center for International and Regional Studies
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for International and Regional Studies: CIRS
Abstract:
During the second half of the twentieth century, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was hit by a demographic wave that saw its youth population grow at an unprecedented rate. This youth bulge spurred national and international debate regarding the challenges and opportunities that the youth cohort brings to the region. The potential that young people have—either as agents of positive change or instability—was illustrated during the Arab uprisings. In the wake of the unrest, there is a need to expand our collective understanding of the lives of young people in the MENA region, and to examine factors that affect their normative transitions to adulthood. The narrative around Middle Eastern youth often centers on their social, political, and economic exclusion and marginalization. Living through decades of authoritarian rule and political instability, youth in the Middle East have struggled to fulfill their aspirations related to citizenship, livelihood, and social and political participation. Given the continued jobs crisis in the Middle East, where youth generally experience high rates of unemployment and where labor market activity, particularly among young women, remains strikingly low, understanding the economic exclusion of youth and the various means by which to redress it remain significant.
Topic:
Education, Youth Culture, Entrepreneurship, and Political and institutional effectiveness
Political Geography:
Middle East

149. Gender Bias in Education During Conflict: Evidence From Assam

Author:
Sutanuka Roy and Prakarsh Singh
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
Using a large-scale novel panel dataset (2005–14) on schools from the Indian state of Assam, we test for the impact of violent conflict on female students’ enrollment rates. We find that a doubling of average killings in a district-year leads to a 13 per cent drop in girls’ enrollment rate with school fixed effects. Additionally, results remain similar when using an alternative definition of conflict from a different dataset. Gender differential responses are more negative for lower grades, rural schools, poorer districts, and for schools run by local and private unaided bodies.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, and Gender Based Violence
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

150. The Pillars of Governance. A Macro-Quantitative Analysis of Governance Performance

Author:
Gregor Walter-Drop, John Wiesel, and Melissa Lee
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
State building is seen as the central tenet of many present-day development efforts. This rests on a global normative script that emphasizes the modern state’s role in providing governance services from security to education to health. However, the relationship between statehood and governance outcomes is not well understood. We use a macro-quantitative approach to analyze state performance in various governance dimensions including security, health, education, economic subsistence, infrastructure, and the environment. We test for the power of statehood in explaining the variation in governance outcomes while controlling for various other factors prominent in the respective debates in political science, economics, and development studies. The analysis yields three interesting results. First, statehood does not have a consistent significant relationship with governance outcomes. It matters more for some outcomes than for others. Second, we find that statehood sometimes performs better at predicting subjective (survey-based) evaluations than at predicting objective measures of governance outcomes (which confirms the ubiquity of the normative script). Finally, we find that the degree of domestic female empowerment performs consistently strong at explaining the variation in governance outcomes. This result is consistent with the policy community’s emphasis on women’s roles in development.
Topic:
Security, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Governance, and State Building
Political Geography:
Global Focus