What Can Be Done to Internationalize Teacher Training? A Research Report on the Undergraduate Training of Secondary School Teachers

Editor's Introduction : The following excerpted report discusses the interaction of the international studies field and teacher education programs at colleges and universities around the country. The reform of teacher education in whatever substantive area is a topic at the forefront of initiatives from the federal government in Washington, DC, as well as ones from private foundations. One such initiative has recently been launched by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and is called Teachers for a New Era (TNE). Linking 11 universities across the country, TNE can be viewed as an innovative attempt to better integrate the content education provided by colleges of arts and sciences with the pedagogical knowledge resident in schools of education. The ultimate aim is to impact student learning by producing better classroom teachers nation-wide. The following article engages many of these same topics as they relate to the international studies education. The Editors hope that you will find the article thought-provoking, and we invite comments and responses from members of the ISA community.     

Older women's living arrangements and family relationships in urban Mexico

It is often assumed that in Latin America the family will care for elderly relatives. Yet, older people's dependence on family members should not be regarded as unproblematic. This article reviews the living arrangements of older women in urban Mexico, where, despite widely held beliefs about the special treatment merited by women as mothers, one in nine older women now lives alone. Recent figures suggest the proportion is growing rapidly. We use a life course perspective to explore the reasons for this pattern and examine the implications for the well-being of unmarried women living alone or with married daughters or sons. The article presents findings from a research project on gender and the home using a combination of qualitative and survey research methods in Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city.     

Governance Structures and Political Processes in a Public System: Lessons from Quebec

Debates about the form and nature of changes in the management of public systems have for some time now been articulated under the theme of governance. All definitions of governance are related to the problems of securing convergence among a diversity of actors and organizations, of redistributing power in an organizational or social field characterized by a high level of heterogeneity and of gaining sufficient legitimacy to act in the name of the collectivity. This paper concentrates on the dynamics involved in the emergence of new governing capabilities in public systems. More precisely we study the implementation of regionalization policies in the health care field (in this case of Canada) conceived as one major attempt to renew the governance structures in a large public system. Our study draws on the comparative analysis of empirical regulation in three health regions as contrasted with three ideal type models of governance in regionalized systems. The first model is inspired by an economic approach to organizational behaviour and focuses on mandate‐giving, execution and control. The second model is based on a political interpretation of behaviours and focuses on negotiation processes between actors. Finally, the third model is based on the theory of deliberation as well as the institutional school of policy analysis and focuses on direct public participation in public affairs. Evidence for this article is primarily derived from interviews with key informants and documentary analysis. Our analysis shows that none of the three models is sufficient in itself to grant regional structures the authority and legitimacy they need to create added value in terms of regulation that could ensure their survival. Regional Boards are thus forced by environmental constraints to conceive and implement original mixes of these models. The two predominant logics in regional action are inspired by the first two models although the last one also has an influence. Overall, our study also suggests that the implementation of new sources of governing authorities in a public system is rather fragile because of dependence on existing institutions. Clearly, the attempt to modify the dynamics of governance in a given system must be conceived as a political exercise and not just as a technical problem consisting of the rational adjustment of policy instruments.     

Survival in the ‘master's house’: The role of graduate teaching assistants in effecting curriculum change

Since graduate teaching assistants administer most core courses at U.S. universities (and hence reach the majority of the undergraduate population), their potential for effecting political change is immense. This potential has too often been ignored. This paper suggests ways teaching assistants can organize and work towards bringing feminist perspectives into core courses in a way that complements the efforts of Women's Studies and that circumvents the current problem of decreased funding for the administration of new programs.     

Third world neutralism and British Cold War strategy, 1960-62

European decolonization appeared to the Western powers to open up fresh areas of the globe to Cold War competition. Concerned by the coincidence of Afro-Asian and Sovier pressure on the European colonial powers, and preoccupied with the redefinition of Britain's global role in the wake of decolonization, the British Foreign Office was convinced, despite much evidence to the contrary, that the West needed to champion 'neutralism' in order to prevent the Afro-Asian states from orienting towards the Soviet sphere. This article argues that this policy was determined more by their anxieties about Anglo-American relations in the wake of decolonization than by a deeply held conviction of the imminence of the extension of the communist world.     

The social maps of children approaching adolescence: Studying the ecology of youth development

This article reports the first results of the three-year longitudinal study of the social maps of children beginning the transition to adolescence. This exploratory study is guided by Bronfenbrenner's conception of the ecology of human development, stressing the importance of a phenomenological orientation to development in the context of ecological transitions. The study focuses on characteristics of children's social networks (the web of relationships in which the individual is involved) as a function of neighborhood type, socioeconomic status, and level of physical maturation. The social heterogeneity of the social network (e.g., the relative salience of peers versus adults) is a primary concern. The child's and parent's perceptions of the network, of the people available to help the child, and the child's friends are compared within the context of ecological, socioeconomic, and maturational factors. The results (for 111 sixth-grade children from three contrasting neighborhood schools) shed some light on age segregation and the overall heterogeneity of the social environments of children facing the transition to adolescence. They provide a context and a baseline for the longitudinal study.A version of this paper was presented at the 85th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August 25–30, 1977.Received his Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Cornell University in 1973. Principal interests are the ecology of social development and child maltreatment.     

The accuracy and precision of third molar development as an indicator of chronological age in Hispanics

The accuracy and precision of chronological age estimation based on the stages of third molar tooth development was studied in a sample of 679 radiographs from individuals of Hispanic origin. The age range was 14.0 to 25.0 years. Eight raters from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Dental Branch evaluated the radiographs according to Demirjian's schematic definitions of crown and root formation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the chronology of third molar development in Hispanics following the protocol of a previous study. Within the Hispanic population, the rate of male third molar development is greater than that of female third molar development for ten stages of crown-root formation. Also within this Hispanic population sample, the rate of maxillary third molar development is ahead of mandibular third molar development. The mean absolute difference between chronological age and estimated age was +/-3.0 years in females and +/- 2.6 years in males.     

New formulae for estimating stature in the Balkans

Recent studies of secular change and allometry have observed differential limb proportions between the sexes, among and within populations. These studies suggest that stature prediction formulae developed from American Whites may be inappropriate for European populations. The purpose of this investigation is to present more appropriate stature prediction equations for use in the Balkans to aid present-day identifications of the victims of genocide. The reference sample totals 545 white males obtained from World War II data. The Eastern European sample totals 177 males and includes both Bosnian and Croatian victims of the recent war. Mean stature for Eastern Europeans was obtained from the literature. Results show that formulae based on Trotter and Gleser systematically underestimate stature in the Balkans. Because Eastern Europeans are taller than American Whites it is appropriate to use this as an "informative prior" that can be applied to future cases. This informative prior can be used in predictive formulae, since it is probably similar to the sample from which the Balkan forensic cases were drawn. Based on Bayes' Theorem new predictive stature formulae are presented for Eastern Europeans.