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71. Security Education in dangerous times

Author:
Andrzej Pieczywok
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
The article is concerned with the problems of Security Education in the context of threats to man`s existence. The aim of the article is to present the possibilities of Security Education from processual and technical (educational) aspects to prevent threats. The main research objective adopted by the author is: What are the main threats to mankind and how are they prevented by Security Education? The main focus is on the problems of education and threats to mankind. The article consists of an introduction outlining the significance of the subject. The most typical threats to man`s security and how Security Education could prevent them are described later.
Topic:
Security, Education, and Research
Political Geography:
Global Focus

72. Developing skills in securing safety when travelling as an additional educational need of school children and young people

Author:
Marcin Pasek, Remigiusz Dróżdż, and Tomasz Kochańczyk
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
Safeguarding the functioning of local and international tourism is one of the most important social challenges. Mastering its principles is a prerequisite for success in the fulfi lment of such human needs as relaxation, wellbeing and exploration of the world. The effectiveness of any steps to limit the risk and its consequences in tourism stems from multiannual observation of social phenomena, but it is also dependent on the level of theoretical preparation to take practical action for increased security at every stage of the journey. The aim of this article is to explore the idea of developing skills in securing safety in travel as an additional educational need of school children and young people. The article recommends supplementing the school curriculum at the primary and secondary school level in order to help create a profi le of a student able to secure broadly understood safety for himself and for others.
Topic:
Education, Tourism, Children, Youth, Risk, Skills, and Public Safety
Political Geography:
Global Focus

73. Global Leadership Competencies for Undergraduate Students

Author:
Sabrena O'Keefe
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Institution:
Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Abstract:
Global leadership has been a growing area of research as our world becomes interconnected. Employers have also expressed a skill crisis regarding students graduating from college without the necessary global leadership skills. However, there are often not enough resources at institutions of higher education to add specific co-curricular programs around global leadership. At the same time, many institutions have begun to use the Student Leadership Competencies (Seemiller, 2013) as learning outcomes for their co-curricular programs. This research study aimed to combine the concepts of global leadership and the Student Leadership Competencies so that students have the opportunity to develop global leadership competencies on their own. This was done through the use of subject matter experts and results of an exploratory factor analysis. There were six constructs discovered through this process: Adapting (Responding to Change & Self-Development), Diversity, Interpersonal Impact (Productive Relationships & Positive Attitude), Perspective-taking (Self-Understanding, Empathy, & Others’ Perspectives), Resiliency, and Responding to Ambiguity. A global leadership self-assessment instrument was also created as a tool to utilize this framework.
Topic:
Education, Leadership, Higher Education, and Skills
Political Geography:
Global Focus

74. 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

75. Underrepresented Students in US Study Abroad: Investigating Impacts

Author:
Laura C. Engel
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute of International Education (IIE)
Abstract:
Underrepresented Students in US Study Abroad: Investigating Impacts synthesizes existing research on the association of study abroad with positive academic outcomes for minority and other underrepresented students, with the goal of ultimately helping enhance pathways of access to study abroad for all students. Enhancing pathways of access to study abroad for all students remains an essential objective for higher education institutions, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. Yet, not enough is definitively known about the impacts of study abroad on different groups of students, particularly racial/ethnic minority students and, one step further, what program approaches and strategies are most effective in bringing about these positive impacts. Underrepresented Students in US Study Abroad: Investigating Impacts aims to fill a notable gap by providing a synthesis of existing research on the association of study abroad with positive academic outcomes, degree retention, and completion rates for racial/ethnic minority and other underrepresented students.
Topic:
Education, Representation, Diversity, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

76. The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: A New Global Ranking of Governments Based on What They are Doing to Tackle the Gap Between Rich and Poor

Author:
Max Lawson and Matthew Martin
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In 2015, the leaders of 193 governments promised to reduce inequality as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without reducing inequality, meeting the SDG to eliminate poverty will be impossible. Now Development Finance International and Oxfam have produced the first index to measure the commitment of governments to reducing the gap between the rich and the poor. The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index uses a new database of indicators covering 152 countries, which measures government action on social spending, tax and labour rights – three areas found to be critical to reducing inequality. This first version of the CRI Index is work in progress, and DFI and Oxfam welcome comments and additions. We find that there is an urgent need for coordinated global investment to significantly improve the data on inequality and policies to reduce it, and much greater concerted action by governments across the world to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
Topic:
Education, Health Care Policy, Inequality, Sustainable Development Goals, Tax Systems, and Land
Political Geography:
Global Focus

77. The Power of a Transitional Justice Approach to Education

Author:
Lynn Davies
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
Transitional justice approaches in education are distinctive, potent, and impactful, and, while tremendously challenging, they can shift education from being part of the problem to being part of the transition to a more peaceful society. In the massive literature on the topic of peacebuilding (and peacebuilding education), definitions vary, but usually, following John Galtung’s work, a fundamental diff erence is drawn between “negative peace,” or the absence of war or violence, and “positive peace,” or the removal of the root causes of violence and the pursuit of structural changes that address social injustice as a means to achieve sustainable peace. Clearly, the notion of “building” implies a process, not an end. Peace is not something to be achieved but a dynamic situation with elements that contribute to making violent conflict less likely, both now and in the future. Within this context, transitional justice underlines the dimension of redress. Transitional justice, understood as “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation,” presupposes that in order to build a lasting peace, violations of human rights must be first recognized and redressed. Such redress would, for many, include trying to compensate for past injustices related to exclusion from social and political goods, including exclusion from education and the right to learn. The distinctiveness of transitional justice within a peacebuilding process can be highlighted in several dimensions, each with key educational implications. First is the question of the large scale of past human rights violations in such contexts. Transitional justice initiatives do not necessarily relate to criminal offences committed by individuals or small groups but to systemic, sustained violence that adversely affects the rights of large groups of people and harms their lives. These actions include violence carried out (or permitted) by the state, which should otherwise be responsible for the protection of its citizens. Achieving justice in such circumstances goes beyond the “normal” mechanisms of criminal law, extending its definition to include war crimes and crimes against humanity. Th e legacies of past state-sponsored human rights abuses are complex and multidimensional; addressing them has expanded the notion of justice from “regular” trials to include other mechanisms, such as truth commissions and memory initiatives, reparations programs, and the reform of the judiciary, army, and police. Accordingly, transitional justice processes involve novel institutions with complex mandates, rules, and procedures, which may make them technically difficult to understand in many societies in which they operate. For these processes to be legitimatized and lead to their intended effects, they may require some form of public education programs. Formal education institutions can also play a fundamental role in helping learners to understand transitional justice mechanisms and why they are, or were, necessary. The second distinctiveness is the term transitional itself. Coined in the mid 1980s, the term transitional justice refers to the processes by which regimes attempt to move—or transition—from conflict, authoritarianism or oppression characterized by systematic violations of norms to more well-established democratic legal regimes, which can protect against such occurrences in the future. But the effort carries huge costs and dangers to the existing regime. As Pablo de Greiff has claimed, “There is no transitional country that can legitimately claim great successes in the field.” No country has undergone a transition that has prosecuted every perpetrator or has, through truth telling or other means, disclosed the fate of every victim or thoroughly identified the structures that made the violations possible. Yet de Greiff highlights the crucial function that transitional justice processes play in helping to draw a line between a past in which rights were not respected and a future in which rights matter, a challenge and a function that the ordinary justice system does not face. Transitional, then, does not qualify the word justice but really means “justice in times of transition.” Transitional justice is, therefore, a stage in the search for justice, and education should be seen as very much part of this dynamic search. A third—and central—distinctiveness of transitional justice is that it is constantly past- and forward-looking. Indeed, a basic presupposition of transitional justice is that addressing the past is a way of building a future that is recognizably better. As Clara Ramírez-Barat points out, transitional justice measures play a key symbolic role: establishing a break with the past by (re)affirming that certain norms and values that support them matter. The other option—to do nothing—does not create a space where victims, perpetrators, and bystanders can learn to live together. Th is form of “corrective” justice is seen as different from justice meted out in response to specific infractions of the law and to some other forms of justice, like distributive justice (although this can indeed form part of a future social contract). The aim is the forging of a rights-based culture, which requires wide knowledge of rights and their implications. It means interrupting cycles of revenge and violence and understanding how hatred amplifies. This leads to the fourth distinctiveness of transitional justice: the importance of its truth-seeking, or acknowledgment, component. Truth is the first victim of any repressive regime. As David Guinn argues, under repressive systems, “Reality is distorted, as moral norms are turned upside down and replaced by the corrupted vision of the culture of the regime.” It could be said that education is in part always a search for truth and the acknowledgment of the implications of such truth; although, of course, whose version of “truth” prevails should always be in question. In terms of acknowledgment, truth seeking includes the necessary identification of real people in the conflict—that is, the victims and the perpetrators as well as the bystanders. This recognition is also intergenerational, as children learn from their parents and grandparents. Admittedly, there are issues involved for education in such attempts at identifi cation and public naming of violations and perpetrators, particularly with regard to individuals and families. But identification also extends to governments. It relates to what is constituted as a war crime or a crime against humanity and who is responsible for it. In the identification of responsibility for harm committed we start to see important but controversial issues for educators. The final distinctiveness, linked to the first, is the fundamental public dimension of transitional justice: the idea of a new social contract. The implications of justice processes for civil society stretch forward into the “democratic regeneration of the social web” itself, which conflict and its enduring legacies have affected. New narratives emerge from the media, educational institutions, and cultural activities and agents as well as from civil society organizations. Ramírez-Barat holds that transitional justice processes are usually accompanied by an eruption of creative activities. But strengthening the public space requires the population’s capacity to assess accurate information as well as platforms to exercise freedom of expression and association under conditions of equality and inclusiveness. Education is deeply implicated in the achievement of these requirements and skills.
Topic:
Education, Reconstruction, Reform, Transitional Justice, Institutions, and Youth Engagement
Political Geography:
Global Focus

78. No Legacy for Transitional Justice Efforts Without Education

Author:
Elizabeth A. Cole
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
This paper explores a third, quite broad area of interaction between transitional justice and education—what is known in the transitional justice field as outreach. Given the complex challenges that transitional justice faces as a politically difficult process, practitioners must be aware of the limit to which education, especially formal education, can be a collaborator in transitional justice processes. They cannot afford to understand education merely as a tool, nor should their hopes for education as a solution to many of transitional justice’s outreach challenges be unrealistically high. Education as a fi eld has a distinct normative value and a social function that places it on par with, not subordinate to, transitional justice and similar projects to promote justice and human rights. It also faces constant challenges and limitations, particularly in many of the often resource-poor contexts where transitional justice works today. Only by recognizing these limitations can transitional justice assess and share the power of education for the goals it aims to achieve.
Topic:
Education, Reform, Transitional Justice, Institutions, Outreach, Truth and Reconciliation, and Youth Engagement
Political Geography:
Global Focus

79. Moving Towards More Socially-Connected Educational Systems: From Theory to Practice

Author:
Maxime Honigmann
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University (ISID)
Abstract:
Education has long been viewed as a key component in the empowerment of individuals, communities, and nations alike. Study after study has highlighted how improvements in educational systems can lead to lasting development benefits, including decreased poverty, improved gender parities, and all-around better economic opportunities. Schooling can act as a societal equalizer, giving disadvantaged individuals the chance to improve their socioeconomic standing and end up better off than their predecessors. Education promotes self-determination on individual and collective levels, and as such is deeply intertwined with an individual’s empowerment, self-respect, and respect for their community (Khisty 2006, 438). Depending on how they are oriented, educational systems may support or subdue the identities of individuals and groups, with the identities of disadvantaged or minority groups particularly at risk of suppression. If incorrectly or insufficiently addressed by educational policies, the physical and socioeconomic differences of disadvantaged or minority groups can percolate through the educational process in a way that can add to pre-exiting disparities. When the performance standards of educational systems do not properly take these differences into account and concentrate resources on higher achieving groups early on, they create otherwise-avoidable learning gaps, which in the long-run contribute to isolating conditions such as higher instances of poverty (Kenny et al. 2002; Peters and Oliver 2009; Botezat 2016). For example, an analysis of household surveys from thirteen countries found that the well-noted link between disability and poverty in adulthood was negated when educational attainment was controlled for (Filmer 2008, 150).
Topic:
Education, Poverty, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus

80. 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