Ethics and International Curriculum Work : The Challenges of Culture and Context [1 ed.] 9781617358463, 9781617358456

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Ethics and International Curriculum Work The Challenges of Culture and Context

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Ethics and International Curriculum Work The Challenges of Culture and Context edited by

Terrence C. Mason Indiana University–Bloomington

Robert J. Helfenbein Indiana University–IUPUI

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ethics and international curriculum work : the challenges of culture and context / edited by Terrence C. Mason, Robert J. Helfenbein. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-61735-844-9 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-61735-845-6 (hardcover) -ISBN 978-1-61735-846-3 (ebook) 1. Curriculum planning--Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Educators--Professional ethics. 3. Democracy and education. I. Mason, Terrence C. II. Helfenbein, Robert J. LB2806.15.E84 2012 375’.001--dc23                            2012016439

Copyright © 2012 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America

Contents Acknowledgments................................................................................ vii Editors’ Introduction: Ethics, International Curriculum Work, and the Practice of Freedom................................................................ ix Robert Helfenbein and Terrence C. Mason Preface: Mutuality or Monopoly: Reflections on the Ethics of International Curriculum Work................................................... xvii J. Gregory Keller

Sect i o n I Curriculum for Democratic Citizenship 1 Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders: The Case of Civitas International.......................................................................... 3 Terrence C. Mason 2 Deliberating Across Ethical Terrain................................................... 25 Patricia G. Avery and Carolyn Pereira 3 From Transmission and Influence to Dialogue and Understanding: Rooting International Curriculum Work in Democratic Ethics............................................................................ 51 E. Doyle Stevick

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4 Curriculum Development Collaboration between Colonizer and Colonized: Contradictions and Possibilities for Democratic Education................................................................... 73 Steven Camicia and Alfredo Bayon

Sect i o n II Ethics, Teaching, and Teacher Education 5 A New Set of Questions: The Ethics of Taking Space Seriously in Macedonia........................................................................................ 95 Robert J. Helfenbein 6 Ethics, Dissensus, and Traveling Without Moving: Using Videoconferencing to Facilitate Dialogue between Preservice Teachers in Two Nations.....................................................................111 Walter S. Gershon and Nikoletta Christodoulou

Sect i o n III Transnational Curriculum Theory and Practice 7 From Text to Pretext: An Ethical Turn in Curriculum Work......... 143 Jean-Francois Maheux, Dalene Swanson, and Steven Khan 8 Ethical Dimensions of a Global Curriculum and Professional Development Program: Reflections on a Project in India.............. 173 William Gaudelli 9 “I Saw It with My Own Eyes”: The Knowledge-Construction Process in International Educator Exchanges................................. 185 Anatoli Rapoport Afterword: Philosophical Resources for International Curriculum Work............................................................................... 205 Barry L. Bull Contributing Authors......................................................................... 219 Index................................................................................................... 223

Acknowledgments The editors of this volume would like to thank the contributing authors for their willingness to share their perspectives on the perils and promise of international curriculum work. We truly appreciate their commitment to gaining a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in crossing borders to seek ways to improve teaching and learning. We also would like to thank the countless teachers, administrators, university faculty, and students from the countries where we have carried out our own international work. What we learned from them led us to conceive of this project, and we hope that it adequately reflects the journeys that we have taken together to make schools better places for everyone. Terrence Mason would also like to recognize the extraordinary support that he has received from his wife Ginette and two sons, Benjamin and Julien, who learned how to manage without him during his frequent trips to participate in the work that formed the foundation for his contribution to this book. Robert Helfenbein would like to thank his wife Kellie for the support and understanding as travel and writing took him away from home. Finally, we would like to extend our thanks to the Center for Urban and Multicultural Education at Indiana University–IUPUI for providing the resources to engage Gabe Huddleston in the final editing of this work.

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Editors’ Introduction

Ethics, International Curriculum Work, and the Practice of Freedom Robert Helfenbein Indiana University–IUPUI Terrence C. Mason Indiana University–Bloomington

Q: You say that freedom must be practiced ethically . . .  Michel Foucault: Yes, for what is ethics, if not the practice of freedom, the conscious practice of freedom? Q: In other words, you understand freedom as a reality that is already ethical in itself. Michel Foucault: Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection. (Foucault, 1997, p. 284) This project attempts to take up explicitly the issue of ethics in curriculum work happening across borders of nation, ethnicity, culture, and class. Any conversation with scholars and educators working in international or transnational contexts, sooner or later, comes to questions of ethical dilemmas, affronts, or reflection on actions in context. The intention here

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is to provide space for scholars to explore those issues and frame them within a particular conception of ethics and/or ethical inquiry. Ethics is simply defined as “the study of the concepts involved in practical reasoning: good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, freedom, rationality, choice” (Blackburn, 1996, p. 126); however, it doesn’t take one long to see the complexity in each of these terms and the attendant troubling realization that they are all in fact intertwined. Central here of course are questions of value—people’s beliefs about good and bad, right and wrong—and their impact on how we act in the world. Lyons (1994) reminds us too that both values and action are rooted in “different epistemological perspectives,” suggesting “that people can, over time, hold very different views of truth, authority, and knowledge” (p. 198). Curriculum work, it should be noted, has always been grounded in values. According to Tyler (1949), “It is certainly true that in the final analysis [educational] objectives are a matter of choice, and they must therefore be the considered value judgments of those responsible for the school” (p. 4). Even someone whose work is most often associated with a modernist theory of “scientific curriculum making” recognized that decisions about the aims of the curriculum are shaped by the values of those who make those decisions. At the time that Tyler was formulating his ideas about the nature of the curriculum and how it should be derived, organized, and planned, questions about the values that underlie the curriculum were seldom raised, or at least they did not constitute the main focus of the discourse of curriculum studies. Since that time the emergence of reconceptualist, critical, multicultural, feminist, and postmodern perspectives on curriculum theory and practice have shattered the notion that a consensus could (or should) be achieved about the form and content of the school curriculum. Furthermore, in Tyler’s day the focus was the school curriculum in the United States. Like it or not, the forces of globalization have extended the boundaries of curriculum work beyond national borders; the curriculum has become internationalized. For example, curriculum theory as a field has taken up this new understanding with the formation of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS), the journal Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, and several publications including The Internationalization of Curriculum Studies (Trueit, Wang, Doll, & Pinar, 2003) and The International Handbook of Curriculum Research (Pinar, 2012). Our hope is that this volume adds to that complicated conversation. The epigraph that opens this introduction points to Foucault’s central conception of the connections between the subject, the practice of freedom, and an ethics. Taking freedom as ethics’ ontological condition, Foucault poses the question of what does one do with some degree of freedom. Certainly also known as a scholar interested in power as a concept, the call for an ethics is a poignant one for those doing educative work in other

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contexts. The dilemmas so often encountered in this work almost always revolve around the use, manifestation, or perhaps delayed realization of power relations, a point addressed by several of our authors here. As members of the academy writ large, certain power dynamics are inscribed upon these relations and provide for complex and even contradictory effects. Several questions arise: What then do we do with our freedom as scholars working in other contexts? What then do we do to encourage other “practices of freedom” by all involved as we take up our work? But perhaps most importantly within the confines of this book, what conceptual frames help us understand both the dilemmas we find ourselves in and the actions we have taken in response? Here we encounter the distinction between moral and ethical. In some cases these terms are used synonymously, but they also hold different meanings in some contexts. Moral judgments and the actions based upon them are guided by individuals’ sense of right and wrong, justice, goodness, and so on, which is informed by values and beliefs that are shaped by peoples’ life experiences. Ethics, as we indicated earlier, through the study of moral judgment and action, seeks to establish frameworks or systems upon which some degree of consensus can be achieved to guide practice within a particular group or community. As we will see from the cases included in this volume, curriculum workers operating in international or transnational contexts are confronted with situations in which they must make decisions as individuals about curriculum practice; that is, they must draw upon their individual moral reasoning to act in appropriate ways. But they also exist as members of a professional community of curriculum workers. While we don’t envision (or aspire to) anything like the medical profession’s Hippocratic Oath, we hope that the work contained in this volume will provide insights into the key dimensions of an ethics of international curriculum work. A number of key assumptions underlie the work presented in the chapters of this volume. To begin with, we understand that the impact and efficacy of curriculum innovations can only be understood within the particular social, cultural, and political contexts in which they occur. Educators around the world, especially those in countries experiencing large-scale, systemic political change, often look to the U.S. and other Western countries for new approaches to curriculum and instruction practices that reflect more open, democratic, and participatory educational systems. As a result, educators are often asked to work with their colleagues in so-called developing countries to assist in developing new approaches to teaching and learning and to find ways of adapting practices to the conditions and circumstances in other countries. The international curriculum projects included in this volume explore the challenges of adapting educational practices across national and cultural borders. In doing so they address a number of critical questions, such as:

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• What assumptions do educators in other countries make about the nature of teaching and learning? • In what ways does culture matter when applying curriculum theories and practices in diverse settings? • How does the educational policy context influence the success of curriculum innovations? • How do power relations influence collaboration among curriculum workers from different countries and cultures? • How do the historical relations between nations influence communication and collaboration among curriculum workers from different countries? These questions raise ethical dilemmas for curriculum workers when their efforts, whether intended or not, may be perceived as forms of “cultural imperialism” as they advocate certain educational practices, theories, or philosophical stances (see Helfenbein, this volume). As a result, questions of power, identity, and positionality invariably arise. A primary purpose of this book is to elucidate these questions through a series of cases. These cases, then, can serve as objects of study for the exploration of the ethical dilemmas they imply, the conceptual frameworks that can be used to understand them, and the potential responses to them that might be considered. The reports included in this book draw from a variety of research traditions including scholarship in international curriculum theory (Pinar, 2012; Trueit et al., 2003), ethical philosophy (Appiah, 2006; Nussbaum, 2006; Rawls, 1999; Sen, 1999), postmodern/poststructural perspectives (Foucault, 1997; Levinas, 1998, 2005; Ranciére, 2010), hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1982; Heidegger, 1962), globalization and education (Burbules & Torres, 2000), and democracy education (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996; Habermas, 1996; O’Brien & Kohlmeier, 2003; Owen, 2007; Parker, 2003). The ways in which authors choose to approach the ethical as they reflect on their international work we leave to them. Whether it be technicalrational, Deweyan pragmatic, feminist, poststructural, cosmopolitan, or some new hybrid ethical framework, we again agree with Lyons in that “the complexities of what one knows requires a less confident and yet more particular wisdom . . . that moral goodness cannot be separate from the world of practice, and that no one can be secure from the vulnerability of ethical risk” (Lyons, 1994, p.213). It is also important to note that there has been recent debate regarding the terms international and transnational in discussing differing types of cross-border work. Typically transnational work can be defined as acting across national borders with the intent of having a more general impact. Making the distinction of actions taken by conventional nation-states as international collaboration and supranational work referring to efforts from

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broader global institutions (i.e., the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc.), transnationality emphasizes the importance of localized context and democratic involvement. The work represented in this volume is almost certainly both international and transnational, although, on the whole, the projects involve national governments and funding mechanisms, the authors each point to the challenges and failings of those formal relationships as well as see their work in broader, ethically laden terms. The choice to use the word international in the title of this collection reflects a desire to acknowledge the power dynamics involved as well as suggesting a ground from which to move forward. The chapters in this book focus on a variety of curriculum projects in which the authors and their colleagues have made themselves vulnerable to “ethical risks” among others. The volume opens with a preface by J. Gregory Keller in which he introduces the issue of context, the tensions between the local and the cosmopolitan, and provides an introduction to a key theme of the book: how to achieve meaningful transcultural dialogue within the context of asymmetrical power relations, one that will appear a number of times in the chapters that follow (see Stevick, Camicia & Bayon, Gershon & Christodoulou, Gaudelli, and Rapoport, this volume). Since several of the projects that are included here deal with programs for promoting democratic citizenship, we have devoted the first section of the book to this important area of international curriculum work. Terrence C. Mason’s chapter examining the ethical issues raised when education for democracy is “exported,” focuses on how multiple, and sometimes competing, definitions of democracy can constitute serious challenges for educators. As others here will note, establishing dialogue across cultural and national contexts holds potential to bridge differences and to achieve the kind of mutuality proposed here by Keller Patricia Avery and Carolyn Pereira report on a project that incorporated the use of students’ discussion of controversial issues to foster democratic values and habits of mind. Their analysis centers on the extent to which the actions of the participants in this multinational project reflected the ethical stances of collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity as they carried out their work together. In the next chapter, Doyle Stevick relates his experiences working with civic educators in the Baltic countries, notably Estonia. Stevick reveals how the competing ideologies that lie just beneath the surface of what appear to be cordial relations among project partners raise serious ethical questions for those involved. The final chapter in this section by Steven Camicia and Alfredo Bayon directly confronts the ethical dimensions of unequal power relations among participants in transnational curriculum projects that involve countries at different stages of economic development. Through a cross-cultural dialogue between U.S. and Filipino students, the authors investigate how such communication can potentially attenuate the hegemony of U.S. cur-

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ricular philosophies and practices and establish more equitable forms of cooperation across national boundaries. The second section the book includes chapters that focus on ethics, teaching, and teacher education. Robert Helfenbein proposes a new set of questions in addition to the traditional evaluation of international curriculum work, suggesting that the particularities of space, power, and identity should matter as this type of work is taken up. Evidencing the tension between international relations and transnational ethical sensibilities, the chapter responds to the challenges posed by teachers in Macedonia as they struggle with the lived effects of globalization. In the following chapter, Walter Gershon and Nikoletta Cristodoulou present findings from a project in which videoconferencing was used to link pre-service teachers from the U.S. state of Ohio and the nation of Cyprus. The myriad pedagogical, technical, cultural, and ethical challenges encountered in this work offer insights into the complexities of bridging cultural boundaries with students similar to those that Camicia and Bayon presented earlier here. The three chapters in the final section of the book address the theoretical and practical issues that arise when conducting transnational curriculum work. Jean-Francois Maheux, Dalene Swanson, and Steven Khan suggest that, following Levinas’ discussion of alterity, international curriculum work might be seen as “pretext” for a much more important discussion of the ethics of interacting with the Other. Challenging traditional conceptions of curriculum itself, the authors point to increasingly global connections and neoliberal education policy as impetus for a privileging of thinking through ethics in curriculum work. Next, William Gaudelli provides a first-person narrative of his involvement in a partnership project between his university in the U.S. and a non-governmental organization in India that seeks to improve the quality of educational leadership in that country. In this chapter, Gaudelli identifies the ethical tensions that present themselves as he must “confront difficulties negotiating cultural differences embedded in the work, interpreting and clarifying curricular and pedagogical assumptions present in our collaboration, all against the backdrop of global neocolonialism.” Finally, Anatoli Rapaport explores how a common feature of the globalized world of education, international teacher exchanges, provides sites for transformative experiences for educators. His analysis centers on the process by which teachers construct meaning from cross-cultural exchange experiences and how those meanings influence their teaching practices. In the afterword, Barry Bull addresses one of the central themes of the book as he explores some potential moral justifications for international curriculum work from various philosophical perspectives, including ethical relativism and universalism, as well as the “middle ground” offered by John Rawls and the contemporary philosophers Martha Nussbaum and Amartya

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Sen. In doing so, Bull provides some useful tools for thought and action by practitioners seeking answers to the ethical questions they encounter in the field. One of the recurring themes that appears in the narratives included in this volume is a call for dialogue. Several authors here urge participants in cross-border curriculum work to engage in forms of dialogue and deliberation to establish more equitable relations among project partners and to work toward solving the dilemmas they encounter in their work together. Since we assume that many of those who will read this book have experienced some of the challenges recounted by our authors here, we hope that they will approach the reading of this book as a form of dialogue also, bringing their own thoughts, values, and experiences to bear on the complex issues that are raised. While we realize that both the reader and the authors may be left with more questions than answers, we also believe that only though thoughtful interaction with the kinds of issues presented in this book will the field of international curriculum work advance. In the end, our intention here is to continue what has begun as a more formal conversation within curriculum theory and among disciplinary curriculum workers in the hopes of new possibilities and new practices of freedom. We believe that these practices will ultimately constitute the ethical foundation for the kind of curriculum that we, and those who have participated in this project with us, seek to create. References Appiah, K. A. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company. Blackburn, S. (1996). The Oxford dictionary of philosophy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Burbules, N. C. & Torres, C. A. (Eds.). (2000). Globalization and education: Critical perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge Foucault, M. (1997). Ethics, subjectivity, and truth: Essential works of Foucault 1954– 1984, Volume I. New York, NY: The New Press. Gadamer, H-G. (1982). Truth and method. New York, NY: Crossroad. Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Three normative models of democracy. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political (pp. 21–30). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). San Francisco, CA: Harper. Levinas, E. (1998). Otherwise than being or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, E. (2005). Humanism of the other. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

xvi   Ethics, International Curriculum Work, and the Practice of Freedom Lyons, N. (1994). Dilemmas of knowing: Ethical and epistemological dimensions of teachers’ work and development. In L. Stone (Ed.), The education feminism reader (pp.195–217). New York, NY: Routledge. Nussbaum, M. C. (2006). Frontiers of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. O’Brien, J. & Kohlmeier, J. (2003). Leadership: Part of the civic mission of schools? The Social Studies, 161–166. Owen, H. (2007). Creating leaders in the classroom. London, UK: Routledge. Parker, W. C. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Pinar, W. F. (2012). The international handbook of curriculum research. London, UK: Routledge. Ranciére, J. (2010). Dissensus: On politics and aesthetics. New York, NY: Continuum. Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Trueit, D., Wang, H., Doll, Jr., W. E., & Pinar, W. F. (Eds.) (2003). The internationalization of curriculum studies. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Preface

Mutuality or Monopoly Reflections on the Ethics of International Curriculum Work J. Gregory Keller Indiana University–IUPUI

I begin with the assumption that those who read this have an interest in issues of context on two levels—that of cultural and social specificity and that of common interests across those specificities. When we address context, we always begin with at least the previously mentioned two levels before us, which I will designate for the sake of this discussion as the local and the cosmopolitan. Another important bit of context lies in a central issue of concern: I will be talking about ethics in relation to a local/multi-local and cosmopolitan setting and I will be discussing ethics1 in relation to one specific arena of human activity: work with academic curricula in an international setting. Turning then to the local: As I write these words I sit in a coffee shop in the U.S. Midwest. I bring to this moment my inner life of psyche and community, my relationships to those I address and to many others over time and space, my bodily life of this moment and of past and presumably

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future, and a setting of physical and social structures including many other human beings and human artifacts at an intersection of nature and culture. We could of course spend our time together spinning out the specifics of this context in its many ramifications, but that would obscure our larger purpose. Nevertheless, if we entirely fail to address the multiple intersecting lines of context that surround our conversation, something important will also be obscured. I consider myself in this moment to stand at the intersection of the absolutely local and the inevitably cosmopolitan truth of my humanity in the long and winding road that always leads back to the Cosmos amidst our particularity and to singularity in the midst of the Cosmos. No human work stands as foreign to these contextual issues; academic curricula are part of a particular context in human life and in the life of humanity, and perhaps in the life of the Cosmos. Extending the local/cosmopolitan in one fruitful direction, then, I seek here to address a question: How might we understand the ethical issues and dilemmas of international curriculum work? Many paths might be followed in answer to this question. I suggest, however, limiting ourselves to the following: Foucault’s (2003a) ideas of relations of power, games of truth, and practices of the self, especially as they bear on his ideas of dialogue and polemics; Gadamer’s (1991) notion of a fusion of horizons or meeting of worlds in our interactions with one another; and Levinas’ (1998a) account of the levels of dialogic possibility in our encounters with the other.2 Three Dimensions of Experience and the Fusion of Experience I begin, then, with three dimensions of experience drawn from Foucault: power and truth and practice/self (Foucault, 2003a, 2003b). Every action defines a relation of power—to act is to extend one’s power; every sharing of ideas defines a game of truth—no matter how subjective I believe my ideas to be, they reveal particular possibilities of the way the world is and works and potential means for investigating those ways; every action and every sharing participates in a set of practices—every move I make in acting or sharing defines or extends, troubles or continues my subjectivity as well as possible modes of human subjectivity. If I bring my knowledge of curriculum or methods to someone from another cultural or social context, I am immediately immersed in dilemmas of particularity. The singular context in which an approach “works” might undermine attempts to generalize. Awareness of this problem often leads researchers to seek more transferable modes of knowledge gathering. Such concerns result, for some, in a strong emphasis on quantitative methods, for as we all know, numbers do not lie. Equally, however, the same concerns

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lead some to qualitative methods, since such methods seek to overcome the mind-numbing effect of numbers that provide alleged truth untouched by subjectivity while merely masking the subjective within a seemingly objective coating—image is, after all, everything. In the final analysis, of course, one cannot escape the local and particular, with every claim bearing only its measure of truth, needing deep and careful placement and likely regular replacement in the specifics from which it arises. One key to sharing our insights lies in recognizing our positionality and working hard at grasping helpful ways to generalize, fallibly but without a numbingly strong emphasis on uncertainty. Ethics sprouts from the facts of our locality and also from our cosmopolitanism (read here as simply our humanity)3 and from the matrix in which the two meet. Curriculum work in every instance arises as an ethical act—an act of meaning and purpose; it unfolds as an aim for the apparent good. The internationalizing of our work bears an additional ethical weight, since it lies at the axis of our will to share our understanding with those whose life seems strange to us and of our will to impose our will on those who seem less or needy or oppressed (sometimes based on our actions themselves). We might, for instance, take as examples differing notions of democracy (Mason, this volume) and differing notions of what it means to be Macedonian (Helfenbein, this volume). When we enter the field of discussion,4 we bring with us certain well-formed and often very particularized or localized ideas and ideals of what happens and what should happen in the classroom and in the larger environment affecting and being affected by the classroom experience. These further raise the specter of imposing one’s own cultural values on others versus, and here’s the rub, finding some common ground for mutuality. The question “What is Macedonia?”, for example, raised by Helfenbein (this volume), allows the researcher to find ways not primarily to impose his view of another’s world but to begin instead with the opening of potentially fruitful dialogue. Dialogue is only fruitful, however, if it begins with an acknowledgement of one’s own openness and ignorance (see Foucault, 2003a; Gadamer, 1991; Levinas, 1998a; Plato, 2001). The complexity of response cannot be appreciated if I lead with my own certainty about the other and his or her space, culture, and needs. Similarly, a discussion of social studies as a part of the curriculum in Latvia (Mason, this volume) cannot even get under way if we believe ourselves to have the only available approach. These examples may seem commonplace to us; we might say that of course we must begin thus, but the ethics of international curriculum work lies not just in acknowledging the obviousness of our limited view or our particularity. It involves a depth of wonder and of conscious reassessment that will keep us aware as we move forward of those less obvious possibilities we might fail to recognize.

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In light then of our need to approach our work under an awareness of the intersection of ethical theory and practice, I offer in what follows four paradigmatic approaches to the dialogic ethics of international curriculum work: the basic “not knowing” of Socrates, “elements of experience” and principles of dialogue from Foucault, Gadamer’s notion of a “fusion of horizons” and of the importance of dialogue in our interpretive endeavors, and levels of dialogic recognition presented in Levinas. The initial ethical act of sharing from our local/cosmopolitan selves involves a willingness to engage in dialogue, a willingness to listen and to speak under the recognition of sameness and difference—a willingness that involves a practice of mutuality that opens upon the mystery of the unknown in ourselves and others. We never fully unravel this mystery, but need not then wallow in paralyzing uncertainty.5 Instead, we develop practices of the dialectic of listening/speaking that undergird our practices of curriculum work, both in its inception and in our sharing of what we have learned. Socrates helpfully points to this dialectic when he announces that through questioning he found that artisans were wise and lacked wisdom at the same time. They were wise in their craft—as we might be in the craft of teaching/learning. They lacked wisdom in believing that their craft wisdom provided evidence of wisdom concerning the human condition in general. When we bring our wisdom to others, we do well to participate in the wisdom of Socrates, a wisdom that begins with questions and never entirely leaves that beginning point. I might ask, what do I know that might be useful to another? What do I not know that might stand in the way of that usefulness? Then the questions are reversed. What do I know, or believe myself to know, that might stand in the way of benefit to others? What do I not know that, by leaving me open to learning, makes me a resource for another? Such questions form a caldron within which our mutual benefit, learning, and development has an opportunity to steep, flavors mixing and enhancing one another so that the rich stew of our mutual learning can be served to any who seek it—although only deep participation will likely gain the full taste of that learning. Socrates believed that the wisdom for which he was noted lay in nothing other than in his relentless, indeed ruthless commitment to questioning every idea, every belief, every assumption. That willingness to question requires of us a certain moral practice—we must lay aside our often unconscious tendency to hold our beliefs as part of ourselves and instead identify with the bare, “unencumbered” questioner (contra Sandel, 1984; see Villa, 2001, p. 23). Socratic wisdom involves practicing certain ‘virtues’ in relation to ourselves (Foucault, 2003) and in relation to others (Gadamer, 1991; Levinas, 1998). Key virtues include the traditional ones of courage, integrity, and justice as well as more contemporary ones as described by Foucault (2003a, 2003b), Gadamer (1991), and Levinas (1998), such as

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the virtues of listening, questioning, and reciprocity (Foucault); fluidity, the value of the unexpected, and conversation as paradigm for learning (Gadamer); encounter that opens us to the other’s otherness, and the transcending of simple reciprocity through being faced by the priority of the other (Levinas).One key measure of adopting a Socratic approach to the ethics of international curriculum work is remembering the central intellectual virtue that he practiced in the form of questioning oneself and others (Plato, 2001; see also Gadamer’s discussion of “The Logic of Question and Answer,” 1991, pp. 369–379). Thinking of international curriculum work in the context of ethics brings us an interesting question at the heart of both complex sets of possibilities: In participating in work across cultures, we run the risk of imposing our foreign “horizon” (Gadamer, 1991) on those with whom we work; in seeking to proceed ethically, we run the risk of imposing an external, potentially foreign horizon or set of standards upon our work.6 Let us seek to work out the implications of this parallel. First, any imposition of the external points to the three dimensions we are borrowing from a late interview with Foucault (2003a), in which he speaks of “the three fundamental elements of any experience . . . : a game of truth, relations of power, and forms of relation to oneself and to others” (p. 23); the last of which he also refers to as “practices of the self” (2003b, pp. 34, 40; see also Foucault 1990, 2005; discussions and applications of Foucault’s notion of practices of the self include McLaren, 2006; Crane, Knights, & Starkey, 2008; and Loacker & Muhr, 2009). We always engage in relations of power, which we can never avoid because of the nature of human relationships, but which vary greatly in value and in the level of awareness we bring to them. Bringing our approach to curriculum to others—most notably across cultures and borders—invariably involves an enmeshment in power relations; this fact seems obvious. What might be less obvious is the level of power relations implied by an attempt to discipline our actions and relationships on the basis of ethical standards. When we discipline ourselves according to ethical standards, we potentially impose on ourselves the influence of another or others whose power lies obscured by the fact that we have taken in as our own the ideas and practices involved; they do not seem external or foreign even though they do not originate with us. Similarly, our attempts to influence others provide a parallel to our being influenced by those others who affect our practices, even if in neither case does the influence appear on the surface of the relationship. Both of these connections, however, tie us also to games of truth. What do I know and how have I come to know it, and in terms of my communicating my knowledge to others, in what ways and by what means do I justify the claims I make (and how and to what extent does the power relation implied by my underlying assertion of authority play a role in my claims and their recep-

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tion)? Similarly, we might ask how I discover and maintain whatever ethical ideas I hope to impose on myself in this process. Clearly, claims to truth play a significant role in my governing others or myself. How do I substantiate those claims, and how are they enforced? Here we see the inter-relation of power and truth. The complex set of relationships surrounding our work also implies sets of practices of the self—how do I govern myself in offering expertise? how do others govern themselves in accepting, rejecting, or questioning my offered help? what role have my inner practices played in my believing I have something to offer and in my offering it the way I do? One possible approach to offering my insights to another and to connecting with relevant ethical ideas lies in beginning with a “fusion of horizons” (Gadamer, 1991) rather than an imposition of the horizon of the one presenting the information. Gadamer speaks of the horizon of our point of view in the following way: Every finite present has its limitations. We define the concept of “situation” by saying that it represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence essential to the concept of situation is the concept of “horizon.” . . .  [W]orking out the hermeneutical situation means acquiring the right horizon of inquiry for the questions evoked by the encounter. (p. 302)

Gadamer goes on to explain that the consciousness that properly works out this horizon of inquiry “has the structure of experience” (p. 346, emphasis in original) and that the structure of experience ultimately involves reaching “an understanding in a dialogue . . . [such that we are] transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were” (p. 379). Dialogue signals a willingness to discover commonalities in our differences and differences in our commonalities so that we reduce inappropriate power relations,7 play a truth game with communal rules, and find or invent self-practices that encourage mutuality rather than monopoly. Gadamer remarks, “When two people come together and enter into an exchange with one another, then there is always an encounter between, as it were, two worlds, two worldviews and two world pictures” (in Vessey & Blauwkamp, 2006, p. 354). In international work, in the interstices between the local and the cosmopolitan, and in ethics, in the complex plurality of choice and value, these encounters between worlds or horizons arise possibly as impassible barriers of inferiority/superiority or arise as invitations for learning through a dialogic fusion of horizons, a meeting of worlds. Turning now to the ethical relation, we ask: Do I bring to my work a system of categories lowered into place from without or do I discover an immanent interrelation of values that arises from within? The world has a long history of imposed values, such a lengthy series of impositions that it might be hard to imagine alternatives, but we must seek other paths if we are not to remain stuck in irreconcilable otherness. To cross the chasm of

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our difference, we must at least seek common ground, mutuality, in recognizing the integral values that bind us together in our work for, with, and by one another. Of course there are numerous arguments back and forth concerning the very possibility of common ground. What I mean to address here is not by any means some form of return to foundationalism. It may be seen instead in terms of Gadamer’s ideal of the meeting of worlds implied by engaging in conversation (Vessey & Blauwkamp, 2006), possibly by a properly “thin” version of Habermasian discourse ethics (Linklater, 2005), or by some appropriately broadened version of dialogic cosmopolitanism (Jordaan, 2009). Below we will also discuss a Foucauldian version of this idea in his discussion of the implicit rights of a person involved in dialogue. Let us take as an example, then, of an internally arising set of ethical practices Foucault’s description of dialogue in a late interview (2003a). He introduces a discussion of dialogue versus polemics by saying, “there is a whole morality at stake, the one that concerns the search for truth and the relation to the other” (Foucault 2003a, p. 18). Here he sets out the three “elements of experience” (p. 23) in terms of a “morality” (practices of the self), a “search for truth” (a game of truth), and “the relation to the other” (relations of power) (p. 18). What most concerns us in this discussion lies in the way these practices, games, and relations are immanent in dialogue or polemics themselves. Concerning polemics, Foucault casts it in terms of a self-assertion that makes of the other “an adversary, an enemy who is wrong”; a game in which “his final objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning”; and relations of power such that “he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just undertaking” (p. 19). These aspects of polemics are not something added to the interaction by an outside judge or by the way society or others view it; they are intrinsic to polemics itself. Similarly, dialogue encompasses certain rights shared by the participants based on the nature of dialogue itself, not added by an agreement between them or by anything about the local truths of those involved. Every dialogue, because it is a dialogue, is a “work of reciprocal elucidation.” Foucault tells us that “the rights of each person are in some sense immanent in the discussion. They depend only on the dialogue situation” (2003a, p. 18). When we seek to share our knowledge, to practice a form of intervention in the lives and work of others, to take part in international curriculum work, we may easily find ourselves caught between the undeniable attractions of polemics and the more subtle charms of dialogue. As human beings we can find both of these approaches calling out to us. As educators we can sometimes too easily imagine the appeal of standing in front of a group proclaiming our truth, ignoring voices of dissent because we know our cause is just. On the other hand, we have likely been schooled in the advantages

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of mutuality, of listening and sharing, of a collaborative search for truth. It seems probable that most of us shuttle back and forth between polemics and a more dialogic attitude. Foucault’s point, which I wish to stress, is that in their complete forms, dialogue and polemics have an internal coherence that does not rely on a morality added from without. The morality of these two forms of life with their inherent relations, games, and practices lies precisely in what they are in themselves. When I engage in dialogue I cannot but treat the other as a partner in a necessarily reciprocal act of elucidation. Equally, when I engage in polemics I must treat the other as an enemy to be eliminated or at least subdued. Whichever activity I engage in brings with it a “natural” morality, that is, a morality that lies in that form of life, that particular practice of self. It lies within the process I take on, not just in a moral code applied from the outside. The morality of dialogue or polemics, as discussed by Foucault, is an immanent morality.8 We can move then from this Foucauldian insight of the morality implicit in our connections with others to two other approaches, one attributable to Gadamer, the other to Levinas. Gadamer (1991) offers the metaphor of a “fusion of horizons” (1991, pp. 306–307 or “an encounter between, as it were, two worlds,” Vessey & Blauwkamp 2006, p. 354) to explicate how we practice hermeneutics, that is, how we interpret texts, experiences, and communication. We can never wholly enter the world of another, whether in the form of a text or a person. On the other hand, through a consciousness of my own horizon of thought I can place my views in question at the same time as I question another by finding a point at which our horizons of understanding touch. In some ways, of course, I am always enclosed within the sphere of my own limited world, yet the limits of that world can be transgressed by means of my interpretation of and my encounter with the world of another. “We say that we ‘conduct’ a conversation, but the more genuine a conversation is, the less its conduct lies within the will of either partner” (Gadamer, 1991, p. 383). Conversations in which we sincerely engage always extend us beyond our current limits and raise questions we could not have foreseen. The ethical dimension of Gadamer’s claim lies in discovering either our willingness to accept and respond to the uncontrollable or our contrary intentions to attempt to maintain our power against the movement of conversation. He says, “To reach an understanding in a dialogue is not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one’s own point of view, but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were” (1991, p. 379). It is this transformative potential that we either accept or reject in our approach to conversation with another.

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Hermeneutic Dialogue and the Ethical Practice of the Self If we accept the invitation to genuine dialogue by which we may be changed and through which we may find ourselves called into question, we can turn to Gadamer’s idea of the I–Thou aspect of hermeneutic dialogue in order to understand our relation to the other. Gadamer sees the interpretive act as following three lines of thought that run parallel in ways to Buber’s idea of the I–Thou encounter.9 Gadamer then distinguishes three forms of possible I–Thou relation: First, one listens and meets the other only for the sake of prediction and control, for the sake of an understanding of human nature or at least of this particular other in a way that allows one to remain clearly dominant in the relationship. In this case, then, we engage in international curriculum work on the basis primarily of enhanced power relations. As Gadamer points out, “From the moral point of view this orientation toward the Thou is purely self-regarding” (1991, p. 358). We could, for instance, administer questionnaires on views of democracy (see Mason, this volume) or discuss with a group whether one’s own work is an incursion into their place and space (see Helfenbein, this volume) and yet, different from these authors, take the answers as merely information to be digested and used in a larger project of dominance. Given the history of colonial and imperial relationships, we are all familiar with this strategy. We may still need to consciously assess our work at times, nevertheless, to assure ourselves that we are not functioning in a “purely self-regarding” conversational approach to those we meet in our international work (and at home). Second, one sees the other as person rather than object but responds to every word of the other with a counter-word, using the conversation as means of self-assertion or self-development. In this case, we believe we know the other better than she knows herself and thus we are not and cannot be disturbed by the other’s words or presence. “By understanding the other, by claiming to know him, one robs his claims of their legitimacy. . . . The claim to understand the other person in advance functions to keep the other person’s claim at a distance. We are familiar with this from the teacher–pupil relationship” (1991, p. 360). This, Gadamer tells us, is in fact the dialectical illusion of experience perfected and replaced by knowledge. . . .  The person who believes he is free of prejudices, relying on the objectivity of his procedures and denying that he is himself conditioned by historical circumstances, experiences the power of the prejudices that unconsciously dominate him as a vis a tergo [a force acting from behind]. (p. 360)

This is again a familiar enough notion, but note that this is a form of dialogue—a potentially ethical and mutual interaction. It can be entered into by us as though it were the dialogue envisioned by Foucault, in which

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we work together toward mutuality of understanding, toward mutuality of work, and toward mutuality of expression. In this case we might recognize ourselves perhaps in the classroom or in conversation with colleagues at home or abroad promoting a game of truth in which we believe ourselves to begin with the best cards or top strategy or sufficient knowledge with which we may win—as though this game were not a mutual play of ideas and practices, but rather a secret but nevertheless serious, pure polemicism. In a case like this we listen to the other with apparent concern for his or her views but always only in order to defend or promote our own. No learning takes place; there is no room in this process for experience (Erfahrung) in Gadamer’s sense of the idea.10 We are again outside the realm of a genuine practice of mutuality. Even if we believe ourselves to hold significant truths that can be of value to others, when we play the game of truth this way, we focus not on mutuality but on asserting our power or rights. Third, however, we might meet the other and truly listen, hearing the words and encountering the other in a way that puts our own ideas into question. Only this latter form of conversation has transformative potential, and indeed it is this form of interaction from which Gadamer draws his notion of experience as disturbing, as a form of genuine dialogue, as a logic of question and answer (1991, pp. 370–372)11 that requires and in fact is radical openness: In human relations the important thing is . . . to experience the Thou truly as a Thou—i.e., not to overlook his claim but to let him really say something to us. Here is where openness belongs. But ultimately this openness does not exist only for the person who speaks; rather, anyone who listens is fundamentally open. (1991, p. 361)

A key ethical question for those who would engage with another lies in our willingness, or lack thereof, to engage in “true” speaking and listening—speaking and listening in order to experience the other and to be surprised and opened by both sides of that process.12 We here have the possibility of moving past a contrived form of truth game into an encounter by which we are transformed. In such an event we offer the other something more than techniques, methods, approaches, or past learning. We offer ourselves. We do so genuinely, however, only by means of an ethical practice of the self, of “forms of relation to oneself and to others” (Foucault, 2003, p. 23), through an encounter that meets the other without dismissal, dogmatism, or denial of their otherness and of the opacity of alterity—that is, the fact that we cannot fully measure or control our difference from one another. The burden then of an ethics of international curriculum work lies in recognizing the forms of discourse in which we are engaged as well as in a sincere attempt to encounter the other in midst of the practical issues raised by the structures through which we meet.

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Levinas (1998a) famously points to the further limits of our rationalizing of our relations, of our using or perhaps being used by Reason to construct and maintain a level of certainty and a policing of boundaries that eliminates alterity. Any move that eradicates difference, perhaps in the name of dialogue or care or help—solicited or not—or domestication or even revolution, any such weeding out of our radical alterity may make us feel duly philanthropic, but it always leaves a desert in its wake.13 Levinas will tell us that we cannot stand on our good intentions (or our mixed or uncertain ones), producing a homogeneity or reciprocity that in the end means nothing other than our domination over the other. Radical dialogue ends in recognition of our ineradicable debt to the other. Neither Foucauldian dialogue nor a Gadamerian fusion of horizons dissolves the fundamental significance of difference. Levinas operates out of a deep recognition that totalizing forces work behind the scenes in much of our everyday activity such that we are caught up in forms of domination without knowing what we do. In “Dialogue: SelfConsciousness and Proximity of the Neighbor” (1998a), Levinas leads the reader step-by-step through various understandings of dialogic relationship toward a challenging suggestion that even our attempts at encounter may often fail to fulfill dialogue’s potential. In what follows, we attempt to walk in the steps of the analysis provided by Levinas, for the sake of seeing where he transcends Gadamer’s forms of the I–Thou relation as they apply to international curriculum work. The first section of Levinas’s discussion of dialogue is named: “Spirit as knowledge, and immanence.” At this first level, thought and philosophy reside in Oneness; dispersion and otherness are relative terms, with unity and sameness their required center; self and its consciousness reigns. “The unity of the I think is the ultimate form of spirit as knowledge. And to this unity . . . all things are referred . . . . The system of what is intelligible is, ultimately, a consciousness of self” (1998a, p. 139). Here we face the Cartesian influence on later thought, reinforced by Kant. Once I discover my own self-consciousness, I have found the beginning and the end of knowledge. I need no other, for I am all. This view, even though we may see it as outmoded, lives on in much contemporary thinking and action. Much economic, political, and even educational thinking places heavy emphasis on the individual “I,” even though even a brief moment spent in analysis, as Aristotle knew (Aristotle 2002, p. 10), will show us that “self-sufficiency” cannot be thought of legitimately outside a thoroughly social setting. Next comes “The dialogue of immanence”: “The I think in which beingin-act is constituted can be interpreted as coinciding with what it constitutes: the full self-consciousness of the I think would be the very system of knowledge in its unity of intelligibility” (1998a, p. 139). We are told in this section that the “spirit” may engage in inner conversation or “dialogue”

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without breaking out of its sameness. (“According to the traditional interpretation . . . the spirit thinking remains no less one and unique”—p. 140.) Additional interlocutors change nothing; we merely get more of the Same, by means of the hegemony of Reason, for, “Reason is one. It has no one left with whom to communicate; nothing is outside of it” (p. 141). This faces the specter of the Enlightenment with all its difficult baggage, from which we even now have great difficulty escaping. This form of “dialogue,” “in which . . . reciprocal alterity is suppressed” possibly “brings someone to reason” but the exchange “will hold ultimately within a single soul, in a single consciousness”; it requires and maintains peace through “a power of domination,” “power over [the other person] as over a thing” (1998, p. 141). Hegel, Levinas tells us, places knowledge first and perceives multiplicity as a challenge to be overcome by “this priority of knowledge over dialogue” (p. 143). But the effort itself, Levinas says, “signifies the impossibility of language’s staying within the dimensions of the cogito” (p. 143). In other words, dialogue under the aegis of Reason becomes an instrument of stuck power relations. As Levinas says elsewhere, “violence does not consist so much in injuring or annihilating persons as in interrupting their continuity, making them play roles in which they no longer recognize themselves” (1969, p. 21) In “Dialogue and transcendence,” Levinas says, “beyond the sufficiency of the being-for-itself another possibility of excellence is shown in the human dimension that is not measured by the perfection of the consciousness-of-self” (1998a, p. 143). Beyond knowledge “raised to the universal intelligibility into which these thinking I’s would be absorbed, or sublimated, or united . . . by way of this unity of Reason” (p. 143) lies a fundamental “sociality  . . .  in the summons of a You by an I, . . . what Buber calls by the primary word ‘I–Thou,’ . . . the principle and the basis . . . of all dialogue” (p. 143). We are not stuck forever with the self-referential mode of conversation that leads every discussion back to a forced unity. Self-consciousness does not stand as the only point of entry into our work and lives together. There is instead another principle at work, that of an inter-relation, a basic sociality, or, for our purposes, a mutuality, that takes us past an inflexibly complete self with no room for a genuine other. We are again tempted in our time and place to believe we achieve this form of dialogue by merely talking and making an attempt to listen. But both speaker and listener can quite easily be caught up in one of the structures of dialogue in which power relations are blocked or absolutized without our awareness or acknowledgement. Levinas warns us of the ease with which what appears to be our talk with one another can be instead be merely talk with ourselves. The “subject” in idealism, Levinas explains, cannot escape the I–It relation, for it makes all beings into objects; dialogue, on the other hand, “an event of spirit, at least as irreducible and old as the cogito” (1998a, p. 144), is not a

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realm of “use” or “experience” (Buber, 1996) but an “encounter” between unique selves without possible synthesis.14 Knowledge no longer closes the distance between self and other by way of subsuming the other to the self/ one. Difference is not lost to knowledge or unity; uniqueness is preserved— here we find “the extraordinary and immediate relation of dialogue, which transcends this distance without suppressing it or recuperating it”; here the relation is “different from that of knowing him: [it is] to approach the neighbor” (p. 144). Between two persons in dialogue, “absolute distance” obtains (1998a, p. 145); they cannot be encompassed by a third-person view; there is no correct objective description that subsumes the dialogue under the order of knowledge or unity or a synthesis or a totalizing truth. The I–Thou relation always appears as though as an image (or “reflection”) of a human–divine relation, in which the other is unaccountably alien, in which alterity is absolute and can never be overcome by thought or by goodwill. Dialogue thus conceived is not a secondary phenomenon, parasitical as it were on the separate self and its individual consciousness. “One may legitimately ask oneself whether the internal discourse of the cogito is not already a derivative mode of the conversation with the other . . . whether the very interruption of the spontaneous impulse of thought reflecting upon itself . . . does not bear witness to an original and foregoing dialogue” (p. 146). “Posited before the unity of the self-consciousness, which is equal to itself and makes itself equal to the world, is thus the encounter in dialogue which would be a thought thinking beyond the world” (1998a, p. 146). We meet, not just in struggles of power or in repetitions of sameness, but also in forms of transcendence that push and pull and form us in ways we cannot control and do not initially envision. What Happens When We Move From the Neat Categories of Theory to Our Everyday or Extraordinary15 Practice? (1) We cannot shake relations of power, we cannot move ideas from context to context without our games of truth holding the flow of information in question, and we cannot distance ourselves from others or seek connection without self practices playing a role on all sides. So we do not operate in a vacuum of forces, ideas, or practices. We function, either through awareness or without it, at the intersection of power, truth, and self. This meeting of Foucault’s “components necessary for constituting a field of experience” (2003a, p. 23) requires on our part a certain level of consciousness regarding the aspects of that field. We might seek to deny that we engage in relations of power or that what we offer is merely one game of truth, but such

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practices close our eyes to both our investment in the situation and our responsibility for it. As Foucault further says, our interactions, whether dialogical or polemical, constitute a “whole morality” (p. 18) that runs either toward mutuality or toward monopoly. (2) A fusion of horizons will always describe different spheres of power, truth, and self between participants. In Gadamer’s view, The interactive nature of dialogue means that once we are drawn in, we do not escape without being changed in some sense. In a genuine conversation, we cannot assert our views and continue to hold them in the same way that we did upon entering the dialogue. Rather, the act of engaging in conversation transforms these views or leads to the articulation of new truths of which we were previously unaware. (Walhof, 2005, p. 166)

Of course, “in human relationships . . . power is always present: . . . [there is always] a relationship in which one person tries to control the conduct of the other” (Foucault 2003b, p. 34). Foucault is quick to point out, however, that in the ordinary case “these power relations are mobile, they can be modified, they are not fixed once for all” (p. 34). Gadamer wants to make a further point, one that extends our moral relations, in suggesting that a fusion of horizons can occur in which, we might say, the conversation itself takes over, in which we learn and teach much more than we do or can consciously intend. In this sense, when we truly engage one another, we open the door for the possibility that power relations, games of truth, and the relations to self and other present in each moment of experience can be formed and reformed by the dialogue itself. The relationship in which we take the other seriously can carry us into an encounter in which unplanned learning becomes the order of our interaction and in which dialogue takes over and proposes new experience that stands at the center of any genuine ethics of curriculum work, wherever it takes place. Ethics in this sense is not simply what I do but more certainly what I am willing to undergo. (3) Encounter without end always transcends immanence and makes immanent the transcendent—we are always potential debtors to the otherness we meet. We may wish to ignore or find problematic the notion of transcendence we meet in Levinas, and we certainly should not simply swallow it whole without thought. Yet the final movement of our ethical encounter with the other must be allowed to break us open to that which our thinking and words can never wholly contain. We need not assume any sort of traditional religious stance toward the other in order to recognize a depth of connection and of challenge in our meeting with our colleagues, whether local, national, or international. The Levinasian notion of the transcendent means at least that we discover in our work together an encounter with what Alfred North Whitehead described as the work of philosophy: “Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its

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best, the wonder remains” (1938, p. 168). To recognize the wonder in another and in our encounters and work together—across cultures and borders or not—is to recognize a form of transcendence, not as another means to control or a path to the obstruction of thought, but as a simple awareness that not-knowing is the truest truth of our relationship to Truth. Notes 1. I will be using “ethics” in general as it is often used in philosophy to stand for “moral philosophy” or the more theoretical aspects of discussions of human conduct and obligation; I will generally use “moral” or “morality” for talk concerning practices, principles, and rules. The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably in ordinary as well as in philosophic discourse, and at times the distinction will blur in my discussion due to the close connections between theory and practice in human affairs. 2. One might ask, why Foucault, Gadamer, and Levinas rather than others, such as, for example, Rawls, Appiah, Sen, or Nussbaum? The first-order answer is that the ideas of the chosen thinkers lend a particular point of view on dialogue that I wish to make use of here. This in no way is meant to indicate that alternative approaches would lack value; they would simply point in other directions and leave us with very different ways of viewing the issue. The general theoretical point to be drawn lies in the very nexus of ideas we are addressing: Each choice relates to one’s local situatedness and to one’s embeddedness in the whole of things. No decision to make use of a particular set of thinkers or ideas is absolute or final, and none is without some relevance, more or less direct, more or less tenuous. 3. I do not intend to enmesh this discussion in the current confusions over the notion of the cosmopolitan/human, using the idea simply as a place marker for that which is more than local, which we can perhaps share through our humanity. For interesting recent discussion of issues in this realm see Dallmayr (2003), Jabri (2007), Jordaan (2009), and Godrej (2009). 4. See for example, Gadamer (Vessey & Blauwkamp, 2006) concerning the meeting with another and its attendant mutuality implied by conversation. 5. For an interesting assessment of the “reflexive distance that would enable agents as well as theorists to reexamine their modes of thought and behavior” (p. 266) see Kögler (1996). 6. We might look to Foucault, Butler, and Levinas on both sides of this issue in terms of subjugation and self-creation, performative aspects of identity, and the ethical relation with the other. For a helpful discussion of these ideas, see Loacker and Muhr (2009), esp. pp. 269–273. 7. As Foucault points out, power relations, while a part of every human experience, can become “stuck” and thus promote or simply become cases of domination (2003b, pp. 34–35). 8. Foucault says explicitly that “a whole morality is at stake” (1994, p. 18; “il y va de toute une morale,” 1994, p. 591). ‘Morality’ functions here as a term for

xxxii    Mutuality or Monopoly

9. 10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

a set of practices, either polemical or dialogical. We could, in our own case, refer instead to an ‘immanent ethics’, meaning both a set of practices and its theoretical underpinnings. See Keller (2011) for a parallel discussion of the three approaches to the I– Thou relation in Gadamer. “Every experience worthy of the name thwarts an expectation” (1991, p. 356). “Thus experience is experience of human finitude” (p. 357). “Genuine experience is experience of one’s own historicity” (p. 357). Gadamer (1991) pp. 370–372 makes reference concerning the logic of question and answer to Collingwood (1939). For further elaboration of this idea see Collingwood (1939; 1940). Compare Levinas: “[The person] surrenders himself further when he expresses himself; . . . the Saying (Dire) is an opening. . . . Prior to discourse, I am clothed in a form; I am where my being hides me. To speak is to break this capsule of the form and to surrender oneself” (1998b, p. 89). The role of the listener is reflected more fully in the following: “This is not a situation in which one poses the question; it is the question that takes hold of you: there you are brought into question” (p. 85). In encounter, both speaker and listener are (potentially) opened to the other, to experience that is not simply a continuation of the same. It’s interesting to note a comment by Gadamer to the effect that “the dialectic of charitable or welfare work operates this way, penetrating all relationships between men as a reflective form of the effort to dominate” (1991, p. 360). “The Encounter, or proximity, or sociality, is not of the same order as experience,” (1998a, p. 145). I take, for instance, international curriculum work to be “extraordinary practice.”

References Aristotle. (2002). Aristotle’s nicomachean ethics. (J. Sachs, Trans.) New York, NY: Focus Publishing. Buber, M. (1996). I and thou. (W. Kaufman, Trans.) New York, NY: Touchstone. Collingwood, R. G. (1939). An autobiography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Collingwood, R. G. (1940). An essay on metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Crane, A., Knights, D., & Starkey, K. (2008). The conditions of our freedom: Foucault, organization, and ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly, 18(3), 299–320. Dallmayr, F. (2003). Cosmopolitanism. Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy, 31(3), 421–442. Foucault, M. (1990). The use of pleasure: Volume 2 of the history of sexuality. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (1994). Michel Foucault, dits et ecrits, 1954–1988, IV, 1980–1988). Paris, France: Éditions Gallimard. Foucault, M. (2003a). Polemics, politics, and problematizations: An interview with Michel Foucault. In P. Rabinow & N. Rose (Eds.), The essential Foucault (pp. 18–24). New York, NY: The New Press.

Mutuality or Monopoly    xxxiii Foucault, M. (2003b). The ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom. In P. Rabinow & N. Rose (Eds.), The essential Foucault (pp. 25–42). New York, NY: The New Press. Foucault, M. (2005). The hermeneutics of the subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. New York: Picador. Gadamer, H.G. (1991). Truth and method. 2nd revised ed. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.) New York, NY: Crossroad. Godrej, F. (2009). Towards a cosmopolitan political thought: The hermeneutics of interpreting the other. Polity, 41(2), 135–165. Jabri, V. (2007). Solidarity and spheres of culture: The cosmopolitan and the postcolonial. Review of International Studies, 33, 715–728. Jordaan, E. (2009). Dialogic cosmopolitanism and global justice. International Studies Review, 11(4), 736–748. Keller, J. G. (2011). Dialogue as moral paradigm: Paths toward intercultural transformation. Policy Futures in Education, 9(1), 29–34. (Special Issue on The Council of Europe’s White Paper) Kögler, H. H. (1996). The power of dialogue: Critical hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Levinas, E. (1969) Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press Levinas, E. (1998a). Dialogue: Self-consciousness and the proximity of the neighbor. In B. Bergo (Trans.), Of God who comes to mind (pp. 137–151). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Levinas, E. (1998b). Questions and answers. In B. Bergo (Trans.), Of God who comes to mind (pp. 79–99). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Linklater, A. (2005). Dialogic politics and the civilising process. Review of International Studies, 31(1), 141–154. Loacker, B., & Muhr, S. (2009). How can I become a responsible subject? Towards a practice-based ethics of responsiveness. Journal of Business Ethics, 90(2), 265–277. McLaren, M. (2006). From practices of the self to politics: Foucault and friendship. Philosophy Today, 50(Supp), 195-201. Plato. (2001). The trial and death of Socrates (John M. Cooper & G. M. A. Grube, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Sandel, M. (1984). The procedural republic and the unencumbered self. Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy, 12(1) 81–96. Vessey, D., & Blauwkamp, C. (2006). Hans-Georg Gadamer ‘The incapacity for conversation’ (1972). Continental Philosophy Review, 39(4), 351–359. Villa, D. (2001). Socratic citizenship. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Walhof, D. (2005). Bringing the deliberative back in: Gadamer on conversation and understanding. Contemporary Political Theory, 4(2), 154–174. Whitehead, A. N. (1938). Modes of thought. New York, NY: Free Press.

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Section I Curriculum for Democratic Citizenship

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Chapter 1

Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders The Case of Civitas International Terrence C. Mason Indiana University–Bloomington

The principal theme of this volume concerns the ethical dilemmas that educators confront as they engage in international curriculum work. In these situations, curriculum workers must address the kind of ambiguity that people sometimes experience in the face of events or actions that are difficult to understand or interpret. As others suggest elsewhere in this volume, ethical issues arise when individuals must decide how to act or what steps to take in situations where values come into conflict (see Keller, Stevick, and Rapoport). Perhaps an example of this kind of ethical dilemma and the value questions that surround it may be useful here. In 1996, while working on teacher education curriculum reform in Vietnam as part of a team of consultants invited by the Vietnamese Ministry of Higher Education, I was speaking with a group of Ministry officials, urging them to move Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 3–23 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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ahead deliberately and slowly with their reform plans and cautioning them about directly adopting teaching practices and educational policies from the U.S. (even though I had been describing them in a series of presentations and workshops). Their response to me was that they didn’t have time to proceed slowly; they were “fifty years behind” (referring to progress made in curriculum reform by other countries in the region such as South Korea and Japan) and couldn’t afford to take their time adopting new ways of teaching and preparing teachers. So I was caught between adhering to what I believed to be a wise approach to curriculum reform (considering context, remaining skeptical of ideas drawn from other cultures and systems) and my Vietnamese colleagues’ desire for me to assist them with a quick (and perhaps blind) adoption of methods and practices employed in the U.S. The path here was not clear; I wanted to respect my colleagues’ opinions but worried that they were placing too much faith in ideas that may not conform well to the Vietnamese context.1 My interest in educational ethics is not derived from a particular academic interest in moral philosophy but rather from attempting to come to terms with situations such as the one I have described above. Applied ethics, the branch of philosophy I refer to here, is “the application of normative ethical theories to practical problems” (applied ethics, 2012). Thus, applied ethics deals with choices, the decisions that people make, and the actions they pursue based upon those decisions. My own questions have to do with the sources of information people use to make decisions where the consequences of their actions may have implications for their own welfare and that of others. Faced with an array of choices when making judgments about curriculum matters, each with different potential consequences, how do we choose what steps to take? In this chapter I will examine the ethical dilemmas that I have encountered in my work with the Civitas International Educator Exchange program and offer some possible solutions to the value conflicts that inevitably emerge from this kind of work. The Curriculum Context: Civitas International From 2004 until 2011, I served as director of the Civitas International Educator Exchange partnership that has included educators from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and recently India and Malawi, as well as educators from the states of Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois in the U.S. This program, administered by the Center for Civic Education and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, has been in existence since 1995 and is designed to: Bring exemplary civic education curricula to students worldwide through partnerships with organizations in the United States and in more than 70

Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders    5 countries. This unique network of educators, civil society organizations, educational institutions, and governmental agencies has worked for more than a decade to develop quality curricular materials and train teachers throughout Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Many countries in the Civitas network collaborate with model civic education programs in U.S. states and in other countries to develop programs that address their specific civic education needs. The objectives of Civitas International Programs are to: • Assist international educators in creating, adapting, implementing, and institutionalizing effective civic education programs in their countries • Acquaint international educators with exemplary curricular materials and teacher training programs in civic education developed in the United States and other participating nations • Create and implement civic education programs for students in the United States that will help them better understand the history and experiences of emerging and established democracies • Facilitate the exchange of ideas and experiences in civic education among educational, governmental and private-sector leaders in the United States and other countries • Encourage independent research and evaluation to determine the effects of civic education on the knowledge, skills, and character traits essential for the preservation and improvement of constitutional democracy (Center for Civic Education website, www.civiced.org)

From 2004 to 2007, as director of the Civitas Baltics partnership, I coordinated exchange activities between Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and educators from Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois. During this time, delegations from these countries and states consisting of government officials and elected representatives, school administrators and teachers, higher education faculty and administrators, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations participated in a variety of activities aimed at promoting schoolbased civic education curriculum and instruction. The most prominent of these involved Project Citizen, a curriculum designed to teach students how to identify problems in their communities, to examine the public policies associated with them, and to generate solutions and “action plans” aimed at resolving the problems that they identified. Scores of teachers from the Baltic countries were trained in We the People: Project Citizen (Center for Civic Education, 1998) and hundreds of their students participated in the program between 1995 and 2007. Additionally, as a part of the Civitas program, meetings and conferences on civic education topics were held including those in Tallinn, Estonia, “The Mass Media and the Civic Mission of Schools in Contemporary Democracies” (2005); Riga, Latvia, “Democracy and Diversity” (2006); and Vilnius, Lithuania, “U.S./Baltics Exchange Seminar” (2007). Also, in conjunction with the Civitas program, a curriculum was developed for the social educator master’s degree program at Vilnius Pedagogical Univer-

6   T. C. MASON

sity that combined elements of social work and civic education (Kvieskiene & Mason, 2004). Another civic education curriculum, Foundations of Democracy, developed by the Center for Civic Education, was introduced in Latvia and Estonia as a part of this project, and several teacher training workshops were held to familiarize teachers in those countries with this curriculum that introduces concepts such as authority, justice, responsibility, and privacy to school-aged children. Delegations from the Baltic countries also visited the U.S. each year and engaged in a variety of activities including school and university visits to observe civic education programs and discuss civic education in their countries with students, to meet with government officials and school administrators, and to attend conferences and seminars organized for them to share their curriculum work and ideas with their U.S. counterparts. These exchange visits and activities offered numerous opportunities for educators from the Baltic countries and the participating U.S. states to share principles and practices about civic education with one another and to promote the expansion of civic learning in the schools. In 2008, the Civitas International network underwent a major restructuring that added new countries to the program, thus shifting focus away from certain countries, notably those in Eastern and Central Europe that had recently joined the European Union and NATO, including Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Following this reconfiguration, I began to work with my colleagues in Indiana to develop plans with educators from India and Malawi, our two new partner countries. Obviously, the conditions in India and Malawi differed substantially from those in the three Baltic countries, and the circumstances under which we would be working to develop and implement civic education curricula would offer a different set of challenges. The legacy of Soviet occupation had influenced the social, political, and cultural context in the Baltics, just as the particular history and culture of India and Malawi impacted their educational institutions in ways that would affect how we approached issues of civic education. As a means of developing a better understanding of the context in India and Malawi, the following goals were written into the project proposal for 2008–2009: 1. Familiarize representatives from the U.S. with the history, political institutions, educational system, and culture in India and Malawi. 2. Hold discussions with key stakeholders and representatives from the partnership countries to assess the status of civic education in India and Malawi and to identify strategies for improving civic learning. 3. Visit schools in partnership countries to observe and interact with students and teachers as they participate in civic learning programs (e.g., Project Citizen). 4. Develop effective methods of electronic (online, internet-based) communication to serve as a platform for project development.

Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders    7

5. Engage in analyses of constitutions and other key historical documents as well as civic education curriculum models and pedagogical approaches as a basis for developing a “constitution and citizenship” curriculum. 6. Provide technical support to partners in India and Malawi to assess the impact of Project Citizen on student learning and attitudes about citizenship and democracy by conducting a participatory action research project. 7. Explore possibilities for promoting civic learning and engagement in pre-service teacher education in India and Malawi. In December of 2008, I led a delegation to India and Malawi to initiate our work there and to take the first steps toward accomplishing these goals. Participants in these brief visits (approximately five days in each country) met with policymakers, teachers and school administrators, and students. As a result of these encounters, we learned a great deal about the status of civic education in the two countries and the challenges that we would face in working to extend the scope of education for democratic citizenship. In both countries, for example, Project Citizen was firmly established in a number of schools and an effective system for training teachers in how to implement the curriculum was in place. From our interactions with educators, we concluded that there was considerable interest at all levels, from classroom teachers to Ministry of Education officials in broadening the civic education curriculum and to help students acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be active citizens in their communities and countries. We also identified four categories of issues that the partnership would need to address as it moved ahead. These were: 1. Resources and sustainability. In a country as vast as India, it is hard to imagine the expense of reaching the millions of students who could benefit from learning how to become active citizens in their rapidly changing society. In Malawi, while the size of the country does not parallel that of India, resources are nonetheless a major problem. Basic necessities such as buildings, books, and classroom supplies must be provided for the teachers and students for them to fully participate in programs like Project Citizen. 2. Support and training. In both India and Malawi, the teachers and administrators we met with spoke of the need for various kinds of support to advance the work that has already been undertaken and to promote new initiatives. 3. Project Citizen design and implementation. Throughout our discussions with educators at all levels in India and Malawi, we heard enthusiastic praise for Project Citizen and its power to engage the hearts

8   T. C. MASON

and minds of students. We heard first-hand from students how it had offered them, in many cases, a transformative educational experience that was unlike any other they had known. We did, however, hear teachers offer some suggestions for improving the program. 4. Reciprocity. One of the aims of the Civitas program is to provide information and educational experiences for U.S. students regarding the status of democracy in countries around the world. We also know that we have much to learn from our colleagues from our partnership countries about how they have overcome major obstacles to both establish democratic institutions and to transform their educational systems to reflect a democratic way of life. We needed to ensure that our partnership was offering opportunities to learn from them just we shared our knowledge and experience in civic education curriculum development with them. With the preceding as a context for the curriculum work that I engaged in as a part of the Civitas International Educator Exchange, let me now turn to some of the dilemmas, both ethical and practical, that were encountered. I will draw upon examples from this work to illustrate some of the complex questions that arise when engaging with educators from other countries and cultures and how we have attempted to reconcile differences in values, educational practices, institutional cultures, and educational priorities as we sought common ground in promoting education for democratic citizenship across cultural and national boundaries. Whose Democracy? Definitions and Dilemmas Definitions of democracy abound as scholars, teachers, and policymakers disagree about the meaning of democracy and how it should be incorporated into the school curriculum.2 How one defines democracy has real implications for how one creates and implements school curricula to prepare students to become citizens. For example, traditional liberal conceptions of democracy emphasize the procedural aspects of democratic citizenship such as voting and “knowing one’s rights” and how to exercise them (Butts, 1989), while more direct, multicultural or critical approaches cast the citizen’s role as one that questions existing social and political institutions and practices in terms of their capacity to provide social justice and equity for all members of society. Examples of differing definitions of democracy have arisen on several occasions in my work with the Civitas international educator exchange. These differences have given rise to questions or dilemmas concerning the key principles that underlie the model of democracy promoted by Civitas and some of the assumptions about democracy held by

Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders    9

those we have worked with in other countries. Let me elaborate on two of these examples and the dilemmas they have raised. In the fall of 2002, in conjunction with our Civitas partnership in Lithuania, I administered a questionnaire to a group of 111 students enrolled in the social educator bachelor’s and master’s programs at Vilnius Pedagogical University to assess their understanding of the role of the social educator in Lithuania’s educational program, their intentions for implementing democratic teaching practices, the challenges they expected to encounter in their work as social educators, and the other kinds of knowledge and experience they felt they would need to successfully carry out their work (Kvieskiene & Mason, 2004). The vast majority of the responses to this questionnaire focused on democratic classroom processes or what Dewey (1927, 1985) referred to as creative democracy, a way of living and being together rather than a system of government that exists beyond and outside of the everyday experience of citizens. The future teachers surveyed in this study were more concerned about creating classroom environments that would foster their future students’ ability to interact in humane and cooperative ways, to listen to each other, and to find ways to resolve interpersonal conflicts. None of the responses made reference to the kind of principles and concepts usually associated with more procedural forms of civic education such as rule of law, constitutionalism, due process or other elements of civic education from the liberal democratic tradition. Most of the civic education programs developed and sponsored by the Center for Civic Education, the organization that sponsors the Civitas International Educator Exchange program, reflect this traditional liberal tradition. As a result, participants in the program are encouraged to adopt and implement programs like Project Citizen and Foundations of Democracy in their home countries. The following statements by four of the survey respondents were typical of those made by the future teachers in this study and reflect their orientation toward the concept of democracy and its place in the schools: (1) First and foremost I try to create a democratic environment by using the following: • A friendly atmosphere with sincere empathic relationships • I will promote open and pro-active approach with the children and colleagues • I will establish a crisis resolution team to solve emerging problems. • During individual conversations with the children (as well as during lectures arranged for all the children) I will teach them to think in a constructive way and be critical so that they gain trust in their capacity and are able to learn problem solving and make a contribution to democracy in society.

10   T. C. MASON (2) One of the democracy practices, for me, would be co-operation between the educator and the children. For example, the classroom teacher faces some problem, so in order to solve it I would invite all the class to the room and we will analyse it together and solve it. The difficulties are awaiting me when the children start quarrelling and fail to come to agreement, then my biggest task would be to find a compromise. (3) First and foremost a team of educators needs to be formed. They would be an initiative generating nucleus and would unite the institution community around themselves, i.e., pedagogues, pupils, their parents and other participants of the educational process. One more important condition—selfgovernance of an institution. The involvement of pupils’ parents into the activities of the institution is a must. The same is true for the collaboration among schools and the local community, strengthening of the links. (4) Democratic co-operation principles are needed in the work of classroom teachers. It is important to apply them in uniting the school community—pupils, their parents and the teachers working in the classroom and at school. I will incorporate democracy practices to consolidate the democratic communication between (1) the pupils, (2) the pupils and the teachers, and (3) the parents and the pupils. I will be willing to check how the stages of democracy education (setting communication rules, conscious acceptance of the rules, and development of responsibility for one’s actions) are applied.

So what dilemmas or conflicts does this raise for me in my role as curriculum worker? The apparent disconnect between the manner in which democracy is conceptualized by the participants in the Lithuanian study and the orientation of the organization that sponsors Civitas led me to question whether we should be seeking to impose particular models of democracy and democracy education that may not correspond to the needs, desires, and values of those with whom we are working. Is a conception of democracy that is largely procedural out of sync with countries emerging from political systems that inhibited the expression of individual rights and freedoms and established impenetrable bureaucracies with byzantine codes of rules and regulations? The tension between the relative importance of individual rights and freedoms and the need to “provide for the common good” is further illustrated in the following example taken from a workshop for teachers that I conducted in Latvia in 2006 in conjunction with Civitas. At that time, the Latvian Ministry of Education had recently adopted social studies as a part of its national curriculum, and educators there were seeking to define this new part of the school curriculum. To engage the group of teachers I was working with in a discussion about this topic I shared with them the definition of social studies created by the National Council for the Social Studies in the U.S. that included the phrase, “to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good

Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders    11

as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (National Council for the Social Studies, 1993, p. 213). One of the teachers present commented that this definition would also be appropriate for Latvia if the part about “the public good” was not included. I interpret this to mean that the general zeitgeist in Latvia following fifty years of Soviet rule was not focused on the collective welfare of society as much as ensuring that individual citizens could exercise their rights. This example suggests that we cannot assume that everyone shares the same ideas about what democracy is or how it should be integrated into the school curriculum. It may be the case that multiple definitions and approaches to democracy are needed in the kind of situations described here, but who should decide which ones? Should not those with whom we are working in Lithuania, or Latvia, or Malawi have a voice in the kind of democracy that we are seeking to promote and the types of school programs that will best achieve those ends? At the very least, it would seem, there should be some kind of dialogue (see Keller, this volume) over these conceptual and definitional issues before the implementation of civic education programs is undertaken. Such a deliberative approach would call for the perspectives of all participants in the curriculum work itself to be heard and for a more workable consensus to arise from these discussions. Here I am advocating for a process similar to one that House and Howe (1999) have articulated for research and evaluation design in which they emphasize the crucial role of inclusion, dialogue, and deliberation. One can easily imagine the process of civic education curriculum development in a program like Civitas following a parallel path to that which Howe (2003) recommends for research methodology: “Critical dialogue includes clarifying the views and self-understandings of research participants but also subjecting these views and self-understandings to rational scrutiny. This kind of dialogue is deliberative, where deliberation is a cognitive activity in which participants and researchers collaboratively engage and from which the most rationally defensible conclusions emerge” (p. 139). Encouraging discourse among participants about the kind of conceptual issues related to civic education raised here may not obviate continued efforts to create a more equitable environment for conducting international civic education curriculum, but it could certainly point in a direction that would lead toward achieving the democratic ideals that should be at the heart of programs like the Civitas International Educator Exchange.3 Citizen of What? Globalization and Civic Identity Recent debates about citizenship and civic education have considered the impact of globalization on the nature of citizenship and the focus of civ-

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ic education curriculum. The process of globalization has influenced the idea of citizenship in several ways (Mason & Delandshere, 2010; Sassen, 2002). To begin with, the rise of supranational entities such as the European Union have decoupled the traditional link between the citizen and the nation-state such that individuals may hold multiple civic identities simultaneously (e.g., a citizen of Latvia and the European Union). Conflicts between cultural and civic identities may force individuals to choose between a cultural identity (e.g., Albanian) and a political identity defined by the nation-state (e.g., Macedonian). Increased migration worldwide and variations in the legal definition of citizenship and how one attains it in different countries makes understanding the meaning of citizenship and how individuals interact within political systems yet more difficult. Finally, recent discussions of cosmopolitanism have appealed to a form of global citizenship that transcends the boundaries of traditional national sovereignty (Appiah, 2006; Nussbaum, 2006; Rawls, 1999; Singer, 2002). Since education for democratic citizenship occurs to a large extent in schools, the impact of these shifts on how citizenship is conceptualized must be considered as well as their implications for the kind of international curriculum work that we are considering here. As we see here, programs for preparing future citizens must be sensitive to the role of local circumstances and multiple civic identities as they seek to foster understandings and attitudes necessary for effective civic participation in the contemporary global context. The Civitas program is primarily aimed at promoting curricula to advance civic learning in relation to the nation-state. The Civitas network is comprised of partnerships between U.S. states and “emerging democracies” around the world. Exchanges typically occur between representatives of U.S. states and educators from those countries with whom they are partnered. When students work on public policy issues in Project Citizen, they are asked to evaluate whether solutions they propose to problems are aligned with the national constitution. Focusing on the nation-state has historical precedent since civic identity, political participation, and allegiance have been defined in relation to sovereign nations since the 18th century, if not before. Even advocates of cosmopolitanism such as Appiah (2006), when considering how basic human needs are to be met, recognize that “the primary mechanism for ensuring these entitlements remains the nation-state” (p. 163), so there are practical reasons to focus citizenship education efforts toward allegiance and identity with the nation. How, then, can the focus on national citizenship be reconciled with moves toward cosmopolitan, global citizenship, or other forms of citizenship that have begun to emerge and are currently influencing the work of those involved in Civitas? Perhaps an example will serve to illustrate the tension that exists around the issue of civic identity and how it might be addressed.

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A number of Civitas partnerships are working in so called “divided societies” such as Northern Ireland and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In order to engage students in the most pressing problems that confront their communities, they must first define what they mean by “community,” who is in it, who is not, and what are the commonalities that can bind a community together. In Northern Ireland, for example, this means bridging the divide between the Protestant and Catholic communities that have experienced conflict in that country for decades. Project Citizen has been adapted to include an exploration of the meaning of community and how young people from different religious backgrounds can work together toward the resolution of common problems within their communities. According to Civic Link, the Civitas partner organization in Northern Ireland, Civic-Link Northern Ireland aims to promote increased understanding and positive relationships between young people from different identities. It is an action-based programme for secondary schools, using the theme of civic participation as a vehicle to develop cross-community partnerships. The project pairs up two schools within the same community area, and with similar socioeconomic backgrounds, but from differing traditions. The young people involved identify and research a joint problem within their community, and then try to address it at a public policy level. (http://www.civic-link.org/)

Thus, Civitas here explicitly confronts the issue of civic identity by bringing together groups of young people who do not see themselves as part of the same community and promoting dialogue among them to foster a shared sense of identity for the purpose of easing social and political conflict. Students focus on civic action and public policy but also directly engage in forms of conflict resolution. Traditionally, civic education has focused on identification with a particular nation-state, but recent calls for global citizenship education (Gaudelli, 2009) suggest that we need to look beyond national borders at a time when issues of basic human rights are being raised on a global scale and bodies such as the International Court of Justice are adjudicating cases of rights violations, war crimes, and genocide. As a result, projects like Civic Link have shifted from emphasizing rights guaranteed by national constitutions to those articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In some cases, the human rights focus has reinforced the provisions of national constitutions while in other cases the UDHR and national constitutions are in conflict (e.g., concerning the right to education). Programs like Civitas may need to reconsider whether national citizenship constitutes the most relevant point of reference for the issues that affect citizens and whether education programs like Project Citizen should maintain a singular focus on constitutionality as defined by the nation-state. As conceptions of citizenship identity evolve in response to the forces of globalization, programs like Civitas will need to

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continue to examine how they define citizenship and how they structure educational programs for civic learning. Tradition versus Innovation: Progressive Pedagogy and Local Norms About Schooling and Society While it is not explicitly stated among the aims of the Civitas program, there is a philosophy of teaching and learning evident in much of the curriculum work promoted by the program that reflects a strong bias toward studentcentered, active teaching methods. For example, the kind of civic participation, inquiry, and reflection that is a hallmark of Project Citizen represents a departure from the traditional, didactic approach to teaching that has characterized civics instruction in the U.S. as well as other countries. While certainly no consensus exists among educators in the U.S. about the merits of this approach, it is even less certain that such agreement exists among educators in more traditional societies. In these cases, the status of teachers, the role of education, and the norms of behavior for young people may conflict directly with teaching practices that challenge the authority of teachers and other adults or that encourage young people to actively engage in community affairs. Thus, the democratic values that are implicit in many of the teaching methods promoted by the Civitas program may create conflicts for the teachers and students who seek to implement them in cultural contexts where those values are not generally endorsed. Some examples will illustrate this potential conflict. In the survey of Lithuanian teachers cited previously here, one respondent provided a list of difficulties she encountered with her students’ lack of preparation for democratic participation that reflects the conflict between democratic and more “authoritarian” value systems: • the children are not used to having their opinion considered • sometimes they are unable to make a choice (“I do not know what I would like”) • having chosen, they have difficulty “implementing” and following through (lack of responsibility) • there is a gap between school and the home • the family situation (the initial educational institution) most often is based on autocratic principles • they are used to different ways of maintaining discipline • they are used to different teaching and learning methods; this is new for them. (Kvieskiene & Mason, 2004, p. 209)

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It is evident here that attempts to “democratize” teaching practices have met resistance from students and teachers who are part of a culture that has not broken with traditions of the past that restrict students’ autonomy and maintain expectations of compliance and obedience. In advocating for democratic teaching practices then, we are also asking that people abandon (or at least reconsider) some of their cultural assumptions about the status of children and how they are expected to conduct themselves as students. Civic education, in this case, may be regarded as a kind of “Trojan horse” for cultural values that extends beyond the promoting of a democratic political system. If separating cultural and political values is difficult, if not impossible, then it seems that we should be must more explicit about this connection. Again, a more dialogic approach to this curriculum work would provide a forum for considering how culture, history, social norms, and values intersect with the political concepts and principles embedded in the civic education programs we are advocating. During a Civitas exchange visit to India and Malawi in December of 2008, some issues arose that seem to suggest possible tensions between the cultural values and norms of the educators and students in those countries and our own. These tensions may point to ethical questions about the extent to which it is appropriate for curriculum workers from countries like the U.S. to incorporate particular teaching methods in the programs that we present to our international colleagues. As we know, competition has long been associated with many aspects of schooling in the U.S. From being graded “on the curve” to participating in interscholastic contests in sports and academics, students often compete with each other in school-sponsored activities. We know also that in other non-Western cultures, competitiveness is not considered to be a core virtue and may not be a value that schools desire to promote. In both India and Malawi, when we met with teachers, they raised questions about the competition that was incorporated into the Project Citizen curriculum.4 Concerns were raised about the motivational effects of having students compete as teams against other schools as they presented the results of their projects in the form of portfolios and project displays. One of the participants in the exchange, Kristal Curry, a former high school civics teacher from the U.S., offered the following summary of how the Project Citizen teachers viewed the influence of team competition on the overall effectiveness of the program: They were very interested in thinking about how to make the process less competitive between students and schools, and how to make it more collaborative instead. For example, they liked the idea of a Project Citizen camp where students and teachers from different schools could meet to discuss their experiences and collaborate on various projects, rather than having the entire set-up be so competitive. They also mentioned the possibility of students from different schools interacting on the same project, and expressed

16   T. C. MASON interest in collaborating with teachers across the city and across the country. This was one of the areas where the teachers showed the most enthusiasm; I got the impression that they did not feel like Project Citizen was most beneficial when it was competitive, and felt that collaboration better suited the purpose of the project.

Teachers in the U.S. and other Western countries also decry the overemphasis on competition in our schools, but in places like India, social norms may render competition even more problematic and ill-suited for promoting civic learning. The high level of competitiveness created by the national examination system in India may also lead teachers to seek ways to diminish the role of competition in what is already a highly competitive school environment. Given the suggestions that the teachers made here, it would certainly be advisable to consider some of these alterations to the Project Citizen method to make it more consistent with the needs of students and teachers in India. In India and Malawi, we encountered another critique from teachers concerning the structure of Project Citizen. A common theme we heard echoed in our discussions with teachers and students in both countries was that too often students suffered a letdown when the Project Citizen action plans that they developed to resolve public policy issues were not implemented or acted upon. While the intent of Project Citizen is the study of how public policy is formulated and how citizens can influence it, it is not necessarily designed for advocacy and social action.5 Nonetheless, this shortcoming constitutes a real issue and a potential weakness from some participants’ perspectives. In some cases, local culture and tradition mitigate against having young people actively participate in the political realm, a world traditionally reserved for adults. We heard of public officials refusing to meet with students or ignoring their recommendations for solving community problems. Apparently, in some countries where policymakers have ignored students, Project Citizen sponsors have recommended excluding the step in the process that involves meeting with public officials. While this may respect local traditions regarding young peoples’ relationship to political institutions and practices, it eliminates an important aspect of Project Citizen’s “hands-on” approach to civics. In India and Malawi, educators continue to press for students to communicate with officials and to take active roles in the political process. Regardless of whether one favors supporting traditional norms of respect for authority and the hierarchical relationship between children and adults, or encouraging activism on the part of young people, it is clear that in some cases the kind of civic engagement that is a structural feature of Project Citizen clashes with the social norms of some societies. As before, this constitutes a topic worth discussing among all stakeholders in the educational process, students, teachers, administrators, parents, and public officials. Such dialogue about the desired ends of civic

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education and how Project Citizen and other Civitas-sponsored programs can promote those aims by attenuating the effects of competition or by reaching agreement about how young people should interact with the political system would seem to represent a worthwhile addition to the program. Curriculum Work and Uncertainty: Defining Dilemmas and Managing Ambiguity Teaching has been characterized as being inherently uncertain and ambiguous (Floden & Clark, 1988), and some have suggested that teachers need to develop the ability to “manage dilemmas” rather than to seek definitive solutions to problems they encounter in their practice (Lampert, 1985). Similarly, the field of curriculum work, particularly when carried out cross-culturally, is rife with possibilities for ambiguity and uncertainty. The dilemmas one encounters when working in the field of democracy education beyond one’s own borders are far from clear-cut or easy to interpret and, as I have tried to suggest here, require fairly nuanced and careful approaches to their solution. The issues raised in this chapter represent some of those that have led me to reflect on the challenges faced by educators working in the Civitas program and others that seek to export ideas about civic education to countries and cultures outside the U.S. What, then, are these dilemmas, and what can be done to sort through them and to “manage” them effectively? As I have indicated here, the ethical dilemmas that I have encountered in my work with Civitas fall into three main categories: conceptualizing democracy (different views on the nature of democracy and how it should be cultivated by school-based programs), civic/citizenship identity (to whom do we “pledge allegiance” and how does that affect curriculum and instruction in civics?), and value conflicts (the influence of the “hidden curriculum” imbedded in civics curriculum models imported from abroad). I conclude from this that democracy (and by extension democracy education) is controversial. I was reminded of this recently during a Civitas visit to India when our host who heads an NGO in that country became slightly nervous when I stated to an official from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of School Education and Literacy) that Civitas’ primary purpose was to promote “education for democracy.” She later told me that she avoided using the term democracy in her discussions with educational policymakers in India since it could be misinterpreted or create a negative impression. Evidently the concept of democracy was simply too contentious for many in India who view democratic reforms as a threat to a status quo that supports current economic, social, and political relations. (Perhaps,

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then, a goal for programs like Civitas is not “to make the world safe for democracy” but rather “to make the world safe for talking about democracy.”) Nonetheless, on the surface it would appear that strong agreement exists about the idea of democracy and its inclusion as part of the school curriculum, but as we have seen, “the devil is in the details” here, and once we move from the general to the more specific and concrete, there is much less clarity about what form civic education should take and how it should be enacted in schools. Some would say that the perils associated with tackling the dilemmas raised here are simply too great and the likelihood of committing a kind of cultural imperialism in the name of promoting democratic values and ideals outweighs the potential for doing good. Thus, educators from the more “mature” democracies should keep their distance when it comes to civic education curriculum development in emerging democracies. But rather than turning away from these seemingly intractable problems and treating democracy education as a Gordian knot that cannot be undone, I think we should view these as a set of controversies that need to be addressed systematically, openly, and inclusively. The deliberative approach that I referred to earlier here (House & Howe, 1999) holds the potential to lead educators toward a successful resolution of the dilemmas presented here as well as others that may arise in the course of this curriculum work. In terms of the Civitas program, I would offer some potential suggestions for resolving some of the specific dilemmas outlined in the paper. To begin with, I recommend being mindful of the advice proffered by Jacques Barzun (1987) that democracy cannot be exported, but it can be imported. By regarding our colleagues in emerging democracies as “importers,” we shift the responsibility for deciding about what is worth importing and how it would be of use to the citizens of the country receiving it. It also requires the countries providing assistance to adopt a much more critical stance regarding the forms of civic education they have to share. Is the program suitable for the context under consideration? Are there elements of the program that are inappropriate or irrelevant? Are there aspects of the program that clash with local norms and values? By adopting an inclusive and deliberative approach, discussion of these matters will form a foundation for the later work of curriculum adaptation and implementation. In this case, discussion among participants and stakeholders about the meaning of democracy, the entity or entities to which citizens should direct their civic energies, and what constitutes effective and appropriate curriculum could establish a common ground from which to create sustainable civic education practices. A related suggestion here concerns the idea of reciprocity in conducting international curriculum work. As a part of the deliberative model proposed here, it would be imperative that participants from the so-called “emerging” democracies be given ample opportunity to engage in a form

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of dialogue that offers opportunities for them to present their ideas and experiences about developing civic education curriculum. That is, they should not merely respond to ideas presented to them, but they should take a more generative stance toward the process of curriculum development, and in doing so offer guidance from their experiences to those from the more “advanced” democracies. One thing that the Civitas exchange program has revealed is that when exchange participants from Latvia, India, or Malawi share their stories about the struggles they have endured, the obstacles that they have overcome, and their commitment to democratic reforms, their U.S. counterparts learn valuable lessons about the meaning of their own democracy and the kind of society it can provide. In the simplest terms, our colleagues from “emerging” democracies are often more attuned to challenges of building and maintaining a democratic culture than are many of those who take for granted the benefits afforded them by an open, democratic society. It is worth noting here that the ethic of reciprocity generated by these interactions benefits not only those from the more “advanced” democracies, but the sense of mutuality that emerges fosters a richer understanding of democracy and its challenges for everyone. Programs like Civitas have provided a forum for many groups and individuals to share their experiences with students, teachers, and other members of the international civic education community, and such opportunities should be further encouraged and extended. As will become apparent in the next section, new challenges have arisen for international democracy education programs sponsored by the U.S. As a result, new choices and decisions will have to be made by policymakers and educators. The ethical dimensions of these choices should continue to be central to the process of decision-making about the form and content of programs to promote democratic citizenship. Let me conclude here with a brief discussion of the current status of the Civitas program and the future of similar efforts. Post Mortem: Ethics and Sustainability In 2011, the Civitas program, about which I have written here, fell victim to the massive budgets cuts for educational and social programs enacted by the U.S. Congress. Within months of that legislation, the primary source of funding for Project Citizen and numerous other citizenship education programs disappeared. This situation can be seen as either a crisis or as an opportunity to test the impact of the work that has been carried out by Civitas and other such programs over the last two decades. Will there be enduring effects associated with these programs, or will the values of civic mindedness, pluralism, rule of law, and so on be eclipsed by other concerns?

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The demise of the Civitas program raises some immediate questions about sustainability. The first of these questions is, “What do we mean by sustainable?” If we adopt a literal or mechanistic view of sustainability, we would need to assess whether curriculum practices like Project Citizen continued to be implemented as they were originally introduced. On the other hand, a more systemic or dynamic view of curriculum innovation and dissemination might seek to assess whether education for democracy, broadly conceived, would continue to flourish through other initiatives. Are the educational practices that were introduced somehow transformed, localized, or contextualized? Given what has been presented here, we might expect to see, for example, variations on Project Citizen that incorporate more actual implementation of solutions to community problems, less competition among groups of students, and more reference to issues of human rights rather than national or local legal documents. While Project Citizen in its original form may not be sustained, hybrid programs that maintain the spirit of civic participation but with greater attention to local circumstances may continue to exist. This latter approach to sustainability would appear to be more consistent with an ethical perspective that values the role of culture and context in curriculum matters. In a global economic environment where competition for scarce resources is fierce, we must also ask whether the democratic spirit is robust enough in countries like India and Malawi to lead policymakers to view education for democratic citizenship as a priority and to provide resources to sustain such programs for young people. More specifically, can democracy education successfully compete with programs for basic literacy, public health, and economic development in countries that face wide-ranging and intractable problems in their quest to take their place among the more advanced democracies of the world? In countries like Latvia and Serbia, where forms of civic education have been integrated into the national curriculum, it is more likely that programs like Project Citizen will be maintained. When civic education remains on the margins of the official academic program, it is more likely that immediate concerns such as food security and disease control will take precedence over democracy education. If, however, programs like Civitas have been successful in demonstrating connections between the resolution of complex social problems and the empowerment of citizens in a democracy, then decision makers in these countries may realize that civic education can go hand in hand with other efforts to improve the living conditions of a country. Again, paraphrasing Barzun (1987), democracy education will be imported to the extent that it is meaningful and relevant to local conditions and to the extent that it can improve the lives of a country’s people. From an ethical standpoint, and consistent with Barzun’s assertion, only those in the country itself can make this determination.

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As is the case with all international curriculum work, seeking to teach about democracy across borders is fraught with potential ethical dilemmas. But in an era of instantaneous and constant communication, ideas will inevitably find their way from one country to another. To act responsibly, we must therefore regularly question the suitability and meaningfulness of the curricular concepts we are advocating. Lest we attempt to “plant palm trees in Norway,” the merits of curricular content, the relevance of pedagogical approaches, and the social values that undergird them need to be critically examined by all those who engage in this transaction. Only in this way can we live up to the democratic ideals that are embedded in the civic education curricula we seek to promote. Notes 1. A detailed example of one aspect of the Vietnamese reform, the credit system, can be found in an article that I co-authored on issues in curriculum work in developing countries (Mason, Arnove, & Sutton, 2001). 2. Among its various manifestations, democracy has been characterized as direct (Aristotle, 1943), traditional liberal (Locke, 1965; Mill, 1958), deliberative (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996), experiential (Dewey, 1938), participatory or strong (Barber, 1984), multicultural (Banks, 1997; Kymlicka, 1995; Parker, 2003), critical (Goodman, 1992), or radical (Trend, 1996). 3. See Mason & Delandshere (2010) for a further discussion of the application of this approach to civic education research. 4. Note that Project Citizen, as it was originally designed, was not intended to emphasize competition among students, but in some cases this has become a key feature of the program. 5. Funding from the U.S. Department of Education for Project Citizen limits the extent to which it should be used to support social activism.

References Applied ethics. (2012). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica .com/EBchecked/topic/30693/applied-ethics Appiah, K.A. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company. Aristotle. (1943). Politics (Benjamin Jowett, Trans.). New York, NY: Modern Library. Banks, J. A. (1997). Educating citizens in a multicultural society. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Barber, B. (1984). Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Barzun, J. (1987). Is democratic theory for export? Ethics and International Affairs, 1(1), 53–71.

22   T. C. MASON Butts, R. F. (1989). The civic mission in educational reform: Perspectives for the public and the profession. Stanford, CA: The Hoover Institution Press. Center for Civic Education. (1998). We the people . . . Project citizen. Calabasas, CA. Center for Civic Education. Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. Chicago, IL: Swallow. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1985). Democracy and education (Vol. 9). In J.A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey, the middle works, 1899–1924. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. (Original work published 1916). Floden, R., & Clark C. (1988). Preparing teachers for uncertainty. Teachers College Record, 89 (4), 505–524. Gaudelli, W. (2009). Heuristics of global citizenship discourses towards curriculum enhancement. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 25(1), 68–85. Goodman, J. (1992). Elementary schooling for critical democracy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. House, E., & Howe, K. R. (1999). Values in education and social research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Howe, K. R. (2003). Closing methodological divides: Toward democratic educational research. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kvieskiene, G., & Mason, T. C. (2004). Integrating civic education and social work: The social educator master’s degree program at Vilnius Pedagogical University. In J. Patrick & G. Hamot (Eds), Civic learning in teacher education: International perspectives on education for democracy in the preparation of teachers (Vol. 3, pp. 189–213). Washington, DC: Educational Resources Information Center. Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural citizenship: A liberal theory of minority rights. New York, NY: Clarendon Press. Lampert, M. (1985). How do teachers manage to teach? Perspectives on problems in practice. Harvard Educational Review, 55, 178–194. Locke, J. (1965). Two treatises of government (P. Laslett, Ed.). New York, NY: New American Library. Mason, T. C., & Delandshere, G. (2010). Citizens not research subjects: Toward a more democratic civic education inquiry methodology, The Inter-American Journal of Education for Democracy, 3(1), 5–26. Mason, T. C., Arnove, R., & Sutton, M. (2001). Credits, curriculum, and control in higher education: Cross-national perspectives. Higher Education, 42, 107–137. Mill, J. S. (1958). Considerations on representative government. New York, NY: Liberal Arts Press. (Original work published 1861) National Council for the Social Studies. (1993). A vision of powerful teaching and learning in the social studies: Building social understanding and civic efficacy. Social Education, 57, 213–223. Nussbaum, M. C. (2006). Frontiers of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Parker, W. C. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ethics and Democracy Education across Borders    23 Sassen, S. (2002). The repositioning of citizenship: Emergent subjects and spaces for politics. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 46, 4–25. Singer, P. (2002). One world: The ethics of globalization, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Trend, D. (1996). Radical democracy: Identity, citizenship, and the state. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Chapter 2

Deliberating Across Ethical Terrain Patricia G. Avery University of Minnesota Carolyn Pereira Constitutional Rights Foundation–Chicago

Meaningful curriculum projects, even within a single school, often involve difficult conversations about curricular aims and the selection of content. Most veteran teachers and university faculty have been part of curriculum development projects at some point in their careers, and know the hard work such ventures entail. Because people bring different life experiences, values, and beliefs to the curricular table, these deliberations can be laborious and contentious. Now overlay at least 10 different languages, cultures, and nationalities, and one can appreciate the complicated nature of the Deliberating in a Democracy (DID) project. Curriculum projects that span nations and cultures necessarily engage participants with ethical issues—some foreseen and some unforeseen, some of which come to light during a project, in its aftermath, or are never fully recognized. In the project described here, project coordinators strived for collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity in their international curricu-

Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 25–49 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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lum work. These are, in our view, some of the ethical principles that should guide such work. As will be seen, at some points the project reflected these principles more so than at others. In this chapter, we describe the project; how it reflected (or not) the principles of collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity; and how some unexpected ethical issues arose in different civic and political contexts. We conclude with some thoughts on navigating the ethical terrain in international curriculum projects. In 2004, we embarked on a journey with educators and students from Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania as well as from three sites in the United States (Chicago, Los Angeles, and Fairfax County, Virginia) on a citizenship education project designed to develop secondary teachers’ and students’ skills in deliberating public issues (Avery served as project evaluator, Pereira as project director). Originally a one-year project, the project concluded its sixth and final year in 2010, at which point participation had broadened to include teachers and students from Estonia, Macedonia, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, and Ukraine, as well as from five locations in the United States (Columbia, South Carolina; Denver, Colorado; Indiana; Maryland; New Jersey). The project’s focus on citizenship education, and specifically deliberation about public issues, was timely. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the subsequent declarations of independence by nation-states across Central and Eastern Europe prompted an increased interest in citizenship and educating for democracy. Moreover, the emergence of the European Union led to a reconceptualization of the concept of citizen and the notion of multiple citizen affiliations (e.g., nation-state and region). The Council of Europe declared 2005 the Year of the Citizen. In the United States, the increasing number of immigrant and refugee students in U.S. schools, many of whom have limited English proficiency and little or no experience with democratic norms and principles, has also drawn attention to the processes of political socialization and citizenship education. The DID Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, (Award # Q304A100003 and Q304A070005) was thus initiated in the broader context of increased interest in citizenship education, the concept of citizen in a democracy, and the assumption that deliberation is key to a healthy democracy, both in the United States and in transitional democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. An Overview of the DID Project Deliberation is the core concept upon which the DID project was based, defined by Gutmann (2000) as “public discussion and decision making that aim to reach a justifiable resolution, where possible, and to live respectfully

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with those reasonable disagreements that remain unresolvable” (p. 75). In any society, people have different points of view as to how public issues should be addressed. Because democratic societies are predicated on the belief that the people as a whole can govern themselves—not the elite, a monarch, or a religious leader—the way in which its citizens think about, talk about, and make judgments about public issues is critical to the quality and sustenance of the society. If the will of the majority inevitably rules, minority rights are likely to be ignored. If we hear only a cacophony of voices, then it is difficult to identify clear alternatives. Deliberation allows for a long, second sober look at difficult issues and consideration of the potential consequences of various choices on individuals and groups within the society. Deliberation is a key tool for addressing public issues because it is rooted in diversity of opinion (deliberation is moot in the unlikely situation that everyone agrees), and requires that diverse viewpoints be both expressed and heard. As such, the deliberative process honors freedom of expression and the right to be heard, and correspondingly, the responsibility to listen to opinions that differ from one’s own. Deliberative democracy aims to bring together ordinary people from diverse backgrounds to think more deeply about substantive public issues. Practical examples of programs and activities grounded in deliberative democracy theory include, among others, James Fishkin’s deliberation polls (http://cdd.stanford.edu/), the Jefferson Center’s citizens juries (www. jefferson-center.org), and the National Issues Forums sponsored by the Kettering Foundation (http://www.nifi.org). Critics often express concern that deliberative spaces may not be inclusive, and that even if they are purposefully inclusive spaces, some individuals’ and groups’ views will be privileged over others’. Individuals bring to the deliberative table varying levels of knowledge about issues, different skills in articulating their views, and different degrees of willingness to express their opinions. Sanders (1997) cites evidence from studies of juries and classrooms indicating that whites talk more than blacks in group interactions, and that white male opinions tend to dominate. Levine, Fung, and Gastil (2005), advocates of deliberation, acknowledge these concerns, but suggest that skilled facilitators of public deliberations can do much to ensure that all participants are heard. The concept of deliberation provided the foundation for the DID project. Project coordinators felt it was a particularly appropriate choice for an international project in which participants needed to learn to talk and listen across differences. In addition to being a process for addressing public issues, deliberation engenders the skills that are crucial to the sustenance of a democratic society. It requires citizens to understand different public issue choices, to weigh options, and to recognize common ground before arriving at a decision. Citizens must be able and willing to exchange ideas

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among themselves and with their representatives in government. Citizens also must be able to and willing to hear, understand, and analyze viewpoints very different from their own. Deliberating those views can help citizens and government officials make better decisions. The primary purpose of the DID project was to engage secondary teachers and students in the deliberation of public issues. Each year, small groups of approximately 10–15 teachers participated in professional development workshops at their sites to learn a model of deliberation, Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) (Johnson & Johnson, 1995). The SAC model is a sequence of steps designed to help students examine two sides of a public policy question on a topic such as the death penalty (see Figure 2.1). The workshops extended over the course of a year so that teachers had an opportunity to engage their own students in SAC, and then reflect on their experiences at the workshops. Teachers conducted a minimum of three deliberations in their classrooms each year. The project site coordinators chose the SAC model for several reasons. First, it appeared to be a relatively simple and straightforward teaching strategy that would help students develop deliberation skills. Walter Parker • Careful reading of a common text. Students in groups of four or five read a common text, which provides background information on the topic. • Introduction of the question for deliberation. After they have developed a common understanding of the text, the teacher presents a binary public policy question raised by the reading, such as “Should voting be compulsory in our democracy?” • Presentation of pro and con positions. Once the question has been posed, each small group is again divided into two teams. Team A finds the most compelling pro arguments, and Team B finds the most compelling con arguments. Team A teaches their pro arguments to Team B allowing only clarifying questions. Team B then teaches the con arguments, followed by any clarifying questions Team A may have. • Reversal of positions. The teams then reverse positions with Team B now adopting the pro position and Team A taking the con position. • Deliberation of the question. Students then drop their roles and deliberate the question as a group. While deliberating, students can use what they have learned and for the first time, offer their personal experiences to help them formulate opinions regarding the question while finding areas of consensus. • Whole class discussion and debriefing. Finally, a large group debriefing follows during which a poll of student decisions is taken, the most compelling reasons for each side are identified, and areas of consensus are explored. Questions that remain unanswered are raised and ways to address those questions are discussed.

Figure 2.1  Structured academic controversy, adapted for DID project.

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(2003), civic educator and social studies scholar, believes that because of its structured format, the SAC model is particularly appropriate for novice teachers and for those experienced teachers who are making their first serious attempts to bring controversial public issues into their classrooms. The sequence of steps is clearly defined, as are the teacher and student roles. Second, the methodology has a strong research base. Students engaging in SAC tend to develop more positive attitudes toward conflict, demonstrate higher levels of moral reasoning and perspective-taking, and develop more positive attitudes toward working with individuals from different racial and ethnic groups (Johnson & Johnson, 1979, 1993, 2009). Johnson and Johnson note that the SAC model helps students develop attitudes and skills that are consistent with democratic citizenship, such as tolerance, perspective-taking, critical thinking, and problem solving. Third, project site coordinators chose the SAC model because the research base suggests it can be used in a wide range of contexts, including different subject matters, school environments, and community situations. The model has been used in secondary science, math, English, and social studies classes; in first grade through graduate school; and with preservice teachers, veteran teachers, and administrators (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). The model has been used throughout the United States and was recently implemented in Armenia (Hovhannisyan, Varrella, Johnson, & Johnson, 2005). Most importantly, the project coordinators chose the SAC model as the foundation of the DID project because they felt it was likely to promote the habits and characteristics associated with thoughtful democratic citizens. Although the primary focus of the DID project was on deliberation, another aspect of the project was designed to enhance cross-national awareness and understanding. Toward that end, sites in Central and Eastern Europe were paired with sites in the United States. Through weeklong teacher exchanges between partner sites, teachers learned about aspects of the educational, political, and cultural life of their partner site. Teacher visits to schools and classrooms were a central part of the teacher exchanges. Some students participated in an online discussion board with their peers at partner sites, with topics ranging from public issues to aspects of popular culture. A small group of students at each site also engaged in 1–2 videoconferences with students at their partner site; during the videoconferences, the students typically shared thoughts on the public issues they had deliberated on in their classroom SACs, but also shared common likes and dislikes. “What do you like to do for fun?” was a typical question students asked one another. Over the past six years, more than 260 teachers and 8,000 students participated in the DID project. Teachers and students across sites were overwhelmingly positive about their experiences with the project. Over 90% of the teachers across sites “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they “will

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continue using deliberation in [their] classrooms in the coming years” (Avery, Freeman, & Greenwalt, 2005, 2006; Avery, Simmons, & Freeman, 2007; Avery, Levy, & Simmons, 2009; Avery, Simmons, Levy, & Scarlett, 2008a, 2008b). The teacher exchanges provided teachers with opportunities to expand their worldviews; teachers particularly valued the opportunity to visit classrooms and to talk with students in their partner country. Solid majorities of the students, within and across sites, “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they: • • • •

Learned a lot by participating in the deliberations Developed a better understanding of the issues Increased their ability to state their opinions Developed more confidence in talking about controversial issues with peers (Avery et al., 2008a, 2008b)

Students who participated in the online discussion board and the videoconferences generally reported that they “learned a lot,” and came to appreciate how much they had in common with students from another country. Data from teacher and student surveys, teacher and administrator interviews, and student focus groups consistently indicated the project was viewed very positively by participants across national contexts. In the next section, we describe those contexts. Multiple National Contexts It is customary in the United States to speak of “Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries,” “emerging or transitional democracies,” and “postcommunist societies,” as we do as well in this chapter for ease of readability. But naming is itself an ethical issue, and in the context of an international education project, naming matters because these categories belie the differences between and within the countries. Of the countries involved in the DID project, five had been part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and tensions with ethnic Russians within the borders of Azerbaijan, Estonia, Lithuania, and Ukraine continue to pose challenges for these democracies (the fifth country is the Russian Federation). Independence from communist rule in Romania was particularly violent, and while Macedonia’s declaration of independence from the former Yugoslavia was peaceful, the ensuing war in Kosovo resulted in many ethnic Albanians taking refuge in Macedonia. The tensions between ethnic Albanians and Macedonian Slavs have presented many challenges for the government. The conflict in Serbia has subsided for now, but it is fresh in the minds of youth,

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and for many ethnic Serbs, the dictates of the United Nations represent an unwelcome intrusion into what they view as their sovereign rights. The Czech Republic is distinguished by a stronger history of a democratic civic culture, one which survived Nazi and communist domination. Klicperová-Baker (2008), a Czech scholar in political psychology, describes the Czech political culture as a “robust civic culture characterized by relative sophistication, loyalty without blind devotion and realistic levels of trust in democratic institutions” (p. 167) and notes further that “the manifestations of post-communist syndrome, alienation or disaffected egalitarianism were less prominent than in other countries in the region” (p. 167). Because of its stronger infrastructure in relation to the other post-communist nations, the Czech Republic received more Western monies after independence and was able to implement educational reforms sooner than in some of the other countries (Malak-Minkiewicz, 2007). The Council of Europe and the European Union have been strong voices for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Both institutions advocate educating young people for active, critical, multicultural citizenship (Janmaat & Piattoeva, 2007).1 As of this date, countries in the DID project that have joined the European Union include Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania (all joined in 2004), and Romania, which joined in 2007. Macedonia is a candidate for admission to the EU. Serbia applied for membership in the EU in December 2009. Membership in the EU entails another layer of identity, the “European identity.” In the United States, there has been a shift from thinking of the school as an insignificant site of citizenship education to one of import, as recognized in The Civic Mission of Schools (Carnegie Corporation and CIRCLE, 2003), a consensus report based on the deliberations of over 50 noted scholars and practitioners in the field of civic education. The report reaffirms the important role of schools: “Schools are the only institutions with the capacity and mandate to reach virtually every young person in the country. Of all institutions, schools are the most systematically and directly responsible for imparting citizen norms” (p. 12). The report has been a key document in refocusing U.S. educators on what has historically been the fundamental purpose of schooling in the United States: the preparation of youth for civic life. However, the strong culture of accountability and testing is often at odds with this civic mission. Each country represented in the DID project has rich and distinct histories, cultures, and values, and each site coordinator, teacher, and student in the project interprets these histories in different ways. These multiple contexts mean that the project played out differently for participants in ways we cannot fully know or understand. In the next section, we reflect on the degree to which the project exemplified (or not) some of the characteristics often associated with more

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ethical international relationships: collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity. These three principles are important to the way in which relationships among participants develop. For example, highly collaborative projects naturally engender different relationships among participants than do topdown initiatives. We then consider the political/civic contexts of the project, and some of the unanticipated ethical issues that arose within those contexts. The reader may want to think of the first lens as focusing on processes and relationships and the second lens bringing contexts to the fore. We suggest that to the degree that the project was successful, it was due in part to the ethical principles that framed the project: collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity. Each of these principles is particularly important in shaping ethical relationships among those of different cultural, national, and linguistic backgrounds. Projects need to be collaborative if they are to reflect the goals, needs, and understandings of those involved in the project. A flexible programmatic structure recognizes the complexity of the differing contexts in which people live and work, and honors their right, and indeed their obligation, to adapt a program to meet the needs of those involved at the local level. Reciprocal relationships in international curriculum projects involve a sharing and valuing of different knowledge and experiences. This is not sharing for the sake of sharing, but it involves a genuine openness to learning from others’ experiences. Underlying collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity is a respect for the human experience across and within different contexts. As will be seen, there were times when the project was less collaborative, less flexible, and less reciprocal, but it was at its best when it reflected these principles. Collaboration, Flexibility, and Reciprocity Under authoritarian regimes, many of the Central and Eastern European teachers had been highly constrained in what they taught and how they taught, and in some cases, developed a sense of “learned helplessness” (Hamot, 2003, p. 134). After the collapse of communism, teachers in transitional democracies were suddenly faced with the need to change curricular content (especially in history and civic-related classes) and pedagogy (from teacher-dominated lecture approaches to more active, student-centered approaches) at a time when tremendous changes were occurring in their societies. Further, because civil society was virtually extinguished under communism, the school was looked to as the primary, if not the sole place where young people would learn about citizenship. In response, history and civicsrelated curricula were initially changed to focus on rather dry democratic theories, structures, and institutions, with little connection to students’ lives. Many Westerners rushed to assist in making more “meaningful” cur-

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ricular changes, but those changes sometimes consisted of translating a U.S. textbook into another language, and substituting one constitution for another (Malak-Minkiewicz, 2007; Sears & Hughes, 2005). More recently, and with more positive outcomes, consortia of teachers and faculty from Central and Eastern European nations have worked together to address issues related to citizenship education (Malak-Minkiewicz, 2007). The history of the diffusion of educational innovations is replete with examples of curricular innovations, which have been exported to other sites with little recognition of the target sites’ cultural, political, economic, and educational contexts. The direct transfer of curricular models from one country to another can have particularly negative consequences (Urwick, 2002). Hughes and Urasa (1997) note, “Educational borrowing between and among developed as well as developing nations has a long tradition, much of it not particularly successful” (p. 87). The CHEM (Chemical Education Materials) Study, begun in 1959 by an ad hoc committee of the American Chemical Society and recognized by the National Science Foundation as a practical way to improve science instruction, called for the use of easily available materials. The study’s authors suggested asking students to bring tin cans to school for experiments—hardly an effective strategy when transported to economically disadvantaged countries in the 1960s. More recently, translating U.S. civics books into a variety of languages without any recognition of the countries’ contexts makes it even more difficult for a teacher to make the principles relevant to their students. Against this backdrop, the U.S. DID project coordinators sought to work with Central and Eastern European partners, mindful that any successful civic-related curriculum project needed to be characterized by collaboration, flexibility, and reciprocity (Sears & Hughes, 2005). These principles are consistent with a democratic initiative, one that values diverse experiences and perspectives. Project coordinators sought individuals and organizations with a record of working with educators to improve democracy education. The U.S. project coordinators contacted individuals at nongovernmental organizations with whom they had previously worked,2 thus enabling everyone to build on prior relationships. In their previous work with the site coordinators, all had agreed that developing teachers’ skills in conducting classroom discussions about controversial public issues was a critical need. Collaboration The initial meeting was held in Prague in October 2003. Subsequent meetings of all site coordinators and selected teachers have taken place in Washington, DC; Vilnius, Lithuania; Bucharest, Romania; Denver, Colo-

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rado; and Skopje, Macedonia. Each conference featured local speakers as well as cultural activities planned by the hosting site in an effort to develop all participants’ understanding of the local context. Although the U.S. project coordinators decided to focus on deliberation when the grant was being developed, the site coordinators from Year 1 (Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Lithuania) were actively involved in developing the structure of the program and identifying a model for deliberation. The SAC model was modified based on conversations with the site coordinators and eventually from feedback gained from teachers. The emphasis on a common reading came from the Azerbaijani site coordinators’ attraction to another model, Civil Conversations (Eslinger & Pereira, 1997), where the initial task is a careful reading of a common text. At each annual meeting, the topics and questions for deliberation were developed collaboratively across sites. Suggestions for topics came from site coordinators, teachers, and students. The questions needed to represent clear tensions between democratic values (e.g., freedom of speech vs. security), have relevance to multiple countries, and have a level of specificity that enables deliberation (e.g., “Should our democracy permit hate speech?” enables deliberation, whereas “Should our democracy permit freedom of speech?” does not). Site coordinators from all sites were polled to determine the usability of a topic/question in multiple sites. Currently there are 23 readings and questions, all of which are downloadable from the web (www.deliberating.org). The identification of issues and the framing of questions was a laborious process, with much give and take across countries but also among teachers and site coordinators. Issues of interest to some country representatives were of less interest to others. At the 2008 conference, the issue of the death penalty was of interest to Czech educators because of a number of particularly brutal murders in the Czech Republic. Some of the U.S. educators viewed the issue as a question of human rights, and therefore one that should not be presented to students as an open or controversial issue. Note that these educators’ stances were contrary to what might be expected: In the Czech Republic, the death penalty is banned, while in some states in the United States, the death penalty is allowed. The U.S. teachers viewed the issue as closed, and the Czech Republic teachers saw the issue as one that was potentially “tipping” from closed to open in their society (see Hess, 2009, pp. 113–129, for a discussion of issues “in the tip” between open and closed). The core reading associated with a given issue was drafted by a U.S. team. Drafts were circulated to all of the site coordinators who checked them for accuracy and contributed concrete examples from their sites. Site coordinators had the readings translated into the students’ native language. Each reading was designed to present an equal number of arguments for both po-

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sitions, to present the arguments as one who advocates a particular position would argue for it (that is, arguments for a position should not be purposefully weak). Drafts were sent back to each site for review to check for balance, accuracy, and relevance. At the annual conference, teachers reported concerns or difficulties with the readings, and revisions were often made. Thus, the curriculum development process was ongoing and iterative. During the first three years of the project, site coordinators, teachers, and students from the Central and Eastern European sites voiced concern that the readings were too U.S.-centric. For example, one of the initial readings, developed for the issue on violent videogames (“Should our democracy place criminal penalties on anyone who sells, rents, or shows violent video games or minors?”), had references only to the United States. The negotiation of the content of the common text was difficult. The head of the U.S. curriculum writer team wanted to integrate examples from multiple countries to illustrate the issues, but lacked the insider’s perspective on the ways in which the issues were relevant in various national contexts. He asked for suggestions from the CEE site coordinators and teachers, but few were forthcoming initially. Over time, project partners became more active in shaping and contributing to the content of the readings. The site coordinators and teachers provided references to their constitutions and laws, their history, research data, and current news stories. For example, the Czechs shared that in their country, an elderly woman was murdered by six youths ages 11 to 15; this prompted discussions on whether juveniles should be prosecuted as adults—one of the issues developed for classroom deliberation. It is difficult to explain why CEE contributions were minimal at first. There can be many reasons for silence, particularly in cross-cultural communications. Silence can indicate thoughtful contemplation or disinterest, engrossment or resistance, and so on (see Li Li, 2004). Jones (2004) notes that “silence may be a rational response to their (dominant) peers’ lack of ability to hear or understand” (p. 60). We found the silence difficult to interpret. Perhaps the call for suggestions was not perceived as genuine, or, as one CEE site coordinator later expressed, it was difficult to share specific examples of problems in their society with outsiders with whom they had not yet established the necessary level of trust. Although we had longstanding relationships with the site coordinators and could talk openly about many issues, site coordinators were concerned that anything in print had the potential of putting them in awkward positions with their governments. And sometimes the site coordinators simply did not know of appropriate examples and lacked time and/or the expertise to research appropriate material. The Azerbaijanis were unaware of what happened to juveniles when they committed crimes and had to conduct extensive research on the question.

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The annual conferences became more inclusive and collaborative. The initial conference included few teachers and was U.S.-dominated in terms of content and discussion. The demonstration SAC revolved around the Bush Doctrine (“Should the Bush Doctrine of preventive war be part of U.S. foreign policy?”), and U.S. representatives led the main sessions. In contrast, at the most recent conference in Macedonia, teachers from across sites outnumbered site coordinators and project personnel. All conference participants had a role in the meeting, either by leading small breakout sessions or conducting whole-group sessions. And in a departure from the past, the Russian-speaking teachers who normally wore headphones to listen to translations from English to Russian conducted their session in Russian while English-speaking participants wore headphones for translation. The professional development sessions, in which teachers learned the SAC model and later shared their reflections on using the model in their classrooms, were structured as learning communities where teachers worked together to analyze the impact of their practice on student learning. All sites conducted at least three professional development sessions, and some site coordinators chose to conduct as many as eight across a year. Initially the sessions were co-led by U.S. and partner-site coordinators (the exception was in Serbia, where site coordinators chose to conduct all of their sessions). Site coordinators then assumed responsibility for the sessions, and more recently, experienced teachers were actively involved designing the professional development sessions. Toward the latter part of the six-year project, many of the experienced teachers conducted sessions for new teachers without the site coordinators. The Azerbaijani team has functioned this way almost since the beginning and systematically prepares teachers through their schools to lead deliberations. Collaborative relationships take time to develop, particularly when different languages, cultures, and histories interact. That the project was initially quite U.S.-centric can be attributed, in part, to the funding source (U.S. Department of Education), the origination of the concept of the grant (U.S.), and perhaps as well to partner sites’ expectations. There were aspects of the project that continued to be U.S.-dominated throughout the project. The evaluation team was from the United States, and although efforts were made to include as many voices as possible, and drafts of reports were reviewed by representatives from each country, it remains that the evaluation was framed through a U.S. lens. Because each Central and Eastern European country was partnered with a U.S. site, the sheer number of U.S. participants far exceeded the number of participants from any other country. This meant that U.S. voices were consistently heard more often than those from any other single country. Additionally, the language at conferences was English, which was the first language of almost all of the U.S. participants but none of the Central and Eastern European participants. In spite of these power(ful) dif-

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ferences, the project was more collaborative and less U.S.-centric in Year 6 than it was in Year 1. Friendships developed over the years, and with them the trust needed to form more collaborative relationships. Flexibility The core of the DID project, the SAC model, differs from traditional curriculum materials. The model provides a process for classroom deliberations but does not specify content. Although the process is clearly specified, the content (embodied in the readings and questions) varies. Some site coordinators and teachers chose to deliberate issues of particular salience in their countries. Of the countries for which Freedom House (2009) identified domestic violence as a “problem” (Azerbaijan, Estonia) or a “serious problem” (Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia), six of the seven site coordinators and teachers chose to deliberate on the issue of domestic violence (“Should our democracy require health care providers to report evidence of domestic abuse to the police?”). Similarly, in Serbia, where tensions are high among ethnic Serbs and minority Muslim Slavs, Albanians, and Hungarians, the Serbian site coordinators and teachers chose to deliberate on an issue related to minority rights (“Should our democracy fund elementary education for children of minority groups in their own language?”). Site coordinators invited teachers to be part of the project in their respective locations. While across sites, the majority of the teachers were teachers of government/civics, history, and social science, in the Central and Eastern European countries, a large percentage of the teachers were English language teachers (approximately 23%). For these teachers, the project provided a way for students to develop and practice their English skills—a goal that sometimes took precedence over developing their deliberative capacities. The project was also implemented during homeroom or extracurricular activities (27%) in the Central and Eastern European countries. The model, as well as the choice of content, was adaptable to non-academic settings and different subject areas. Over the course of the project, teachers adapted the model to meet the needs of their students. Some teachers integrated aspects of the Public Issues Model (see Singleton & Giese, 1996) to help students distinguish between types of arguments, introduced new information either during the reversal of positions or before the open deliberations, and/or used a variety of reading strategies to make them more accessible to students. In one Romanian teacher’s class, after deliberating on an issue related to recycling (“Should our democracy require manufacturers to recycle their products?”), the students engaged in a community action project in which they

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collected data on the lack of recycling in their community and reported their results to the local city council. One area in which U.S. project site coordinators were slow to recognize the need for flexibility was with regard to the internet component. Several of the CEE sites had limited access to the internet. One Azerbaijani teacher walked her students to an internet café during a winter snowstorm so that they could communicate with their U.S. counterparts. It was not until the third year of the project that project coordinators acknowledged the online component of the project should be optional. Overall, adaptations were supported and encouraged by the project coordinators. Had the coordinators insisted on a rigid implementation of the model, the project would have been much less successful. However, the lack of understanding of the resources available (or not) at sites sometimes meant that the project coordinators did not recognize the need to be flexible. Reciprocity Reciprocity in this context involves the sharing and valuing of different knowledge and experiences. Throughout the project, but particularly in the first few years, Central and Eastern European teachers and students alike were struck by the U.S. participants’ lack of knowledge about their countries. While they did not anticipate that the U.S. participants would have an in-depth knowledge of, say, Czech history or culture, they did find it offensive that their counterparts had often not taken the time to learn something about their countries prior to planned interactions with them (that is, the teacher exchanges, student videoconferences and online communications). The interactions thus sometimes left the CEE teachers and students feeling diminished. Reciprocity, it seems, depends as much on an openness to learning from others as a genuine interest in what we can learn from others. There were a number of moments for the teachers, site coordinators, and students across sites, however, when they learned a great deal from one another. For the teachers, the most important opportunity for sharing occurred during the teacher exchanges. When a team of U.S. teachers, who clearly thought they had much to teach others but not much to learn from others, observed classrooms in Azerbaijan, they realized that they had neither understood nor implemented the SAC methodology as effectively as the Azerbaijanis. Similarly, upon returning from a visit to the Czech Republic, one U.S. teacher wrote: I really enjoyed seeing a deliberation in a classroom because I had never actually seen another teacher do a deliberation and it was great to see what they did and what they did to debrief it. They did a human graph which is some-

Deliberating Across Ethical Terrain    39 thing that I don’t really do at the end of mine and I thought that was great. I also enjoyed the professional development because . . . they had a couple other components that I was able to bring back too. (Year 3)

A U.S. teacher who visited Estonian classrooms wrote: My trip to Estonia has forever changed how I teach government, due to all of the new insights gained from our trip. I more clearly see that democracies are quite different from one another due to their histories and cultures, yet all can work effectively. I also appreciate that democracies and even America’s are constantly evolving and shifting to meet the needs of the changing times. (Year 3)

The Central and Eastern European teachers were often struck by the more relaxed atmosphere in U.S. classrooms. During the trips I like the most to get familiar with the advantages of the American education system, free mindedness of students, teachers being a guide, friend in the instructional process. (Azerbaijani teacher, Year 5) I [went] to American classes to see the relation between students and teachers, to see their methodology. They have more relaxed classes than we do. I think their students have more freedom to ask something usually. Maybe not in my classes or in my colleague’s classes because we are a little different, what we do with children. But, generally, you know? And to see how they do some things and it was very, very good experience. (Serbian teacher, Year 5)

Discussions about the implementation of the SAC model among teachers prompted interesting insights for all. When the project director mentioned that U.S. teachers rarely shared their own opinions on the deliberation topics with their students because they did not want to unduly influence them, Azerbaijani teachers were surprised. The Azerbaijani teachers reasoned that if students had to express their opinions, students had the right to know what their teacher thought. The Azerbaijani teachers wanted to practice transparency, not secrecy. Their political history had been filled with too many secrets. From the Azerbaijani teachers’ perspective, not to disclose their opinions would have been unethical. Many teachers in the United States, however, raised ethical concerns about unduly influencing students’ views if they disclosed their own opinions. However, Hess’s (2009) research suggests that students often want to know what teachers think and that disclosure doesn’t necessarily influence their decisions. There were few spaces built into the project at the beginning for learning from one another. Talk about logistical issues (coordinating schedules, securing appropriate facilities, protecting student privacy, etc.) trumped the kind of substantive sharing that might have laid a stronger foundation

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from the outset. Although there were working relationships between individual U.S. site coordinators and various Central and Eastern European site coordinators prior to the DID project, no one site coordinator or teacher knew all of the others involved in the DID project. In retrospect, more conversations about the nature of democracy in the various countries, the civic and pedagogical contexts in which each of us live and work, as well as our hopes and dreams for our countries’ futures would have framed our relationships as more reciprocal and collaborative from the outset. And, as we shall see, political and civic contexts played a large role in how the project evolved at the sites. Political and Civic Contexts There are aspects of the DID project, and the SAC model in particular, that have been consonant with the norms and values of the Central and Eastern European partners and of the United States, and those that have been more dissonant. Neither consonance nor dissonance with local contexts is necessarily positive or negative; there are times when dissonance pushes staid, imagined boundaries and prompts greater democratic discourse. Discussion of controversial public issues is not the norm in U.S. classrooms, for example, but most democratic theorists (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996; Habermas, 1996; Parker, 2006) would say that such discussion is important in the development of an enlightened citizenry. In international civic education projects, however, it is critical to be aware of areas of consonance and dissonance because they shape the way in which the project evolves. Democracy as a Contested Concept Freedom of expression, at least in the abstract, is one of the values most often associated with democracy in transitional democracies (Dalton, Shin & Jou, 2007a, 2007b). In that sense, the SAC model was consonant with the concerns and interests of the participants. By merely posing an open-ended question without a “right answer,” the SAC model provides a space for public issues. It suggests that there are at least two different ways of responding to the issue, and that the issue is one that is undecided. It encourages participants to identify, develop, and state their positions. Indeed, students identified “being able to express my opinion” and “hearing different perspectives” as what they most enjoyed about the deliberations (Avery et al., 2008a, 2008b). And yet while the term “democracy” is generally viewed positively across the Central and Eastern European countries (Dalton et al., 2007a, 2007b;

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Miller, Hesli, & Reisinger, 1997), there are many for whom democracy is associated with corruption, disrupted lives, violent conflict, and economic distress. A 17-year-old Serbian student involved in the project wrote: “The term democracy does not exist to me. Behind the word—democracy—mild fashism [sic] and nacism [sic] is hiding.” Perhaps most disconcerting was a response from another Serbian student, who wrote: “Democracy here didn’t even visit, let alone stay.” We wondered how students interpreted a project entitled Deliberating in a Democracy, and questions that asked them to determine what “our democracy” should do (we now believe the questions should have asked what their government should do—a much clearer way of asking what policy should be adopted). Democracy is a complex and contested concept, one that can be a source of both inspiration and cynicism. Among political theorists, there are many competing conceptions of democracy, such as minimalist democracy (Shumpeter, 1950) and participatory democracy (Pateman, 1970), and each entails different views of the roles of citizens and government. We perhaps failed to develop an in-depth understanding of the ways in which the participants understood and experienced democracy and what they wanted democracy to look like in their nations. Dissemination (or not) to Marginalized Communities For many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the collapse of authoritarian regimes unmasked underlying ethnic, linguistic, and religious divisions, as well as low levels of trust and tolerance among citizens (Badescu, Sum, & Uslaner, 2004; Evans, 2006; Marquart-Pyatt & Paxton, 2007). The processes of nation-building and democratization have sometimes been at odds; the desire to establish a national identity has led majority ethnic groups to assert their dominance over the rights of ethnic minorities. The tensions have been stronger in some countries (e.g., Russian Federation, Serbia) than others (e.g., after the Velvet Divorce from Slovakia in 1993, the Czech Republic became relatively monoethnic). Dragos Dragoman, a Romanian political scientist, notes that “whereas most West European countries have already begun to see themselves largely as multicultural and multirelgious communities in which the essential principle of the public life is the respect for the law and the constitution, East Europeans still see themselves as members of ethnically based states” (Dragoman, 2008, pp. 73–74). Although it was not an explicit goal of the U.S. DID project coordinators to reach marginalized communities either in the United States or in the Central and Eastern European countries, the assumption of the project is that deliberation in a democracy must involve the diverse groups within

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that country. Was that assumption shared? In some countries, site coordinators made concerted efforts to involve teachers and/or students from marginalized groups. In Macedonia, where tensions between ethnic Macedonians, Albanians, and Turks have been high over the past decade (see Banac, 2009), the site coordinators purposefully invited teachers from each group to participate in the project. In the wider society, however, ethnic Albanian and Macedonian Slavs attend separate schools (they may attend the same actual school but at different times of the day). In Serbia, the site coordinators made a conscious decision to implement the model in vocational schools because they felt students in the gymnasiums (college preparatory high schools) would already have greater opportunities to engage in critical thinking and discussions of public issues. In Estonia, they held a special DID training for Russian schools and now purposefully plan their DID and Project Citizen (Center for Civic Education, n.d.) programs to invite both Russian and Estonian classrooms to participate. In Azerbaijan, the site coordinators sought and procured funding (outside of the DID project) to implement the model in four schools for refugees. In Russia, however, where the past decade has been marked by a shift from a more open, multiethnic curriculum to a more patriotic, nationalistic civic curriculum (Janmaat & Piattoeva, 2007; Piattoeva, 2005), it is unclear whether the deliberation model will be disseminated beyond the teacher and student participants involved in the project. That the fate of the model’s dissemination may not be a question for open discussion within the society is, indeed, an ethical issue. Under what circumstances, if any, should governments censure educational curriculum? At what cost? And what, if anything, can be done by a project such as DID to influence this decision? Censorship Abroad and At Home In one of the DID project countries identified by Freedom House as less supportive of political rights and civil liberties,3 the project’s activities gained the attention of local authorities. At the request of the local police, the curriculum materials were reviewed by a sociologist who declared that the project promoted the American system over their system, and therefore was a threat to their “democracy.” The site coordinator was pressured to quit the project because it was deemed to be an “American attempt at brainwashing.” At the site coordinator’s request, s/he continued to work with the project as a consultant. The issue with the authorities in this post-communist country was not anticipated by us, but neither did it come as a complete surprise. It was consistent with our view of tighter governmental control in countries where

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political rights and civil liberties are given less support. More surprising was the conflict with the U.S. government over issue selection. In 2004, the Czech Republic site coordinators suggested the issue “Should our democracy provide the same rights to gay and lesbian couples that it does to married couples?” The Chicago area teachers (their partner site) agreed that this would be an issue worthy of deliberation; in fact, it was a prominent issue in the U.S. presidential campaign that year. But one of the U.S. project coordinators was contacted by U.S. Department of Education representative suggesting that deliberating this particular issue might very well jeopardize funding. We were suddenly poignantly aware of the way in which U.S. civic and political culture impacted the project in the United States. It was a chilling moment. The topic of Marriage and State has since been “approved,” and the question “Should our democracy permit same-sex couples (gay and lesbian) to marry?” has been deliberated in numerous classrooms. Civic Enlightenment and Engagement Finally, the SAC process highlights conflicting ideas about public issues, opens a space for talking about those conflicts, and engages participants in sharing their positions and rationales with peers, all aspects aligned with the tenets of deliberative democracy (see, for example, Benhabib, 1996; Mansbridge, 1996).4 The primary focus is on civic enlightenment (knowledge, tolerance), and only secondarily on engagement or participation. Johnson and Johnson (2009) state that the model is “aimed primarily at learning rather than at resolving political issues within a community” (p. 39; our emphasis). Indeed, empirical research by political scientist Diana Mutz (2006) suggests that more deliberative citizens are less likely to be strong political activists. Given low levels of civic and political engagement across Central and Eastern Europe (see Badescu et al., 2004; Evans, 2006; Hoskins & Mascherini, 2009), we wonder whether the DID project’s emphasis on enlightenment as opposed to engagement was aligned with the countries’ needs. Some of the students seemed to recognize this limitation. We can pass from the talking part to the action, I think . . . What would it be for . . . I think on acting . . . to make things real? (Romanian student, focus group, Year 4) There might be a follow up after the presentation and everything [we] have done together today, to start a campaign against violence, as a follow up. (Romanian student, focus group, referring to her class deliberation on domestic violence, Year 4)

44    P. G. AVERY and C. PEREIRA We are doing theoretical things now. We study the resources, sources, we discuss issues which concern both the U.S.A. and the Ukraine. I would suggest applying it in practice. I mean that making some specific steps, taking measures which will help to solve these problems. (Ukrainian student, focus group, Year 4)

Do the students’ comments point to a dissonance between the focus of the project and their concerns as citizens? Or did their classroom deliberations provide the scaffolding to citizen action? Indeed, the students did indicate that their involvement in the deliberations prompted them to talk with their peers and parents about the issues (see evaluation reports Years 2–6 in references), and certainly one form of citizen action is making other citizens aware of issues. But was this type of engagement enough for the students? We can see where the political and civic national contexts had some impact on the way in which the DID project was implemented. The project’s focus on democracy and democratic discourse was an important point of entry because it was consonant with the stated values and norms of the countries involved. But the enactment of the project uncovered tensions we had not previously recognized. In one country, the project represented a threat to the existing political structure, and was essentially shut down. In the United States, the sharp boundary between politically acceptable and taboo topics threatened the entire project. For some Serbian students, the project highlighted the incongruence between their perception of democracy and their daily lives. On a more positive note, some of the site coordinators used the project as an opportunity to reach out to marginalized communities, in many ways offering a deeper conception of democracy than had been envisioned by project coordinators. And some of the students pushed for more active political engagement as a result of the deliberations (e.g., the Romanian students made a YouTube video on the danger of cyberbullying, and the Lithuanian students organized community meetings to discuss policies to encourage positive youth development). Thus, some of the students moved the project beyond civic enlightenment into the realm of engagement, the aspect of civic life they saw as most in need of attention. Concluding Thoughts Those who choose to engage in international curriculum projects travel across a difficult terrain. To be sure, the degree to which such projects are collaborative, flexible, and reciprocal is mediated by structural constraints such as time, funding, and resources. Although the DID project was eventually funded for six years, grants were funded at most for two years at a time, thus often making planning a tentative venture. Spaces for collabora-

Deliberating Across Ethical Terrain    45

tion might have been greater had we known the project would extend six years (e.g., the evaluation team might have included members outside the United States). But more important than structural constraints, the ethical nature of such projects is strengthened or hindered by the dispositions that we bring to bear—whether we have a curiosity about the world, a recognition of our limited perspective, and an openness to listening and learning across differences. There were many ethical issues that arose across the span of the DID project: Did the dominant presence of the U.S. stifle other voices? Was the focus on deliberation and civic enlightenment appropriate for all contexts? To what extent did the content of the curriculum (the issues and readings) reflect the needs and interests of the students? Under what conditions, if any, should a project place educators in danger from repressive government forces? And so on. No educational curriculum endeavor will escape ethical issues. Indeed, they are a part of the landscape, particularly with regard to international curriculum work. We cannot become paralyzed by the range of ethical issues; rather, we need to commit to an ongoing examination of our assumptions. Toward that end, our own assumptions—ranging from the resources available to our CEE counterparts to their experiences with democracy— would have been reexamined sooner had we developed a more robust understanding of the contexts in which participants lived and worked. The sheer number of sites, while enhancing the diversity of the project, also made it difficult to develop an understanding of cultural nuances. More conversations about participants’ conceptions of democracy, both imagined and experienced, and about pedagogical goals and institutional constraints would have rendered some issues less potent. But conversations need to be imbued with deep listening—listening not merely for the sake of being polite or respectful, but with a desire for genuine understanding. Parker (2010) says that such listening requires us to approach conversations with a sense of humility (knowing that my understanding is likely partial), caution (quelling the urge to react or judge quickly), and reciprocity (adopting the other’s perspective). This type of listening, particularly across international contexts, would no doubt change the shape and direction of much curriculum work. Relative to most international education initiatives, the DID project enjoyed a long lifespan. That longevity provided the space for developing relationships across nations as well as political/civic and pedagogical cultures. At times less collaborative, flexible, and reciprocal than it should have been, the project was afforded the time to make significant adjustments and to align a democratic initiative with more democratic processes. Without the strong commitment to democratic citizenship education on

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the part of the site coordinators and teachers, however, no amount of time would have mattered. When the project focused on students, teaching and learning, and democratic citizenship education, it was at its best. These were the “points of entry” for the project participants. Again and again, teachers told us how much they enjoyed talking with students in another country, how much they gained from watching other teachers with their students. The teachers from partnered countries labored for hours in face-to-face discussions, over email, and via Skype over how best to engage their students in meaningful conversations about difficult issues. Appiah (2006) notes that these “points of entry . . . .do not need to be universal; all they need to be is what these particular people have in common. Once we have found enough we share, there is the further possibility that we will be able to enjoy discovering things we do not yet share” (p. 97). Notes 1. Mitchell (2006), however, presents a compelling case that the European Commission is moving from an emphasis on diversity, multiculturalism, and social welfare toward more market-driven, neoliberal policies that exclude immigrants and the poor. 2. There was one exception. One site was suggested to the project coordinators by the U.S. Embassy in that country. 3. We have purposefully not identified the country in order to protect the participants. 4. For a variety of reasons, deliberative democratic theorists would likely see the SAC model and the adaptation used in the DID project as “deliberation lite.” For example, among students, the “deliberations” take place in a nonvoluntary setting, the issues and texts are identified by others, and students are assigned positions. Further, the process focuses more on identifying pro and con arguments as opposed to understanding the interests and values underlying positions. As implemented in the DID project, the model emphasizes individual decision making rather than reaching consensus. Notwithstanding these limitations or weaknesses (depending on one’s perspective), the SAC model, as envisioned by Johnson and Johnson (1979, 1993) as well as by the DID project Coordinators, provides a forum for considering public issues.

References Appiah, K. A. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Deliberating Across Ethical Terrain    47 Avery, P. G., Freeman, C., & Greenwalt, K. (2005). Evaluation report: Deliberating in a democracy project. Unpublished report, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Avery, P. G., Freeman, C., & Greenwalt, K. (2006). Evaluation report: Deliberating in a Democracy Project. Unpublished report, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Avery, P. G., Simmons, A. M. M., & Freeman, C. (2007). The Deliberating in a Democracy (DID) Project evaluation report: Year 3 project narrative. Unpublished report, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Avery, P. G., Simmons, A. M. M., Levy, S. A., & Scarlett, M. H. (2008a). The Deliberating in a Democracy (DID) Project evaluation report: Year 4 project narrative. Retrieved from http://www.deliberating.org/DID_Evaluation_07_08.pdf Avery, P. G., Simmons, A. M. M., Levy, S. A., & Scarlett, M. H. (2008b). The Expanding Deliberating in a Democracy (DID) Project evaluation report: Year 1 project narrative. Retrieved from http://www.deliberating.org/Expanding_DID_Evaluation_07_08.pdf Avery, P. G., Levy, S. A., & Simmons, A. M. M. (2009). The Expanding Deliberating in a Democracy (DID) Project evaluation report: Year 2 project narrative. Available at: http://www.deliberating.org/Expanding_DID_Evaluation_08_09.pdf Badescu, G., Sum, P., & Uslaner, E. M. (2004). Civil society development and democratic values in Romania and Moldova. East European Politics and Societies, 18(2), 316–341. Banac, I. (2009). What happened in the Balkans (or rather ex-Yugoslavia)? East European Politics and Societies, 23(4), 461–478. Benhabib, S. (1996). Toward a deliberative model of democratic legitimacy. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political (pp. 67–94). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Carnegie Corporation and CIRCLE. (2003). The civic mission of schools. New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York. Center for Civic Education. (n.d.). Project Citizen. Retrieved from http://new.civiced.org/programs/project-citizen Dalton, R. J., Shin, D. C., & Jou, W. (2007a, May 18). Popular conceptions of the meaning of democracy: Democratic understanding in unlikely places. University of California, Irvine: Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved from http:// repositories.cdlib.org/csd/07-03/ Dalton, R. J., Shin, D. C., & Jou, W. (2007b). Understanding democracy: Data from unlikely places. Journal of Democracy, 18(4), 142–156. Dragoman, D. (2008). National identity and Europeanization in post-communist Romania. The meaning of citizenship in Sibiu: European capital of culture 2007. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 41, 63–78. Eslinger, M. V., & Pereira, C. (1997). The challenge of violence: Teachers guide. Chicago, IL: Constitutional Rights Foundation. Evans, G. (2006). The social bases of political divisions in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 245–270. Freedom House. (2009). Freedom in the world. Retrieved from http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15

48    P. G. AVERY and C. PEREIRA Gutmann, A. (2000). Why should schools care about civic education? In L. M. McDonnell, P. M. Timpane, & R. Benjamin (Eds.), Rediscovering the democratic purposes of education (pp. 73–90). Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Three normative models of democracy. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political (pp. 21–30). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hamot, G. E. (2003). Methods of teaching democracy to teachers and curriculum developers: Examples from post-communist Europe. In J. J. Patrick, G. E. Hamot, & R. S. Leming (Eds.), Civic learning in teacher education: International perspectives on education for democracy in the preparation of teachers, Vol. 2 (pp. 117–138). Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse for social Studies/Social Science Education. Hess, D. E. (2009). Controversy in the classroom. New York, NY: Routledge. Hoskins, B. L., & Mascherini, M. (2009). Measuring active citizenship through the development of a composite indicator. Social Indicators Research, 90, 459–488. Hovhannisyan, A., Varrella, G., Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (2005). Cooperative learning and building democracies. Cooperative Link, 20(1), 1–3. Hughes, A. S., & Urasa, A. (1997). Transnational curriculum transfer and the role of feasibility assessment. Canadian and International Education, 26(1), 76–90. Janmaat, J. G., & Piattoeva, N. (2007). Citizenship education in Ukraine and Russia: Reconciling nation-building and active citizenship. Comparative Education, 43(4) 527–552. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1979). Conflict in the classroom: Controversy and learning. Review of Educational Research, 49(1), 51–70. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1993). Creative and critical thinking through academic controversy. American Behavioral Scientist, 37(1), 40–53. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1995). Creative controversy: Intellectual conflict in the classroom (3rd ed.). Edina, MN: Interaction. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). Energizing learning: The instructional power of conflict. Educational Researcher, 38(1), 37–51. Jones, A. (2004). Talking cure: The desire for dialogue. In M. Boler (Ed.), Democratic dialogue in education: Troubling speech, disturbing silence (pp. 57–67). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Klicperová-Baker, M. (2008). Education for citizenship and democracy: The case of the Czech Republic. In J. Arthur, I. Davies, & C. Hahn (Eds.), SAGE handbook of education for citizenship and democracy (pp. 158–174). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Levine, P., Fung, A., & Gastil, J. (2005). Future directions for public deliberation. In J. Gastil & P. Levine (Eds.), The deliberative democracy handbook: Strategies for effective civic engagement in the twenty-first century (pp. 271–288). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Li Li, H. (2004). Rethinking silencing silences. In M. Boler (Ed.), Democratic dialogue in education: Troubling speech, disturbing silence (pp. 69–86). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Deliberating Across Ethical Terrain    49 Malak-Minkiewicz, B. (2007). Civic education in times of change: The post-communist countries. Citizenship Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 58–70. Mansbridge, J. (1996). Using power/fighting power: The polity. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political (pp. 46– 66). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Marquart-Pyatt, S., & Paxton, P. (2007). In principle and in practice: Learning political tolerance in Eastern and Western Europe. Political Behavior, 29, 89–113. Miller, A. H., Hesli, V., & Reisinger, W. (1997). Conceptions of democracy among mass and elite in post-Soviet societies. British Journal of Political Science, 27, 157–190. Mitchell, K. (2006). Neoliberal governmentality in the European Union: Education, training, and technologies of citizenship. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24, 389–407. Mutz, D. C. (2006). Hearing the other side: Deliberative versus participatory democracy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Parker, W. C. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Parker, W. C. (2006). Public discourses in schools: Purposes, problems, possibilities. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 11–18. Parker, W. C. (2010). Listening to strangers: Classroom discussion in democratic education. Teachers College Record, 112(11), 2815–2832. Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and democratic theory. Cambridge, England: University Press. Piattoeva, N. (2005). Citizenship education as an expression of democratization and nation-building processes in Russia. European Education, 37(3), 38–52. Sanders, L. M. (1997). Against deliberation. Political Theory, 25(3), 347–376. Sears, A., & Hughes, A. S. (2005). Learning from each other: Toward a democratic approach to international collaboration in civic education. International Journal of Citizenship and Teacher Education, 1(1), 16–31. Shumpeter, J. A. (1950). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Harper. Singleton, L. R., & Giese, J. R. (1996). Preparing citizens to participate in public discourse: The public issues model. In R. W. Evans & D. W. Saxe (Eds.), Handbook on teaching social issues (pp. 59–65). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies. Urwick, J. (2002). The Bahamian educational system: A case study in Americanization. Comparative Education Review, 46(2), 157–181.

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Chapter 3

From Transmission and Influence to Dialogue and Understanding Rooting International Curriculum Work in Democratic Ethics E. Doyle Stevick University of South Carolina

International Curriculum Work (ICW) of necessity has a pragmatic orientation, solving pressing problems on limited budgets, under tight time constraints, often amidst great logistical hurdles, piles of documentation, and financial reporting. The work lends itself to efficiency, and practical knowledge about how to conduct such work effectively is highly valued. The circumstances of ICW typically do not leave much time for reflection on the process itself. The opportunity to shift to a focus on ethics and how such work should be conducted is quite welcome. The shift from pragmatic concerns to ethical ones, however, can be made at a surface level of practice, or at a deep level that engages theo-

Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 51–71 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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ry and epistemology as well. Though a chapter of this length cannot do justice to the underlying theoretical and epistemological issues that relate to ICW work, it nevertheless hopes to initiate exploration of some of the deeper levels by shifting our attention both to the cross-cultural relationships that are at the core of ICW, and in particular, to the issues related to understanding that are essential to ethical conduct of ICW partnerships. The chapter draws upon anthropological concepts and research to help people involved in ICW to reconceptualize the relationships in which they participate. Three specific aspects of these relationships draw our attention here: how resources may impinge on ICW relationships; how organizations and people involved in ICW are inevitably non-neutral and thus must be considered as advocates, with all the implications that the label carries; and how contextual and cultural factors complicate traditional notions of transferring an idea or practice across cultural contexts.  In order to conduct partnerships in International Curriculum Work (ICW) ethically, a particular effort must be made to understand the context in which one works, the meanings that the work has for one’s partners, and the relationships in which one is engaged. The process of developing a better understanding is itself an ethical endeavor. As Blum (1994) expressed it, “knowledge of individual others [is never] a straightforwardly empirical matter requiring no particular moral stance toward the person” (p. 218). Because ICW is a cross-cultural practice, we cannot rely simply on ethical standards from within a particular cultural tradition; a working, if tentative, understanding of partners’ contexts, cultures, and circumstances is therefore a sine qua non for ethical conduct in ICW. Efforts to understand are complex and challenging enough within the same culture, context, and language. In ICW, they are compounded by profound differences in power and resources on the one hand, and in cultural outlook on the other. This chapter anchors the discussion in the author’s more than two years of research in democratic citizenship education in Estonia (and the Baltic States and Central and Eastern Europe more generally) from 2001–2004. As such, the chapter invites the reader into a deeper and continuing engagement with these powerful and compelling ideas—opening doors rather than providing answers, supporting reflection rather than prescribing practices. It is hoped that such an engagement can support the continued advance of democratic ideals in ICW partnerships, beyond explicit content and intended outcomes, into the dynamics of the relationships and the conditions in which they take place. The author’s research and experience in the region stemmed originally from concerns stirred by a string of racist multiple murders (Stevick, 2007), evidence that the United States had failed to do enough to combat racism in schools. Even after the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended the legality of American school segregation by race, no

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nationwide effort was ever made to combat racism through curriculum and instruction. The United States had failed to capitalize sufficiently on the profound legal and institutional transformations that the Brown decision initiated, because it failed to fulfill those changes with a parallel social and psychological transformation of the attitudes and dispositions surrounding race. Systemic change cannot survive without sufficient social and cultural support. Would Estonia and the other post-communist states similarly fail to fulfill the promise of the profound changes wrought by the collapse of the Soviet Union? For an educator committed to ICW, the immediate concern was whether the education system could support the kinds of social and psychological changes necessary to sustain a democratic government and market economy. Civic education was the arena in which citizenship was consciously and explicitly promoted, and a seemingly ideal medium for supporting such a change. American and European groups rushed to support the reconstruction of civic education from the Marxist–Leninist ideology promulgated during the Soviet period through the cutting-edge practices developed in the advanced democracies of the West. It was this process I set out to study, believing that advanced democracies needed to promote—and embody in practice—their democratic values to assist countries that sought to cast off an authoritarian legacy. To what extent were the “answers” universal, and to what extent were they culturally specific products of the society of origin that would need to be adapted to the context in question? To what extent were the ideals that were being promoted shared, and to what extent did they reflect more narrow political philosophies in different countries? For two years, I investigated the policy and practice of civic education in post-Soviet Estonia, from global influences to classroom practice. I had the opportunity to participate in government-, NGO-, university-, and foreign embassy-sponsored teacher-training sessions, textbook development processes, and international conferences, and to work with teachers I met in those contexts as they returned to their classrooms. I conducted interviews with participants in the process from the Council of Europe and the European Union and American partners, NGO officials, researchers, professors, teachers, and students in nine different countries. I gathered teaching materials, handouts, textbooks, and curriculum documents in multiple languages that exceeded a half-meter in height. Through it all, I found influence was quite difficult to discern. While additional obstacles to productive ICW partnerships became clear, these obstacles might be mitigated through improved understanding, communication, awareness, and attention to ethics. The chapter will proceed in five sections. The first section engages Habermas’ notion of different knowledge interests, particularly the technical and communicative, and the ways of thinking about ICW that follow.

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The second section discusses how the outmoded direct transmission model of political socialization still suffuses much of ICW practice. The final three sections draw upon ethnographic research, theory, and the author’s experiences to examine different aspects of ICW. The third section examines how imbalances in power, resources, language ability, and the like constrict the possibilities of free, open dialogue and, in fact, may incentivize deception. The fourth section considers how ICW is intrinsically non-neutral, but rather a form of advocacy, and what that entails. The fifth explores the question of transferability of ideas and practices from one context into another. Technical Interests and Communicative Interests in ICW There is an important distinction between knowledge oriented towards technical interests and knowledge oriented towards communicative interests (MacIsaac, 1996).1 Technical interests, which are characteristic of the natural sciences, can serve a concrete end, such as carrying out a project. Research in this tradition may be concerned with outcomes, with causes and effects; it is often closely aligned with the criteria and methods of the natural sciences, claims a neutral or value-free stance, and sees the inquirer as distinct or separate from the processes under investigation. In international curriculum work, technical interests are often concerned with establishing what works, or in identifying best practices. Even beyond the problems intrinsic to “best practice” thinking (an alternative is proposed in section 5), this way of thinking about ICW has other limitations. As Samoff (1999) explains, Cause and effect are very difficult to establish clearly in education, which is an intricate web of processes, some integrally related and others distantly connected. Mapping those links is a frustrating and usually contentious undertaking, especially where the concern goes beyond ostensibly standardized measures like examinations to explore learning and its consequences. It is therefore not surprising that the relationships between aid-supported curricular and instructional reforms on the one hand and specific developmental outcomes on the other are complex and difficult to discern. (pp. 83–84)

Approaching ICW with traditional thinking about accountability, which is premised on being able to delineate clear cause-and-effect relationships (Fukuyama, 2004), thus operates on a flawed premise. This is an additional reason that we need to consider others ways of thinking about ICW and that a focus on ethics may have more to offer than outcome measures alone. Technical interests contrast with communicative interests, which involve meaning and understanding (MacIsaac, 1996). They are concerned with

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the conditions under which free, open dialogue can take place, unencumbered by issues of status and power. In the context of international curriculum work, research that is oriented towards communicative interests would examine the relationships through which projects take place, not as the means to an end, but as objects worthy of critical examination and reflection in their own right. Relationships are examined not objectively from a neutral position but critically, from a normative perspective, to determine whether the conditions for free and open dialogue exist. Research related to technical interests often aligns with belief systems present in the sciences; these systems generally involve philosophies of positivism and an objectivist epistemology. To reflect upon communicative interests, however, involves not just different methods, but a different set of underlying assumptions. Underlying philosophies of hermeneutics, with their focus on interpretation, understanding, and meaningful human action, better fit this interest, as does their foundation in constructionist epistemologies. Such approaches take dialogue as a positive good and recognize the place that the observer or participant has in the process. While these theoretical and epistemological debates inform the discussion here and deserve additional examination, they are unfortunately beyond the scope of this chapter. A Deeper Democratic Engagement? It was the author’s experience that sentiments favoring democratic ideals such as equality and the free exchange of ideas were prevalent, frequently expressed, and sincerely felt by the Western partners in ICW for democratic citizenship education. While there was a clear commitment to democratic outcomes—that students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required for citizenship in a free society—the practice of such partnerships, however, was not fully consistent with these ideals. Samoff noted that “rhetoric of collaboration and partnership notwithstanding,” many partnerships “employed the language of collaboration and joint effort as they created an institutional apparatus for the leading role of international organizations” (1999, p. 60). This line of argument suggests a level of conscious hypocrisy, which may sometimes be the case; more often, it reflects the paradox of trying to maintain equitable relations when there is a clear imbalance in resources, whether they be economic (whose funding drives the project?; who has economic security?), educational (what terminal degrees have the partners achieved?), linguistic (in whose language are discussions taking place?), or the like. This chapter draws extensively on two in-depth studies that suggest a more complex picture: Wedel (2001) explored the dynamics of efforts di-

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rected at democratization in Central and Eastern Europe more broadly, while Stevick (2008) examined the discrepancies between democratic theory and practice in ICW partnerships dedicated to democratic citizenship education. Here, we will be concerned with the ways in which the circumstances and practices of ICW can undermine the free exchange of ideas, and with it, the hope for a significant positive influence in democratic citizenship education. The challenge of infusing a democratic ethos throughout ICW was in no way limited to this particular domain, however. It was present in scholarship, in teaching methods, and even in the epistemologies that undergirded research paradigms. By 2000, scholarship in the field of civic education had for decades been laboring under an unwarranted and outmoded paradigm, the “direct-transmission” model of political socialization (TorneyPurta, 2000, p. 94). The direct-transmission conception evokes what Paulo Freire (1970) called the banking model of education: Knowledge is deposited into the minds of passive students and can be withdrawn at any time precisely in its original form. It is now well understood that the processes of political socialization are considerably more complex than this paradigm assumed. Indeed, Judith Torney-Purta (2000) argues that “scholars need to move beyond a narrow view of outcomes and inputs to the political socialization process, taking a more complex, reciprocal, and situated view” (p. 94). This more complex, reciprocal, and situated view is critical not just for political socialization but for ICW generally, and it can be developed by engaging with concepts developed and research conducted in cultural anthropology, a crucial field for developing the kinds of understanding necessary to conduct ICW ethically. This discredited but lingering direct transmission model is manifested in traditional teaching styles such as the familiar lecture format, which much ICW work in citizenship education was and is dedicated to supplanting; it was also implicit in many of the practices adopted in ICW, from direct translations of foreign materials to drop-in events where foreign experts with little or no knowledge of a local context lectured on their areas of expertise before providing answers to a few questions and departing. There is a certain irony, of course, in using tools of transmission to advocate for deliberative practices. Levinson (2007) records an interview that illustrates how direct transmission processes link pedagogical practice and political style. When a Mexican educational official produced a revelatory, if accidental, double entendre in her critique of traditional lecturing: “The Reign of the Dictators is over!” (p. 260) she exclaimed, referring first to the practice of dictation from the front of the room, but clearly evoking the unelected political leaders as well. While such transmission may sometimes be efficient and even

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necessary in a much stronger and broader democratic context, the higher its proportion, the more likely it is to be problematic. We might refer to the traditional teaching approach—which is often mirrored in the practical relations established in international partnerships— as a “transmission orientation” (Stevick, 2008, p. 103). At international levels, there was often an implicit sense that transmission was an appropriate goal and method; this transmission orientation stemmed from at least three key factors. First, there was often a perception that the victorious West had the right answers—particularly in the pre-9/11 “end of history” thinking. Second, there is often an underlying “cultural deficit” theory in ICW, in which cultures are perceived to be underdeveloped or, as is often the case, had their access to foreign ideas severely constricted. This problem is compounded by language barriers: Post-communist actors often had to discuss ideas in a second or third language, often one learned later in life. Operating in a third language made it very difficult to understand the nuances of English terms and arguments, and harder still to convey the sophistication and complexity of their own thinking. Third, the language barriers in relations between Western partners and post-communist countries often keep Western partners from having the kind of depth of cultural knowledge that would permit them to participate knowledgably in reconciling general principles of democratic thinking and the local particularities of cultural interaction and discourse. If foreign ICW partners are going to advocate for ideas or practices to be transmitted or transferred from one context to another, which itself is fraught with ethical concerns, such local knowledge is indispensible. (If foreign partners lack extensive local knowledge and language ability, it is imperative that they have multiple, independent contacts in the context in question, not only so that “all the eggs are not in one basket,” but also because domestic partners often work in tightly knit, closed networks, often resulting in too narrow and too homogenous a portrait of the context.) This level of language ability and local contextual knowledge is critical to understanding underlying patterns of thought. An expatriate Estonian civic education textbook author provided a powerful illustration of this principle when I interviewed him.2 Displaced by the Second World War, he had become a professor in the United States. He “found it psychologically impossible to write the Estonian text while being [out of the country] . . . if you want to change attitudes, you have to be in the surroundings where the counterproductive aspects of interpersonal relations hit you literally every day.” His insight reflects the fact that patterns of thought and habitual relations between individuals are not limited to the political sphere, but instead pervade society, from our encounters on the street to our commercial exchanges. To engage them effectively, he argues implicitly, one must have a high level of immersion and understanding, a level generally

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unavailable to foreign experts for whom developing fluency in a language is often impracticable. In the absence of such fluency, ICW partners should avail themselves of scholarship on foreign aid and development dynamics in the particular contexts in which they work and be particularly attentive to the dynamics of the relationships that they are in. They are not always what they seem. Resources and Relationships in ICW: Supporting Patronage, Undermining Dialog Such attention to the context of ICW relationships often seems unnecessary for foreign partners. Discussions in ICW appear strong, open, and rooted in trust. Relationships are comfortable, familiar, and seem to have a clear, shared sense of purpose, to address a problem for which the foreign partner’s expertise was perfectly suited. Foreign partners were often told how much they were needed and how much their presence helped, how serious the problems in the target society were and how urgent their continuing involvement was. Seldom would alternative perspectives be available, and no reason to doubt this larger narrative emerged. Foreign partners’ experience of these relationships may be reasonable and accurate, but too frequently, it is a perspective that they were intended to develop. With attention and resources focused on the stated problem and the activities around it, careful and critical reflection on the dynamics of the relationship itself were improbable. Yet as Janine Wedel (2001) documented so vividly, those relationships were crucial to the course of Western aid for democratization and development generally: [R]arely was careful consideration given to the donors’ and recipients’ agents, the relationships formed between them, and the effects of those relationships on aid outcomes. . . . Yet how aid happens—through whom and to whom, under what circumstances, and with which goals—determines not only the nature of what recipients actually get and how they respond to it, but its ultimate success or failure. . . . [R]elationships . . . between Easterners and Westerners . . . shaped the outcomes of nearly all of the strategies that the major donors employed in aid to Central Europe. . . . It was crucially important exactly who participated and how these participants connected to their counterparts and compatriots. (p. 6)

One of the most disruptive patterns that appeared in Wedel’s (2001) work as well as my own involved the influence of resources on the relationship. She noted that “the funding of almost any group affected internal politics, the intricacies of which outsiders usually did not comprehend” (p. 122). For this reason, a Polish diplomat who was “too gracious and well bred to be

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overtly critical of” a sumptuous U.S. Department of Treasury banquet for officials from former Eastern bloc countries in February, 1991, “meekly suggested” to Wedel “that some ‘training of the donors’ might be helpful” (p. 1). Implicit in this statement is the notion that the outcomes alone, and the ways to achieve those outcomes, are only part of the picture; the process itself—in our case, ICW—merits particular attention, reflection and preparation. It was indeed a prophetic remark: After years of researching the practice, Wedel (2001) concluded, “Deficient in cultural and historical sensibilities, consultants and aid representatives often made social fools of themselves, failing to realize that their chief source of attractiveness was in their own pocketbooks or their perceived access to others’ pockets” (p. 92). Her account deconstructs the deficit thinking that often exists among foreign partners. People in Central and Eastern Europe have neither the experience of democracy nor knowledge of how to teach for democratic citizenship, this logic goes, and furthermore they were prevented from having access to developments in the West. The primary responsibility, then, is transmission of our expertise to those who face this deficit. (Does this logic extend to feelings of cultural superiority as well? Perhaps: I was told, for example, that the Estonian language would pass out of use because it was insufficiently developed, with the implication that such an outcome was a natural and good thing.) In place of these imagined dependent Central and East Europeans who lack domestic capacity and require foreign expertise, Wedel (2001) instead found sophisticated individuals who could apply skills learned in surviving communism to the task of working the system of foreign aid: Foreign financing in the form of grants meant that choices had to be made about who the appropriate grantees were. Donors were profoundly ill equipped to make these choices. They were easily outdone by Central and Eastern Europeans skilled in the necessary arts of self-preservation through their experiences under communism. (p. 87)

These patterns in the funding and the choice of partners and participants, which I found consistently as well, had profound implications. Educational partners, for example, might have no personal investment in or commitment to the ideals being promoted by a given partner or project, but would have every incentive to conceal this fact. In a conversation I had with one such partner over dinner—a conversation unencumbered by economic incentives—I praised the principles of deliberative democracy (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996); the partner was dismissive, asserting that such ideas were a luxury and a waste of time that teachers could not afford. Within two years, I learned that this partner had been selected to lead a project to introduce the principles of deliberative democracy into schools in the region. In another case, a partner whose textbook had been attacked

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in print for propagating anti-Semitic and baseless historical explanations for the killing of Jews during the Second World War was selected to lead an effort in Holocaust education (Stevick, 2007). The most optimistic reading of these examples is that the partnerships themselves could potentially be transformational, allowing the partners in question to self-persuade their way to perspectives more in keeping with Western norms and narratives. More realistically, it reflects the inability of foreign groups to make effective choices of partners who are truly committed to the project’s goals rather than using the projects as a means to their own ends. One must question how effectively and faithfully partners can implement a project whose values or premises they reject outright (if in silence). If domestic partners’ driving motivation was often related to resources, then patterns of deception could be present. Domestic partners may be less than forthcoming about their own views and problems if they want to cultivate their donors’ good will by agreeing with their positions or by making them feel important or needed. Wedel (2001) called this tendency the “ritual of listening to foreigners, in which the naïve but self-assured Westerner would encounter the shrewd Pole, who deftly charmed his guest while revealing nothing of what he truly thought. . . . Many Poles had mastered the sophisticated art of impressing Westerners while maneuvering to get what they wanted” (p. 3, emphasis in original). It would be easy to condemn such deception, but that is not the purpose here. Indeed, when people face circumstances of economic vulnerability and stress, as so many did in the wake of the Soviet collapse, taking care of basic economic needs almost inevitably takes priority over advancing outsiders’ principles. More complex is considering how to engage effectively, knowing that such predictable, rational deception is a possibility. One result of these contrasting motivations is an inversion of the means– ends relationship of projects. Donors and foreign partners put time, money, and energy into solving problems through the means of the projects. For many domestic partners in economically tenuous positions, the project is the end, and the problem is the means to produce the desired end (the projects, which bring additional resources and economic security). Structurally, this pits the foreign donors, who wish to solve the problem, against the domestic partner, for whom the problem is the critical means to the crucial end of economic security. Projects may be undertaken, leading to yet more projects, yet the problem proves increasingly intractable, even as the donor or foreign partner gets more invested in solving it. Under such circumstances, problems may be an asset, and solutions a threat. I had one particularly vexing experience that ultimately shed great light on the challenges involved for both sides of an ICW partnership. One domestic ICW partner had repeatedly expressed frustration over a key problem, one I happened to be in a position to address. I gained access

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to an upper-level university official, expressed this concern, and arranged a few meetings, and after I had invested a fair amount of time and energy, the official offered to hire the partner in question to resolve the problem. The partner declined. Confused and frustrated by this refusal, I was told that taking the work would resolve the problem and thereby undermine the prospects of getting more foreign project money. It was, from an economic perspective, an eminently rational perspective and decision. Without the problems, the domestic partner has no grounds to seek resources, which is a sophisticated affair. A domestic partner must be able to discern the concerns and thinking of foreign donors or partners and articulate a societal problem credibly, representing that problem in such a way that the foreign group’s skills and ideology just happen to be ideally suited to address it, yet with the domestic partner as the sole possible channel through which the solution could be accomplished. Such skills require a significant degree of understanding, a level not often achieved in both directions. Anthropologist Michael Agar (1994) articulated the problematic implications of such imbalances with an anecdote he offered to an American businessman who was complaining about how foreigners conducted business: .

Austrian businessmen I’d met who worked with Americans knew our language, watched our TV shows and movies, read our novels, looked at the Herald-Tribune and our weekly newsmagazines. They had come up with theories of what we were like. They knew about us . . . but we knew nothing about them. In a business negotiation where X knows a great deal about Y, and Y knows almost nothing about X, who has the advantage? I asked. The businessman bought me a beer. (p. 24)

The combination of economic needs, resource discrepancies, and very different levels of cultural knowledge between partners can be a problematic mix. Those who are dependent on others for funding seldom disagree with them; Estonians capture this dynamic in a traditional saying: Kelle leiva sa sööd, tema laula sa laulad [Whose bread you eat, his song you sing]. For foreign partners, however, understanding the implications of these financial pressures can lead to more ethical strategies of engagement and greater sensitivity. One partner expressed her disgust at the lavish reception in Prague that launched Civitas International, a U.S. government-funded international exchange program that is administered by California’s Center for Civic Education and that was established in Prague in 1995. After years of struggling to have bread to eat for her family, she found the profligacy she perceived in Prague not just insensitive, but offensive. If at one level the ostentation was a “hidden curriculum” of sorts, linking democracy and prosperity, it also reeked of the worst kinds of conspicuous consumption and triumphalism. By conducting the event in an insensitive manner, the organizers alienated some participants whom they were intending to en-

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gage and support, while attracting others who would be happy to follow along compliantly in exchange for the perks and economic opportunities it had to offer. The way in which power and resource imbalances can intersect with economic deprivation to undermine openness and dissent raises issues of how we can create the conditions that foster free and open communication, in spite of these disparities. To pursue such communicative interests, we need to clarify the conditions in which such communication can take place (Schwandt, 2007). At a basic level, it is critical to appreciate how our inadequately informed distribution of resources can itself threaten the possibility of open communication. In distributing financial resources to organize events, for example, foreign groups often subsidize not the intended audience but a carefully controlled network or patronage system. This is a consistent pattern in the region. Wedel’s (2001) survey of research into Western aid for democratization in the region produced many insights that were consistent with my experience: Bruno (as cited in Wedel, 2001), for example, found that “Individuals in postsocialist societies still tend to privilege those social relations determined exclusively through personal connections. . . . These frameworks of social relations usually escape Westerners’ sensibilities, unless they are project workers with extensive knowledge of local cultures” (pp. 113−114). They usually aren’t. She continues, “Russians have accepted the ‘given’ of international aid and cooperation projects (whether wanted or not) and are weaving them into the complex system of patronage, social relations and survival strategies which are taking shape in postsocialist Russian reality” (p. 114). Hann (as cited in Wedel, 2001) similarly found that “those who succeed in establishing good relations with a western organization maneuver to retain the tremendous advantage this gives them . . . [in these hierarchies] where everything depends on patronage and personal connections” (p. 114). The patterns of access and exclusion that characterized my own experience in the region were mystifying until it became clear that I was perceived to be (or had been positioned as) a route of access to one set of foreign patrons, and a competitor to others. In light of these patronage relationships, hopes for civil society cooperation were often constricted rather than augmented. Wedel (2001) concluded, “The promise of Western money and access often inspired secrecy, suspicion and competition among groups” (p. 93). Similarly, Bruno (as cited in Wedel, 2001) noted, “It can be counterproductive to bring together previously unacquainted recipients . . . other recipients are seen as undesirable competition and the dominant attitude is one of suspicion” (pp. 113−114). The boundaries to eventual cooperation were quite high: “Central and Eastern European groups often were unwilling to share information or oth-

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erwise cooperate with anyone who had not reached the status of personal friend” (Wedel, 2001, p. 113). It is doubtful that many foreign agencies see these dynamics as productive, or try to foster them, but they need to be cognizant of the effects their presence and resources can have. Bruno (as cited in Wedel, 2001) noted that, “presumably involuntarily, donor agencies are offering, through development projects, new sources for reinforcing the elitist, feudal-type system of social-stratification,” while Hann (as cited in Wedel, 2001) observed that “the focus [on NGOs] has tended to restrict funding to fairly narrow groups, typically intellectual elites concentrated in capital cities” (p. 114). It is doubtful whether these are always the most appropriate individuals to carry out the intended work. As Austin (as cited in Wedel, 2001) protested, “elevating a class of English-speaking people who can absorb enough buzzwords from an RFP [Request for Proposals] in order to put together something that looks like a Western budget may or may not be the kind of people that we’d like to most encourage” (p. 120). The patterns that Wedel, Hann, and Bruno (Wedel, 2001) witnessed were all present in civic education promotion efforts. Cooperation between groups was particularly problematic. Many experts were systematically kept away from events where they might meet foreign partners. One top expert told me that she had been completely excluded from events in which she ought to have been included. Reviewing materials retrieved from the national archives, I was able to confirm that this was indeed the case, with a lone exception in 1996. In a much broader case of selective exclusion, a leading national education journal published a special issue on media education. When an international civic education network later held a conference focused on the media and education in the same country, not a single contributor to the education journal was invited to participate. Needless to say, given the fact that the total population of the three Baltic States together barely exceeds seven million, this group exclusion did not stem from the plethora of media education experts in the region. Advocacy The resource imbalances and their implications intersect in important ways with the dynamics of advocacy. Many foreign agencies position themselves as neutral deliverers of technical assistance rather than as advocates per se. Such a claim is untenable. First, most agencies and ICW partners receive funds from governments, if only indirectly. Such funds must always serve the national interest of the funding government at some level, even if they are channeled through nonprofits in order to distance the funds somewhat from direct regulation.

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American civic education specialists, for example, unsurprisingly promote domestic practices. The first stated goal of the Civitas program, for example, was “to acquaint educators from EEN/NIS [Eastern European nations/Newly Independent States] with exemplary curricular and teacher-training programs in civic education developed in the United States” (Quigley & Hoar, 1997, p. 13). But even the claim to neutrality is, as Wedel (2001) notes, fallacious: “[A] id agencies tend to promise neutral technical solutions, [but] they nonetheless reflect political ideologies that have important unanticipated consequences for the recipients” (p. 10). Practices are infused with values that may conflict starkly with the explicit content of the material being shared. Many of these issues emerged from the popularity in American circles at the time of notions of civil society: Civil society advocates often behaved as though the creation of civil society was not only a key goal, but one that could be accomplished by providing large infusions of foreign money and expertise. Such an approach disregarded the forces that lead to the development of civil society institutions in the first place. (Stevick, 2008, p. 104)

As a result, the ideal that civil society would be more responsive than government could be (Sutton & Arnove, 2004) was inverted: “with the outside donor[s] as chief constituent[s], local NGOs are sometimes more firmly rooted in transnational networks than in their own societies” (Wedel, 2001, p. 114). Few would question the importance of civil society and its relevance in sustaining democratic governments. The larger point, however, is that even an ostensibly good and universal concept as civil society may not function in a particular context the way one anticipates. It is instead a theory, one perhaps sensible for foreigners to advocate, but in the absence of a careful and critical reflexive orientation, it can take root in less constructive ways. Ideally, exposure to various successes and failures of ICW can help to advance the reflexivity of partners in ICW work. Reflexivity, the “process of critical self-reflection on one’s biases, theoretical dispositions, preferences, and so forth” (Schwandt, 2007, p. 260), can in turn help ICW partners to understand their positionality. A Latvian who had witnessed both American and European efforts in civic education in Central and Eastern Europe reflected on the differences. It is worth quoting the passage at length, both for its many insights into the differences in the two efforts and how the distinct models might resonate in the other context: American model Civics programs favor more individual liberty and responsibility, while European programs emphasize the social network and sense of

From Transmission and Influence to Dialogue and Understanding    65 belonging to various social groups, from family to neighborhood, and from native town to country and nation. . . . In the American Civics model, the focus dominantly centers on Law and Constitution, or more precisely, Fundamental principles of constitutionalism, as a base of democratic politics. . . . The society here is basically the playground of the responsible individual, who knows the Law and is able to interpret it according to the Fundamental principles. The interpretation of Law (Constitution on highest level) and ability to defend one’s own rights (and interests) accordingly are crucial skills in American Civics. . . . This is why court cases analysis, mock trials, and discussions on Constitutional amendments and the issues behind them occupy a very significant place in American Civics courses. European curriculums endorse Lawfulness but in a different way. The Laws in general are more perceived as given value and sphere of specific knowledge and expertise (tradition of Roman law). On the other hand they are products of Parliament and tools of government, which are constantly changing. They represent the changing tasks of new policies implemented by changing governments, according the popular vote. In a way, the perception of Laws in the concept of democracy in European Civics is more diverse and complex: traditionally inherited as part of heritage and treated as Medieval architecture, but also flexible and subject to short term social agreements through political processes, rather than surfaces of underlying Constitutional concepts or fundamental principles as in U.S. (Catlaks, 2006, Section: “Individual Liberty versus Collective Responsibility?” Para. 1−6)

Rather than constituting universal principles that should be adopted, they represent one cultural frame that may fit more or less well in another cultural context. This process of critical self-reflection is crucial because one’s own ethical orientation, values, and intentions are not made clear immediately, transparently, and without complication to those with whom we engage. Indeed, even before a first ICW encounter, we are positioned amidst a wide range of cultural expectations regarding power, trust, expertise, motivation, and the like. Our intentions and ethics matter a great deal, eventually, but prior to speaking a word we are situated within this broad set of expectations. I had repeated personal encounters in areas far removed from the leading cities of Estonia, where foreigners were more common, that followed a pattern: Someone might speak to me for a few minutes, only to disengage when they realized, “oh, you’re American.” The reason became evident before long; they were wary of being proselytized. Americans of every religious creed had scoured the remote corners of the region for converts. “Oh, I’m not a missionary!” I replied at first, before that uncomfortable realization that, in fact, I was of this civil religion we call democracy. I had a set of commitments, a doctrine in which I believed, one I hoped to promote through open, respectful dialogue, but the conditions were not in place for open, honest dialogue. The power imbalances were too great, the trust

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too low. The lessons Estonians and their neighbors learned from how to function under Soviet hegemony—lip service plus as much independent conduct as seems viable—worked so effectively with foreign groups that could not penetrate the language barrier to understand what was happening domestically. How do we understand people’s perspectives and beliefs when they dare not divulge them? The inherent conflict between my dual purposes, understanding and advocating, became clear. I was in no position to do the latter before the former. There is no set of rules or guidebook to follow to know what is the right course of action in any given position, but if we are to engage in attempts at transformation—which is at the core of this work—we must commit ourselves to understanding the context and to thinking deeply about the ethics of our actions. When we fail to recognize the cultural contingency of our views, we risk universalizing them. The quest for universals is often manifested in assertions of “best practice” that are taken to apply anywhere, at any time. These “best practices” or right understandings are often perceived to be “deliverable,” transmitted more or less unproblematically across cultural contexts. Advocacy often takes forms not just of explicit content, but it is infused in many types of practices that often characterize ICW work: foreign prescriptions made without extensive knowledge of the local languages, cultures, and institutional structures; direct translation of materials; and the prevalence of academic-style lectures and presentations (forms of transmission) over truly dialogic processes. (The “transmission orientation” and examples of it are discussed in depth in Stevick, 2008.) Transfer and Appropriation Foreign groups are not, as we have seen, neutral and value-free, and therefore they engage as advocates of something—values, practices, ideas, or the like—that seem to be absent from the target context. In the case of direct transmission, these are ideas, practices, materials, and so forth that are to be transferred from one context into another. This section explores the conceptual flaws intrinsic to much thinking about transfers and offers in its place three more nuanced ways of thinking about such transfers. The first derives from Francis Fukuyama’s (2004) examination of the transfer of institutions to developing countries. The second comes from Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) articulation of naturalistic inquiry, and its goal of finding a middle ground between the nomothetic (universal truth or law-producing) orientation of the sciences and idiographic approaches that do not attempt to move beyond the immediate context. Third, Levinson and Sutton’s (2001) theoretical approach to policy implementation provides a set

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of concepts that enable us to think more clearly about how such transfers play out in practice. Fukuyama (2004), who was well regarded in conservative American circles during the triumphalism that followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc, critiqued overly simplistic “best practice” thinking in his book, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, which he discussed at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. in May of 2004: If you think sensibly about public sector reform, one of the big enemies is actually best practices mentality, and unfortunately, this is something the World Bank tends to do a lot of. A program will work in Peru for the delivery of vaccines, or let’s say, a certain kind of public education, and they immediately say, “a-ha, that’s a best practice, let’s universalize it and do it in Botswana or Morocco,” or others places that the Bank operates. (Fukuyama, 2004, author’s transcription)

If the logic of Fukuyama’s critique holds, it establishes a high bar for the level of understanding of the relevant cultures and contexts necessary to engage ethically in ICW work. In his discussion of “what we really know about the transfer of institutions to developing countries” (Fukuyama, 2004, author’s transcription), he laments the state of political science and its focus on theory, abstraction, and generality at the expense of specific knowledge and understanding. He extended his critique to argue, “What’s happened in academic political science is an absolute scandal . . . We don’t teach area studies, we don’t teach languages [or] culture. We teach abstract theory that is of zero use in most of these real-world situations” (Fukuyama, 2004, author’s transcription). Citing the decisions by Douglas Macarthur to leave the Japanese Emperor in place and Paul Bremer’s decision to disband the Iraqi army, Fukuyama (2004) observed, “Just think about what kind of knowledge you need to have to make that decision in the first place and you’ll see that it’s all entirely local, contextual, historical, cultural, and the like”; and further, “I would say that is almost one-hundred percent contextual. There’s no amount of learning that you can have in a place like Harvard University . . . that will actually give you enough guidance to know which of those forks in the road you ought to take” (author’s transcription). Fukuyama’s (2004) critique is in fact consistent with the tenets of a constructionist epistemology and its manifestations in various naturalistic or hermeneutic theories. These theories provide an alternative foundation for the dynamics of ICW partnerships. Naturalism, for example, is skeptical of scientific claims to universality, and it attempts to bridge the nomothetic/ idiographic dichotomy by exploring the transferability of a practice, idea, or concept. Rather than asserting a universal application of ideas or practices, and rather than rejecting any possibility of shared characteristics, nat-

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uralism leaves open the possibility of case-to-case transfer. The researcher, however, is not in a position to make the claim about its relevance to a different context from the one in which the research was conducted. A researcher must instead provide careful and deep characterization of the practice’s original context so that the reader (or ICW partner) imbued in a second context can make an informed judgment its potential applicability. The requisite positioning of the two produces a more equal dialogue than in the expert–recipient relationships so frequent in ICW; it also permits a deeper engagement with the possible meanings of the idea or practice in the new context, rather than assuming an unencumbered transferability. Indeed, anthropological theories of policy as practice have reconceptualized notions of transfer instead as appropriation, helping us to understand the ways in which new ideas, concepts, or practices are taken over, interpreted, and woven into a different cultural framework. It is a process of cultural production in which they are adapted, rather than simply adopted. As Fukuyama (2004) expresses the notion, at the level of institutions: There has to be a sufficient degree of local knowledge that is built into the design of these institutions that is really critical to make them work, which means that you need contextual judgment in the applicability of foreign models. That’s not to say that foreign models won’t work, but you won’t even know where they’ll work unless you know a great deal about the local society. (author’s transcription)

The ethical implications extend beyond the empirical question of whether practices or institutions will work or not. The promotion of well intentioned but ill-fitting ideas and practices can be quite destructive. The development of anthropological research on policy implementation, which sheds light on questions of transferability, arose because policies so seldom turned out they way they were anticipated or planned to turn out. Various ideological explanations could tell us that governments were universally incompetent, for example, or that other agendas actually drove the policy and were reflected in the way it actually turned out. If moderate to great levels of deviation from a policy are typical, they should be reconceptualized as the norm rather than as an aberration. Indeed, when one considers the assumptions that would be necessary for policy to work out as ostensibly intended, it produces an unlikely sequence of events. All of those involved in the implementation of a policy process would have done the following: know what the policy was, understand perfectly its purposes and intentions, know exactly what it meant for any given ambiguous or complex circumstances they encountered, agree that it should be carried out as intended, have the skills and resources necessary to carry it out as intended, be able to adjust their practice to be in full compliance, encoun-

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ter no conflicting pressures from other policies or circumstances, willingly carry it out, and so forth. ICW work is not different in this regard. Levinson and Sutton’s work (2001), however, starts with the processes of implementation and works from there. In their particular circumstances, given what they know and understand, those charged with implementing a policy must make complex decisions about how to act in relation to the policy. How they act, in relation to the policy, Levinson and Sutton (2001) call appropriation, which is “an active process of cultural production through borrowing, recontextualizing, remolding, and thereby resignifying cultural forms. . . . [It] emphasizes the agency of local actors in interpreting and adapting [resources] to the situated logic in their contexts of everyday practice” (p. 17). Put more simply, appropriation is the manner in which “creative agents, ‘take in’ . . . thereby incorporating these . . . resources into their own schemes of interest, motivation and action” (p. 3). In ICW work, clearly local cultural and contextual factors will play a great role in how the materials and practices settle into local practice. Popkewitz (2004) put it nicely when he wrote that “borrowing is not copying... but rather, provides a concept to examine how patterns of thought move through and are transmuted in different layers of the local and global systems” (p. ix). Understanding is at the heart of the appropriation process. Engaging culture and context in such a nuanced fashion allows us to move closer to our end of “a more complex, reciprocal, and situated view” (Torney-Purta, 2000, p. 94), a view that will help us to ensure that the ethical principles we endorse manifest our thinking and practices at a deep level. Conclusion A focus upon understanding within the relationships of ICW shifts our focus away from traditional, practical considerations of effectiveness and outcomes (technical interests) to the conditions required for mutual understanding and open communication (communicative interests.) It is an important move, not least because questions of cause and effect and trying to link specific factors to clear outcomes fit poorly in the dynamics of ICW. Our inability to quantify in some simple way the success or failure of ICW encourages us to focus on ethical considerations and on how ICW relationships are conducted and how central understanding is to their ethical conduct. To these ends, this chapter drew upon anthropological work and the author’s experiences to explore three critical areas: the problems created by imbalances in resources, English language ability, and the like on such partnerships; the intrinsic advocacy of engagement in ICW; and the problematic persistence of direct-transmission thinking in ICW practice. Knowledge of these dynamics and concepts may not have universal application

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but may be transferable to a variety of different contexts. Further, they may well help to advance our sensitivity, perception, and understanding of ethical conduct within ICW in ways that better manifest the democratic values that we rightly profess. Notes 1. Jürgen Habermas is responsible for formulating these ideas in 1981 in the two volume Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, later translated into English in The Theory of Communicative Action, translated by Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge: Polity), between 1984 and 1987. I find that MacIsaac (1996) provides a useful and accessible schematic overview that is an effective introduction to the concepts. 2. The terms according to which interviews took place included confidentiality, although a number of interviewees had no objection to speaking on the record. In a small country with few experts in any given field, allowing a few to be named would further complicate the challenge of leaving unnamed the others.

References Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York, NY: William Morrow. Blum, L. A. (1994). Moral perception and particularity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Catlaks, G. (2006). European and American approaches to citizenship education in the context of European Union enlargement. Civitas International. Retrieved from http://www.civnet.org/ contenidos.php?id_secciones=OA==&ACTION =TW9zdHJhclVuQ29udGV Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder. Fukuyama, F. (2004). 5/21/2004 [lecture at the Woodrow Wilson Center]. (Transcription, Stevick). Washington, DC: C-Span2. Gutmann, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Levinson, B. A. U. (2007). Forming and implementing a new secondary civic education program in Mexico: Toward a democratic citizen without adjectives. In E. D. Stevick & B. A. U. Levinson (Eds.), Reimagining civic education: How diverse societies form democratic citizens (pp. 245–270). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Levinson, B. A. U., & Sutton, M. (2001). Introduction: Policy as/in practice—A sociocultural approach to the study of educational policy. In M. Sutton & B. A. U. Levinson (Eds.), Policy as practice: Toward a comparative sociocultural analysis of educational policy (pp. 1−22). Westport, CT: Ablex. Lincoln, Y., & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

From Transmission and Influence to Dialogue and Understanding    71 MacIsaac, D. (1996). The critical theory of Jurgen Habermas. Retrieved from: http:// physicsed.buffalostate.edu/danowner/habcritthy.html Popkewitz, T. S. (2004). Foreword. In G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.), The global politics of educational borrowing and lending (pp. vii–xi). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Quigley, C. N. & Hoar, J. N. (1997). Civitas: An international civic education exchange program. International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 11−26. Samoff, J. (1999). Institutionalizing international influence. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (pp. 51−89). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Schwandt, T. A. (2007). The SAGE dictionary of qualitative inquiry (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stevick, E. D. (2007). The politics of the Holocaust in Estonia: Historical memory and social division in Estonian education. In E. D. Stevick & B. A. U. Levinson (Eds.), Reimagining civic education: How diverse societies form democratic citizens (pp. 217−244). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Stevick, E. D. (2008). Foreign influence and economic insecurity in international partnerships for civic education: The case of Estonia. In E. D. Stevick & B. A. U. Levinson (Eds.), Advancing Democracy through Education? U.S. Influence Abroad and Domestic Practices (pp. 97–127). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Sutton, M., & Arnove, R. (2004). Introduction: Civil society or shadow state? State/ NGO relations in education. In M. Sutton & R. Arnove (Eds.), Civil society or shadow state? State/NGO relations in education (pp. vii−xviii). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Torney-Purta, J. (2000, February). Comparative perspectives on political socialization and civic education. Comparative Education Review, 44(1), 88–95. Wedel, J. (2001). Collision and collusion. The strange case of Western aid to Eastern Europe. New York, NY: Palgrave.

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Chapter 4

Curriculum Development Collaboration between Colonizer and Colonized Contradictions and Possibilities for Democratic Education Steven Camicia Utah State University Alfredo Bayon Southern Leyte State University, Philippines

Globalization, which we define here as the accelerating pace of social and economic movement on a global scale, has generated unique calls for curriculum reform. For example, some reforms are aimed at designing and implementing curriculum that is responsive to markets, while other reforms focus upon critical forms of democracy (Camicia & Franklin, 2010). The international education movement has approached change in multiple ways with multiple stakeholders. Sometimes the affinities (i.e., national/ global) and intents (i.e., neoliberal/civic) of stakeholders in the movement are multiple and contradictory (Parker & Camicia, 2009). Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 73–92 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Within this globalizing milieu of curriculum work, we propose ethical curriculum development that acknowledges that Western epistemological stances, especially grounded in the process of colonization, Enlightenment principles, and spreading “truth” to the “other,” however well-intentioned, have devalued indigenous and non-Western epistemologies. In this chapter, we describe, analyze, and interpret the challenges and opportunities related to culture, context, and power asymmetries in international curriculum work within the context of our, the two authors’, work to create critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum. The relationship between the United States, as a colonizing nation, with the Philippines, as a colonized nation, provides a unique case for examining power asymmetries and ethics in international curriculum work. As a brief illustration of our theoretical framework we describe, analyze, and interpret our attempts to foster international curriculum reform that encourages critical democratic cosmopolitanism (Camicia & Franklin, 2010) and a decolonizing curriculum (Abdi & Richardson, 2008). A critical democratic cosmopolitan curriculum seeks to place democratic principles within a global context in curriculum work. Students in such a curriculum deliberate global issues democratically, and the scale of community is the human family. A decolonizing curriculum seeks to uncover, deconstruct, and interrogate the insidiousness of colonial discourses in the perpetuation of relationships of domination and subjugation. It is our position that to deny the influence of such discourses in international curriculum alliances is to perpetuate the assumptions, representations, and misrepresentations of cultures that maintain Western epistemologies and Enlightenment principles as the “beacon on the hill” by which all are measured. If these principles are placed centrally in international curriculum work without examining power asymmetries and positionality, we believe that international curriculum work risks continued waves of colonization. We are particularly drawn to the concept of curriculum alliance rather than curriculum collaboration because the term alliance is grounded in social movement literature where common goals are acknowledged, but these commonalities do not veil the historical, epistemological, and material differences that are often overlooked (Young, 2000). For example, those from dominant cultures have often collaborated on curriculum development with non-dominant cultures, but the affinities and intents of such collaborations are not explicit as they relate to a larger global context of social inequities. We use the term alliance to signify our affinity and intent to stand together against future waves of colonization in curriculum work. In other words, we stand in alliance against future waves of Western (re)colonization. Through a brief example related to our curriculum alliance, we examine our attempt to create international education that is socially just and ethical in the process of developing critical democratic, postcolonial,

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cosmopolitan curriculum. Although our example is based upon a nascent project, we are interested here in the process that the two authors experienced surrounding our work. Our example serves to illustrate the process that we experienced before, during, and after the project. Our concerns related to (re)colonization related to Western international projects and epistemologies are significant because curriculum decisions are entrenched in the process of representation (e.g., Pinar, 2004). The representation and misrepresentation of groups within and between cultures and nations can perpetuate global inequities in curriculum development rather than ameliorate these inequalities as Western epistemologies, such as those related to citizenship education, are placed centrally. A decolonizing curriculum decenters this tendency to place Enlightenment principles as “truths” that “other” cultures must learn. A long history of colonization has illustrated that perhaps well-intentioned international education projects have strengthened national identity at the expense of the other (Anderson, 1991). Willinsky (1998) details how Western international education curricula about non-Western locations have had the effect of producing “universal” truths related to scientific discovery, categorization, and naming of the other. Of particular concern to us are Western discourses of democracy (Camicia, 2010) in such projects. While often emancipatory, Western discourses of democracy have also been used to justify projects of military and capitalist engagement and colonization. In this chapter, we propose that this darker side of democratic discourse be explicit during ethical curriculum alliances as a way to stand against future waves of Western colonization. Ethics of Recognition in International Curriculum Work It is within this context that we provide our working definition of ethics in international curriculum work. We ground our ethics in a postmodern/ poststructural system of recognition as presented by Levinas (2005) and Butler (2006). According to this orientation, ethical thought and behaviors are grounded in the recognition of the other. This recognition is partially accomplished by making power asymmetries explicit in communication. A lack of recognition is found throughout oppressive discourses. One of the best examples of how this functions is found in a dominant cultural group “recognizing” a less dominant group’s independence or rights. Historical narratives created by dominant groups usually reflect a lack of recognition of the agency of the colonized in resisting their domination. Postcolonial analysis leads us to understand that resistance and power relations are complex, and less dominant groups resist in ways not usually

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recognized by dominant narratives (Bhabha, 2003, 2004). The rights and independence of the less dominant always exist, but they are simply not recognized by the dominant group. As applied to a contemporary controversy in the United States, the same mechanism functions in the lack of recognition of same-sex partnerships in legal and social structures. Lack of recognition is a form of control. Recognition means to literally recognize the multiple and overlapping epistemologies, identities, and histories of each human being rather than only recognizing these qualities from a dominant cultural lens. For example, to proclaim Western discourses of democracy as the pinnacle of political development of “civilizations” and a finished project is to deny the unique epistemologies and values of indigenous cultures, and as a result, reassert the interests and control of dominant groups. Finally, within this concept of ethical recognition, we synthesize the concept of global citizenship. In an effort to create global citizenship education that is ethically responsive to the demands of globalization, many have proposed that students be taught an old concept, cosmopolitanism (Banks et al., 2005; Gaudelli, 2003; Myers, 2006; Parker, 2004). Cosmopolitanism can be defined as allegiance to a human family or global citizenship (Nussbaum, 1996). However, the concept of cosmopolitanism has multiple meanings (Fine, 2007). Camicia and Franklin (2010) describe international curriculum reform as fostering neoliberal cosmopolitan and democratic cosmopolitan ideologies. They describe neoliberal cosmopolitanism as supporting curriculum reform as a means for increasing economic competitiveness, efficiency, accountability, standardization, and market rationality. In contrast, Camicia and Franklin (2010) describe democratic cosmopolitanism as supporting cultural expression, difference, critical awareness of power asymmetries, and emancipation. Synthesized, the ethics of recognition and cosmopolitanism form a productive theoretical lens for designing, implementing, describing, analyzing, and interpreting international curriculum work oriented toward critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum. The two concepts are synthesized by recognizing power asymmetries related to colonial discourses while forming alliances against oppression and for the production of positive solutions to shared global problems ranging from unjust international trade practices to climate change. Our Curriculum Alliance In fall of 2009, we, Steven and Alfredo, began a project that is ongoing. The project involves a cross-cultural dialogue project between pre-service teachers at Alfredo’s university in the Philippines and Steven’s university in the

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United States. In what follows, we describe our piloting of the project and the inherent complexities, contradictions, obstacles, and possibilities of our work. First, we examine how our countries of origin impact our different social positionings or positionalities during our curriculum work. We emphasize these differences by retaining each of our voices during our writing of this chapter as much as possible while still keeping our overall narrative intact. The retention of voice is important when examining the inherent power imbalances related to communication between one of us as belonging to a colonizing nation and one of us as belonging to a colonized nation. This process is what we envision students doing in a critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum. Second, we briefly describe the historical relationship between the Philippines and the United States as it relates to education and colonization. This description serves to add context to the discussion of our positionalities. Third, we discuss the contemporary geopolitical context as a way to situate our positionalities within the current context of our curriculum alliance. Finally, we discuss our reflections on the actual pilot project. Positionality and International Curriculum Work We, the authors, embody the obstacles and possibilities of critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum reform alliances. Differences related to peoples’ social positioning, identities, and contexts are described by postcolonial (Spivak, 1999) and feminist (Harding, 1993; Hartsock, 1997; Hekman, 1997) theorists as positionality. An awareness of positionality is becoming vital in international curriculum reform and educational research because curriculum expresses and is situated within political, cultural, historical, and contemporary realities of power relations (Pinar, 2004). Curriculum does not emerge from a decontextualized vacuum. Instead, according to Pinar, curriculum expresses a community’s self-understanding of the past and present, as well as its hopes for the future. However, this self-understanding is highly contentious within communities, whether local or global, because of the different positionalities of stakeholders within the community (Camicia, 2008). We challenge international curriculum work that is standardized across countries and cultures as unethical if such reform does not acknowledge the location of students and educators within a global context of power relations. Using the lens of positionality, we examined our international curriculum development process. An awareness of the power differentials related to our positionalities was central to an ethical curriculum alliance. Extending our post-structuralist ethics of recognition, we see Steven and Alfredo as embodying unique positionalities that must be recognized in

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order for an ethical alliance to be formed. Each of our bodies is located within a complex network of power relations. Our bodies are theorized as a site in which society inscribes identities related to hierarchies of power. Steven can attempt to form and reform his identities, but this movement is always placed within the context of unearned privileges based upon histories of social injustice. When he travels in the Philippines, he has the face of a colonizer. He can and does find racism reprehensible, but this does not remove the unearned privilege that societies bestow upon him as a White male. It is our position that this awareness should be central to international curriculum work as colleagues work face to face. It is especially salient when alliances are formed between nations that have had colonial relationships such as the Philippines and the United States. Steven’s attempts to struggle in alliance with Alfredo against colonial discourses do not erase the identities inscribed on Steven’s body. After time, Steven and Alfredo have come to recognize each other’s intent to struggle against social injustices, but this type of recognition needs to proceed from a place where the unearned privilege afforded White colonizers is examined throughout the curriculum project. Steven’s body is inscribed by identities of the colonizer, and Alfredo’s body is inscribed by identities of the colonized. These different positionalities created the opportunity to form an alliance around the question of how to work on international curriculum projects in an ethical way that recognizes and addresses the inherent power asymmetries between such alliances. Because inclusion is central to democracy, the power differentials related to international curriculum are integrally connected to transnational social justice and ethics. As we present our own positionality in what follows, we envision the same process followed by students. Although students in the current project did not, for reasons that we will discuss later, follow this process in the same depth, our curriculum started the initial steps for such examinations. I, Alfredo, am Filipino and have never left the geopolitical boundaries of the Philippines, but colonization has often led to my figurative departure. I have been and am, to a large degree, defined as the colonized by multiple waves of colonization. This definition is derived from my citizenship, but other identities related to language (English is my second/third language), ethnicity, and class. From birth, the United States, as colonizer, has defined the scope, sequence, and pedagogy of my public education. As we discuss in the next section, the United States formed the public education system in the Philippines. From the first day that I entered the schoolhouse doors, I was embedded in a mostly American-designed system. This is profound because the West not only controlled the external conditions of my life related to history, politics, and economy, but it has defined the way that I think and speak about the world. I was taught English as the language of instruction rather than the language that I spoke in my home. Most of our

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textbooks were written from Western perspectives regarding subjects ranging from the prominence of a history curriculum celebrating European and American “heroes” to an understanding of the physical properties of the world as defined by Western science. In my alliance with Steven, I voiced the struggles involved with international democratic curriculum alliances from the position of the colonized. My voice presents the perspective of a culture that has been placed on the margins within the curriculum of my country of origin. I, Steven, am a White, middleclass, gay male who, in addition to the privileges unearned by most of these identities, I have had the privilege to often leave geopolitical boundaries of the U.S., the place of my citizenship. My identities and privileges are intensified by speaking English as my first language. I was educated by a society and educational system that defined my identities as the norm by which “other” cultures are measured. For example, the prominent figures in the history and civic education curriculum when I grew up were almost exclusively composed of people who looked like me, White males. This was also true in other subject areas such as language arts, mathematics, art, and science. Communities as small as my neighborhood and as large as the globe are made of socially constructed hierarchies related to race, ethnicity, language, gender, class, sexual orientation, gender orientation, and other identities just as integral to the human experience. Most of these hierarchies define me as the colonizer. In our alliance, I attempt to resist the role of colonizer, but the unearned privilege that societies continue to afford me needs to be acknowledged as much as possible in Alfredo’s and my work. I speak from the position of the identities related to the colonizer, but I voice the struggles involved with my privilege as it relates to a socially just and ethical international curriculum alliance. Historical Context of the Philippines and United States in Education and Colonization The historical and contemporary relationships and contexts between the Philippines and the United States related to democratic education provide a unique case for productively extending our understanding of an ethics of recognition in international curriculum work. Power influences the strength of some voices over others in democratic dialogue (Camicia, 2010). It is only with this awareness that the range of perspectives in the curriculum and legitimacy increase. The curriculum becomes more democratic as a result because it reflects the perspectives of the different stakeholders influenced by the curriculum (Camicia, 2009). The historical context that led to our different positionalities is central to our ethics of recognition. This understanding of historical and contem-

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porary contexts are an important part of postcolonial (Abdi & Richardson, 2008; Heilman, 2006; Memmi, 1967; Mohanty, 1984; Said, 1979) and curriculum (Pinar, 2004; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995) theories. We use this understanding to examine how the roots of the educational relationship between the Philippines and United States influence our perceptions and communication in our work and recognition of each other’s positionality. A history of colonial education in the Philippines could start with the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. The Spanish era (1521–1898) provided mostly parochial schools that were intended for Filipinos, which at the time meant only Spaniards who resided in the Philippines. According to Agoncillo (2006), occasionally, mixed or mestizos were also admitted to these schools. Seldom were the indios or indigenous peoples of the Philippines allowed to attend. One night on bended knee, so the story goes, President McKinley prayed to God to give him light on what to do with the Philippines. As a result, he was convinced to take the Philippines over as a colony through what he called “benevolent assimilation.” It is this discourse of benevolence that Americans established roles as colonizers who would install Western understandings of the world. When the Americans took colonial rule from the Spanish in 1898 and upon the recommendation of the Schurman Commission of 1899, a secularized and free public school system was established in the Philippines. Chaplains and non-commissioned officers were assigned to teach using English as the language of instruction. With the use of English language as a sole language of instruction, those who could not master English were considered underachievers, which is still a prominent belief in the Philippines. Before the arrival of professionally trained teachers, American soldiers were commissioned to teach basic education to Filipinos (Agoncillo, 2006). The Philippine Commission, by virtue of Act No. 74, installed a highly centralized public school system in 1901. The implementation of this act created a heavy shortage of teachers. From 1901 to 1902 the commission authorized the Secretary of Public Instruction to bring 1,000 teachers from the United States to the Philippines. These teachers were called the Thomasites after the USS Thomas, a U.S. battleship. The American teachers were scattered throughout the islands to establish barangay or small town schools. The same law, Act Number 74, established the Philippine Normal School (now the Philippine Normal University) to train Filipino teachers for the public schools. In 1902, the Philippine Commissions established a high school system and supported it through provincial governments, special educational institutions, schools of arts and trades, commerce and marine institutes, and agricultural schools. In 1908, the Philippine Legislature approved Act No. 1870, which created the University of the Philippines (Agoncillo, 2006). The Reorganization Act of 1916  provided the  Filipinization  of all department secretaries

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except the Secretary of Public Instruction. Two decades later, enrollment in elementary schools was about 1 million from a total of 150,000 students in 1901. By 1904, the first batch of Filipino pensionados or scholars was sent to different universities in the United States to study. These men and women later became central to the educational system and other professions such as law, medicine, and engineering. America was successful because in those days no learned or educated Filipino would say that America was an invader, although it was. Only few would consider United States as a conqueror, and these people were branded as bandits and subversives (Duka, 2000). In sum, the historical context of colonization is “in the air” during dialogue between transnational dialogues between students and researchers in the Philippines and the United States because the educational system in the Philippines is the product of colonization. This Western epistemological foothold functions to privilege the United States at the expense of Filipino epistemology and culture. The strongest evidence of this is in the prominence of English as the language of instruction and the scope and sequence that reflects that of American public schools today. The Current Geopolitical Inequities Influencing Our Curriculum Alliance To set the stage of our alliance in the material and geopolitical realities of the present, we offer Alfredo’s narrative of his treatment from the U.S. embassy in the Philippines when he applied for his visa to travel to Steven’s university in the United States. The purpose of his visit was to design curriculum with Steven in the United States as Steven had done when he visited Alfredo in the Philippines a few months prior. To emphasize the importance of recognizing our positionalities and the intensified power differentials in a post-9/11 world, Steven, a citizen of the U.S., was able to complete his visa papers on the airplane while traveling to the Philippines. In contrast, Alfredo had to apply at the U.S. embassy in Manila, a 22-hour bus ride from his university. The following journal entry by Alfredo describes the way that he was received at the U.S. embassy: {nar}I arrived at around 7 a.m. though I was scheduled at 10 in the morning. The Filipino guards were so subservient to their American bosses that they almost treated their compatriot shabbily, bordering on discourtesy, or so it seemed. I was number 2017 in the line for the morning schedule of those who were about to submit papers for evaluation and to be interviewed by the consular officers. All hopefuls were to go on with the three steps. First was the preliminary paper evaluation (the passport, DS 156 and DS 157). Second was the finger scanning, and the third would be the interview and

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the submission of other supplemental papers should the consulate officers ask for them. Before me, in my line, there were three individuals and what appeared to be a family. All of them were denied visas. The old woman’s tears and pleadings did not help change the decision of the stoic-looking, male, consulate officer. A lady consul looked and acted no different from her male counterparts. An entire Indian family who claimed to have resided in the Philippines for 18 years and whose income was more than a hundred thousand pesos was also decided ineligible for a visa. People who instantly became my friends in my immediate area unanimously said that I would have no hard time to have my visa approved. After all, all my papers were from the U.S., having been invited by a U.S. state university. Then my number was flashed on the wall. Just after I said a short prayer, I stood up and was immediately asked by the male consular officer, “Your name and why do you want to go to the U.S.?” Armed with all the necessary papers, I answered, “Good morning, sir, I am Alfredo M. Bayon. I have an invitation from Utah State University for a short-term scholarship program. Got all the papers to vouch for my claim.” The officer took all my papers and while doing some kind of searches in the computer relative to the information in my papers asked: “What is your job?” “I am an associate professor in Southern Leyte State University sir.” “How much do you earn?” “Roughly P30,000.00 a month sir.” “A month?” “Yes, sir.” “How many children do you have?” “My wife is five-months pregnant and I am looking forward to be back in August to be with my wife before she delivers our first baby.” “What is your wife’s job?’ “She is a college instructor, teaching P.E.” “Who is this Camicia?” “Dr. Camicia is an assistant professor at USU.” “Is he a Filipino-American?” “No sir, he is a full-blooded American.” “How did you meet and know him?”

Curriculum Development Collaboration between Colonizer and Colonized    83 “Our respective universities have established a memorandum of understanding on research and in the academe. Dr. Camicia was sent to our school in connection with that memorandum. It happened that his expertise as a Social Studies professor was the same as mine. We are now in the process of doing a collaborative curriculum research.” Reading my papers the consular officer asked, “In what archive are you about to do research about Filipino–American relationship? I know some in other big U.S. universities but in Utah, I doubt it.” I could not answer this question, for Steven did not mention the particular archive’s name. Answering the question, I feared, would only bring me deeper into the quagmire. But he is not interested in my answer anyway. The consular officer looked like he got an answer for his query. He stood up and said, “Just wait.” Bringing my papers with him, he left me for about three minutes and when he came back, I heard the words I did not want to hear. Writing something in a blue paper (the dreaded color in the U.S. Embassy), he said “Unfortunately, you do not qualify for the J1 visa.” I left in a huff, being reminded, “do not argue with the consular officer” and went to my brother’s house and had a good rest.

We offer this narrative in order to recognize how power differentials between countries influence the movement of people and, as a result, information in international curriculum work. An ethics of recognition requires that educational researchers recognize these inequities and, as we are doing now, placing political pressure on governments to address these inequities. A lack of recognition of these inequities serves to reify the assertion of Western epistemology, privilege, and dominance. In other words, the ethics that we propose recognizes Filipino culture and epistemology as integral parts of our curriculum work. This ethics recognizes denial of visas to international scholars such as Alfredo as an injustice that must be addressed by the academic community through publications such as this collection. Our intention for Alfredo’s visit was to disrupt traditional models where Americans and Europeans travel to other countries and develop international curriculum in what can be construed as another wave of colonization, whatever the intent. We had hoped that Alfredo could bring to the U.S. his unique epistemological stance and positionality to develop curriculum with a decolonizing lens. Our highlighting of the social injustice concerning the way that Alfredo was treated is our attempt to build awareness among researchers and educators concerning the often-unacknowledged realities of positionalities as they relate to international curriculum work and research. Since inclusion is an essential component of critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum, the power asymmetry involved with Alfredo’s restricted travel and Steven’s unrestricted travel raises fundamental questions concerning an ethics of recognition in the curriculum work of

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international alliances, such as: How do power asymmetries related to past injustices such as the domination by Western epistemology influence curriculum work? How can we address geopolitical power asymmetries related to transnational flows of culture, capital, humans, and information in ethical international curriculum work? Some of the answers to these questions involve the types of recognition that we have mentioned thus far in this chapter as they relate to power asymmetries related to the different positionalities of researches and curriculum developers. In the next section, we hope to address some of these questions by illustrating how the curriculum itself might address these concerns. Our Curriculum Based upon an existing memorandum of understanding between Southern Leyte State University in the Philippines and Utah State University in the United States, we, Alfredo and Steven, began an email conversation about international curriculum alliance. Our goal was to facilitate dialogue between pre-service teachers in the Philippines and U.S. as a way to develop a global, critical, multicultural, and democratic curriculum aimed at cross-cultural, socially just, and ethical democratic education on an international scale. We are experts in the area of social studies and critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum. We discussed a number of possibilities and decided to create a project related to preservice teacher dialogues about global controversial issues similar to a project that Steven had already done within the United States where preservice teachers dialogued with elementary school students in a type of pen pal activity (Camicia & Dobson, 2010). In Alfredo and Steven’s project, a similar process was developed, but rather than age as the difference in positionalities between dialogue partners, the partners had different positionalities related to country of belonging. Approximately 16 pre-service teachers at both universities used an electronic discussion board to discuss the historical and contemporary relationships between our countries. We designed an outline for our curriculum to help students respond to texts about history, colonization, English-only laws in curriculum, positionality, and culture. We developed questions to guide our selection of texts and for students to answer, questions such as: 1. How are historical narratives in textbooks interpreted by students concerning the relationship between the Philippines and the United States? 2. How have different cultures in the Philippines and United States understood the concept of democracy?

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3. How are Filipinos and Americans represented and misrepresented in such texts? 4. What are the ramifications on culture and societies as a result of colonization? 5. What global inequalities were produced by colonization? 6. What forms of still colonization exist? 7. What does English as an official language of instruction in the Philippines tell us about connections between power and culture? 8. How might Filipino and American students look at these issues differently based upon their lived experiences in different nations and cultures? We began our project in summer of 2009 with a critical awareness of the ways that our alliance could present another wave of colonization of the Philippines by the United States. As we have already discussed, the U.S. government sent American teachers to the Philippines to build a widespread public education system. The scope, sequence, and pedagogy of this system are in place to this day. The negative attributes related to the replacing of indigenous cultures with those of a colonizer range from the loss of cultural knowledge to the lasting sense that one culture’s values are inferior to that of the dominant culture. This was codified in the public education system implemented by Americans in the Philippines. We feared that if these connections were not made explicit, we risked another wave of American colonization through the discourse of American liberal democracy. Filipino and American students are often told that America was the modern birthplace of democracy. We wanted to decenter the United States as the point of departure by which all other democracies are measured. We established an online forum in which students could dialogue and post media of interest such as photos. Sixteen pre-service teachers in the Philippines were partnered with 16 pre-service teachers in the U.S. Most of the participants were females between the ages of 18 and 24. These participants were divided into eight discussion groups of four, each group containing two Filipino and two U.S. participants. They were asked to contribute to the online discussion within their groups every two weeks. We, Alfredo and Steven, provided students with readings and discussion questions. Unfortunately, as will be discussed in the next section, the participation rate was extremely low due to material inequities that we had not anticipated. The examples that we present below are not meant to be generalizable to a population but are intended to be illustrations of where would like to go with our future work. However, our findings from our pilot study are useful as we guide implementation of future iterations. In addition, we believe our findings related to the low response rate of students are useful to our colleagues who plan to implement similar projects.

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Challenges We expected that there would be challenges during our first iteration of our curriculum work. First, while nearly all of the American students posted to the discussion board within the first few weeks, only four of the Filipino students participated. Due to a lack of resources to contact students assigned to schools in rural areas far from Alfredo’s university, we relied upon an interview with only one of the students to give us an idea of the challenges that students faced. When we asked one of the Filipina students why she thought the participation rate was so low, she responded with the following list: 1. The inaccessibility of computers or Internet in the schools where Filipino participants are assigned during their practicum. 2. Financial constraints. Even when at the university, the participants had to pay for computer time. 3. Confusion over how to access the discussion board. 4. Poor Internet connection at the SLSU campus. The slow connection makes Internet time expensive. The campus doesn’t have hardwired phone or Internet connections so everyone on campus must rely upon wireless connections. 5. Pre-service teachers don’t have enough spare time. 6. The discussion board had a low priority. Participants would always prioritize the assignment given to them by their current professor in order to earn a good grade. During the next implementation of our discussion board curriculum, we feel confident that we can address these challenges. First, we gained a better understanding of our Filipino participants’ material constraints as compared with their American counterparts. During the next iteration, we will include discussion board participation as part of students’ regular coursework while on the university campuses. Second, we have chosen a discussion board that uses less bandwidth for reading and posting discussions. Third, we will include a guided session with students at both campuses so that students will be familiar with how to read and contribute to the discussion board. As part of our debrief with the American students who did not understand why their Filipino counterparts did not participate more, Steven led a discussion on the topic of American privilege leading to inequitable voice in global democracy and possible solutions to address power imbalances in order to empower the voices of Filipinos.

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Possibilities Although the discussion board participation was short-lived, as has already been discussed and for some of the reasons discussed above, productive discussion topics emerged from our small amount of data. Not surprisingly, the topic of historical relationships was prominent in the few posts that we received. Although a limitation, we present the following responses in the tradition of qualitative research that does not claim generalizability to a population but to theory (Yin, 2003). These excerpts illustrate the theories that we examining related to a critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum. The following is a contribution by a Filipina participant: Filipina: I would like U.S. students to be aware of the “not-so-good” relationship between the Filipinos and the Americans before as the latter were once one of our colonizers. Later on, however, when the Japanese invaded our country and brought terror, the Americans were in our side against the mighty forces of Japan. Until present, these two countries remain in good terms.

This Filipina student above discusses the topic of colonization but decides to soften her speech, perhaps aware of the power differentials expressed through a forum in which trust is being established and English structures the conversation. English is an academic language that Filipino students understand, but not a language that Filipino students in our study use outside of schools. The American students in our study all speak English as their first and primary language. Alfredo’s students expressed self-consciousness about speaking English with Americans. In future work, we will examine this imbalance in depth as it relates to the deliberation of global public issues. The Filipina student above was aware of the demigod stature of the United States and of its citizens among the Filipino collective consciousness. She was hesitant to say words that she thinks could jeopardize herself in the eyes of the Americans with whom she was conversing. In fact, when Alfredo discusses current policies of the United States in his classes, many of his students are against American policies in the Philippines. This is specifically true as it relates to United States military bases and current armed facilities, which operate under the guise of mere visits. These “visits” are done by virtue of the bilaterally signed Mutual Defense Treaty and “the war on terror.”  To capture the tenuous nature of these current policies, I, Alfredo, point to a Filipino saying that goes, “I hate the Americans but I love their chocolates.” I have witnessed several of my classmates participate in political rallies against United States military bases in the Philippines. Now I have learned that these same classmates who protested bases are working and residing as immigrants in the United States, whose facilities they wanted to

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kick out of our country. This is the ambiguous, double bind that colonized people experience. This understanding must be recognized to decolonize international curriculum work if it is to proceed ethically. Through dialogue that is open to postcolonial critique, students see that there is a subtext of power relations when individuals with different positionalities speak. The curriculum has been the vehicle for spreading colonial discourses that subjugate and oppress the colonized. As we have already discussed, the power to name is enormous, and the international curriculum has been used as a powerful tool to name place of the other by Westerners (Willinsky, 1998). In a place such as the Philippines where students often learn from the same scope and sequences as their American counterparts, these students see themselves named as the other. This is the kind of epistemological colonization that must be recognized if power asymmetries in international alliances and the curriculum are to be addressed. Through my alliance with Alfredo, I have become more aware of my privilege and I share this struggle with my students. As the Filipina quoted above demonstrates, all speech is not equal. This realization is a vital component for a decolonizing international curriculum that promotes critical democratic education and cosmopolitan stances on global citizenship. This realization is often far from the understanding of American students in my courses. In future iterations of our curriculum, we hope to increase participation by encouraging discussion participants to examine the texts of their comments. Although not aware of their privilege as Americans and colonizers, American students were very aware that history has multiple interpretations and misrepresentation is common. The following are contributions from two American participants: American: When history is presented in a cut and paste fashion where only one side is shown, the U.S. is in the right 98% of the time. At least that is how it is in the United States. I’m sure in most countries it is the same with the people in charge being able to do no wrong and the “bad” guy is always on the opposing force. The children always get to hear of the atrocities caused by the other side but hardly ever hear of the bad choices that the U.S. has made in conjunction with those “bad people.” With a more rounded version of events everyone can get a much more accurate view of the world and the past as a whole, not just the sunny, we are awesome version that likes to be told. American: I’m really interested in hearing about American history from your point of view. I know that in my schools, when I learned about the different wars and the terrorist attacks, America was always the good guy. Like the article [Kumashiro, 2003] said, we always learned that the United States saved the world. I want to know how other countries see the U.S. history.

These American students are aware that historical narratives are influenced by discourses of American exceptionality. The first participant put

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“bad people” in quotes, which demonstrates an awareness of how language can be used as a tool for constructing and maintaining prejudicial and oppressive discourses. The second quote above illustrates how many of the discussion board posts talked about the differences between American and Filipino historical narratives. Students also found common ground to talk about global issues such as women’s rights. In future iterations of our curriculum, we will focus more upon these issues while maintaining a decolonizing lens by examining different cultural norms related to issues such as gender identity and sexual orientation. The below contributions, first from a Filipina and second from an American woman, illustrate the conversations that participants had about women’s rights as they relate to their lives and the histories in their countries: Filipina: Women in the Philippines, before, were just shadows of men. Parents tended not to send their daughters to school because they would just end up being housewives. They thought “what’s the use of the diploma you earned when you are just going to end up as a housewife?” Things have changed now. Women are taught that we are equal to men. We can be bosses too not just being bossed around. Do you think United States will have a woman president? Just a thought. . . . American: I really think that in current social studies curriculum, women are being empowered. Girls are being taught that they can do anything a man can do, that we all have the same rights.

This exchange illustrates how the issue of women’s rights provided a place for these female participants to reflect upon historical and contemporary realities. The last question asked by the Filipina participant about a woman president is likely a reference to the fact that Filipinos have been represented by two female presidents. Such dialogues provide a transnational feminist space for empowerment. This space is complex with the overlapping and distinct identities of the democratic dialogue participants. This is the type of fluid, dynamic, and decolonizing space that we envision for socially just and ethical international curriculum work. Finally, some participants engaged in critical democratic dialogue and were positive about the possibilities of such dialogues. The following are from a Filipina and female American participant: Filipino: Such dialogue between these two institutions helps promote a congenial atmosphere among them. Such atmosphere promotes greater chances to communicate, which will eventually allow the exchange of ideas between them with respect to their historical backgrounds and of their curriculum.

90    S. CAMICIA and A. BAYON American: I think that it will open doors to different viewpoints about the world. Too often a person’s views are trapped by what is around them and they do not bother to look outside of themselves to find a different answer, ever if it isn’t one that they want. By participating in this dialogue I hope to get out of my Utah mindset and become a more worldly and effective person.

These brief representations illustrate some of the implications for future international curriculum work that decolonizes curriculum that decenters the dominance of Western epistemologies by highlighting non-Western epistemologies and the material realties related to power asymmetries. Our first attempt at fostering this curriculum foreshadows these possibilities. Although our first attempt at fostering a transnational dialogue between Filipino and American students was brief, we are confident that future iterations will expand in depth and frequency. Conclusion Our international curriculum alliance was aimed at creating critical democratic, postcolonial, cosmopolitan curriculum. We have attempted to describe, analyze, and interpret the complexities, contradictions, challenges, and possibilities related to the curriculum development process. An awareness of power asymmetries as they relate to the positionalities of students and curriculum developers was a critical first step toward a poststructural ethics of recognition. This is an ethical stance where the historical and contemporary implications of colonization foreground the curriculum development process and the curriculum. While limited due to a low participation rate among our students, this low rate of participation emphasizes the global inequities that our alliance seeks to overcome. We hope that the process we have described in this chapter can serve as an example for ethical international curriculum work between curriculum developers and educational researchers who occupy different positionalities related to colonization. The only way that democratic global citizenship can be based on inclusion, legitimacy, and social justice is if the power asymmetries related to historical and contemporary relations of dominance and subjugation are examined by curriculum developers and within the curriculum. We have illustrated how these asymmetries were evident in the historical inequalities, the geopolitics of belonging, and related material inequities in our curriculum work. An ethics of recognition places these realities centrally in order to challenge hidden structures that mask the voices of those who are marginalized by such forces within international curriculum work.

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References Abdi, A. A., & Richardson, G. (Eds.). (2008). Decolonizing democratic education. Oklahoma City, OK: Sense Publishers. Agoncillo, T. A. (2006). Introduction to Filipino history. Quezon City, Philippines: Garotech Publishing. Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (Revised and extended ed., 2nd ed.). New York, NY: Verso. Banks, J. A., Banks, C. A. M., Cortés, C. E., Hahn, C. L., Merryfield, M. M., Moodley, K. A., . . . Parker, W. C. (2005). Democracy and diversity: Principles and concepts for educating citizens in a global age. Seattle: Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington. Bhabha, H. K. (2003). On writing rights Globalizing rights: The Oxford Amnesty lectures 1999 (pp. 162–183). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Bhabha, H. K. (2004). The location of culture (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Butler, J. (2006). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. New York, NY: Verso. Camicia, S. P. (2008). Deciding what is a controversial issue: A case study of social studies curriculum controversy. Theory and Research in Social Education, 36(4), 290–307. Camicia, S. P. (2009). Identifying soft democratic education: Uncovering the range of civic and cultural choices in instructional materials. The Social Studies, 100(3), 136–142. Camicia, S. P. (2010). Deliberation of controversial public school curriculum: Developing processes and outcomes that increase legitimacy and social justice. Journal of Public Deliberation, 6(2), 1–20. Camicia, S. P., & Dobson, D. (2010). Learning how to respond to current events: Partner journals between U.S. preservice teachers and children. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 576–582. Camicia, S.P. & Franklin, B. (2010). Curriculum reform in a globalised world: The discourses of cosmopolitanism and community. London Review of Education, 8(2), 93–104. Duka, C. (2000, November). Education as a tool of submission. Paper presented at the National Conference on the Filipino–American War: Trust and Betrayal. Manila, Philippines. Fine, R. (2007). Cosmopolitanism. New York, NY: Routledge. Gaudelli, W. (2003). World class: Teaching and learning in global times. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Harding, S. (1993). Eurocentric scientific illiteracy: A challenge for the world community. In S. Harding (Ed.), The “racial” economy of science: Toward a democratic future (pp. 1–22). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hartsock, N. C. M. (1997). Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited”: Truth or Justice? Signs, 22(2), 367–374. Heilman, E. E. (2006). Critical, liberal and poststructural challenges for global education. In A. Segall, E. E. Heilman & C. H. Cherryholmes (Eds.), Social studies: The next generation (pp. 189–208). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

92    S. CAMICIA and A. BAYON Hekman, S. (1997). Truth and method: Feminist standopoint theory revisited. Signs, 22(2), 341–365. Kumashiro, K. K. (2003). “Posts” perspectives on anti-oppressive education in social studies, English, mathematics, and science classrooms. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 3–12. Levinas, E. (2005). Humanism of the other. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Memmi, A. (1967). The colonizer and the colonized. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Mohanty, C. T. (1984). Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary, 12/13(3/1), 333–358. Myers, J. P. (2006). Rethinking the social studies curriculum in the context of globalization: Education for global citizenship in the U.S. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34(3), 370–394. Nussbaum, M. (1996). Patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In J. Cohen (Ed.), For love of country: Debating the limits of patriotism (pp. 2–17). Boston: Beacon Press. Parker, W. C. (2004). Diversity, globalization, and democratic education: Curriculum possibilities. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives (pp. 433–458). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Parker, W. C., & Camicia, S. P. (2009). Cognitive praxis in today’s “international education” movement: Intents and affinities. Theory and Research in Social Education, 37(1), 42–74. Pinar, W. F. (2004). What is curriculum theory? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, W. M., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. M. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An Introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing. Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. Spivak, G. C. (1999). A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Willinsky, J. (1998). Learning to divide the world: Education at empire’s end. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Section II Ethics, Teaching, and Teacher Education

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Chapter 5

A New Set of Questions The Ethics of Taking Space Seriously in Macedonia Robert J. Helfenbein Indiana University–Indianapolis

[A] kind of paradigm shift is occurring; we are perhaps now acceding to a new, invigorated sense of looking at the struggle over geography in interesting and imaginative ways. —Edward Said quoted in Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice, 2010

This chapter presents reflections on a teacher professional development project in the Republic of Macedonia as an opportunity to think through the ethics of international curriculum work in spatial terms. As scholars continue along what has been called “the spatial turn” (Soja, 2010), attention across a wide variety of disciplines from issues of space, place, and connections to much broader concerns (i.e., globalization, citizenship, social justice) offers a rich opportunity to raise questions of ethics. Soja (2010) states, “[F]rom the local and urban contexts to the regional, national, and global scales, a new spatial consciousness is entering into public debates on such key issues as human rights, social inclusion—exclusion, democracy, poverty, racism, economic growth, and environmental policy” (p. 15). In

Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 95–110 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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other words, the spatial matters in terms of social issues, and increasingly, as Soja notes in the epigraph, critical scholarship attends to spatial distribution and access. But what would it mean to consider ethics within a set of spatial relations? Reflection on a project intentionally working within an international education reform effort brings these social issues and their spatiality to the fore and provides the opportunity to highlight ethical tensions undergirding the work. As this edited collection intends to tackle precisely the “challenges of culture and context” in international work, this chapter intends to turn our attention to these deeper concerns as we think about our work and future undertakings. In order to more clearly outline and discuss these two aspects, the story is told in two parts. The first presents the contexts in which the project took place, the traditional evaluation questions that were asked of the work, and the outcomes with Macedonian teachers in reaching the project’s goals. The latter section of the chapter presents a working through of a new set of questions that revolve around ethical concerns that emerged over the course of this project, reflexive consideration about questions of space, place, power, and identity through the lens of critical geography in education (Helfenbein, 2010). Teaching Teachers in Macedonia: Context The country of Macedonia began an effort in the late 2000s involving broad-based education reform intended to promote civic and economic growth. Within the historically contested region of the Balkans and as part of the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia has been a part of considerable political, cultural, and economic shift since the early 1990s. Seen as a part of larger modernization effort, professional development in curriculum and pedagogy—especially in math and science—was intended to ensure an education that leads to employability within a competitive global market. Certainly, the focus on math and science responds to global concern about the teaching of those disciplines, the relation to information technology, and production and consumption shifts with the EU economy. The educational reforms Macedonia launched with international partners such as USAID (United States Agency for International Development) tend to be seen as holding the promise of better quality and more relevant, responsive schooling. According to the Macedonian partners involved in the Macedonian Primary Education Project (MPEP), USAID contributed significantly to the modernization of the education system by embracing a leadership role in getting computers into schools. Because of the importance of primary education where all students are impacted, the core skills and knowledge

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Macedonia needs to build a 21st century education system were targeted, and in September 2006, USAID started a five-year initiative, the MPEP with the main project goals of (1) improving the quality of instruction and (2) increasing employment skills in youth. Beginning in the summer of 2007 and continuing through summer and fall of 2009, the Geography component of the Macedonian Primary Education Project (MPEP) worked with teams of upper primary geography teachers. Two important clarifications are essential: In the Macedonian educational system, “upper primary” refers to what is known as “middle-grades” education in the United States, and geography is found within the larger field of science as opposed to social science as it is defined in the U.S. context. As part of a train-the-trainer model funded by USAID, I designed activities revolving around both conceptual and pedagogical approaches to contemporary thinking in geography education in the hopes of collaboratively working on a more inquiry- and student-centered approach to instruction. The overarching objectives of the workshops included: • To share ideas about how to improve teaching in Macedonia • To gain new understandings of effective teaching and learning in math and science • To assist participants in preparing successful workshops • To establish subject matter and regional networks among participants • To produce lesson plan examples that represent student-centered instruction, inquiry-based instruction, and/or problem-based learning. (Helfenbein & Aleksova, 2009, p. 1) The 2008–2009 workshops continued much of the conceptual work of the Summer 2007 and Fall 2007 trainings in geography education. In addition, this interaction focused on the guided development of exemplary lesson plans for Macedonian geography educators and was to be used by the workshop participants in their own professional development activities. This “putting the theory to work” phase guided the MPEP geography group as they developed lessons that followed constructivist learning theory, student-centered instruction, and problem-based learning: the overall goals of MPEP. Moving from simple recall and knowledge acquisition to higher-order, critical thinking skills in primary grades instruction was the central goal around which all activities revolved. For the geographers, our focus was on merging their traditional physical geography emphasis with historical, cultural, and economic geography. My own interest in critical approaches to spatial thinking enabled an approach that moved from the rote memorization of geographic features to a more relational understanding of how people and places interact on one another. Introducing the notion of

98   R. J. HELFENBEIN MPEP Key Geographic Concepts:

MPEP Key Geographic Skills:

• • • •

• • • • •

• • • •

5 Themes of Geography National Geographic Standards (14) Spatial Reasoning/Mental Mapping Who’s doing the Geography here? [student-based learning] Map Essentials & Critical Perspectives Inquiry-Based Instruction & Critical Thinking in Geography Four Phase Learning Cycle [shared across workshop] Reflective Practice [shared across workshop—application of ideas]

Asking Geographic Questions Acquiring Geographic Information Organizing Geographic Information Analyzing Geographic Information Answering Geographic Questions

Figure 5.1

maps as texts, with authors and with perspective and bias, proved an important touchstone throughout the work. Evaluation of the MPEP Project included formative assessment by me during the course of the workshops, formal evaluations post-workshop, and lesson plan products produced by the participants themselves. Overwhelmingly, the participants felt the workshop was relevant, challenging, and a valuable use of time. A common and consistent feedback item noted was the need for more time and further interaction with me and the MPEP team.1 As the project continued it was hoped that the project would provide opportunities for other technologies that might facilitate continued conversation (i.e., distance education and web-based platforms) but funding constraints limited those interactions. The objectives, concepts, and skills listed in Figure 5.1 provided an overarching framework for the workshops. The intention was to move away from geographic facts as the instructional goal and towards mastering geographic skills (i.e., spatial reasoning, human–environmental interaction, and critical map reading). Assessing the participants’ knowledge, values, and skills provided a beginning point for the workshop as well as learning from the Macedonian teachers the nuances and emerging issues of the geography curriculum within this particular context. Teaching Teachers in Macedonia: Lessons Learned Using this train-the-trainer model, the Macedonian geographers planned and conducted workshops with other teachers in their field. By the conclusion of the project, close to two-thirds of all Macedonian mathematics

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and science teachers (geography teachers included) participated in one or more MPEP training. In order to examine the impact of this work in schools, a small-scale research and evaluation effort was organized during October–December of 2008. Based on the main math and science program goal of “improving the mathematics and science teaching and learning to provide students with relevant skills for critical thinking” (Helfenbein & Aleksova, 2009), traditional evaluation objectives were defined in order to collect data and measure the impact on geography education in the schools involved in Phase 1. Specifically, the interest lay in evaluating the teacher training activities and the implementation of active teaching in classrooms, the usefulness and use of training materials, and role of in-school support teams in teachers’ professional development; to that end the following questions served as the basis for the evaluation: • In what ways were the training programs for improving geography teaching and learning (content and activities) relevant for the teachers? • To what extent was the use of active teaching approaches by trained teachers in the project schools increased as compared to the nonproject schools? • To what extent were the math and science/geography component materials and publications useful for teachers? The most important conclusions from the evaluation guided by the three main evaluation questions are given next. Question 1: In what ways were the training programs for improving geography teaching and learning (content and activities) relevant for the teachers? Overall, the geography teachers reported being satisfied with the programs and workshops associated with the MPEP and found the topics and activities innovative and useful in improving their teaching practice and students’ learning. They reported acquiring new knowledge and skills and described the work as important or very important as they considered new ways to teach. Almost all teachers rated as useful or very useful the main topics and activities in support of design, presentation, and discussion of diverse lesson plan models across the workshops. Also, geography teachers in particular unanimously responded that the topic “mapping” and the introduction of more critical approaches to understanding and teaching with maps was very useful to them as they thought more about effectively merging physical and cultural geography; the teachers were beginning to think about place and identity as relational.

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Question 2: To what extent was the use of active teaching approaches by trained teachers in the project schools increased as compared to the non-project schools? In follow-up with participants, the evaluation found that teachers trained through MPEP applied active teaching methodologies in their classrooms more frequently than untrained teachers. The difference was visible in the ways teachers organized both their classes and instructional strategies, especially regarding working in small groups. Also, there was an observable difference between the two in the activities of teachers and students; in other words, the classes looked different. In participant classrooms it was more common to see students doing, and the teachers were engaged in supporting and leading students in their own activities. Much more common in Macedonian classrooms, it is the teachers who do, and students listen and watch, passively engaged with the curriculum. The most notable differences between those trained and not can be seen in the ways in which, in MPEP classrooms, students plan/conduct experiments and research on their own; students discover concepts, procedures, and rules; and students engage in problem solving. Trained teachers applied the gained knowledge from the workshops in their lesson plans as well. More than two-thirds of trained teachers’ evaluated lesson plans reflected active teaching methodologies. In focus group discussions, teachers reported using the acquired knowledge and skills in preparation and implementation of their classes. Inquirybased instruction and higher cognitive levels of tasks, group work, and lesson examples were applied in in their classes. Teachers also reported typical challenges in the implementation of the instructional approaches promoted in MPEP trainings, such as time for preparation and implementation, technical conditions in schools, limitations imposed by the curricula, fear resulting from methods of new teacher assessment, and management problems associated with group work. Question 3: To what extent were the math and science/geography component materials and publications useful for teachers? We learned that geography teachers were very satisfied with the MPEPGeography training manual and materials produced and more than half of all teachers reported that they found the materials very useful in planning, preparation, and realization of lessons with students. The lesson examples provided were helpful in preparing student-centered lessons, and more than half of the teachers adapted partial or complete lesson plans in their own classrooms. Almost all teachers stated that they want more lesson plans models and examples, but the impact is perhaps best noted by excerpts from a focus group as part of the project evaluation:

A New Set of Questions    101 I was surprised, the students like working in groups, and they find it interesting; they get their tasks, they all participate actively according to their abilities, they engage more and they learn during the class. We develop[ed] different skills in students, to put accent on what is the most important in a given textbook lesson, and to develop communication skills; with each presentation they are getting better and better.

It would seem that the teachers felt that the training was useful and that the skills learned by their students were valuable. As the project evolved and I reflected on our experience, the work with collaborating geography teachers in Macedonia can be understood as operating on two simultaneous levels. Represented in the evaluation data, there is little doubt that we had a successful and productive experience with our partners and teachers. The project was generally well received by our Macedonian colleagues, established goals were attained, and teachers reported both informally and in exit interviews that they found the experience to be fruitful. The questions asked in the evaluation efforts follow the traditional model of this type of curriculum work and, in fact, might be transferred to almost any international project. However, in spite of such successes, lingering questions about our process remained unanswered, particularly as they related to some of the ethical concerns that emerged in our discussion of space, place, power, and identity; we needed a new set of questions. A New Set of Questions Just as none of us is beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings. —Said, 1993, p. 7

So then, what might it mean to step back from the brief overview of the MPEP and program evaluation to ask different types of questions about this work? In order to take on an ethical inquiry, a “detour through theory” (Helfenbein, 2008, p. 3; see also Hall, 1992) seems to be appropriate for these new directions in thinking about international curriculum work. Working with geography teachers in Macedonia brought several lessons to mind. Geography, as a field, embodies several unique aspects that should be attended to in the preparation of highly qualified teachers for primary and secondary education. The nature of geographic knowledge and skills— in between the so-called “hard sciences” and the social sciences—requires a special attention to the ways in which the human and physical environ-

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ment interact; this remained a key area of focus for the our work and, it is hoped, further projects in this area with Macedonian educators can take place. Over the course of the 2008 workshop, these lessons were reinforced by the participants and the instructor as the time together progressed. In addition, a few specific lessons became evident: 1. Adopting a more constructivist teaching philosophy in geography education was not difficult in theory, but moving to actual lesson plan development did require careful facilitation, guided practice, and exemplars. Teachers continue to need time to work through these exercises themselves to grasp the implications and begin to modify them to their own teaching styles and classroom contexts. 2. Technology and the challenges of varying platforms and comfort levels provide an additional challenge and the need for time to work though. 3. Translation (particularly with native Albanian speakers) continued to be a challenge, but the adoption of a consistent facilitator/translator team greatly added to the effectiveness of the workshop. 4. In general, the geography teachers are more than eager to explore new concepts in geography (including critical perspectives) and new pedagogical applications. These lessons are valuable in thinking about professional development with international teachers (and perhaps teachers in general). However, the types of ethical issues confronted in this work can be easily obscured. The presence of conflicts between the cultural and political systems of the country/ies where one takes up this work and those of the organization sponsoring the programs needs to be examined and interrogated as we attempt to think ethically. In other words, we needed new questions. As I thought through the experiences in Macedonia, I began to think about different questions that might be asked as part of a broader conception of the impact of the project. Working with Terry Mason—program director for the MPEP as a whole and co-editor of this volume—we sought to move beyond the limiting constructions of program objectives, deliverables, and stakeholder feedback; we began a conversation that started to ask explicitly about the ethics of working across borders. Seeing this as an opportunity to engage our colleagues in thinking with us, we took up the detour through ethics and came up with the following as a new set of questions: 1. What ethical conceptions inform the curriculum models or programs that you are developing? 2. How do you make adaptations in the curriculum framework or materials to reconcile differences in values, ethics, or moral orientations?

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3. What lessons can you take to future projects regarding the ethical dilemmas that one faces in conducting curriculum work across countries and cultures? As my component of the MPEP project involved geography education, it seems reasonable that the discipline grounding my re-disciplined inquiry would be geography. An important object of analysis in critical approaches to geography and indeed broader social theory is the border and its changing nature in a globalized space; indeed, these relationships of borders and globalization form the impetus for this edited volume. In traditional geographic study, borders play a major role in coming to understand place and politic. In geography education, for example, outline maps of continents or states in which students color in the lines or labor over the identification of capitals comes to mind. However, in this new theoretical trajectory of critical geography, borders and boundaries are troubled, crossed, and complicated. Boundaries come to be understood as part of the process of place-making, part of how meaning is made in places in response to larger structural/spatial forces not of our own making. This social construction of borders implies that the meanings of both the border and the place defined within are neither guaranteed nor essential (Massey, 1994; see also Hall, 1996). Yet, as real and imagined borders exist in embedded networks of history, politics, and power, they do indeed have a materiality—what this volume refers to as contexts—real effects on lived experience that beg questions that are ethical in nature. In fact, social structures and their attendant ethical concerns can no more be understood without some conception of the spatial than can the spatial be analyzed without inclusion of the social (Soja, 1989). This is not to say that borders and boundaries create a sense of place in any pure or guaranteed way (again, see Hall, 1996), but rather of note is the notion that multiple possibilities exist within the bounded space and in the “space of possibility” that is border crossing (Helfenbein, 2010). “The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its preponderance of dead men . . . the present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space” (Foucault, 1986, p. 22). The philosopher Michel Foucault—notably turning to ethics in his later writing—provides an invitation to add space to the historical in critical work, and his quote appears in much of the scholarship that has come to be called critical geography. Foucault’s challenge is to take space seriously, and I would add that this entails a consideration of the ethics of these spatial relations. While much has been made of the “spatial turn” in social theorizing, it remains important to note that critical geography insists on the addition of spatial analysis beyond the merely discursive. While valuing and acknowl-

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edging the important work in recognizing the ways in which language helps to construct spaces, a critical geography seeks to then take the oft-neglected next step of analyzing how those spaces change, change over time, and impact the lived, material world. Seeing spaces as relational, a geography of the rhizomatic interaction of space, place, power, and identity emerges to point to new understandings of people and the ways in which they interact in the world. Macedonia embodies this complex set of relations in striking ways and raises new ethical concerns. The Macedonian Question “Why not Macedonia for Macedonians, as Bulgaria for Bulgarians and Servia [sic] for Servians?” (quoted in Cowan, 2000, p. 1) is known as “the Macedonian Question” and was posed by William Gladstone in 1897. Geographically located between a series of world powers over time and caught between numerous conflicts, the area known as Macedonia has been contested both in terms of physical boundaries and in shared senses of culture and identity. Indeed, it has been offered that this contested identity is emblematic of larger European struggles: The Macedonian question has been the cause of every great European war for the last fifty years, and until that is settled there will be no more peace either in the Balkans or out of them. Macedonia is the most frightful mix-up of races ever imagined. Turks, Albanians, Serbs, Rumanians, Greeks and Bulgarians live there side by side without mingling—and have so lived since the days of St. Paul. (Kaplan, 2005, p. 52)

Troubling here is the notion that the presence of racial and ethnic (not to mention religious) diversity denotes the problem with Macedonia; but I would also point to the last sentence in which the lack of mingling is also cited as part of the trouble. Of course, another word for this, ironically (or not), is balkanization. But certainly this complexity was borne out in my experiences in our time there and the intentional inclusion of both ethnic Albanian—which includes a historical but also refugee population—and “Macedonian” teachers slowly but surely brought some of these issues to the fore. Furthermore, spaces were clearly divided up, with certain towns and regions being marked as either Albanian or Macedonian, although to naïve American eyes the mix-up of styles of dress, mosques and churches, and language remained striking. So, of course, as curriculum work with these teachers began, I chose to push through these tensions and challenge rather conventional geography teachers to think more critically. My task, as I understood it, was to guide Macedonian geography education into more critical perspectives, reflect-

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ing trends in contemporary geographic thought, so a key focus for our workshop became relational space. My intention was to think less in terms of location and more in terms of the interaction of physical and cultural space and the multiple ways in which space gets organized. The first vignette involves a risky pedagogical move that I made in my first session on the first day with the Macedonian geographers. Knowing of the deeply contested nature of both the historical and contemporary national identity of the country, I somewhat nervously began with a brainstorm activity of one simple question: What is Macedonia? Beginning with the deceptively simple response, “Macedonia is where the Macedonians live,” a deeply contested and haltingly cautious interrogation began that covered issues of imperialism, mapmaking, immigration, nationalism, and globalization. We quickly delved into issues of physical, historical, and cultural ways of understanding spaces and began to set expectations on how we might participate in a dialogue that had room for difference in opinion and perspective. Two and a half hours later, we were ready to move on, but what emerged were complex notions of place and identity, questions around power and the construction of space, hard conversations (via translation I might add) on multiple understandings of spaces of relation; it was a powerful, tone-setting start. Overall, this was well received by the teachers and seen as useful, but the tensions underlying the question did not go away. Resistance and Spaces of Possibility The second vignette here revolves around resistance. The MPEP is funded by USAID, the facilitators are from the United States, and the impetus for the project lies in the hopes of economic competitiveness and Macedonia one day joining the European Union. As the project moved over time, new teachers were added, and my sense was that the newer cohorts of teachers were mandated to attend as opposed to what might be called “early adopters” in critical and student-centered approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. What was interesting in this addition was that a palpable distance was felt from some of the new teachers, but its most explicit manifestation was in a conversation around globalization—for me, an important exemplar of relational geography and rarely discussed thoughtfully. But it was here that an Albanian teacher took the opportunity to critique education reform in Macedonia, the impetus for our curriculum project there. He pointed to the recent efforts at Macedonia moving toward entry into the EU and our project itself as an unwelcome incursion into Macedonian culture and education—implied in this was the notion that our presence was potentially damaging to both. When I attempted to explain that our intention was not to Westernize or inculcate some form of U.S. value sys-

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tem, he bluntly replied, “I don’t believe you.” As some of the other teachers adamantly defended my approach and the MPEP, one can see how I was pushed into a difficult position—because, of course, he’s right in that any attempt to portray our presence as neutral or without effect on culture is patently false. If we accept, then, that our work as not neutral and, check it though we might, value-laden, the impetus is on us to think through what this ethical relation might entail. The ultimate critical question is, “What is at stake?” and certainly one must be willing to have that question turned on the practices in which we ourselves are complicit. Bringing a discussion of globalization into our curriculum work with geography teachers required such a critical approach and, in fact, created the conditions for this particular teacher to voice his resistance. A critical geography approach begins with troubling simplistic notions of both space and place as concepts, insists on putting them in relation, and, in recognizing their social construction, privileges a recognition of power dynamics and its attendant ethics. Commonly noted as space imbued with meaning, place remains a fundamental concept in a spatial analysis, yet the distinction between space and place is fluid in that space can no more be seen as neutral as any other social concept. This insistence on a complication of terms not only recognizes the ways in which spaces are produced but also the ways they work on those that spend time there; the global and local are always already in relation, intertwined and therefore fraught with ethical considerations. For Macedonia—and one need hardly begin without noting the name itself, the national identity, is contested, and in the case of Greece not recognized, by the country’s neighbors—identity and place are deeply connected and deeply contested. A former part of Josef Tito’s Yugoslavia, in part claimed by Greece, linguistically tied to Bulgaria and Serbia, and a part of the historically contentious region of the Balkans, Macedonia is in a contemporary fervor of self-definition. This Albanian teacher, although acting in/speaking for resistance, was in fact doing exactly what I was hoping for in bringing a critical geography to Macedonia: thinking through how place relates to an increasingly globalized space, thinking through the struggle between the local and the global, and hopefully thinking through spaces of possibility. Globalization was an explicit piece of the content I proposed for this work with Macedonian geography teachers. It certainly holds a prominent place in the contemporary context of research in international education. However, globalization is, in my view, too often discussed in either terms too vague or too monolithic. Doreen Massey (2005) powerfully notes that the political rhetoric of globalization revolves around its inevitability, and, as a consequence, casts the nations and regions of the world that evidence difference in economic structure as “behind.” Without question, the recent (2010–2011) rhetoric surrounding the global economic crisis and the sub-

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sequent bailouts followed a logic of inevitability: This had to be done. But, interestingly, it had to be done because of the interconnected nature of global markets. This dynamic results in what Massey rightly calls a “sleight of hand” functioning to “turn geography into history, space into time” (2005, p. 5). But the point for this reflection on curriculum work in Macedonia is a larger, ethical one and again points us toward new questions: What is at stake in occluding geographic difference in a global inevitability? What is at stake for these teachers in Macedonia? What might be productive in having teachers answer the question of “what is Macedonia” for themselves—what is Macedonia in a set of contemporary global relations, and what is at stake in those answers? What if, like the Albanian teacher, we resisted and challenged the logic of inevitability? Ethical questions all. The study of school and societies informed by spatial analysis, one that makes paramount the acknowledgement of the complex geographies of everyday life in globalized space, holds great potential for those interested in reconceptualizing 21st-century educative contexts. The ethics of international curriculum work presents the ground on which such reconceptualization might take place. To open this trajectory up, we are well served to start with educative practices that privilege the study of schooling as a “possibilities machine” (Soja, 1996, p. 81) where “to change life we must change space” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 190), and indeed this process is always, already at work whether we acknowledge it or not. Critical social theory afforded us a language aimed at encapsulating what it meant to be strictured by and committed to ideological contexts, as well as repressed by institutional apparatuses. It was also this trajectory of theorizing that opened up space, making it a mandate for cultural workers to grasp a cultural context where discursive practices defined material conditions and the multiplicity of experiences. To a large degree, the potential of seeing space in this way, as a conduit to changing conditions of engagement, has gone unrecognized in educational theorizing, but now, when identity and experience are increasingly laid open by economic and technological forces of the global, the need for educators to come up with creative, ethical social practices and take space seriously seems all the more essential. An example of how theory might inform such projects has been the conceptualization of what J.K. Gibson-Graham calls an “ethics of the local.” Gibson-Graham (2001) has informed my own engagement in a constructive way of how education might realistically interrogate notions of the global without slipping into yet another logic of inevitability. In hashing out this “ethics of the local,” a complex examination of the forces of globalization is central. Gibson-Graham comments: Globalization discourse situates the local (and thus all of us) in a place of subordination, as “the other within” of the global order. At worst it makes victims

108   R. J. HELFENBEIN of localities and robs them of economic agency and self-determination. Yet in doing so globalization suggests its own antidote, particularly with respect to the economy: imagine what it would mean, and how unsettling it would be to all that is now in place, if the locality were to become the active subject of its economic experience. (2001, p. 3)

As a result of such theories and connections to practice, an intention arises to facilitate new curricular metaphors, new modes of inquiry, new pedagogies, and new ethical questions: new possibilities machines. The space of globalization needs to be seen as a set of forces at work, not guaranteed, and in peoples’ relation to it there is possibility: possibility for resistance, possibility for rearticulation, and possibility for an educative project to take both ethics and identity seriously. This, of course, would work against any logic of inevitability, any “sleight of hand,” and push the conversation into one of what, in this case, Macedonian education might be or to return to the Macedonian question, problematic that it is, why not Macedonia for Macedonians? The ethical concerns raised by the work and participants themselves over the course of this project point to the need of thinking in terms of both the local and the global, a more nuanced conception of space and place. The Albanian teacher’s concerns about a new U.S. imperialism in the education reform effort of which we were a part have everything to do with a different type of ethics; he precisely represents the “other within” a changing global order. As curriculum workers in a globalized world, an imperative for taking up this work revolves seeing the local and the global in relation, and ultimately at stake. But a term like the “the local” might obscure the people coming to terms with these questions of identity in relation. As Appiah (2005) cautions us in his discussion of a cosmopolitan ethics, we have to think simultaneously at the scale of the universal and the particular. He states, “A tenable cosmopolitanism, in the first instance, must take seriously the value of human life, and the value of particular human lives, the lives people have made for themselves, within the communities that help lend significance to those lives” (pp. 222–223). So then, to adopt a cosmopolitan ethics begins with a recognition of the particularity of the Other but places that recognition within a framework of obligation beyond borders, clan, or citizenship. Our Albanian colleague was expressing his particular sense of the world amidst the curricular work we were trying to do. He referenced specific material changes—as in the losing of traditional food culture as larger European food purveyors entered the market—that show how spaces are impacted by sets of forces and places are reconstructed in response; this was not merely an academic or discursive concern as he discussed the ways in which these changes are lived. A way to try to deal with tensions like this one resides not only in recognizing spaces and places as relational but in trying to create those spaces of possibility that trouble and potentially cross

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the borders that too easily define, delimit, and constrain our recognition of and obligation to each other. To conclude, then, is not to say that the lessons learned and traditional questions asked recounted in the beginning of this chapter are to be dismissed but, rather, to suggest that underlying what one might call good international curriculum work are tensions that provide at least the space of possibility for work that simultaneously recognizes the power of the global and the ethics of the local. The intention of this reflection (and the book itself, it seems) is to present these challenges in the hopes of foregrounding such concerns as we continue to embark on these cross-border projects, to ask a new set of questions in our research and evaluation, and ultimately see ourselves in ethical relation to those with which we work. Note 1. For further support to teachers, the MPEP team conducted in-school support visits with the goal of monitoring teachers work with students and to help the trained teachers in the implementation of new gained knowledge; establish regional learning teams where teachers can share their experience and support each-other; and created and maintained a mathematics and science component blog for communication and interaction between the MPEP team, facilitators, and teachers.

References Appiah, A. K. (2005). The ethics of identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cowan, J.K. (Ed.). (2000). Macedonia: The politics of identity and difference. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press. Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27 Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2001). An ethics of the local. Retrieved from www.community economies.org/papers/rethink/rethinkp1.pdf Hall, S. (1992). Cultural studies and its theoretical legacies. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P. Treichler (Eds.), Cultural Studies, (pp. 277–294) New York, NY: Routledge. Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of capital: Toward a critical geography. New York, NY: Routledge. Helfenbein, R. (2008). Education writes back: On the future/present of cultural studies of education. Cultural Studies Now Conference Journal 2007. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from http://www.uel.ac.uk/ccsr/documents/HelfenbeinEducation writesback.pdf Helfenbein, R. (2010). Thinking through scale: Critical Geography and curriculum spaces. In E. Malewski (Ed.) The curriculum studies reader: The next moment (pp. 304–317). New York, NY: Routledge.

110   R. J. HELFENBEIN Helfenbein, R., & Aleksova, A. (2009). Training of master learning facilitators for geography workshop report. Macedonian Primary Education Project. (Unpublished Technical Report prepared for USAID MPEP Project) Kaplan, R. D. (2005). Balkan ghosts: A journey through history. New York, NY: Picador. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Massey, D. (1994). Space, place, and gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Massey, D. (2005). For space. London, UK: Sage. Said, E. (1993). Culture and imperialism. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Soja, E. (1989). Postmodern geograpies: The reassertion of space in critical social theory. New York, NY: Verso. Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Soja, E. (2010). Seeking spatial justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Chapter 6

Ethics, Dissensus, and Traveling Without Moving Using Videoconferencing to Facilitate Dialogue between Preservice Teachers in Two Nations Walter S. Gershon Kent State University Nikoletta Christodoulou Frederick University, Cyprus

Introduction For the past three years we have used videoconferencing technology to conduct annual conversations between the groups of preservice teachers we teach in Nicosia, Cyprus and Kent, Ohio. In addition to these team-taught, transnational videoconferenced sessions, we each hold discussions with our respective groups of students in order to provide an opportunity for these

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future teachers to think about the ideas and ideals that emerge during our videoconference. Despite marked differences in their life experiences, nationality, and sociocultural norms and values, we continue to find that both groups of preservice teachers tend to ascribe to mainstream notions of teaching. Mainstream notions of teaching tend to construct successful teaching as the delivery of prescribed, observably measurable goals as well as students’ ability to explicitly align their answers to reflect the same goals. Although this ends–means way of teaching has been soundly critiqued epistemologically (e.g., Doll, 1993; Henderson & Kesson, 2004; Kliebard, 1975), pedagogically (e.g., Britzman, 2003; Ellsworth, 1997; Friere, 1970/2000) and empirically (e.g., McNeil, 2000; Page, 1991; Valenzuela, 2005; Valli & Chambliss, 2007), such educational practices remain the driving force in educational policy both in the United States (No Child Left Behind, 2001) and Cyprus (MOEC, 2002). This understanding surfaces at every stage of a teacher’s career. It is present from their teacher education programs, in which they learn to write lesson plans that expressly state what the students will be able to do by the end of the lesson, to the ways in which teachers are evaluated by their students’ success on federally mandated annual standardized assessments, based on prescribed statewide learning objectives. An understanding of strong teaching as a teacher-driven experience can be seen in most elementary and middle grades textbooks that literally script what teachers are to teach and the answers students are to give at every step of a lesson, a practice that extends even to the kinds of questions teachers are to ask and the answers students should provide when a story is read aloud (see Gershon, 2007; Taubman, 2009). Given the presence of the notion, if not assumption, that this is indeed the way in which teachers are to teach, and the relatively negligible impact of scholarship that critiques such notions of teaching, our students’ understanding of teaching as linear, quantifiably measurable, and teacher-centric is not surprising. However, we find that this understanding of teaching continues to be the dominant discourse in spite of over 40 years of strong critique and explication of the negative impacts for this vision of school—a trend we believe to be quite concerning. In spite of its ubiquity, the term “ethical” is slippery at best. The difficulty in conceptualizing what can be considered as ethical is due in no small part to how that which is morally correct is simultaneously situational and socially constructed. Even in Western nations and societies such as the United States in which the rule of law is precedential, the context under which an act is committed is always a factor—a murder is murder unless it was in self-defense. Add to this complication that there are multiple sociocultural ethical understandings even under a given nation’s purportedly monolithic rule of law (e.g., Bell & Kahane, 2004; Grande, 2004), what is ethical in any

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given moment can quickly become a morass of oppositional if not conflicting norms, values, and systems of adjudication. In light of these complications, we turn to the field of curriculum studies for an interpretation of what might considered as ethical for schooling and knowledge within the pluralistic, Western nation-states in which we both reside. It is our position that much of contemporary curriculum studies and the field since its reconceptualization in the mid-1970s is concerned with questions of ethics (e.g., Ayers, 2004; Malewski, 2009; Martin, 1994; Miller, 2005; Pinar, 1975; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995). For example, the terms “ethic” and “ethical” are noted as appearing dozens of times in the index of Understanding Curriculum (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 1061) and over 100 times in the Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies (Kridel, 2010). As can be inferred from these results, rather than prescribe a singular definition of what could or should be considered to be “ethical” thought or behavior, we follow the field’s polyphonous (Bahktin, 1981; Gershon, Lather, & Smithies, 2009; Gilbert & Broadway, 2010) inclination. Similarly, rather than reduce ethics or ethical to a set of correct actions and ideas (on the troublesome nature of the term “correct” see Davis, 2005), we instead turn to the kinds of questions often asked in curriculum studies as they relate to questions of equity, access, thought, and care (e.g., Flinders & Thornton, 2009; Kridel, 2010; Malewski, 2009). Central to the field are questions that include ethical inquiries into what kinds of knowledge count in classrooms, how often-implicit messages serve to reify particular norms and values that tend to simultaneously privilege one group of students over another, and the ways in which explicit and implicit lines of power impact teachers and students both in and out of schools. In keeping with such understandings, as we detail below, our chapter is grounded in Ranciére’s (2010) discussion of the importance of dissensus and the dangers of what he calls “ethical communities” (p. 189), the collapsing of multiplicities into singular communities of and through consensus. We see our annual transnational discussions via video as one means for interrupting such mainstream notions of teaching for the preservice teachers we educate. It is our belief that this traveling without moving creates a space in which an everyday occurrence in teacher education programs, a discussion about one’s life and what it means to be a teacher, serves as a mode for students to interrupt each other’s often-similar mainstream constructions of teaching and teachers’ roles. Along similar lines, these annually held conversations provide our respective groups of preservice teachers with an encounter of a potentially (and often) exoticized “other.” As we outline in this chapter, we understand this interruption to be an ethical act—an intentional decision designed to serve as a potential catalyst for our students to think more broadly about what it might mean to be a teacher

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and more critically about how they will enact that role in their lives as future educators. Rather than impose questions on students, we have worked hard to create lesson structures in which students both provide the questions that they ask of one another and the answers to the questions they pose. As much as possible, we try to stay out of the conversation and serve as translators (literally for Nikoletta and socioculturally for Walter) for our respective groups of students. Our pedagogical decision to interrupt mainstream notions of teaching can be understood as the first of three intersecting layers of ethics and curriculum in our transnational videoconferenced conversations that we present in this chapter. Our students’ conversations about teachers and teaching, the similarities and differences in construction of teachers’ classroom roles between students in Nicosia and Kent form the second, intersecting, fluid layer of ethics and curriculum we address here. We have found our videoconferenced sessions to underline a particular curricular, ethical paradox. On one hand, these sessions do indeed provide our students direct access to ways of knowing, norms, and values that are noticeably different from their own—differences that often spark the very kinds of conversations about teaching and teachers that we had in mind when we began this project. On the other hand, their videoconferences also tend to reinforce one another’s “otherness” in ways that serve to further entrench students in their mainstream constructions of teaching and understandings of difference as deficit (e.g., Delpit, 2006; Valencia, 1997; Valenzuela, 2005). Similarly, there is the additional question of how to balance what we see as the more positive aspects of videoconferenced discussions across nations, societies, and perspectives with our concerns about the Orwellian possibilities of watching others and being watched (Foucault, 1995). In order to concretize our discussion of this second layer of ethics, we have elected to ground our thinking here in a particular conversation that occurred during our annual videoconferenced talk in early December 2009. This conversation was selected by both because it is typical of the kinds of talk about teaching in which students have engaged one another each year and because of how such conversations make often-implicit ethical considerations explicit, for our students and for ourselves. Finally, our writing this chapter forms a third, performative (Austin, 1961) layer, an act of currere (Pinar, 2004) in which our ethical intentions, decisions, and observations are rendered explicit. We have organized the remainder of this chapter in the following manner. We begin with a consideration of our use of videoconferencing in relation to ethical concerns about the use of cameras and being visible as means of social control in Foucault’s (1995) notion of Panopticism and the possibilities of dissensus as an ethical act (Ranciére, 2010; Ziarek, 2001) to help (but not completely) ameliorate such concerns about visibility and surveillance. The second section contains a description of ourselves, our students,

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the courses that brought us together, and an explanation of the way in which we organized our conversation as our respective semesters ended. The third section situates both the conversation in which this chapter is grounded and the conversational vignette drawn from one of the two videoconference sessions we held in the fall of 2009. Using this particular conversation about teen pregnancy as a springboard for consideration, in the fourth section we wonder together to what degree our annual conversations are instances of catalytic inquiry or iterations of reified othering. A final brief concluding section serves to recapitulate the central points raised throughout this chapter and to suggest some implications of our work that lie at the intersection of international curricular collaborations and ethics. Surveillance and the Ethics of Teaching through Videoconference In this section we explore ethical issues surrounding our use of videoconferencing as a pedagogical tool for transnational conversation between preservice teachers and their implications. In order to outline our position, we first present Foucault’s (1995) concerns about increased visibility and its use to establish societal order through very top-down means of discipline and punishment addressed in his reincarnation of Bentham’s (1791) Panopticon. We then set these concerns against ethical notions of dissensus as enunciated by Ziarek (2001) and Ranciére (2010). In Bentham’s (1791) original vision, a Panopticon is a circular jail with windows looking out on all sides so that those in the institution (people in prison for instance) could be watched at any time but are not necessarily watched all the time. It is the possibility of being under observation in combination with not knowing whether one is observed that helps foster the desired self-censoring and social control of those in a Panopticon. For these reasons, Foucault (1995) voices strong concerns about one’s ability to be noticed/seen/visible, tying it closely to both disciplining people into behaving according to given state or group’s norms and values and also to punishment for actions that lie outside of those dominant sociocultural understandings of proper interactions. Foucault (1995) refers to these concerns as Panopticism. Panopticism has become a reality in major Western cities across the globe. Under the guise of protection, cities such as London and Chicago have installed hundreds of cameras that routinely monitor one’s movements regardless of the legality of one’s interactions. Along similar lines, both co-authors are observed by tens if not hundreds of cameras located throughout our respective campuses and are similarly visible to the world

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via our “presence” on the World Wide Web, the control of which is largely out of our hands. On one hand, our videoconferences in some way must, inevitably, contribute to the very kinds of visibility Foucault notes as points of deep concern. We are communicating through a camera, watching each other across a network that has numbered addresses for us to find one another more readily, numbers that literally mark our presence in the world both virtual and literal. To be clear, we share Foucault’s concerns about the degree to which our daily, mundane interactions are increasingly observed, measured, and otherwise counted (literally and figuratively). We are additionally concerned about how a framing through live video interaction might contribute to our respective students’ construction of one another as exoticised other, the impact of putting students literally “on view” (e.g., Blanchard et al., 2008; King, 2007; Said, 1978). Given these concerns, what underlying ethical framework might we utilize that would simultaneously acknowledge the inevitability of exoticised surveillance and create the space for a cross-national conversation to interrupt mainstream notions of teaching? This is a particularly important question in light of the myriad ways in which contemporary constructions of schooling are rife with negative consequences for students and teachers as a result of how they are explicitly, visibly measured—a concern that is amplified for traditionally marginalized groups in schools, teachers and students alike (e.g., Alonso, Anderson, Su, & Theoharis, 2009; McNeil, 2000; Valli, Croninger, Chambliss, Graeber, & Buese, 2008). An answer to this question, and the one we utilize in our work, can be found in the construct of dissensus. As its root implies, dissensus is a lack of consensus, the inability to arrive upon a mutually acceptable understanding. However, as some scholars have aptly noted, consensus and compromise are not necessarily ethical acts but can be used as tools for silencing dissent and/ or minority perspectives (Nachi, 2004; Pugh, 2005; Shircliff, 2005). From our perspective, dissensus is an ethical act (Gershon, Peel, & Bilinovich, 2009; Miller, 1998; Ranciére, 2010; Ziarek, 2001), not only because it can serve to provide a framework for collaboration without the need for agreement or reduction of complexity (Gershon et al., 2009; Gershon, Bilinovich, & Peel, 2010; Miller, 1998; Page, 2001), but also because of the ways in which it can serve to disrupt what Ranciére (2010) calls “ethical communities.” An ethical community is a group “that gathers together a single people in which everyone is supposed to be counted” (Ranciére, 2010, p. 189), the means through which pluralistic societies become iteratively folded into a single group of appropriate ideas and ideals. Ranciére refers to those “actors” in the ethical community “carrying a right not yet recognized or witnessing an injustice in the existing state of right” (Ranciére, 2010, p. 189)

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as “the excluded.” The difficulty with the ethical community is that, due to its formation around singularly appropriate norms and values, anyone who does not ascribe to those ideas and ideals regardless of the just nature of their claim necessarily lies outside the purview of the lines for appropriateness outlined as ethical by that community. “As a result, there is no status for the excluded in the community” (Ranciére, 2010, p. 189). In these ways, an ethical community is not one that operates in a moral and ethical manner that is often associated with those terms or, necessarily, in their relation to questions of equity, access, or justice. Rather, an ethical community is one that renders the complex into singularities through consensus around a particular set of ethics, a code of ideas and ideals through which it claims its ethical right and through which other positionalities and possibilities are excluded. In our minds, Ranciére’s construction of the conflation and narrowing of positionalities into a single ethical community through consensus, one that stands on a particular set of morals without room for other often oppositional voices, is an apt description of contemporary schooling in our respective countries. This is perhaps best seen in the naming and positioning of current educational policy in the United States, the No Child Left Behind act. This federal legislation has no room for those who might be concerned with aspects of this policy—who would be in favor of leaving children behind academically?—and literally calls for each student to be explicitly counted, their and their teacher’s academic worth measured by students’ scores on annual standardized assessments. Similarly echoing Ranciére’s construction of the problem of ethical communities, we understand such mainstream educational constructions of schooling as simultaneously (1) reifying the excludeds’ marginalized status and (2) recasting that status not as inequalities and injustices but as points of blame and inadequacies due to individuals or groups’ sociocultural or socioeconomic identities, improper training and/or effort (e.g., Lipman, 2003; Nichols & Berliner, 2007; Valenzuela, 2005). Our work here and with our students in schools illustrates how processes of dissensus can interrupt mainstream notions of teaching and learning as well as the scholarly consideration of those notions. As we discuss below, we strive to create conversations that allow students the space to question each other and their own norms and values without the need to resolve them into consensually correct answers. Similarly, we analyzed data separately, seeking emergent points of converging understanding that we similarly do not seek to resolve here. Instead, we have worked and continue to work to contribute to ongoing complicated conversations about the nature of schooling, teaching, and studenting with one another and with the field of curriculum studies. In this way, it is our intention to utilize processes of

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collaborative dissensus as an ethical act to interrupt the ethical community that is contemporary schooling in our respective nations. Such interruptions, critiques, and concerns about mainstream notions of teaching also lie at the heart of curriculum studies. In many ways, the reconceptualization of the field (e.g., Pinar, 1975; Schwab, 1969) can be understood as a move from a more narrow consideration of exactly how one educates to more intricately woven inquiries into what education means, for whom such meanings count, and the ways in which education is conceptualized and enacted. These same questions of what kinds of education are being enacted for whom and to what ends continue to hold sway in the field (e.g., Howard & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2010; Kumashiro, 2008; Malewski, 2009; Schultz, 2008; Taubman, 2009; Winfield, 2007). These considerations into the available spaces and places for the transmission of knowledge and for whom such spaces are made accessible can be understood as questions of ethics. Thus, we see our work as necessarily both ethical and curricular and believe, as is the case with the kinds of strong work in curriculum studies that we admire, that such scholarship in the field of curriculum studies is necessarily work that considers, troubles, and illuminates the ethics of knowledge, its production, and its use. Contexts: Classes, Students, and Conversations In this section, we provide important contextual information about the classes we teach, our respective groups of students in the fall of 2009, and the ways in which we elected to facilitate the conversations we had with one another and separately with our students about their experiences. For the sake of clarity and in keeping with notions of collaborative dissensus, we have elected to present aspects of each of these contexts separately. Walter Gershon The Course Every fall I teach a broad survey course to third-year undergraduates from all academic content areas (language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) who have decided to become secondary school teachers and made it through our selective admissions process to “advanced standing.” In addition to formally introducing students to many of the practical aspects of teaching such as classroom management and lesson planning, this course also has a five-week urban field placement in which preservice teachers spend a minimum of 30 hours observing classrooms and tutoring high school students. Their field placement is in one of five majority-African

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American urban schools with which our university has developed a working relationship, field observation for tutoring hours. Although comparatively short in duration when one considers that the majority of available teaching positions in the state of Ohio will be in urban schools, the importance of students’ urban field placements in this context should not be underestimated. One result of our program’s efforts to accommodate our preservice teachers’ placement requests within reason is that students tend to ask to be placed in schools that are conveniently reached from their suburban and rural homes and apartments. An unintended consequence of this courtesy for our students (the majority of whom hold full-time jobs until their student teaching placements in the spring of their final year in the program) is that their urban field placement is the only time they have spent or will spend in an urban school, a continuum that includes their own schooling. Students in education at the university where I teach tend to come from the suburban and rural areas similar to those that surround our campus. For our rural students, negotiating our town and campus (approximately 28,000 people each) is often overwhelming, their first time surrounded by so many people. For our suburban students who constitute the majority of secondary education majors I teach, our campus and town is a familiar space. Complicating matters even further, I have only five weeks prior to students’ urban field placements to make the familiar strange in order that they might see the strange in the familiar (Spindler, 1982). This is important because a positive experience for students in their urban field placements often comes down to their ability to transcend a difference-as-deficit perspective (e.g., Valencia, 1997)—the ability to see differences as other possible ways to enact teaching and learning and through apparent differences to what is familiar. Students Of the approximately 250 undergraduates I have taught in the past five years, eight have been students of color. The two sections of this course that I taught in the fall of 2009 were no exception. Of the 39 students I taught that semester, there was only one student of student of color in each section of the class (18 and 21 students respectively) and a single Jewish student in the larger of the two sections, one of two Jewish students I have taught to date. This is not to say that students were monolithic, for they were not. In addition to their class differences, in which two thirds of each class came from middle- to upper-middle-class homes and the remaining third were from working-class families, students were varied in their views and activity as it relates to their faith, held political views that crossed the spectrum from progressive Democrat to conservative Republican, and held differing

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positionalities in terms of their approach to and uses of popular culture, as expressed by their taste in music and dress for example. However, in keeping with the clear majority of the students I have taught in Northeast Ohio, most students in this course subscribe to a rather mainstream, transmission model of teaching. This model can be understood as an implicit agreement in which teachers are responsible for depositing the requisite knowledge in students and students participate by giving teachers the space to be filled with that content, an arrangement Friere (2000) refers to as the banking model of education. As has been noted in many studies of schooling, the ethical difficulties with this perspective lie not only in how it tends to reduce teaching and learning to a relatively narrow set of possibilities that often end in equally narrow sets of correct answers (e.g., Gershon, 2007; McNeil, 2000; Mehan, 1979; Valli et al., 2008), but such mainstream constructions of teaching and learning also tend to be one of the central driving forces in recognizing differences as deficits (e.g., Delpit, 2006; Valencia, 1997; Varenne & McDermott, 1998). Students’ relatively common life experiences and generally mainstream notions of teaching and society created a context in which students deeply felt small sociocultural differences and categorized larger differences as problems. For example, prior to their urban field placements in the middle of the semester, students regularly noted class differences between neighboring communities that were relatively incremential in nature (between majority Anglo, Christian, middle class communities) as major and urban contexts as negatively exoticised other. For example, during a conversation about students’ own schooling and their expectations of their field placement, Jonathan1 remarked that he “went to school in Hudson [an upper middle class town] so I don’t really know what it was like for you when you were at school in Stow [a neighboring middle to upper class town].” Margaret’s comments were indicative of the kinds of comments many students made about their thoughts and feelings after receiving their specific urban school placements: “When I told my mom about my field placement at ___________ High School, I was, like, worried about if it was safe to drive and she got so upset she almost called to yell at you, Dr. Gershon.” Students like Cynthia, who went to school in Cleveland, and Sally, who came from a rural neighborhood, often raised objections about how their peers were constructing their life experiences. I don’t think you really know what you guys are talking about. I went to school in Cleveland and, though it was kind of like you’re saying, it really wasn’t that way at all. (Cynthia) It’s not fair really. I went to school in the country where there were only about 400 students in the whole school and I feel like you’re negatively judging me and my friends because of it. (Sally)

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Yet Sally’s feelings of othering did not seem to extend to conversations about city kids and city schools, as the following comment taken from the second conversation illustrates: “Yeah, I know it’s still school, but I don’t think those kids don’t do it the same way we do.” While a few of her peers agreed with her perspective, regardless of the location of their schooling, those four or five students were in the clear minority in their section of 21 students. As can be seen in these comments, students not only othered urban educational contexts, they also had a tendency to regard as other any schooling experience that lay outside their own often middle-class school experiences. Additionally, for these two groups of preservice teachers, their neighboring schools and school communities functioned in very much the same way as the high schools they attended and had similar student and teacher populations, so much so that students tended to note differences in their communities rather than differences in their school experiences. For example, while some students talked about how all the schools in their district closed the Monday after Thanksgiving because that was when hunting licenses became active for the season, these same students’ understandings of school and schooling resonated with their suburban classmates’. Students’ conversational tone did change as a result of their urban field experiences. For example, Alicia “was surprised, once I got over some of it, that school really was like school for me,” and Larry noted that “___________ High School was so much like my school, I mean, kids were just doing high school kid things that I’d even forgotten about!” However, their urban field experiences also in some ways solidified students’ preconceived notions about race and class, perspectives evident in Marcus’ comment that “they just didn’t care about school like we did. It’s like, if I did half the things that they [the students] did, I would’ve been kicked out of class, and those teachers, they didn’t do anything to stop it!” In sum, students in the sections of Principles I taught in the fall of 2009 reflected the general trends of students who have been in the sections of this course that I have taught over the years. The majority of students came from suburban and rural middle-class families and, with the exception of three of 39 students, were Anglo and Christian. The similarities in their experiences and in the schools combined to further the idea that their mainstream, middle-class school experiences were universal. While their urban field placements did to some degree interrupt this understanding, and served as a profound catalyst for a few students to begin reconceptualizing their understandings of what school and schooling means, students generally still maintained their mainstream notions of teaching and learning. Thus, for reasons that are simultaneously curricular and ethical, I am often seeking ways to enrich students’ experiences within the confines of the course and to interrupt their mainstream notions of teaching. The difficulty lies in finding ways to get preservice teachers to consider ideas outside

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of their own largely mainstream understandings in ways that they do not feel challenged to the point that it undermines my classroom authority—an often difficult task as part of their mainstream notions of teaching tends to include a notion of questions not as inquiry but as either negation or attack (Gershon et al., 2010; Gershon, Peel, & Bilinovich, 2009). The opportunity for preservice teachers in Kent to speak about teaching with preservice teachers in Nicosia does just that. It places students in conversations with others who are similar enough that they can relate to their understandings yet dissimilar to the degree that at some point their commonsense, mainstream notions of teaching are deeply questioned through a rather straightforward-seeming discourse via videoconference. Nikoletta Christodoulou I teach at Frederick University, located in Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus. It is situated next to the city center and close to the old city of Nicosia, the part of the city inhabited mainly by foreigners and immigrants—Asians, Muslims, Eastern Europeans, and other minority groups—and which attracts many Turkish Cypriots who visit from the north. This borderline area, a meeting point of various cultural groups, has been revived largely due to local residents’ economic support. It is important to note that this is the part of the city attached to the Green Line, the buffer/demilitarized zone that divides the Greek-speaking Cyprus Republic in the south and the northern part of the island that has been under Turkish military control and occupation since 1974. With the exception of Nicosia, which lies at the center of the island, all cities are close to the sea and attract many primarily European tourists who are often Frederick students’ main way to connect with others, or this was true up until recently when the population in the South was more or less homogeneous, prior to attracting foreign workers and immigrants. It is necessary to provide some additional contextual information about Cyprus, in order to better understand both the context in which I teach and the reasons I wanted students in my classes to participate in a videoconferenced session with preservice teachers at Kent State. Although Cyprus is a small island with less than a million inhabitants, it is the third biggest island in the Mediterranean. Lying at the crossroad of three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, linguistically and culturally Greek Cypriots are the majority population in our country. Although the Republic of Cyprus has experienced many waves of conquering militaries through its history, each of which led to the depositing of various sociocultural features, to date, there still has not been a true intermingling of people and cultures.

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For example, Muslims—who were previously represented primarily by Turkish Cypriots and are now also comprised of other immigrants, political refugees, asylum seekers, and workers—and the Catholic community still largely remain closed within their own cultural groups. The Catholic community and other Christians (i.e., Maronites and Armenians) have been and remain part of the Greek Christian Orthodox community. However, as with the Muslim population, there has been a dramatic increase of nonGreek-speaking Cypriot populations in the classrooms throughout Cyprus. Reflecting such changes, current and future teachers are being called to teach in increasingly multicultural classrooms, schools that only a few years before were primarily homogeneous contexts for Greek Cypriots. However, a true intermingling of people and cultures in Cyprus has not yet been achieved. Nevertheless, there is a profound change in the lifestyle and in the assumptions about otherness of the younger generations of Cypriots, including my students, as compared to older generations, which could be seen as a result of the societal changes the last few years. Additionally, as islanders, Cypriots often seem to have an increased need to get out of the limited environment of their small island, and more than half of the population are world travelers themselves or are closely related to those students who study abroad, migrant relatives, or folks who travel often for business or vacation. Similarly, conversational Greek in the Republic of Cyprus is a mixture of mostly formal and ancient Greek, intermingled with Anglo-based, Latin-based, and Turkish words. Yet, despite Cypriots’ relative flexibility and openness towards other cultures, people tend to associate mainly with those of similar ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Although my students travel abroad, the issue is how much they can internalize and understand during a short trip and broaden their limited perspective, seeing themselves as part of a larger social framework. Although primarily consisting of Greek Cypriots, the student body at Frederick University also has a few students from Africa, Europe, and Asia. Our four-year teacher preparation program aims to prepare teachers for public schools or private schools in Cyprus and is taught in Greek. As a result, students who pursue this bachelor’s degree in preprimary or primary education instruction are almost solely White, mainstream Greek Cypriots. Most of the students in the preprimary education teacher preparation program in which I teach come both from the city and villages of Cyprus. Students in the classes I teach are mostly White and generally do not connect with Cyprus’ ethnic and cultural minority populations. Furthermore, our freshmen students enter our program with average school GPAs, approximately 15 on a 20-point scale, and have learned to comply with the educational system of which they will become members. Being inheritors and products of a system that encourages discipline, mere knowledge and

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information consumption, cognition versus emotion, and a narrow notion of curriculum, they have mostly learned to follow orders rather than making decisions (Katsikas & Therianos, 2008), taking initiative, and feeling responsible for their own learning. However, with persistence and effort and provided the opportunity to do so, presevice teachers often come to be independent, critical thinkers. In light of the sociocultural contexts in which they have lived, among the most difficult things we often face with many freshmen students is a lack of awareness, worldliness, and sensitivity to critical issues of the society and the world. When I teach freshmen students, this is something I try to address from early on in their studies through the courses I teach. My class is designed to authentically capture the deep dimensionality of teaching and learning (Ayers, 2004). In it we work from both preservice teachers’ educational understandings as well as what is limited or limiting in their familiar constructions of teaching and learning. Videoconferencing with preservice teachers at Kent State provides a concrete opportunity for students in my classes to talk with others who, on the surface, seem quite similar but are in fact quite different. In light of preservice teachers’ preconceived notions about America and Americans, talking with Ohioans is particularly helpful as it tends to disrupt their own understandings of who Americans are and what they believe, a disruption that, as we present below, tends to lead to their questioning other norms and values about themselves, others, and teaching. In the fall semester 2009, I taught four courses titled, “Curriculum Development,” “School Experience,” “Theory and Methods of Teaching,” and “Introduction to Pedagogical Sciences.” Although all four classes are about teaching, learning, and education, they each focus on different aspects of these ideas and ideals. As its name suggests, “Curriculum Development” focuses on curriculum; “School Experience” examines the terminology surrounding teaching, learning, school, and the meaning of various issues surrounding each and particularly attends to teaching and learning, the essence of the learning environment, and common conceptions, misconceptions and biases that educators hold. Similarly, as one might imagine, “Theory and Methods of Teaching” is both the title and the focus of that course, and the final course considers ideas related to pedagogy and its evolvement and focuses on important pedagogues such as Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Montessori, Neill, and Dewey (Houssaye, 2000; Reble, 2005). “The School Experience” course is for freshmen students who most often join the program right after they finish high school and therefore tend to maintain a student perspective of schooling, teaching, and learning, as opposed to the third and fourth year students in the other two classes, who have begun to think of themselves more as future teachers rather than students.

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Reflecting the larger student body at the university, with few exceptions, students in the courses I teach are all Greek Cypriots. Students other than Greek Cypriots tend to be a few students who have at least one parent from another country, students who belong to the Latin community of Cyprus, the Maronite community, and a few students who are from Greece. The language of instruction in the education/teacher preparation program of study is Greek, which is spoken on campus regardless of a given student’s ethnicity, home language, or national or cultural origins. In these ways, the students I teach tend to be a homogeneous group who tend to have had similar experiences in school. The main exception to this understanding are those students who attended private or public high schools, students who were perceived as “good” versus as “bad” students, and whether students are from middle or upper class families. In terms of race, ethnicity, religion, and home language, the students I teach are also rather homogeneous. In both sessions we held this year, I had a total of 16 students attending, about half in each session, for a total of 30 students (few of them were attending more than one of the aforementioned classes as they had other class responsibilities right after the end of the first session). Usually there is a profound difference between the freshmen students and the older ones, in terms of year-of-studies. There are additional differences in the way they conceptualize, analyze, and evaluate issues, as the university experience and the classes they attend make an impact on them. When the students first enter the university, they act and think in a school-like manner, whereas as they progress in their studies, they become more independent thinkers and they get into the university-learning spirit. Yet the difficulty of delving into the broader picture of schooling, learning, and criticizing the ineffectiveness of the educational system, considering the broader socioeconomic and political framework of teaching and learning, is apparent in most students’ thinking throughout their studies. Vignette: Teens, School, and Pregnancy Our annual videoconferenced dialogues are structured in an effort to accommodate both the time difference between our nations and our students’ scheduled class times. Because students in Cyprus were returning to campus in the afternoon after their classes were finished for the day, we asked one group of students to arrive earlier than their regularly scheduled class time so that the students in Nikoletta’s sections did not have to wait too long between the time their classes concluded for the day and our dialogue. As a result, we held two sessions, from 8:00–9:15 and from 9:30–10:45 a.m. Ohio-time; 3:00–4:15 and 4:30–5:45 p.m. Cyprus time. While the 9:30–10:45 time slot corresponded to one of Walter’s two regularly scheduled class ses-

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sions, he provided coffee, bagels, and doughnuts as an extra incentive for students in his 12:30–1:45 p.m. section to show up for the early morning session. Likewise, Nikoletta provided coffee, tea, and snacks for the students who participated outside of regularly scheduled class hours. For our first two years of annual dialogues, we created a space for students to have an open dialogue about everything from students’ daily lives and experiences to their thoughts about schools and teaching. Based on students’ comments from our 2008 session requesting a more focused conversation and our own thinking about how we might use our comparatively short time together, we elected to have students decide together the topics they would like to discuss during their time together. In an attempt to have both groups involved in this decision, we elected to have the students in Ohio come up with approximately 10–15 topics they thought might be of interest for both groups to talk about. Students in Nikoletta’s classes would then select from this list the two or three topics that were of most interest to them, providing that they did indeed find any of these topics worthy of discussion. However, while Kent students did create a list and Frederick students selected options from that list, the process did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. This was due largely to a lack of timeliness in suggestions from the Kent students to offer Frederick students. Furthermore, rather than a total of 14 prompts (7 per section) of which Frederick students would select 6 possible topics of conversation (2 per section), Kent students arrived at a total list of 11 possible prompts in the form of statements and questions. As a result, Frederick students selected their prompts of choice directly before our videoconference session, and Kent students were unaware of what topic would be discussed until they arrived for their time slot. Given these complications, we were surprised both that students in Nikoletta’s classes found any of the prompts students in Walter’s sections provided to be useful and that both groups selected the same prompt to discuss. That the selected conversational prompt is applicable more to the potential secondary school students of Walter’s students than the preprimary students the preservice teachers in Nikoletta’s sections will teach further underscored our surprise at their decision. Here, then, is the prompt that preservice secondary school teachers at Kent State and preservice preprimary teachers at Frederick University choose to discuss: “A student in your class just gave birth. She is clearly struggling to complete her schoolwork and asks you whether or not you think that she should drop out of school.” Our respective students were indeed interested in the kinds of pedagogically related questions about how to help a teen be successful in school as young mother. This said, they were perhaps even more interested in sociocultural questions about the social acceptance of being pregnant in high school, the number of pregnant teens that students in each nation knew when they were in high school, and the

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ways in which the schools approached questions of teen pregnancy and motherhood. Given the similarities of the responses between the two sections and the ways in which we facilitated the two videoconferenced sessions—pedagogical decisions we made on the fly in no small part to see the similarities and differences between each groups’ thoughts and reactions—we have elected to provide a vignette from the first of the two videoconferences and provide supporting examples from the second videoconference session. We similarly provide students’ responses about their conversations via videoconference from follow-up conversations held with students who participated in both the 9:15/4:15 and 10:30/5:30 sessions. Vignette Our videoconferences are held in rooms our respective campuses have designated for this purpose. Both have longer oval tables surrounded by faux-leather adjustable, cushioned office chairs. Whereas the room Walter and Kent students use is located in the College of Education, Health and Human Services, the room Nikoletta and Frederick students use is a conference room used mostly for meetings by the senate and staff. As is now a likely scenario familiar to many readers, students sit around the tables looking at a screen on which the other group’s moving image is projected, and a smaller picture of the group doing the observation sits in a corner in order that they might see how they are situated in the frame the other group is viewing. During this session, 18 preservice secondary school teachers in Kent, Ohio, and 8 preservice preprimary teachers in Nicosia, Cyprus sit facing each other across the virtual divide. Where there are roughly equal numbers of men and women in Kent (10 men, 8 women), all participants in Nicosia are female. This difference in gender is in no small part a reflection of the differences between the ages of students they will teach upon entering their lives as teachers; where this group of Ohioans will become either junior high or high school teachers, participating Cypriots will teach Kindergarten. After sorting through some seemingly inevitable technical difficulties, students began their session by introducing themselves with their name and, for the Kent State students, their future area of expertise, such as integrated social studies. They then began sharing with one another their ideas about what life is like where they live in general, the kinds of activities they and their friends enjoy outside of school, and how teachers and education are perceived by their respective societies. This conversation then turned to questions about how students in each group would help students who

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needed extra assistance in learning the material, from those who needed a bit more time to those who had been acquired by a learning disability (on this, see Varenne & McDermott, 1998) and beyond. Moments after Nikoletta translated her students’ answers, many if not all of the Frederick students shared a good laugh, something that was missed by Walter and the Kent students due to its delivery in Greek. When Nikoletta did not translate the interaction, students asked me to clarify. “What was so funny over there?” Walter wondered. “A moment ago, something really cracked you all up.” “Well,” explained Nikoletta, “As you know, some of the students here were also my students last year. And they said that it looks like you lost some weight, that you look good.” As might be expected, Kent students similarly found this comment to be quite funny, as did Walter, all of whom can be heard laughing uproariously on the audio recording of the session. After thanking students for their kind thoughts and noting that “it’s probably a trick of the camera, I haven’t really lost any weight since last year,” Walter then attempted to move the conversation forward to the second topic, an obvious and somewhat awkward transition to the topics that Frederick students chose. “Okay. So I can’t be serious at all now,” Walter began. “Okay, um [continued laughter from the Kent side slowly petering out], let’s return to the young woman who comes to you. She’s already given birth, right?” “Yes,” Nikoletta replied. “So you have a young woman who’s come in, she’s just given birth, and she’s having a really hard time with school,” Walter continued as Nikoletta began to translate. “Other than sending her to the counselor which, again, notice, makes it not your problem [a point raised in the earlier conversation about how to help students who are having difficulty learning in your class], how would you help her? What are some things you would say?” “Shall we go first?” asked Nikoletta after she is done translating. “Okay, sure,” Walter replied. After some conversation in Greek, approximately five minutes later students reconvened to share their thoughts with one another. Where students in Nicosia did not know many students who were pregnant and, in many cases, thought that teachers gave teen mothers just passing grades so they did not fail out after becoming mothers, students in Kent shared various programmatic options of which they were aware such as a daycare for children of students so that mothers might continue with their schooling. Upon hearing such options, Nikoletta wondered if the existence of such a variety of programs for teen mothers might be a result of the fact that “there are more such instances maybe in the U.S.”

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“That’s what I was wondering,” Walter responded. “Okay, by show of hands, please show us how many pregnant teens you knew when you were in high school.” After Nikoletta translated, four students raise their hands. “So that’s four,” Nikoletta stated in English. “Okay, so that’s half,” Walter concurred. “So how many students did you [Kent students] know? Was it one person or more than one person? Alright, let’s do it this way, one or two people raise your hands, if you knew one or two pregnant people in high school, raise your hand.” All of the Kent preservice teachers raised her or his hand. Students in both Nicosia and Kent giggled. “Okay, three or four students raise your hands, if you knew three or four pregnant teens when you were in high school raise your hands.” Eleven Kent State students kept their hands raised. Walter again counted the number of Kent students who knew pregnant teens. When he arrived at the “three students, how many of you knew three students who were pregnant,” Cypriots gasped when eight Kent students kept their hands raised. He then asked Kent students know five pregnant teens when they were high school students. “All right, four or five, students, if you knew four or five students please raise your hands,” Walter asked of the Kent students. “Five, five people knew five to seven pregnant girls,” Walter continued. Two Frederick students were so surprised that they exclaimed, “Oh my God!” in English while students in Kent again giggled, perhaps nervously. Walter then asked Kent students to raise their hands according to the kinds of communities in which students lived geographically. “Please raise your hand if you went to high school in the city.” One student raised her hand. “Raise your hand if you went to school in the suburbs,” he continued as 11 of the remaining 18 students raised their hands. “Now in the country,” Walter asked. The remaining six students raised their hands in response. Students in Kent then asked Frederick students, “What counts as the country?” in Cyprus. At the suggestion of the Kent students, each group of students talked together about their thoughts regarding teen mothers as well as the other group’s responses before sharing their answers out with the other group, a think-group-share kind of activity. We share some of their thoughts during that conversation as well as those offered in followup sessions in our respective classrooms as part of our discussion in the following section.

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Critical Inquiry or Watching Others: Preservice Teachers, Ethics, and Traveling without Moving The ethical tensions surrounding our curricular decision for students to speak with one another via video can be understood as a friction between the degree to which students learned from one another—knowledge that encompasses what students learned about their own understandings—and the ways in which the technology and observation combined to create a sense of watching an exoticized other. As both ends of this tension were present throughout these sessions and talk reflecting on our time thinking together, it is not an inquiry into whether or not each side of the tension was present. Rather, it is a qualitative question of degrees and impact. At the end of the day, did the use of videoconferencing to think about scenarios such as the one posed here about pregnant teens serve to provide students an enriched understanding of teaching or reify their mainstream constructions about themselves and those different from themselves as categorically static others? In other words, what kinds of ideas and ideals did this experience engender? As indicated in the vignette towards the beginning of this chapter, preservice teachers in both Nicosia and Kent’s constructions of high school included the possibility of student/mothers. Preservice teachers’ experiences of teen mothers in the second of the two sessions we held in the fall of 2009 largely mirrored those transcribed above, with 4 of 8 Cypriots and all 14 Ohioans having gone to school with a pregnant peer. However, these two nation/groups differed somewhat dramatically in their thoughts about the acceptability of teenage pregnancy and their suggestions on the ways in which “they could give students the support they need” (Athena, translated by Dr. Christodoulou). In general, where students at Kent believed teen pregnancy to be an inevitability of somewhat common occurrence, Frederick students believed that it “isn’t something we often think is okay here.” Consequently, the kinds of solutions that this group of Cypriots offered tended to be on a caseby-case basis where these Ohioans tended to provide more systemic means of support and as well as concrete examples from their own experiences of how such support might be structured and delivered. The solutions offered by each group of students in Nicosia and Kent reflected the examples these students had in mind based on the practices followed by the school districts in these two regions, with Kent tackling the matter in a more organized and systematic manner than Nicosia, as the first region had to face more such cases than the second. For example, in the discussion during our session that preceded the vignette presented in the previous section, Cypriots had the following suggestions as translated by the second author.

Ethics, Dissensus, and Traveling Without Moving    131 Marina number one, there are three Marina’s here, suggests that she wouldn’t recommend dropping out of school; that she should continue her studies in high school and that her teacher would help her in different ways. Another issue is if they don’t have the resources to take the baby elsewhere for daycare which would add to the problem, then she as a teacher would be acting as a friend and helping her with this issue. Marina number two said that if the student is really struggling, then the teacher could recommend for her to drop out of school and come back later when all these issues could be resolved. But this would be only if the student were really in trouble; if not, dropping out of school should be the last solution. Yuka said she knew, she had such an example where the teachers didn’t suggest that she drop out of school but they helped her, just gave her grades enough to allow her to graduate.{\ext}In contrast, while Kent students began their thoughts by echoing the Frederick students’ visions of support, they then quickly moved to their own experiences with local programs for student mothers as in the following quotations from a few minutes later in this same discussion. I think [a nearby urban] high school [that students went to as part of their urban field placement] has a program for teenage mothers to take kids at the high school where they attend and it’s a daycare. . . . The high school can have a daycare at the high school in which teen parents can take their kids to be looked after and other students could be in, like, an early childhood program [at the high school]. (Jenny) I know that in some of the bigger cities here, some of the high schools in the area will work with near[by] daycare centers. Like the high school I went to, they actually worked with a daycare center that was right down the street and the mothers who would drop their children off there who went to the high school would get a discounted price. (Alice)

Suggestions that preservice teachers in Cyprus provided such as the ones noted here truly shocked preservice teachers in Ohio. Their shock generally fell into one of two camps expressed in the following questions preservice teachers asked of one another during a follow up discussion the week after our videoconferenced session. Where Martha wondered, “Why do we have so many moms in high school?” Ricky asked, “How can they not have a plan for pregnant teens?” During their follow up session in Nicosia, Frederick students echoed these two questions in reverse: “Didn’t you notice how many pregnant teens they [Kent students] knew?” (Naida) and “Pregnant teens in high school [in Cyprus] may be ‘finger pointed’ whereas in the U.S. it may be more common and acceptable” (Yalena). In response to questions like Martha’s, many preservice teachers in Ohio noted that this was the first time they had ever considered the sheer number of student mothers in local high schools and that there might be places where this was not the norm. This is not to say that there was not variety among Ohioans’ high school experiences with student mothers; a few

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preservice teachers were shocked by the number of pregnant teens their peers knew. However, to a person, not a single student in either of the two sections that participated in videoconferences with Cypriots thought it unusual to have a good percentage of student mothers in their high schools. For example, all Kent students agreed with a comment Mark made during our discussion in which he stated that, “because the pregnancy thing was such a weird issue for them, the fact that it’s just common to us, that they’re so many people pregnant in high school.” The idea that it was socially acceptable for there to be pregnant teens in high school was indeed unusual for students in the classes Nikoletta taught. They were surprised at how common an experience it was for Kent students when they were in high school and were literally shocked by how many pregnant teens attended their schools. While preservice teachers in Ohio searched for reasons why it was odd to not to consider teen pregnancy as part of the high school experience, Cypriots were left to consider high schools with pregnant teens, an experience that was literally foreign to half of the students in the class. This lead Ireny to posit, “The population there [in America] is so huge that maybe it is not a big deal to be pregnant [in high school].” Along these same lines, during our class discussion about our videoconference with students at Frederick University, Dawn asked of her peers in Ohio, “Why are we so okay with teen mothers in high school?” Students’ responses ranged from “religion, it’s what God wants” to “because we aren’t honest with kids about birth control” to “as a mom who had a kid in high school, I wish someone had told me how hard it was going to be.” Kent students in the other section responded similarly, including the following comment offered in almost identical fashion by another young woman (20 years of age), “I mean, I love my kid, but man, I wish someone had told me how really tough this was going to be.” Conversely, as seen in both Ricky’s and his peers’ comments about programs for pregnant teens, preservice teachers’ notions of normalcy reified both non-Americans and urban schools in the United States as “other.” Ohioans’ responses to questions about caring for pregnant teens and teen mothers in high schools appeared relatively monolithic when compared to the breadth of ethical positions offered in the previous three paragraphs. In short, this group of preservice teachers saw differences in both Cypriot positions on caring for student mothers as deficits and distanced their own explicitly suburban experiences with pregnant teens from local urban solutions for teen mothers to stay in school. Rather than wonder about Cypriot educational policies regarding mandatory schooling or the treatment of pregnant teens, Kent students wondered about how students at Frederick could “treat pregnant teens like that, suggesting they drop out if things got hard” (Carol). In a similar

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fashion, overlooking questions of grade inflation that had been a topic of conversation during one of our bi-weekly classes, Ashley elected instead to question inflating students grades just enough to pass high school: “I mean, I understand helping students and all, but to give them a grade to pass just because they’ve got a kid?” Along similar lines, Ohio preservice teachers’ talk about daycare programs served to verbally distance this group of students’ high school experiences from surrounding urban educational contexts, a maneuver that simultaneously constructs urban student mothers as other. Although comments about daycare were presented from two different perspectives—an urban school where a friend did her field experience for the class and one where a student herself went to high school—both Kent students took the time to note the urban context in which the schools were situated. Discussion: Othering and Awareness On their own, such comments might be chalked up to students presenting contextual information that they found pertinent to the discussion and could therefore be seen as a more implicit or less deep moment of othering. Such comments, however, gain a distinctively different flavor when considered in relation to the following two contexts. First, these comments were made only a few minutes after students demonstrated by a show of hands that the majority of the class had attended suburban high schools and that those preservice teachers who knew the highest number of pregnant teens attended suburban rather than rural or city schools. Second, no students provided an example of a program for student mothers in either rural or suburban high schools in spite of the majority of students having attended such schools themselves. When combined, students’ focus on programs for student mothers only in urban high schools seems to reify urban students and schools’ differences as deficits not entirely dissimilar from their constructions of Cypriots’ understandings of care. During our conversation and their talk about the session in the discussion that followed our session, students at Frederick University also did their fair share of othering. Rather than seeing Kent students’ discussion of programs for pregnant teens as possible solutions that might be helpful for student mothers in Cyprus, the Ohioans’ talk provoked one student to remark that, “They are Americans and they think they have solutions to everything,” a comment that was immediately followed by nods and sounds of agreement from her peers. Preservice teachers in Cyprus similarly saw Ohioans’ comparative lack of discussion as a lack of interest in the topic, allowing them to draw a similar conclusion about the self-centered nature

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of Americans rather than consider that there might be differences in speaking styles or in norms and values for classroom talk between the two groups. This said, all of the preservice teachers’ responses about their conversation with one another were overwhelmingly positive. Kent students in both sections requested another chance to speak with Frederick students in order “to get to know them better” and were interested in “learning more about Cyprus and what it’s like to live there because I’ve never been out of the state let alone the country before” (Becky). Henry similarly remarked, “I think [for next year] it would almost be better to have two sections with smaller groups instead of just one. In two sections we could get more information even if we all wanted to talk because we would have more time to talk [with each other].” Cypriots were excited to the point that they suggested that it might be “cool to do Facebook” with one another so that they could “show videos to each other” and learn more about each other’s daily lives. Their experience in this brief videoconferenced conversation also engendered in both groups of preservice teachers an inclination to think more explicitly about the existence of their own norms. As Steve noted, “I think there’s a big cultural difference, and I think it’s really apparent when we talked about pregnancy. And I think if we had more of an emphasis on what our differences between their society and our society and what are their norms and our norms and how we might learn from each other.” This experience also performed what is perhaps an even more important function, as an entrée into discussions of how this group of preservice teachers behaved as students, and what that might mean for their future lives as teachers. The discussion similarly impacted preservice teachers in Cyprus, as demonstrated in this strip of conversation that occurred about fifteen minutes after the vignette on the day of our videoconference. Marina: Getting support for being a pregnant teen is discriminatory. It is not right for pregnant teens to get more support . . . it is their responsibility . . . they should have been more cautious not to get pregnant . . . it is totally their fault and no one should take responsibility for this but them [pregnant teens]. Androniki: That this is not a proper way to think about it, as they may have gotten pregnant due to ignorance. Orethea: No matter what difficulties students may have, for all the problems they are facing, they need to be getting support! Others quickly noted their agreement, including a question about the ways in which overlooking such topics might be an indicator of other important ideas about schooling they had similarly not considered previously.

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Thus, although videoconferencing between students in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Kent, Ohio, did reinforce understandings of differences as deficits and provided opportunities for students to reify false dichotomies between urban and mainstream educational contexts, it also created the space for critical conversations that interrupted those very dominant norms and values. Additionally, and of equal importance for preservice teachers in Kent, this was the first time many students had had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with people not from their own nation, an experience that all felt was positive to the point that each class wished there were time for at least another conversation and suggested that such time be scheduled for this year’s session(s) in 2010. Conclusion Returning to the ethical and curricular theoretical notions that frame this chapter, these understandings can be understood in the following manner. First, there is certainly some degree of inescapable surveillance in our process that must be acknowledged. This is further complicated by the fact that our students who are generally between the ages of 18–23 have grown up in an era in which such consistent and continual surveillance has become an everyday normalcy to the point that it is not simply accepted but expected. From this perspective, our acts of collaborative pedagogical dissensus do little to interrupt an ever-evolving global Panopticonism from a Focauldian perspective. However, as is evident in vignette, our students’ conversations about their videoconferenced sessions, and in the above discussion, our processes of collaborative dissensus have in some measure served as an ethically curricular interruption to similarly singular-minded mainstream notions of teaching and ethical communities. We endeavored to create a more open, studentdriven space for discussion and reflection without the need for arriving upon a consensual understanding about what teaching means or for whom those meanings count. Students did indeed use that space to talk with one another about their preconceived notions of teaching, students, schooling, and, in this case, specifically about pregnant teens and teen mothers. Our decision not to resolve our respective students’ discomfort or sociocultural/transnational dissonance similarly aided in students’ wrestling with their own norms and values. One unintended consequence of our open-ended process seems to have been a reification of Kent and Frederick students’ differences as deficits. However, such othering also often served as an initial step towards their understanding of the socially constructed nature of their own constructions of teaching as well as the ways in which

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their beliefs about teaching might also be less than helpful if not harmful to their future students. In addition, our decision to team teach/facilitate transnationally via the Internet has resulted in emergent, student-driven decisions that we see as aligned with Ranciére’s notions of the ethical possibilities of dissenus that actively oppose both the consensual narrowing of ethical communities and Panopticonism. In this case, participating students in both Nicosia and Kent were strongly in favor of setting up a Facebook page so that students could share their lives with each other and further learn from one another. All students’ desire for further videoconferencing sessions similarly addresses this issue. Setting up a Facebook page would allow students to represent the multiplicity of who they are and the ideas, people, and places that they value. Instead of a hypothetical “American” or “Cypriot,” students at Frederick and Kent State Universities would see videos and pictures representing the complex constellation of how each student envisions her or himself. Along similar lines, these representations would be made by the students themselves, a step that increases the likelihood that their respective voices would be (literally) heard—a process of collaborative dissensus through which commonalities are emergent rather than proscribed and that renders their pluralism all the more difficult to be reduced to singular platitudes. Finally, there is our own process in writing this chapter. Perhaps due to the similarities in our methodologies or in our perspectives as educators and scholars, our separate analyses nevertheless produced a chapter in which many points appear to be argued through some sort of consensual process. However, what may seem like compromised understandings here are in fact so many points of emergent convergence that we were often able to write this chapter using a collaborative “we.” This said, we intentionally left differences in our respective authorial voices stand, reported our methodologies and students in an explicitly distinct manner, and similarly each represented the students in our courses. Any changes we made in editing were member-checked with the other co-author. We each asked students to join us in writing this piece but, in spite of a good deal of initial interest, perhaps due to the busy-ness of their own lives and the focus on teaching on campus and in the field that our programs require, no student from either country ultimately followed through on our offer. Similarly, while it is certainly the case that Walter’s lack of Greek language ability necessitated Nikoletta translating/representing her Greekspeaking students’ perspectives, had this not been the case, we still would have made this authorial/methodological decision. In conclusion, we wish to note the incomplete nature of our work, a point that resonates with both ethical constructions of dissensus (Gershon, Peel & Bilinovich, 2009; Ranciére, 2010; Ziarek, 2001) and in the field of

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curriculum studies (Kridel, 2010; Pinar, 1998). As Walter has noted elsewhere (Gershon, Bilinovich, & Peel, 2010), a key aspect of consensus is closure. The dissonance in dissensus creates a context for emergent points of congruence within an ever-evolving multiplicity of possibility. In this way, where consensus marks an end in process, dissensus forces its continuation. It is important again to note here that a lack of closure is not necessarily the same as a lack of agreement and that a lack of agreement does not preclude conversation. It is precisely the multiplicity of dissensus that helps render it ethical. Conversely, as Ranciére (2010) has so clearly illustrated, moving with a singular ethics does not render a group’s actions moral or just. With this thought in mind, we wonder apart together and hope we can continue to encourage the future teachers we teach to do the same. Note 1. All student names are pseudonyms and names of local schools have been removed.

References Alonso, G., Anderson, N. S., Su, C., & Theoharis, J. (2009). Our schools suck: Students talk back to a segregated nation on the failures of urban education. New York, NY: NYU Press. Austin, J. L. (1961). Philosophical papers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Ayers, W. (2004). Teaching toward freedom: Moral commitment and ethical action in the classroom. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Bell, C., & Kahane, D. (Eds). (2004). Intercultural dispute resolution in aboriginal contexts. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Bentham, J. (1791). Panopticon letters. Unpublished manuscript. Blanchard, P., Bancel, N., Boetsch, G., Deroo, E., Lemarie, S., & Forsdick, C. (2008). Human zoos: From the Hottentot Venus to reality shows (trans. T. Bridgeman). Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press. Britzman, D. (2003). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Davis, B. (2005). Interrupting frameworks: Interrupting geometries of epistemology and curriculum. In W. E. Doll Jr., M. J. Fleener, D. Truiet & J. St. Julien, (Eds.), Chaos, complexity, curriculum &culture: A conversation (pp. 119–132). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Doll, W. E., Jr. (1993). The four R’s—An alternative to the Tyler rationale. In W. E. Doll, Jr. (Ed.), The postmodern perspective on curriculum (pp. 174–183). New York, NY: Teachers College.

138    W. S. GERSHON and N. CHRISTODOULOU Ellsworth, E. (1989). Teaching positions: Difference, pedagogy, and the power of address. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Flinders, D. J., & Thornton, S. J. (2009). The curriculum studies reader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed ( Myra Bergman Ramos, Trans.). New York, NY: Herder & Herder. (Original work published in 1970) Foucault, M. (1995). Panopticism. In M. Foucalt (A. Sheridan, Trans.), Disicipline and punish: The birth of the prison (pp. 195–228). New York, NY: Vintage Books. Gershon, W. S. (2007). Overlooked: Students and curriculum in classrooms. Unpublished dissertation, University of California, Riverside. Gershon, W. S., Bilinovich, C., & Peel, A. (2010). Race, social studies content, and pedagogy: Wrestling through discomfort together. Canadian Social Studies, 44(1), 29–37. Gershon, W. S., Lather, P., & Smithies, C. (2009). Troubling the angels redux: Tales of collaboration towards a polyphonic text. In W. S. Gershon (Ed.), The collaborative turn: Working together in qualitative research (pp. 3–34). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Gershon, W. S., Peel, A., & Bilinovich, C. (2009). Collaboration without compromise: Reflecting on collaborative discensus in action. In W. S. Gershon (Ed.), The collaborative turn: Working together in qualitative research (pp. 141–164). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Gilbert, A. B. T., & Broadway, F. S. (2010). Bakhtinian thought. In C. Kridel (Ed.), The encyclopedia of curriculum studies (pp. 67–68). Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Press. Grande, S. (2004). Red pedagogy: Native American social and political thought. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Henderson, J. G., & Kesson, K. R. (2004). Curriculum wisdom: Educational decisions in democratic societies. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Press. Houssaye, J. (Ed.). (2000). Δεκαπέντε παιδαγωγοί: Σταθμοί στην ιστορία της παιδαγωγικής σκέψης [Fifteen pedagogues: Landmarks in the history of pedagogic thought] (D. Karakatsani, Trans.). Athens, Greece: Metechmio. Howard, A., & Gaztambide-Ferndandez, R. (Eds.). (2010). Educating elites: Class, privilege and educational advantage. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Katsikas, C., & Therianos, K. N. (2008). Η εκπαίδευση της αμάθειας [The education of the uneducated]. Athens, Greece: Gutenberg. King, C. (2007). Here come the anthros. In A. C. G. M. Robben & J. A. Sluka (Eds.), Ethnographic fieldwork: An anthropological reader (pp. 191–193). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kliebard, H. M. (1975). Critiques of Tyler. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum theorizing. The reconceptualists (pp. 70–81). Berkeley, CA: McCutchean. Kridel, C. (Ed.). (2010). The encyclopedia of curriculum studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kumashiro, K. K. (2008). The seduction of common sense: How the right has framed the debate on America’s schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Limpan, P. (2003). High stakes education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school reform. New York, NY: Routledge. Malewski, E. (2009). Curriculum studies handbook: The next moment. New York, NY: Routledge.

Ethics, Dissensus, and Traveling Without Moving    139 Martin, J. R. (1994). Changing the educational landscape: Philosophy, women and curriculum. New York, NY: Routledge. McNeil, L. (2000). Contradictions of school reform: Educational costs of standardized testing. New York, NY: Routledge. Mehan, H. (1979). “What time is it Denise?”: Asking known information questions in classroom discourse. Theory into Practice, 18, 285–294. Miller, J. H. (1998). Literary and cultural studies in the transnational university. In J. C. Rowe (Ed.), “Culture” and the problem of the disciplines (pp. 45–68). New York, NY: Columbia University. Miller, J. L. (2005). Sounds of silence breaking: Women, autobiography, curriculum. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC). (2002). Retrieved, May 4, 2012 from http://www.moec.gov.cy Nachi, M. (2004). The morality in/of compromise: Some theoretical reflections. Social Science Information, 43(2), 291–305. Nichols, S. L, & Berliner, D. C. (2007). Collateral damage: How high-stakes testing corrupts America’s schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Press. No Child Left Behind (2001). Retrieved May 4, 2012 from http://www.nclb.gov Page, R. N. (1991). Lower-track classrooms: A curricular and cultural perspective. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Page, R. N. (2001). Reshaping graduate preparation in educational research methods: One school’s experience. Educational Researcher, 30(5), 19–25. Pinar, W. F. (1975). Curriculum theorizing: The reconceptualists. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Pinar, W. F. (Ed.). (1998). The passionate mind of Maxine Greene: ‘I am not yet.’ New York, NY: Routledge. Pinar, W. F. (2004). What is curriculum theory? New York, NY: Routledge. Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, R., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. (Eds.). (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Pugh, A. (2005). Selling compromise: Toys, motherhood and the cultural deal. Gender & Society, 19(6), 729–749. Ranciére, J. (2010). Dissensus: On politics and aesthetics. New York, NY: Continuum. Reble, A. (2005). Ιστορία της Παιδαγωγικής [The history of pedagogy]. Athens, Greece: Papademas. Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York, NY: Pantheon. Schultz, B. D. (2008). Spectacular things happen along the way: Lessons from an urban classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Schwab, J. J. (1969). The practical: A language for curriculum. School Review, 78(1), 1–23. Shircliff, B. J. (2000). Feminist reflections on university activism through women’s studies at a state university: Narratives of promise, compromise, and powerlessness. Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, 21(3), 38–60. Spindler, G. (Ed.). (1982). Doing the ethnography of schooling: Educational anthropology in action. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Taubman, P. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education studies. New York, NY: Routledge.

140    W. S. GERSHON and N. CHRISTODOULOU Valencia, R. (Ed.). (1997). The evolution of deficit thinking: educational thought and practice. Washington, DC: Falmer. Valenzuela, A. (Ed.). (2005). Leaving children behind: How “Texas-style” accountability fails Latino youth. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Valli, L., & Chambliss, M. (2007). Creating classroom cultures: One teacher, two lessons, and a high-stakes test. Anthropology Education Quarterly, 38(1), 57–75 Valli, L., Croninger, R. G., Chambliss, M. H., Graeber, A. O., & Buese, D. (2008). Test driven: High-stakes accountability in elementary schools. New York, NY: Teachers College. Varenne, H., & McDermott, R. (1998). Successful failure: The schools America builds. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Winfield, A. G. (2007). Eugenics and education in America. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Ziarek, E. P. (2001). An ethics of dissensus: Postmodernity, feminism, and the politics of radical democracy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.

Section III Transnational Curriculum Theory and Practice

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Chapter 7

From Text to Pretext An Ethical Turn in Curriculum Work Jean-Francois Maheux Université du Québec à Montréal Dalene Swanson Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, University of British Columbia, University of Alberta Steven Khan University of British Columbia

Rhetoric may amount to the violence of theory, which reduces the other when it leads the other —Jacques Derrida

From the ethical perspective developed in the work of French Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, ethics is “responsibility for the other” (Levinas, 1998) and more precisely: for the very otherness of the other. Thinking in terms of curriculum, the other is, of course, always present, even when we are dealing with the “self,” as has been Enlightenment’s fixation in the form of the “individual,” for the self is a reflection of and reflected in the other. The other in curriculum and the other of curriculum, as these reciprocally implicate each other, incites response about the urgent need for finding ways Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 143–171 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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to conceptualize practices of curriculum in which the other truly could be considered through the subjective presence of ethics. Indeed, one can easily sense how ethical concerns immediately arise when curriculum conceptualizations and practices seek to unambiguously define and prescribe what and how teachers should teach and students must learn. In a globalizing era of neoliberal creep, where competitive internationalization of universities gives way to managerialist accountabilities and controls on knowledge, with increasing homogeneity and instrumentality in the delivery of such, ethical considerations of the other within prepackaged curricula is of increasing concern. This is of salient importance in the context of international curriculum work, when the other (a teacher or student) is of another country, another language, another culture, and so on. In Levinas’ words, imposing “knowledge” on the other of what and how things must be done proceeds from the reduction of otherness to sameness (Levinas, 1987). In so doing, we act as if we know what is best for the other, which requires a projection, under a claim of knowing who this other is, hence reducing his or her otherness to something we already know. In this sense, Todd (2003b) reminds us in quoting Derrida (1978), that this is also the case with the theory we construct as scholars: As Derrida warns us: “rhetoric may amount to the violence of theory, which reduces the other when it leads the other, whether through psychology, demagogy, or even pedagogy which is not instruction.” If pedagogy is not instruction, Derrida intimates, then it is a rhetoric which does violence because it seeks to shape, influence, and ‘lead’ the other in a particular direction without consideration for persons as distinct subjects of difference. (Todd, 2003, p. 7)

How can we, as researchers, curriculum designers, and even teachers and students, engage in curriculum work so that we encounter the difficult gift of the strange that the presence of an other presents, while grappling with the increasing homogenization and universalization of curricula, especially in a time when these problematic conceptualizations and practices are compounded by contemporary international trends within the new knowledge economy? This is despite professed claims of aiming to take into account the systemic nature and national particularities of knowledge and its creation (OECD, 2000), but which instead tend to construct authoritative discourses of knowledge as commodity, and teachers and students as clients or consumers. In the light of these constraining managerialisms and totalizing discourses, how do we call for important educational and curricular changes (Bacchus, 2006)? Debates about what matters in education within a paradigm driven increasingly by neoliberal economic globalization are marginalized. Consequently, it is not surprising to notice how mathematics education has become a tool of cultural imperialism through emphasis on

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“prescriptions,” “skills,” “outcomes,” and “accountabilities,” thereby draining curriculum designers’, teachers’, and students’ actions of their ethical capacity to choose otherwise (Neyland, 2007). In these terms, education’s purpose has become standardized and foreclosed in ways where nuance, ambiguity, controversy, and difference have no critically debatable place (Swanson, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2011), a condition that is becoming globally endemic as curricula conform to each other and the now universal “common sense” of what is educationally “effective” becomes ubiquitous.1 The challenge of appreciating individual, contextual, and cultural differences in themselves, and not merely in how they relate to the unitary of universals in which human beings are “all the same,” is particularly important in the case of international curriculum work. From an ethical perspective, when curriculum is conceived of merely as a text prescribing a course of work for a class of students (in other words, curriculum as development rather than understanding; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995), it becomes obvious that those involved with the educational process, both teachers and students, tend to be less present to the differences of one to another. In fact, as a result of the scientific management of education organized on the assembly-line model (Neyland, 2010), this is a primary source of emotional and psychological disengagement in educational contexts. Expected to behave and think in terms of some authority’s idea of what is “right” for their nation’s economy, often disguised under rhetoric of student wellbeing, and in ways that attempt to constitute their identities as “ideal students” for the nation-state, these students are consequently judged in terms of success or failure according to these curricular-driven criteria (see Swanson, 2002, 2005, 2010a). In this sense, knowledge is constituted as content rather than that which is constantly reconstituted between learners. It is viewed as assimilatory, preauthored and as fixed understandings of the way the world is and works. That is, we tend to neglect being authentically present to “the other” in recognition of their being fully worthy human beings. This is to say that in such a deliberate and authentic act of recognition, there is the purpose of finding meaning in the very act of knowing with and for one another as contingently mutualistic and in a condition of humble togetherness (Swanson, 2007). In this chapter, we recall those ideas and, with the example provided by an excerpt of a 7th grade mathematics lesson, articulate the need and the meaning of an important turn in/for our field: a turn from curriculum as “text” to curriculum as “pretext.” Drawing on literature from the field leading to such a view, our intention is to address the question of international curriculum work from the perspective of what we can offer on the basis of how the making of curriculum can be ethically conceived. That is, we discuss the ethical significance of such a turn, and conclude by drawing attention to what it proposes for curriculum work in a global context.

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Ethics and Curriculum The traditional view in which curriculum is understood as national curriculum, that is “a common programme of study in schools that is designed to ensure nationwide uniformity of content and standards in education” (Oxford Dictionaries Online). From such a perspective, curriculum somehow leads one to think in terms of generic, disembodied teachers working with similarly faceless, feelingless, uniformized students. This is particularly salient in the case of large-scale and international implementations, often driven by international mathematics curricula and initiatives such as PISA and TIMSS studies.2 Mathematics, despite centuries of development in various societies, is generally thought of as culturally free in nature and, for that reason, is well known for its contribution in deliberate strategies of acculturation at local, national, and international levels (e.g., Bishop, 1995; Swanson, 2010a; Willinsky, 1998). Despite obvious contextual, cultural, and historical discrepancies between teachers’, students’, or curriculum designers’ everyday realities, mathematical concepts are most often perceived as universal and distinct from cultural bias, nuance, or situatedness. This gives rise to pedagogic implementation that reifies skills-based learning in ways that internationally universalize student learning in mathematics and ignore appropriateness of context, culture, and way of life. In this sense it is dehumanizing. When such a perspective serves as a guideline, curriculum practices tend to homogenize students and teachers through an increased striving towards standardization. Even pluralistic orientations taking into account slightly differing needs, socio-cultural background, or “learning styles” end up reducing students to what is “known” about them and their cognition in terms of set psychological and cultural criteria. In other words, students are objectified, psycholgized, and even pathologized as learners when thought of as differing from “the norm” (see Swanson, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2006; Zevenbergen, 1997, 2003). From the ethical perspective developed in the work of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, such situations pose important social justice questions that reciprocate with ethical ones. Levinas’ ethics is one of responsibility for the other (Levinas, 1998) that emphasizes alterity: a positive view of the very otherness of the other. For Levinas, we are, as human beings, in a primordial relationship with others, and these relations summon us to be present and responsive to the uniqueness and unknowability of others. In contrast with more traditional versions of morality aimed at formulating universal principles and societal codes of conduct, this ethics of alterity focuses on situated encounters, ones full of surprises, contradictions and ambiguities. Indeed, it conceptualizes the ethical impossibility of essentializing human beings. In this sense, it opposes the idea of directing one’s conduct by means of a moral code. In any attempt to direct actions on the basis of

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some essentialized knowledge about the other, we reduce him/her to such understandings and thereby suspend his or her alterity (Levinas, 1987) by collapsing the difference of the other into the “sameness” with oneself. This is particularly poignant, but often goes unnoticed, when acting in the interests of the other or claiming to speak for or on the other’s behalf. Similarly, any effort to “pass on” or transmit knowledge, which we hear in the language of knowledge transfer or knowledge mobilization discourses, also positions the other (a student, a teacher, a “developing nation” curriculum developer, or a learner or teacher constructed in terms of gender, race, class, caste, ethnicity, disability, or another realization of social difference discourse) as a known entity toward which we have politically instrumental intentions. It could be argued that this “claiming to know” about and on behalf of the other is a form of conquering, another form of psychological, symbolic, and pedagogic colonization. In contrast, Levinas presents the need for knowledge to be something in and which we find ourselves in true proximity with the other: knowledge not as something that comes between self and other, as a filter or an object to be transmitted in vehicular style, but something ever negotiated and eternally created in the liminality of the in-between. Knowing, in these terms, can be conceived as the sustenance in which we realize our fundamental sociality: the togetherness constitutive of, and constituted by, our relation to the other and his or her alterity. Ethical responsibility then means engaging with the other otherwise than on the basis of some essence that would, even before the encounter, define me and him/her as beings in relation as a pre-discourse, a foreclosed reality about our objectified identities. Instead, what becomes possible is a form of action and relation between, say, teacher and student, one that embraces knowing as always-already-knowing-with (Maheux, 2010). This is not to dismiss the possibility of a power relations differential between student and teacher forming a hierarchy of authority structured within the social domain, but to more deeply consider this in the encounter as one of “humbly together” (Swanson, 2007, 2009) knowing-with, rather than a form of pre-authored knowing-against or on behalf of the other. That is to say, we can only agree with Smith (2006) when he writes that “the most important challenge for curriculum work in the new millennium may be to develop the ability to deconstruct precisely as theory the unquestioned assumptions underwriting regnant forms of global economic procedure” (p. 82). Caught up in the ideological tenets of neoliberalism, curriculum as an intended course of study designed to ensure standardization is colonizing and in this sense is a contradiction to Levinas’ ethics. With a sense of hopefulness, some newer conceptualizations of curriculum tend to emerge from the recent ethical turn in educational research (e.g., Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) in which the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas is gradually increasing its reach in the educational research arena.

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To illustrate the range of interest in Levinas’ work, we note a collection of articles published under the title Levinas and Education (Egéa-Kuehne, 2008), in which several scholars explain how the philosopher invokes for them a re-think of educational issues. Some question the brutal struggle for justice, the desirability of trying to resolve educational paradox once and for all, the current denial of the very possibility of learning from another as a conscious subject, or the neoliberal requirement of social and pedagogical goals by means of which the value of teachers (and students) is to be measured. For other researchers, Levinas’ ideas inspire reflection upon the erosion of the teacher’s ethical responsibility for the students in our technocratic educational systems (Neyland, 2005), lay the foundations for social justice and critical mathematics education (Atweh, 2007), remind us of the violence that sometimes comes with teaching (Khan, 2009; Swanson, 2010b; Todd, 2003b), or draw attention to the need to celebrate alterity in education as a means to break with traditional epistemologies (Radford, 2008). It is also “making the unknowable a priority” over what is or can be known (Abunuwara, 1998; Zembylas, 2005). That is, Levinas’ work encourages a desire to rethink education starting from our own practices. It is a matter of engaging with and responding to Levinas rather than (in an instrumental fashion that would miss the ethical point of the philosopher’s message) trying to apply his work (Todd, 2003a). What, then, are the consequences of this in terms of international curriculum work? In line with Derrida’s warning about “the violence of theory, which reduces the other,” engaging Levinas means asking ourselves how our thinking and knowing about curriculum in times when educators around the world are increasingly being required to conform to standardized curricula, cookie-cutter “best practices,” democracy-leaching accountabilities, and universalizing policy dictates; we perpetuate these current modes, resist them, and/or try to pose meaningful, ethical alternatives where the responsibility to the other lies at the heart of all decision-making and approaches to educational practice. In this regard, what does it ask us as curriculum workers? Indeed, when Levinas examines the composition of responsibility and the relational nature of knowing, he turns our attention to the fact that we are always “hostage” to our ethical relations with others. Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we accept or deny it, our very possibility for knowing arises from sociality. We know because there are others to know with, and although knowledge is always, Levinas says, a solitude, when receptive to Levinas’ ethic, we necessarily find ourselves thinking or acting with another in concrete moments of knowing. As a result, despite a cognizing orientation that places us in ethical negation of alterity, there is always a surplus of humanity forcing us to adapt and reconstitute our thinking and orientation to the other and enact responsiveness to individuals and situa-

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tions. What are the possibilities for our actions as we carry on curriculum work to truly embody an ethics of alterity? At this point, we could review numerous curriculum theorists’ perspectives and discuss how each one helps us think with Levinas about the question of ethics in international curriculum work. It might be useful to evoke Madeleine Grumet (1988), for instance, when she conceives curriculum “as an aspiration, the object and hope of our intentionality” (p. 131) rather than a set of expected outcomes. Or William Pinar’s (e.g., Pinar & Reynolds, 1992) notion of currere shifting from curriculum as a noun to curriculum as a verb, if not Ted Aoki’s (1993) “lived curriculum” as opposed to “curriculum-as-plan” (p. 201). We want, however, to be able to ground such discussion in some actual, concrete experiences of curriculum so that the reader can engage with us in the kind of curriculum work we are doing, that is, what Macdonald (1975) called “reconceptualization”: a creative intellectual task to develop new ways to talk about curriculum, here grounded in observation, although neither to be used as a basis for prescription or as an empirically testable set of principles. Hence, to examine possibilities of curriculum work in light of Levinas’ ethics, and what could be seen as concrete, observable consequences of not doing so, we introduce, in the next section, an episode from a North American mathematics classroom. We will then examine this episode in relation to the official state curriculum that was “implemented” (noting the metaphorical idea inherited from Latin implere, “to fill up,” which became implementum, “a fulfillment”). With this in mind, we will then move to discussing how Levinas helps us to think about curriculum not in terms of text, but as pretext, and examine what it might mean when conceptualizing international curriculum work. Curriculum in Practice A Classroom Episode The following episode is taken from a North American mathematics classroom. It features Karen, a 7th grade teacher, and her students in a lesson about the concept of slope. We don’t know Karen or her students, but we found this piece of video publicly available on the Internet, introduced as an exemplar of how a teacher may “guide her class through a lively algebra lesson.” Indeed, Karen’s classroom runs smoothly, but with great intensity. In the writing of this chapter, we debated whether or not we would offer the reader a link to the episode, and decided not to as the lesson was not produced in the course of research. Our interest here is simply to provide the reader with a snippet of what curriculum can look like in practice, and to raise questions about what can or cannot be seen from such a perspec-

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tive, and then reflect on how we might engage with such material in our own curriculum work. The five minute video begins with Karen gesturing with a hand-made poster that reads, “Algebra: Meet Joe. Joe teaches us about four types of lines”: Karen: Class, Students: Yes. K: Today we are gonna learn about the slopes of lines. Now there are four types of line . . .  Student: Shh! K: We have lines that go up, lines that go down, horizontal lines and vertical lines (moving her left arm as in Figure 7.1). Karen continues by asking the student to “mirror” the explanation she repeats (speech and gestures), and next she has the students explain it to one another. The whole classroom engages in a lively fashion as students turn to their assigned partner. Regaining the class’s attention, Karen checks off a “point” on the board as reward for their “correct” answers, and then goes back to the topic. She tells the story of Joe, who walks from right to left along those “lines” in the plane. She once again involves the students in her talk and gesture, explaining that “when Joe is standing on the line that goes up, he walks up the line, then the slope is positive,” whereas it is negative when Joe goes down, and zero when he walks horizontally. In the case of vertical lines, as Joe walks to the right, Karen continues, he “falls off the line and breaks in so many pieces that he is ‘undefined.’ We cannot define him as Joe anymore.” Karen again requires that the students mimic her gestures and re-explain to one another Joe’s story. After one more time repeating her entire explanation, mimicked by the students, in almost the same terms, rhythm, and gestures, Karen finally ar-

Figure 7.1  “We have lines that go up, lines that go down, horizontal lines and vertical lines.”

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rives at the “quiz.” While she points at various graphs displayed on a whiteboard, the students identify whether the slope is positive, negative, zero, or undefined. We can see, when watching closely, moments of hesitation in the students’ responses. But as a group, it seems that they “get it right” in the end. The class then obtains another “point” and Karen positively concludes: K: So it looks like you guys are understanding how to figure out what slope is, hum, nice job today. Looking Into What Is Taking Place Many North American mathematics educators, researchers, or curriculum designers would strongly react to Karen’s lesson. Others might endorse it as an example of a direct instruction approach. From a progressive education perspective, it might be easy to denigrate her teaching for being too procedural, not being conceptual or student-centered enough, and so on. With Levinas in mind, however, and with the idea of thinking about international curriculum work in the balance of the local and the global, the micro and the macro, in the awareness of the fact that what we think and do here contributes to the larger picture that affects what is taking place there, what would a more open, ethically oriented attitude begin with? We started by asking ourselves: On what basis do we believe there are objectively better ways to introduce line slopes? Could not Karen be responding to particular needs or expectations, a vision of pedagogy? In what ways might we be able to dialogue with her and those with a similar approach, and explore the various possibilities, diverse forms of response, enabled by such, and others, teaching practices? Ethics quickly comes in because we are not privy to Karen’s thinking, we do not and cannot know what she has in mind, what policy and curricular constraints she is under within the school, what the parent body expects from her as “good practice,” or why she decided to teach her lesson that way; nor can we assess what the students actually got out of it. To compensate for these kinds of limitations, from a research perspective one could rely on using follow-up interviews or discussions to explore the thinking behind the actions. In doing so, we might ascertain that Karen “rationally” conceptualized each one of her actions, performed her teaching accordingly, and was able to verbalize her thinking in action. We are then forced into taking those two moments in thinking as one and the same, hence completely neglecting the students’ input in that thinking, or we might impose our own interpretation of what would be Karen’s thinking about her actions in trying to ascertain what was guiding her in the action itself (once again neglecting the part of the students). When it comes to appreciating what a teacher

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or a student might be thinking in the making of curriculum “in practice,” we can’t avoid speculation, and in this, we reduce the others (the teacher and her student) and their otherness to our understanding of them—that is, Levinas explains, to ourselves, to something we know and know already: to sameness. An ethical orientation to curriculum in practice, and to local practices as ways of knowing that can contribute to “creating transnational ‘spaces’ in which local knowledge traditions in curriculum inquiry can be performed together” (Gough, 1998) rather than a translation of local representations of curriculum into a universal discourse, demands accepting not to know what students or teachers might be thinking. This applies similarly to the “internationalization” of curriculum studies as well. What we can do, on the other hand, is first of all to examine what Karen and her students are offering us to see. In this short episode, we observe the teacher using narrative anecdotes, and those seem to provide a good basis for (short-term at the least) memory work. She uses gestures, rhythm, and intonation, which give her talk intensity, and she has the students repeat her action for themselves and for one another. As a result, the students manage to correctly identify the terms “positive,“ “negative,“ “zero,” and “undefined” with something that resembles graphs of linear functions. Whereas some might critique Karen for not enabling a mathematical comprehension of the concept, others could argue that this is actually “good practice,” because asking for deep conceptual understanding is not necessary in such circumstances, or it may be too difficult for the student to reach, or it may undermine their mathematical confidence by asking too much of them: little do we know. Do not students themselves often come up with and use such techniques? Certainly, one might point to some capricious aspects of Karen’s story. For example, while Joe’s change in position “up” and “down” leads to characterizing the slope as “positive” and “negative,” it is his state of being broken “in so many pieces” that explains why the slope is undefined rather than negative, despite the fact that Joe clearly moves down when he “falls.” These could have been avoided by an algebraic interpretation to support Karen’s explanation, but on the other hand there are many conventional aspects to Cartesian graphs (e.g., positive and negative directions, the intersection at zero, etc.). Graphs are very complex, historically constituted cultural mathematical entities that only slowly become part of students’ mathematical life. In this short episode, what the teacher does is to provoke an encounter between the students and that complex object, talk and gesture about it with the students, present the graph and the idea of slope as somehow friendly mathematical objects they can engage with—should it only be in a superficial manner? Ethically speaking, this is not to say that no question can be asked regarding teachers’ and students’ activity, but quite importantly, it means that allknowing answers cannot be provided. A key idea running through Levinas’ ethics is the impossibility to know the other, to understand him or her, to

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have answers as to what is the best for him or her. Trying to comprehend the other, and then assert whether she was doing right or wrong negates otherness and turns the other into a known entity toward which we have instrumental intentions. However, observing what takes place in the interaction between teachers and students as curriculum comes to life shows that questions should actually be asked. Obviously, there is no discussion, in those five minutes, about conventions and where they might be coming from. No consideration is given to why lines might be considered to have slope, no evocation of what representations in a plane mean and why we use them. Further, we observed many times how thinking of slope in terms of a displacement along lines in a graph often leads students to make literal interpretations. Conceptual difficulties increase when other types of values are represented on the graph (acceleration, percentage, money, and so on), when non-linear functions are introduced (e.g., parabolas), or even more simply, obstacles arise when dealing with situations such as the one depicted in Figure 7.2, in which many students tend to describe slopes as hills instead of noticing how they correspond to speed (ratio between time and distance). We say that questions should be asked with regard to what is taking place, but they need to be questions that will enable us to embrace our responsi-

Figure 7.2  A graph in which a positive slope means going faster, not going up.

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bility for the other and his or her otherness by experiencing it rather that looking for ways to shut it down in conformity. That is, questions should be asked that can enable dialogue, an encounter developing not on the basis that there might be an objectively better way to introduce line slopes, or with the intention to capture the particular needs or the vision of pedagogy Karen might be responding to, but a conversation to explore the various possibilities, diverse forms of response, imaginable teaching practices, and in dialogue to realize these possibilities. From such a perspective, we can discuss with Karen the importance of learning about slope as the ability to understand given situations, or other mathematical phenomena (like the concept of ratio). We can dialogue on the sustainability of forms of engagement that have short-term benefits for the students, but might be problematic for mathematical development in the longer term. In other words, we can respond to Karen by engaging with her and not merely on the basis of what we (think we) know about her, about students, about mathematics, or about teaching and learning, but mostly by offering ourselves to her (and her students’) presence and actions. In between local renderings of curriculum in practice and the global issues implicated in international curriculum development, Levinas’ ethics may open to a productive tension. As Pinar (2003) puts it: The accelerating and expanding complexity of our work as curriculum scholars . . . calls upon us to continue to make scholarly efforts toward the self-conscious understanding of our work and the work of teachers and students in the schools, all of us situated culturally, historically, and now, we are acutely clear, globally. (p. 25)

In this global awareness, Levinas’ ethics asks us to think through our actions in the encounter with the everyday, the local, which in turn can inform us on how, globally, we might address the question of curriculum in and as international development. Karen and her students speak to us, in a very concrete and immediate manner, of the ethical impossibility to know what teachers or students might know or intend to do, let alone to control it by means of a curriculum. And at the same time, it tells us something very valuable about the ethical possibility to work around this situation by engaging with them, and promoting such engagement between them. What if curriculum were thought of as an ostensible purpose, an occasion for curriculum developers, teachers and students to engage with one another, and with ideas and diverse ways of being and doing? From local perspectives, as it seems, such a proposition also applies when we globally think about how we conceive and realize curriculum work, a process in which we think and work trans-locally without the violence of universalisms because translocally it is at the service of complexity, cultural diversity, recognition of particular histories, and so on.

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A State Document Before making any more observations about Karen and her lesson, let us have a look at the California state curriculum (Lundin, 2006): the one within which Karen works. What we want to do here is simply to bring into question, together with what we observe in Karen’s classroom, some of the elements that other curriculum workers—the designers of “framework for California public schools”—perform when they, too, put curriculum into practice, here in the form of a state document. We do this again to help us think about how we can conceive of our own contributions in the perspective of international curriculum work, and in the light of Levinas’ ethics. The current California state curriculum was prepared by experienced developers, (the editor has been involved in curriculum design since at least 1993, assisted by similarly experienced consultants), involving an impressive number of commissions and its members (listed in the document) and which was finally approved by a state commission. Emphasizing a balance of procedural skills and conceptual understanding, it insists on engaging students in active, in-depth mathematical activity. The program then presents “key standards” broken down into “focus statements” indicating “discrete skills and concepts” to be mastered by the students. The document states that “one of the first tasks required of a school district is to determine its students’ current achievement levels [for the] attainment of all the content standards” (Lundin, 2006, p. 229) in good part by “establishing clear goals that are focused on students’ learning of the mathematical content standards” (Lundin, 2006, p. 241). About the level of Grade 7 algebra, according to the state curriculum, “it is expected that” students will “graph linear functions and understand the idea of slope and its relation to ratio” (p. 68) so that they “understand that the slope of the line equals the ratio of the [represented] quantities” (p. 73). There are no special requirements regarding signs of slopes, or the concept of undefined ratio, but the document is not very rich either in relation to the considerable amount of research around graphing (e.g., Haimes, 1996), classroom communication (e.g., Chronaki & Christiansen, 2005), the role of emotions (e.g., Byrd, 1982), or even the practice of relational understanding (Skemp, 1976). To give but a glimpse of some of the views one might read in mathematics educational research about such aspects mentioned above, especially in the North American context where “progressive education” has such a foothold in curricular development, a number of publications stress the importance of having students articulate various forms of representation for themselves when they study graphs (Acuna, 2002; Duval, 1999). The emphasis is a move away from dependency education and transmission-based learning. Research on mathematical communication often attests to how “math-talk” might ask students to produce questions, explanations, elabora-

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tions, and justifications (Hufferd-Ackles, Fuson, & Gamoran-Sherin, 2004; Webb, 1991). While stressing the importance of multimodality in classroom mathematical communication, researchers also insist that gestures, for example, need to be considered for reflexive mathematical activity (e.g., Radford, 2009). Similarly, many studies highlight the importance of emotion to support students’ engagement in high-level cognitive actions (Debellis & Goldin, 1991; Roth, 2007). Reading Between the Lines State curricula, as we know, are often quite controversial as well, among scholars, teachers, and within the population. Whereas some critique, on various bases, excessive student-centeredness, others, on the contrary, find most curricula to depend strongly on a dependency model of engagement where students are still mostly expected to follow their teachers to get where they want them to go. To take the perspective of research, one could argue that looking at students’ achievement levels presupposes that these instruments of assessment are valid in the sense that what they measure about the student corresponds to something “true.” This, however, would be strongly challenged by scholars (including many in the field of curriculum studies) who reject notions of a single existing truth from post-structural perspectives. Many voices can be heard in favor of ensuring standardization in achievement, while critical perspectives strongly reject such a model for pathologizing and colonizing students, thus coercively reproducing social inequities. And similarly, it can be argued by some that the progressive model for education also relies on a fixed, nonnegotiated conception of what is right for students, therefore somewhat authoritarian and coercive in orientation, which begs the question: where are the diverse student voices. On the other hand, the curriculum developers who produced this document can also feel misunderstood. After all, they do not merely repeat researchers’ observations but somehow translate them for specific meaning and specific audience, negotiating their way within a context that has little to do with that of many scholars. A state curriculum certainly presents legitimate curriculum work, an attempt at making things “work.” But on the other hand, we also notice significant differences between what the curriculum demands and, for example, Karen’s lesson. Is this another instance of misunderstanding, where a teacher makes sense of what is expected from her in a way that does not coincide with the intent of the curriculum designers? Or even better, can this difference be understood as the observation that curriculum can never be enacted “by the book,” that pedagogy cannot be restricted from the outside, because this would require an impossible

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isolation of oneself from others, a denial of the in-between spaces in which what we do is always with and for others? As it seems, taking an authoritarian perspective as to what is said by researchers or curriculum designers is always extremely problematic. There is an obvious need to “read” what others have written, to interpret it, to adapt it, to be responsive to other voices in the room and not do them violence by means of abstract documents, should they be research papers or a state curriculum, a textbook. Thinking about curriculum work in one or another form of telling the other what to do naturally leads to leaching the other (the curriculum designer, the teacher, and, ultimately, the student) from their capacity to critically think through and determine what is best for themselves and with one another. Despite or because of years of research and billions of dollars invested in the “improvement” of teaching and learning, practices of curriculum development or implementation have a strongly authoritative bent. There is a visible lack of responsiveness between research, curriculum development, and classroom renderings. This situation easily produces conditions in which curriculum designers, teachers, and students do not engage with one another on the basis of their alterity. They somehow, Levinas might say, miss one another by giving most of their attention to abstracted, decontextualized and universalized knowledge to be passed on, bit by bit. This, we argue in the next section, comes with an orientation to curriculum as “text,” as opposed to the ethical notion of curriculum as “pretext” for the encounter with the other in his or her alterity. From Text to Pretext Mathematics educators are well aware that books and journals are full of texts presenting observations, developing ideas, constructing frameworks, and so on, mostly aimed at the improvement of (mathematics) education. This search for improvement, we may come to realize, is also ideologically informed and often makes invisible important questions in relation to curriculum work, especially in the context of international development. Seldom do we ask why improvement is required and what we mean by that; rarely do we discuss if there might be more important things for students than studying, say, mathematics. Hardly do we ever wonder if there are other ways of being in the world that don’t require (usually coercively) that students “improve.” As an example, Gutstein (2003), who is a critical mathematics educator, promotes the right to hate mathematics, not to have to study it, hence challenging the assumptions that are made about mathematics education, our often-hidden ideological assumptions about how one ought to be in the world.

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On the other hand, we are also familiar with the distinction between the written curriculum and teachers and students’ actual lived experiences: “This lived curriculum . . . [is not] laid out in a plan, but a plan more or less lived out [and] deserves the label ‘curriculum’ as much as the plan deserves the label ‘curriculum-as-plan’” (Aoki, 1993, p. 201). When we understand that teaching is dealing with an open dynamic environment, we know that any task prescribed by a curriculum is redefined by the teachers and their students (e.g., Robert & Rogalski, 2005). We also realize this means that what is actually learned by the students cannot simply be placed in terms of a body of knowledge to be transmitted. In other words, a “recontextualization” process occurs (Bernstein, 2000). As a result, new ways of conceiving the curriculum begin to emerge. Rather than merely defining “what should children learn, in what sequence, and by what methods” (Egan, 2003, p. 15), educational communities might start thinking of curriculum as the possible role it might play to which purposes in education. In other words, what values and ideals are important, as opposed to which abstract concepts are to be transmitted (see Swanson, 2010b)? In other terms, we might think of curriculum in schools in terms of guiding teachers, by means of principles and features of the educational encounter, to “encourage conversations between, and with, people in the situation” (Smith, 2000). One way to characterize this turn is to think of curriculum in terms of the difference between the words “text” and “pretext.” Curricula are traditionally considered on the basis of their content, of the written words and the specific ideas they index. Many curriculum developers, like Pinar et al. (1995), critique this outmoded conception, but in dominant practices, as the state document we briefly examined illustrated, curricula are still often like the Tables of the Law: prescriptions with set expectations of teachers to teach in a particular way, valued as best practice, and of students to learn in what is deemed to be the right or most effective way also. The prescriptive nature of curricular documents is easily evident in the state curriculum document discussed above (e.g., see pages 283–286), typifying in its most static form the idea of curriculum as “text.” In recent years, curriculum as text began to take on a very different meaning. From a hermeneutical perspective, text is to be taken not as it is in itself, but as appropriated by those who use it. That is, curriculum is then understood as having diverse meanings, whereas interpretation is key. Starting from Pinar and colleagues’ (1995) proposition to understand the curriculum field as “discourse, as text . . . a form of articulation that follows certain rules and which constructs the very object it studies” (p. 7), emphasis is given to the language that characterizes curriculum and, in return, shapes it. From this perspective, different kinds of curriculum texts are identified: curriculum as aesthetic text, (where curriculum is art and artistic experience, and teachers, as curriculum workers, are artists), cur-

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riculum as institutionalized text, (concerned with the structure of schools, curriculum planning and design, supervision and evaluation), or in terms of racial, gender, or politically based issues, and so on. However, from the perspective of Levinas’ ethics, Pinar and colleagues’ intention to contrast the “unethical and epistemologically unsound” effort in dominant curriculum work to “quantify the immeasurable” (Pinar & Reynolds, 1992, p. 1) exceeds curriculum as text. Although curriculum is understood as deconstructed and deconstructing text, it remains a series of narratives “in which the listener, the ‘narratee,’ may become a character, or indeed the narrator” (Pinar & Reynolds, 1992, p. 7). In doing so, curriculum is still essentializing the other, teachers or students, because it imposes on them a story in which they are to play certain roles, and on the basis of what seems to be the most important issues for them in the eyes of the curriculum designers. Even if interpretation is central, with curriculum as text, in a noble endeavor, from a hermeneutical point of view, to center education on meaning-making (Soumlhnge & van Niekerk, 2005), the focus is not on the other and his or her otherness. With Van Manen’s (1988) proposition, curriculum as text has to be oriented, strong, rich and deep in order to bring the student to historically defined “meaning structures” embedded in the curriculum language. If not prescriptive, curriculum is still what Kieren (1995) describes as envaluative: It engages a teacher to try to ascribe value to whatever the students are doing, listen to them to find an intellectual model for their actions or accept . . . only if she can make sense or accept their divergences. The idea of curriculum as text highlights the difficulties of conceiving of curriculum as object, such as a document or one which conceives of knowledge as content rather than relationally co-constructed with the other. At one extremity, we find a positivist, managerialist mindset within which perfectible, explicit curricular statements should lead to “effective management” of teaching and learning. At the other end, we see a hermeneutical perspective that still requires one to oversee the other and “guide” him or her to one’s ways of thinking and doing. In other words, an iron fist in a velvet glove. Alternatively, we suggest that the picture is quite different when curriculum is rather seen as pretext in the sense of an ostensible purpose, an excuse, an occasion for teachers and students to engage with ideas and diverse ways of being and doing—ways that reflect an ethical concern for how we might be in relationship with each other. In curriculum as pretext, the written document does not present itself as a cookbook, or novel. Often lengthily discussing rationales, the text develops philosophical ideas as to what can be done, why it might be done in a particular way. It indicates possible ideals, resources, processes, potential contexts, and suggests that students play with the relations between ideas, rather than just focus on the concepts or “skills” themselves as something only to “acquire.” Recognizing

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that curriculum as “text” can never exactly prescribe what teachers and students should actually do, and that there is no surety in what they may learn from a particular approach, curriculum should never be conceived of as an action plan, but as a resource that teachers might use to think through pedagogical approaches in preparing lessons with their students. Whereas concepts, processes, or facts might be offered, pretext in this sense provides more room for students to explore areas of knowledge themselves based on what happens in the classroom and in their lives. Such perspectives aim at overcoming the problem of divergent individual curricula. For example, in Kieren’s (1995) proposition for mathematics curricula: The teacher holds open possibilities, expects students to act on their own structures but explain their thinking for the community and because the teacher uses proscriptive logic, the curriculum as lived in the classroom is large. Each student participates in the curriculum in a way which co-verges with his colleagues. The teacher shares responsibility with the students for the world of mathematical significance they bring forth. (p. 22)

In such a view, curriculum acknowledges the circularity of experience “casting education not merely as an interpretive process but as one which plays an active role in the continual re-configuring of individual and collective identities” (Davis, Sumara, & Kieren, 1996, p. 167), where students are given occasions to genuinely generate knowledge with their teachers instead of merely reproducing or reporting on what is “accepted,” pre-authored knowledge. Concerned with allowing for the unexpected, curriculum as pretext permits a view of teaching and learning as truly conversational. In other words, it has less to do with the Socratic dialogue in which questions (as exemplified in an earlier genre of textbooks) seem to aim at provoking predefined and narrow answers, but in an authentic reciprocity of perspectives, offering a multiplicity of possible answers or ways of viewing the question, so that curriculum does not impose itself as a “violence of the universal,” but helps teachers situate searches for and constructions of meaning with the students (Greene, 1975). What of Karen’s 7th grade mathematics classroom, then? On the one hand, we clearly see how the official curriculum still embodies a “textual” orientation, presenting itself as a structure of prescribed knowledge. We can perhaps understand Karen’s lesson as presenting mathematics as text, not as a pretext for discussions, for genuine meaning-making in the backand-forth of engaging with ideas, with another, or with some concrete observations. Besides that, its relation to the state document illustrates the limits of thinking in terms of curriculum as historical and contemporary discourses (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 2003). The document itself necessarily reflects a certain (standards-based) perspective in which some of the relevant research literature is interpreted. But even that dis-

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course hardly resonates with our observations in Karen’s lesson. When she performs curriculum with her students, she is all in between the lines, nevertheless oriented toward an object of knowledge she manages, by many means, to make ostensible: “So it looks like you guys are understanding how to figure out what slope is, hum, nice job today.” Curriculum as pretext is about challenging this violence that seeks to shape, influence, and lead the other (the teacher, the student), and placing education at the service of encountering the other. Curriculum as text is thus a means of thinking in terms of international curriculum work to the violence of theory that reduces the other. We have in mind the necessity to recognize, in a global world, the systemic nature and local particularities of knowledge and its creation as performed by teachers and students. From an ethical perspective, we conceptualize the importance of turning ourselves, and all curriculum workers (teachers, students, academics, researchers, designers) to one another and to what we do, and do not do, in regards to engaging with the otherness of the other. The challenge of culture and context, we argue, is one of encountering the other through curriculum work, both locally and globally, as we engage with one another. One might ask why it is that curriculum-as-pretext still hardly finds its way to our state departments and to our classroom. What more are we missing so that curriculum development could actually move us beyond the temptation of seeing education through objectively defined knowledge to be attended to, appropriated, and measured in a “right” or “wrong” fashion, objectifying, essentializing, categorizing, and pathologizing learners and teachers along the way? Answers to those questions are plentiful. It could be argued that the current state of economic neoliberal globalization is to blame (Swanson, 2010b). In this sense, some accuse the political establishment that supports an economic utopia of the scientific management of education (Neyland, 2005). Each of these would testify to the importance of considering the idea of curriculum as pretext rather than the authoritarian text as it is usually conceived. In recent years, there appears to be an increasing understanding of curriculum as pretext. With the reorientation undertaken by scholars in curriculum theory, although (as we discussed) sometimes still caught in a reducing orientation in which we miss the encounter with the other (Levinas, 1998), important headway has been made. It is now largely accepted, despite dominant practice, that curriculum not only concerns what happens between teachers and students, but between teachers and curriculum developers, and other stakeholders, as well. Curriculum work is not merely about producing text, but is in the opening up of dialogue with policymakers, parents, teachers, students, and so on (Dobson, 2003). Calling upon us to “join them right in the middle of their conversation” (Aoki, 1993,

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p. 215), such an orientation to curriculum more than ever needs to be heard as contributions in the “constant processes of engaging, questioning, choosing, taking action and becoming in relation, not only to primordial landscapes but also to multiple and different others” (Miller, 2010, p. 138). In this way, we can realize the reconceptualization of curriculum through considering how it is created (Grimmett & Halvorson, 2010), and openly construct it as extended conversations, yet truly historical, cultural, everevolving discursive structures (Bleakley, 2009). In the remainder of this chapter, we consider curriculum as pretext in both its pedagogic implications in the classroom as well as curriculum as design, and engage in a conversation about why the shift has crucial ethical importance for educational communities and curriculum work in a global context. The Ethics of Pretext From an ethical perspective, the shift in thinking and practices from curriculum-as-text to curriculum-as-pretext is an important one for educational communities. Levinas’ perspective on “text” not only makes this salient, but it also help us better understand what this move demands of curricular documents and the way we might use them. In 2008, a number of specialists of Levinas’ writing gathered at a conference around the theme “Emmanuel Levinas: The Question of the Book” (Abensour & Kupiec, 2008), in which they highlighted the philosopher’s perspective on written text and its relation to ethics. For Levinas, texts, such as his own philosophical essays, but also discursive concepts, are not mere receptacles of thought or ideas, but speak to conditions of humanity. Texts, in all their media forms, can be recognized as “unfinished conversations,” inherently calling for continuation, and not only interpretation. Texts speak to conditions of humanity because they are “made” of us and are “making” us at the same time: like a textile, it weaves in and is woven by our humanity, a continuous plait of ourselves. For Levinas, a text most certainly “says” something, but what matters most is not what is said, but the “saying” itself. In Levinasian terms, the “said” is closed and authoritative, whereas the “saying” offers an openness, a dialogue, and an avenue towards constant reinscription and reinterpretation. Texts are utterances, just as a person’s expressions in a conversation are (Levinas, 1998). The true power of text then is not to inform, but to inspire, to call upon dialogue, whereas its actual meaning is never detached from the personal history of whoever reads or engages with it, constantly renewed in and through the process of “reading” that finds it relevant to the current activity or thinking. But this interpretative process is not merely a matter of reading the text, the situa-

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tion, or the other. As in curriculum-as-text, including the work of Pinar et al. and others we previously cited, this would mean, for Levinas, reducing the text to the said, and leading the other on the basis of sameness, what I interpret, rather than welcoming otherness. Levinas suggests seeing texts as manifestations of alterity, as coordination with another, as reminders of our ethical responsibility for the other who is central in any meaning one could make of the text, of the act of reading, of oneself. If we think about Karen’s lesson for a moment, we may realize that her lesson in mathematics presents, indeed, a certain understanding of the curriculum she has to work with. There is necessarily a conversation between the text and her, meaning-making on the basis of her own personal experiences. We are not privy to her thinking. She might have made choices based on the coercive nature of the curriculum document, or the expectations from educational administrators or parents. We have no access to the struggles she might be experiencing as ethical dilemmas between “curriculum as expectation” and “curriculum as personal.” Who knows whether she may feel compelled to provide immediate results and short-term satisfaction from students or parents so that she can keep her teaching position. Greatly underestimated is “curriculum as coercion” that lies in the “said” of text. We also might recognize how Karen recontextualizes (Bernstein, 2000) her understandings of a curriculum document and its expectations into concrete choices that, from her perspective, reference the ideals or expected outcomes of the former. In other words, in semiotic terms, the signified becomes something else. And similarly, the document itself is but a reified experience of curriculum developers with other texts. In the most open representation of it as “saying,” it is the result of a dialogue of written and spoken utterances, with all the agonistic processes of negotiation and influence behind the scenes, in which humans realize themselves as languaging beings. Text inherently produces interpretations and conversations, even those, as preachers and lawyers know, like sacred text or codes of law, which present themselves in a monological, prescriptive, indisputable fashion. The “said” is always, necessarily transformed, open to reinscription and reinterpretation, but viewing curriculum as “saying,” it might be considered utterances to which Karen and her students perpetually respond . . . and with their own lives. What then might an ethical curricular orientation to the other look like, whether that other be a student, a teacher, a school administrator, a curriculum developer from another country, or otherwise? The question, indeed, is rooted in how the text presents itself as something to be responded to, in how it offers affordances, and in whether it is a closed “said” or an open, continuous “saying.” That is, when curriculum does not merely impose itself as text, but overtly appears as a pretext for conversations and interpretations in dialogues by means of which students, teachers, and all those in-

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volved engage with one another in dynamic social relations. Such relations are not to be ones obsessed by knowledge as “content,” but knowledge as constantly reconstituted in the interstices between discourses, in the “inbetween.” They are oriented toward the expression of the relationality of being, the very fact that knowing is more mindfully a knowing-with taking place in actual, culturally enabled practices and in a particular setting: a knowing-within (Maheux, 2010). Levinas hence speaks of an artistic appreciation of culture and of one another in an un-thematized wisdom that conserves (from Latin con- “together” + servare “to keep”) alterity in condition “otherwise than knowing” (Levinas, 1988, p. 90). Texts, then, orient to their saying, rather than to what is said, so that they are fully for the other, serving the reader to respond to the alterity he or she encounters (Levinas, 1998). The “text” of curriculum as pretext is one that opens and maintains capabilities and possibilities to always go beyond anything expected, anything already known, provoking (from pro- “forth” + vocare “to call”) sensitivities, appreciations, and responses, which in return also invite the other to further join in the sociocultural world of knowing. It can be argued that curriculum as pretext is ethically oriented because it aims at producing the encounter with the otherness of the other so that we come to know with that other. We want a curriculum that does not merely state expectations but enables multiple interpretations that are ever dialogical and open. Such a pretext escapes the tyranny of pre-authored discourses and a curriculum of closure, elements of which, it can be argued, can be found in events such as those we saw in Karen’s classroom, where there seems to be no true conversation. We therefore propose a curriculum that desists from teaching and learning taking place in the absence of a real celebration of the encounter with others and otherness, a curriculum that recurrently challenges the fiction of knowledge and intelligibility in which students are little more than the teacher’s foil, and teachers themselves act like well-programmed automata. We propose a curriculum as a true invitation to dialogue, hence developing itself as those conversations that try to make sense of these things (Grumet, 1996). In this sense, it is perhaps a pedagogy that tries to make sense of the unintelligible, and make unintelligible that which seems to make so much “universally accepted” sense. In this, we find correspondence with other researchers’ work articulating Levinas’ idea with that of curriculum. We hear the urgent need for an “ethical orientation” to curriculum because “instrumentalism” is debasing education of its true spirit (Neyland, 2005). We hear the desire to see curriculum enabling students and teachers to celebrate their otherness and togetherness in how they relate to the socio-material world (Blades, 2006). We recall the spirit of the ethical philosophy of Levinas, in curricular texts that would invite teachers and students to go beyond what can be planned, appreciate the limitlessness of any subject, and offer a conception of knowl-

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edge as something that neither belongs to the teacher nor is a construct to be “acquired” by the student. It may be, instead, the realization of the relation of self to other (see Standish in Egéa-Kuehne, 2008). This is a curriculum that “lends the substance of learning to become” (Todd, 2003, p.  39) in social proximity with others by engaging teachers and students with alterity. But as text remains text no matter how much it tends to overcome its condition, curriculum as pretext also means, for us as developers or theorists, to advance toward those others and also meet them in a true encounter of their otherness. Curriculum is pretext for the self as well: ever changing, ever evolving, it is a means by which we go beyond content and become involved (from in- “into” + volvere “to roll”) in its articulatory practices, contributing (from con- “with” + tribuere “bestow”) to its interpretations so that curriculum as pretext is also positively realized as a form of knowingwithin. That is, we do not want another form of text distantly handed to teachers, undermining the ethical responsiveness of being open to others’ otherness. Rather than an abandonment of the charge of an ethical reading and writing of the curriculum of the classroom, we might encourage instead a reflexive interrogation of our own practices of “curriculum work” so that this work becomes an ethical response to one another’s otherness, and in the service of the otherness teachers and students encounter with each other and with the ideas they explore together. Coda: Curriculum Work in An International Context Neoliberal economic globalization is unlikely to cease anytime soon. It is most often marked by dehumanized political and economic alliances and thus affects education in a number of ideologically underwritten ways. Nevertheless, globalization has permitted greater complex interconnections and pathways never possible before. In this condition, the upside is the possibility of new forms of relationship that develop between people from all around the world. More and more, officials and educators at the antipodes meet, physically or virtually, to try to work together in inventing new ways to conceive of curriculum and its articulatory practices. In those encounters, as in any, knowledge of the other naturally comes into play, affecting the ethicality of the relationship. We see one another as representative of “developed” versus “developing” countries, for example, or emerging versus well-established democracies, privileged “knowers” of what can be considered to work and “ought to be done,” and “learners” eager to find solutions to what they identify as their problems and situation. As a result, we often fall into patterns typical of what we call cultural imperialism. We often tend

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not only to promote the imposition of dominant Western ideas and ideals, but also to remove curriculum work from the space where teachers, administrators, politicians, and citizens are able to dialogue and debate. That is, curriculum work most often frames itself in terms of text rather than pretext, and thereby sets up ethical impossibilities for curriculum workers, including teachers and students. Advocating curriculum as pretext and embodying such a perspective, however, has the unsettling effect of always opening oneself to the other, and it produces conversations by means of which we make sense of our realities. In such encounters with others, all contributors learn with, for, and from one another. Each and every one reflexively revisits his or her own practices or perceptions, but this is also the means by which challenges and solutions are identified. When curriculum is pretext, conversations are the true work of curricular “innovations,” in the etymological sense of the term (from in- “into” + novare “make new”). From an ethical perspective such as the one developed by Levinas, curriculum as pretext would suggest that knowledge never appears to precede the relation with the other, the ones we meet in face-to-face encounters or in distant relationships. On the one hand, it tells us that “talking slope” with 7th graders is not merely about getting the students to “figure out what slope is” and get it right. In its local classroom teacher–student rendering, curriculum work is placing mathematical activity at the service of teachers and students’ encounter, and alterity. On the other hand, we learn about ourselves, in terms of international work, from Karen’s and her students’ story, together with the ethical, pedagogical impossibilities we saw in relation with their curriculum text intended to guide them. In its global, international dimension, curriculum work is still a matter of encountering the other: the curriculum designer, the teacher, the student, and so on. Curriculum, as we conceptualize it with the ethical philosophy of Levinas, is not, and never will be, the main objective, the subject of these encounters. It is pretext for them, and us, to meet. From this perspective, the challenges of culture and context in international curriculum work are then truly ethical ones. When examined from the perspective of concrete, actual encounters with the other, it is in one’s sense of responsibility to the other, in his or her very otherness, in curriculum as pretext for the appreciation of alterity, that the ethical dimension of curriculum work realizes itself. In this sense, the turn from text to pretext in curriculum work, it can be argued, is always and already a turn in conversation. Notes 1. Macdonald (1975), as we read it, already argued in favor of an analogous position: “individuals [looking] upon the task of theorizing as a creative intel-

From Text to Pretext    167 lectual task which [ . . . ] should be neither used as a basis for prescription or as an empirically testable set of principles and relationships” but “to develop and criticize conceptual schema in hope that new ways of talking about curriculum, which may in the future be far more fruitful than present orientation, will be forthcoming” (p. 6). 2. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) are large-scale studies designed to assess student performance in mathematics, reading, and science. See www.pisa.oecd.org and http://nces.ed.gov/timss.

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168    J-F. MAHEUX, D. SWANSON, and S. KHAN Debellis, V. A., & Goldin, G. A. (1991). Interactions between cognition and affect in high school students’ individual problem solving. In R. G. Underhill (Ed.), Proceedings of the 13th Conference of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, pp. 29–35). Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Derrida, J. (1978) Writing and difference (trans A. Bass). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Dobson, T. (2003, December). Of curricular lacunae: A response to Provoking Curriculum. Educational Insights, 8(2). Available http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/ publication/insights/v08n02/intro/dobson.html Duval, R. (1999). Representations, vision and visualization: Cognitive functions in mathematical thinking. Basic issues for learning. In F. Hitt & M. Santos (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Conference of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, pp. 3–26). Columbus, OH: ERIC Clearinghouse for Science, Mathematics, & Environmental Education. Egan, K. (2003). What is curriculum? Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 1(1), 9–16. Egéa-Kuehne, D. (Ed.). (2008). Levinas and education: At the intersection of faith and reason. New York, NY: Routledge. Gough, N. (1998). Transnational imaginaries in curriculum inquiry: Performances and representations. Paper presented at the AARE Annual Conference. AARE, Adelaide. Retrieved January 2009 from: http://www.aare.edu.au/98pap/ gou98210.htm Greene, M. (1975). Curriculum and consciousness. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.) Curriculum theorizing: the reconceptualists (pp. 299–317). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Grimmett, P. P., & Halvorson, M. (2010). From understanding to creating curriculum: The case for the co-evolution of re-conceptualized design with re-conceptualized curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 40(2), 241–262. Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. Grumet, R. M. (1996). The curriculum: What are the basics and are we teaching them? In J. Kincheloe and S. Steinberg (Eds.), Thirteen questions: Reframing education’s conversations (2nd ed., pp. 15–21). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Gutstein, E. (2003). Teaching and learning mathematics for social justice in an urban, Latino school. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 34, 37–73. Haimes, D. H. (1996). The implementation of a “function” approach to introductory algebra: A case study of teacher cognitions, teacher actions, and the intended curriculum. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27(5), 582–602 Hufferd-Ackles, K., Fuson, K. C., & Gamoran-Sherin, M. (2004). Describing levels and components of a math-talk learning community. Journal of Research in Mathematics Education, 35(2), 81–116. Khan, S. (2009). Performing oneself differently: A mathemaesthethician’s responsibility. Educational Insights, 13(1). Retrieved from http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc. ca/publication/insights/v13n01/articles/khan/index.html

From Text to Pretext    169 Kieren, T. (1995). Teaching in the middle: Enactivist view on teaching and learning mathematics. Paper presented at the Queens/Gage Canadian National Mathematics Leadership Conference: Queens University, Kingston, Canada. Levinas, E. (1987). Time and the other (A. Choen, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, E. (1988). Autrement que savoir. Paris, France: Osiris. Levinas, E. (1998). Otherwise than being or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Lundin, J. (Ed.). (2006). Mathematics framework for California public schools, kindergarten through grade twelve. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/documents/mathfrwk.pdf Macdonald, J. (1975). Curriculum and human interests. In In W. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum theorizing: The reconceptualist. (pp. 283–294). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Maheux, J. F. (2010). How do we know? An epistemological Journey in the day-to-day, moment-to-moment, of researching, teaching and learning in mathematics education. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Victoria, University of Victoria. Miller, J. L. (2010). Curriculum as a consciousness of possibilities. Curriculum Inquiry, 40(1), 125–141. Neyland, J. (2005). Towards an ethically oriented curriculum: Resisting the growth of instrumentalism. Curriculum Matters, 1, 109–129. Neyland, J. (2007). Globalisation, ethics and mathematics education. In B. Atweh et al. (Eds.), Internationalisation and globalisation in mathematics and science education (pp. 113–128). New York, NY: Springer. Neyland, J. (2010). Rediscovering the spirit of education after scientific management. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publisher. OECD. (2000). Knowledge management in the learning society. Paris, France: Author. Pinar, W.F. (2003, November). The internationalization of curriculum studies. Paper presented to the biannual meeting of the Mexican Council of Education’s National Conference on Education Research, Guadalajara. Retrieved from: http://tiny.cc/5o0tb Pinar, W., & Reynolds, W. (Eds.). (1992). Understanding curriculum as phenomenological and deconstructed text. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, W. M., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. M. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, W. M., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. M. (2003). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Radford, L. (2008). The ethics of being and knowing: towards a cultural theory of learning. In L. Radford, G. Schubring, & F. Seeger (Eds.), Semiotics in Mathematics Education: Epistemology, History, Classroom, and Culture (pp. 215–234). Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Radford, L. (2009). Signifying relative motion: Time, space and the semiotics of Cartesian graphs. In W.-M. Roth (Ed.), Mathematical representations at the interface of the body and culture (pp. 45–69). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers.

170    J-F. MAHEUX, D. SWANSON, and S. KHAN Robert, A., & Rogalski, J. (2005). A cross-analysis of the mathematics teacher’s activity. An example in a French 10th-grade class. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 59(1-3), 269–298. Roth, W. M. (2007). Emotion at work: A contribution to third-generation cultural historical activity theory. Mind, Culture and Activity, 14, 40–63. Skemp, R. R. (1976). Relational understanding and instrumental understanding. Mathematics Teaching, 77, 20–26. Smith, D. G. (2006). Trying to teach in a season of great untruth. Rotterdam, NL: Sense. Smith, M. K. (1996, 2000). Curriculum theory and practice. Retrieved from http:// www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm. Soumlhnge, W. F., & van Niekerk, L. J. (2005). Curriculum as text: Some implications of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory for curriculum theory. Education as Change, 9(1), 168–184. Swanson, D. M. (1998). Bridging the boundaries?: A study of mainstream mathematics, academic support and “disadvantaged learners” in an independent, secondary school in the Western Cape (South Africa). Unpublished Master’s dissertation, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Swanson, D. M. (2002). ‘Disadvantage’ and School Mathematics: The Politics of Context. International Journal of Learning, 9, 1471–1480. Retrieved from http://ijl9.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.44/prod.135 Swanson, D. M. (2005). Voices in the silence: Narratives of disadvantage, social context and school mathematics in post-apartheid South Africa. Unpublished doctoral Dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Swanson, D. M. (2006). Power and poverty—Whose, where, and why?: School mathematics, context and the social construction of disadvantage. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Prague, Czech Republic, Vol 5, pp. 217–224. (Refereed) Swanson, D. M. (2007). Ubuntu: An African contribution to (re)search for/with a “humble togetherness.” The Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, 2(2), 53–67. University of Alberta, Special Edition on African Worldviews. Retrieved from http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/JCIE/issue/view/56 Swanson, D. M. (2009). Where have all the fishes gone?: Living Ubuntu as an ethics of research and pedagogical engagement. In D. Caracciolo & A. Mungai (Eds.), In the Spirit of Ubuntu: Stories of Teaching and Research (pp. 3–21) Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publications. Swanson, D. M. (2010a). Paradox and politics of disadvantage: Narratizing critical moments of discourse and mathematics pedagogy within the “glocal.” In M. Walshaw (Ed.), Unpacking pedagogy: New perspectives for mathematics (pp. 245– 263). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Swanson, D. M. (2010b). Value in shadows: A critical contribution to values education in our times. In T. Lovat & R. Toomey (Ed.), International research handbook on values education and student wellbeing. New York, NY: Springer Press. Swanson, D. M. (2011). Parallaxes and paradoxes of global citizenship: Critical reflections and possibilities of praxis in/through an international online course. In L. Schulz & A. Abdi (Eds.), Global citizenship education and post secondary institutions: policies, practices and possibilities. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

From Text to Pretext    171 Todd, S. (2003a). Introduction: Levinas and education: The question of implication. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 22(1), 1–4. Todd, S. (2003b). Learning from the other: Levinas, psychoanalysis and ethical possibilities in education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Van Manen, M. (1988). The relation between research and pedagogy. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.). Contemporary curriculum discourses (pp. 437–452). Scottsdale, AZ: Gorsuch. Webb, N.M. (1991). Task-related verbal interaction and mathematics learning in small groups. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 22, 366–389. Willinsky, J. (1998). Learning to divide the world. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Zembylas, M. (2005). A pedagogy of unknowing: Witnessing unknowability in teaching and learning. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 24(2), 139–160. Zevenbergen, R. (1997). Psychologising difference in mathematics education. Retrieved from http://www.partnership.mmu.ac.uk/cme/Chreods/Chreods _11.html Zevenbergen, R. (2003). Teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics to students from socially-disadvantaged backgrounds: Implications for social justice. In L. Burton (Ed.), Which way social justice in mathematics education? (pp. 133–151). Westport, CT: Praeger.

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Chapter 8

Ethical Dimensions of a Global Curriculum and Professional Development Program Reflections on a Project in India William Gaudelli Teachers College, Columbia University

Leadership is a buzzword in India today, especially as this once developing country turns the corner economically and becomes an influential nation in the geopolitical arena. Secondary schools, colleges, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) across India are promoting leadership. As India’s prominence increases, these organizations aim to develop the country’s capacity for social progress through public-spirited leaders. These changes grow from a sense that although the economy has flourished, at least for some, a lag exists in the quality of civil society and government. India remains a highly corrupt society, for example, ranking 85th of 180 nations in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Index (Transparency

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International, 2009). Like most societies, elites are treated with deference, often flouting the law by virtue of their power and influence such that ethical behavior is not a central consideration. A New Delhi-based NGO committed to promoting ethical leadership, International Leadership Fund,1 is developing and implementing a leadership curriculum for use in secondary schools (ILF, 2006). Teachers College, Columbia University partnered with ILF to support the implementation of this project, assisting in professional development, curriculum writing, assessment, and program evaluation. This chapter explores the relationship between ILF and me, a project co-director in the United States who was responsible for professional development and curriculum writing, through the creation and implementation of this curriculum project.  Yet ethics is not solely a consideration in India, by the NGO, or in relation to that social setting. As a co-director for Teachers College (TC), I too am implicated in a variety of ethical tensions present in this work. While in India, I confront difficulties negotiating cultural differences embedded in the work, interpreting and clarifying curricular and pedagogical assumptions present in our collaboration, all against the backdrop of global neocolonialism that suffuses the very fact that an Indian NGO came to a premier institution in the U.S. for support. At home, a number of ethical tensions also surface; I employ doctoral students to work with me on the project, and while there may be overlap between their interests and the curriculum project, they are essentially hired for their intellectual labor that shifts their focus from their own inquiries. I am also confounded by institutional demands to participate in education globally, yet simultaneously tasked by the NGO’s expectations and requirements that are sometimes at odds. The method of this chapter will be to use illustrative anecdotes drawn from a 500+ page document set along with my recollections to illustrate the ethical dimensions of the work. Prior to this exploration, I offer an overview of the project. I do not conclude with ready-made solutions to these problems, but rather seek to explore their complex terrain in a way that illuminates the situation while opening it up to an earnest exploration on the part of the reader. I aim to demonstrate that while these situations arise in this particular project and in some ways are unique to a project in India, there are discernible connections to be made with other international partnerships, particularly those housed in universities and with NGOs. Background I was invited in 2007 to attend a meeting with the leadership of Teachers College and ILF as my research focuses on global education. At this meeting we learned of ILF’s ongoing efforts to develop curriculum for secondary stu-

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dents in a pull-out program for all grade 8, 9 and 10 students in participating schools in India. While ILF leaders were generally pleased with the direction of the program, they consulted with us in hopes of making the curriculum more rich and engaging as well as providing additional support for teachers to learn about pedagogy and curriculum. In addition, ILF wanted assistance with assessment and program evaluation, which they sought from the codirector of the project. The assessment instruments, ultimately developed by the assessment team and implemented by ILF, were intended to evaluate students’ aptitude for leadership in grades 8–10 and identify those who demonstrate the greatest promise. Students identified as emerging leaders are given additional training such as trips to international student conferences and in-school curricular enhancements. At the end of the high school years, an even smaller subset of ILF scholars are provided with financial support for their undergraduate education. These individuals will, it is hoped, become leaders in India and the world. ILF has a fairly clear grasp of what type of leadership they were aiming to develop through this program. ILF draws on iconic leaders in India’s past, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Lord Krishna, as well as international figures, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa, to exemplify the foundational notions of ethical leaders. They offered a vision of leadership that was less innate but inculcated, abiding the idea that every person has talents and potential to be a leader within certain contexts while not everyone who demonstrates leadership is expected to do so in every context. The ILF foundation presupposes that “every single human being has some leadership potential,” thus making the program available to a variety of students in economically disadvantaged schools as well as high-achieving ones (Owen, 2007, p. 5). So while everyone can learn to lead at critical moments, being a good follower and team-player was also emphasized in the curriculum. And last, they drew on widely recognized theories, such as social capital theory (Bourdieu) and hierarchy of human needs (Maslow) to articulate their conceptual stance, arguing that leadership ought to be fundamental in the learning of every child. The leadership curriculum is noteworthy as it represents a significant departure from didactic instruction that is pervasive in India. Students in the pull-out leadership program are given opportunities to express their opinions, engage in simulation learning, and develop collaborative projects with diverse peers, all pedagogical activities that students find uniquely refreshing. ILF’s focus on communication, diversity, and ethical values makes their conceptualization congruent with much of the scholarship related to democratic citizenship, such that when I initially read the curriculum, I thought it sounded more like a citizenship primer than a leadership introduction. As O’Brien and Kohlmeier (2003) have argued, leadership is fundamental to teaching for and about democratic citizenship: “Empower-

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ing young people with the capacity to serve as leaders better enables them to solve problems at the community level, which might enhance their civic efficacy, particularly because the findings of the surveys suggest that young people seem aware that their community involvement simply relieves, not resolves, problems” (p. 162). The curriculum and professional development faculty and students that I led conducted an initial site visit in New Delhi in December, 2007. We visited three of the four secondary schools where the leadership program was first established and conducted group interviews with faculty, students, and school heads, collecting over 150 pages of transcriptions. Student comments were in synch to a great degree with the articulation of leadership by ILF: Anita2: You don’t have to be a team captain or the prime minister of a country to be a good leader. I think what leadership is about is knowing how to help your team. The whole thing of leadership is you have to help a team reach a goal. Whatever that goal may be you have to inspire the people around you to work towards it. You don’t have to be the said leader of the team, even if you’re just one of the team members you can lead the team in a certain direction by just speaking to them in a certain way or doing something that might inspire them. Uma: I think it’s a common misconception that a leader’s just a person everybody else has to follow. I believe everyone can be a leader in their own way, and that’s what contributes to a really strong team, or a really strong community or a group. So it doesn’t just have to be one person, which is why the leadership program is open to everyone, because everyone has to learn how to be a leader and identify leaders.

Our collaboration was based on a train-the-trainer model whereby Teachers College assisted in the design and redesign of curriculum, the development of assessment instruments, and developing and leading a series of professional development workshops in India and the United States both for ILF NGO staff and lead teachers in the cohort of schools. ILF then duplicated these efforts among all schools and teachers in the program. Our efforts were further supported by an international advisory group of wellknown scholars who provided feedback on the professional development materials created by the college. These advisors served as a hedge against the imposition of Western values on the process of developing leadership in an Indian context. The challenges of doing curriculum and professional development work cross-culturally have been ever-present in the deliberations of the college team responsible for the ILF project, though we were under no illusion that our conversations and the presence of an advisory group ameliorated these monumental concerns. Initial designs of the professional development workshops include emphases such as conceptualizing leadership, engaging conflict resolution,

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and consideration of ethics in public life. Participants positively received these foci, though ILF wanted us to emphasize material that was not specific to the leadership curriculum but could be generalized to a teacher’s pedagogy in her regular preparations. Thus, the second year workshop was influenced mainly by the request of ILF to concentrate on pedagogy rather than content. But a substantial consideration was how to avoid situations where we would be portrayed as the “holders of knowledge” from the premier school in the U.S. The shift to emphasizing pedagogy allowed us to address this concern to a degree. Although constructivist pedagogy embeds a Western point of view (see Bowers, 2005), it seems that there is sufficient malleability in these approaches to maximize professional judgment by local practitioners. The development of the leadership curriculum for students was partially shaped by the assessment modules and eventually incorporated, in part, into the teacher professional development course by ILF. Further development of the curriculum was carried out iteratively over time: ILF formulation of a first draft, TC analysis of this draft, revision by ILF, additional TC review, distribution to the advisory group, review of feedback, further revisions, and tentative construction of the final version. The process was helpful for all involved, as it allowed the group to unearth and examine some of the presumptions embedded in the project while improving the curriculum that was eventually implemented in schools. A great deal more can be shared about the ILF project itself, as it involved a two-year interaction, with TC going to ILF six times and ILF coming to TC for five visits. But this brief summary provides a general sense of how the project unfolded while hinting at some of the tensions that arose in the project. The remainder of this chapter turns to the ethical dimensions that affected the project from my perspective as a co-leader for TC, specifically related to issues of authority, ownership, and motivation. “Who Are We to Be Teaching You?” or, the Ethics of Authority In our first professional development session in April 2008, we planned to spend a good deal of time developing what it means to be an ethical leader. And since ILF’s materials frequently cite Gandhi, we felt that his legacy would be an ideal beginning point for this session, but we were mistaken. We were two faculty members from TC along with two doctoral students working with approximately 40 teachers, all women, in a school’s multipurpose room on the outskirts of New Delhi. The initial activities were going along reasonably well as we engaged some ice-breakers and initial discussions about the nature of ethical lead-

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ership. We then moved into a more focused analysis of Gandhi’s legacy around the question: Who have been recognized as modern-day heirs of Gandhi’s legacy? Why? Teachers worked in groups to role-play various points of view about independence, which we planned to augment with excerpts from Richard Attenborough’s (1982) epic biographical film, Gandhi. We never got to the film, though, as the conversations quickly broke down into heated exchanges among this group of teachers. Disputes raged about Gandhi’s legacy in accepting the partition plan, his conciliatory approach with the British generally, and his failure to address the structural deficits that plagued India after independence. Early in the session, I recall having a jarring moment as I watched my U.S. colleague instructing a roomful of educated, Indian women about the legacy of Gandhi. I thought, “Who are we to be teaching you about Gandhi?” We were graciously saved by the call for lunch, changed up our afternoon plan on the spot, took written feedback from participants that confirmed our sense of this error, and spent the rest of the evening and night reworking the plan for the next morning. As we opened day two, I apologized for our lack of judgment, summarized the feedback of the group to smiling nods, and explained how we had made changes on this basis. The remainder of the week went extraordinarily well after this initial debacle, but the ethical question about our authority in doing this project remained throughout our time there. Despite working on some international projects over the past two decades, I periodically have a sense that I am out of place in doing this work. I feel like a visitor who will not be directly affected by the ideas raised so that I am obligated to contextualize my thinking by stating the obvious: “. . . but that’s just my view.” But even when I make this allowance, I cannot escape how my perspective binds me and does not allow me to fully see issues the way that others do. Ethically, then, I engage openly and not as an advocate but as someone seeking inquiry about similar questions, be they related to pedagogy, curriculum, or indeed, society. The comment of Lila Watson (n.d.), the Aborigine visual artist, comes to mind: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with me, then let us work together” (n.p.). ILF’s program included a variety of hands-on activities that students and teachers enjoyed and benefitted from in their participation. Students and teachers noted that some “back-benchers,” or those who are low-performers in regular academic subjects, really shined in these biweekly activities. I was consistently surprised by the unanimity with which students voiced praise for the program, unable to think of a similar school-based activity in the U.S. that had such universal acclaim. Yet this line of thinking made me wonder again about our authority in supporting this initiative. We had not worked on a similar project in the U.S., nor did we have any first-hand

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knowledge of experiencing such a great degree of success. So how was I equipped to support work that was viewed as successful by the stakeholders most directly affected by it? Looking back on our collaboration, we were able to move the ILF team to think differently about pedagogy and curriculum as a result of our interactions. One of ILF’s directors visited Teachers College periodically to get a sense about how our institution works. She sat in on a number of classes, and after a few days, we shared a meal together to talk about her time. Her enthusiasm for what she had seen was reassuring, as she commented, “What you did in your class tonight, that’s exactly what we want to do more of in India.” As we talked, it became clear that she was referring to the openness of the conversation that I attempt to engage in my teaching, spirited discussions that are engaging, though often about controversial and contested topics. As a result of her visit, we implemented more controversial issues discussions into our upcoming professional development, though not those related to the recent political history of India. Rather, we focused on issues of sustainability and cheating in school. These activities were generally well received by the teachers, though I was again confronted by uncertainty about our authority in suggesting this type of pedagogical change. Our Indian colleagues readily identified their context as one where the teacher is an authority figure and that facts offered by them are not typically disputed or offered up to interpretation, both stances that were called into question by introducing our pedagogical theorizing to the group. Some of the teachers were already conversant with this type of teaching, but for many it was a novel approach, though one with many unforeseen implications. Again, is it appropriate to offer these approaches when they are so deeply tied to epistemological assumptions that may challenge a systemic view of knowledge? I am inclined to engage these issues in this way, and did with ILF, on the grounds that I respect these colleagues as thoughtful, competent, and engaged, able to discern the wheat from chaff on their own terms. But I do so with a measure of trepidation and disquieted collaboration. “Whose Project Is This?” or, the Ethics of Ownership A dimension of our support for ILF was in the form of curriculum review and analysis. Over the course of two years, we read and reviewed curriculum guides for grades 8–10 on a regular basis, providing extensive feedback in the form of curriculum memos and face-to-face conversations. We would offer critiques but always with suggestions for alternative approaches and resources to enhance the curriculum-making. This process was engaged it-

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eratively for each grade level, so that we would read/review work repeatedly as it took shape. The curriculum and professional development team that I led in the project also had to coordinate our critiques with the assessment team so that there would be a coherent set of materials. We found, however, that some of our suggestions went unheeded. While this is not necessarily troubling, as ILF was free to listen to us or not, a few points seemed so vital that they could not easily be reconciled within the larger aims of the project. For example, we suggested, based on empirical research about leadership in schools, that the program had to extend beyond the bimonthly meetings and manifest in the school community (Owen, 2007). Leadership development could not exist in a vacuum of a special program or an idealized statement of what students would know, do, and feel, but had to be practiced. Further, the amount of time allotted to the activity, a bit less than two hours a month, was insufficient for the extraordinary learning goals designed by ILF. The view that the time allocation was insufficient we developed from working directly with students and teachers. But this concern conflicted with academic demands and priorities in the school. Lastly, we felt that curriculum itself needed an internal logic of development, that skills and concepts introduced at one point would lead to the development of others at a later point, a point ILF generally did not heed. Reflecting on ILF’s choice not to take these and other suggestions, their reasons for doing so were mainly utilitarian rather than principled. While ILF agreed in principle that students should be involved as leaders in the school, should have more time to work on the project, and should developmentally build knowledge, skills, and aptitudes about leadership in the curriculum, they realized the severe constraints of working in over 20 Indian schools and challenging established norms. The pushback on students assuming greater leadership authority in the school, for example, suggests the severity of the barrier. Students who were serving on student councils were all selected by teachers and administrators rather than by the student body. That this surprised us indicates some of the cultural differences that we confronted on the project. I realized in working on this project that while it was collaborative throughout, its ownership was not shared. Institutionally, ILF was the central partner and TC provided assistance, a principle abided by throughout our work. The confounding dimension of this arrangement, however, was not what I had imagined it would be. I doubt this is unique to ILF as similar collaborations in which I have engaged morph as they develop. One must decide, at times consciously and otherwise implicitly, whether all participants can abide the changes that are taking place. In the case of ILF, while the ownership issues were significant, I did not feel that I had fundamen-

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tally compromised my intentions through participation, though I could imagine this becoming an issue in other international curriculum projects. “Why Am I Doing This?” or, the Ethics of Motivation I once returned from India and was walking my son to his school, chatting with other parents. A parent remarked that I looked tired and I explained that I was recovering from the jet-lag of the trip. When she wanted to know more about the project, I gave my (by this time well-rehearsed) summary of the project. While the parents found it interesting work, one said, “Why aren’t you doing that in schools around here?” I stared at her blankly. While I thought I knew why I was doing the project, when put this way the question did make me wonder why I was doing the ILF project. International projects are all the rage at universities these days, as evidenced by the number of contributors to this volume and their many different experiences and locales. There is a degree of cachet afforded doing this type of work that cannot be denied. My participation in international projects is motivated by my interest in global education, which I understand as curriculum that at its core makes the world intelligible for young people. In conceptualizing global education and carrying out research on its practices, mainly in the U.S., travelling outside the U.S. and into schools in various countries is invaluable for me. In this particular project, I was also interested in the possibility of working with our doctoral students in an international context. We were able to hire five doctoral students over the two-year period, and three of those were able to travel to India and participate in the professional development experience. Finally, this project was especially inviting, as it gave me an opportunity to work closely with faculty colleagues in an institution where I was a relative newcomer. There are ethical considerations in what activities one chooses to engage with internationally, however. When an opportunity arises, I ask myself, Is this work that I would do here? If not, I would defer since then the only reason for doing the project would be as a result of it being somewhere else, which is in my view an insufficient reason for involvement. Second, I consider whether I am someone who has experiences and knowledge that can be brought to bear on a project. Do I know something more than the average university faculty member about X? If not, I would recommend to those seeking collaboration to whom they might look. Last, I am most interested in the intentions and aims of those seeking collaboration. I want to know, to the best of my ability, if they are doing this with the right spirit and intentions, ones that I would embrace and feel passionate about in my local context.

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Returning to the question raised by the parent on our walk to school, I do think there is something more to the question about our roles in our home institutions and local communities. While my area of research is global citizenship education, I do not think that this work can only be carried out beyond the local context. In fact, I see the local context as a critical place for understanding how global issues manifest. The tendency in global education has been to give privileged attention to far-flung circumstances, since, after all, it’s about being global, but often at the expense of attention to local concerns. This tension is something more than a false dualism since one cannot be in two places at one time. If a project, then, requires that a faculty member is away from his or her students for extended periods of time with no good substitute for their absence, is that an ethical use of one’s time? I think not. First and foremost, we are participants in our communities, which bridge in important ways to others more distant from us. But if all of our time and attention is so directed at the other, then it suggests a sort of alienation from the local, an inattention to the immediate needs of the concerns closest to home. Yes, one can and is often asked to serve both those far away and nearby, and these can be mutually enhancing activities. But the ethics of participation suggests that when asked to prioritize, our preference be given to the first order of business, our community. An illustration of such a choice was made evident to me plainly by a colleague recently. She was invited to join a delegation of TC faculty to visit the Columbia Center in Amman, Jordan and work with teachers there. The visit overlapped with a doctoral defense of one of our students, and rather than asking the student to reschedule, my colleague chose not to make the trip. This choice speaks precisely to the sort of ethical decision that sometimes needs to be made while engaged in international curriculum efforts. Conclusion The ethical considerations of engaging in international curriculum work are many, it seems, some of which I touched upon in this retrospective. Issues of authority, ownership, and motivation are among those touched upon, though a number of others could also have appeared, such as linguistic differences, gender roles and expectations, as well as how international work in the university maps and supports a neoliberal globalization agenda. I chose to focus on authority, ownership, and motivation, though I am certain that others engaged in the project, including my colleagues with ILF and TC, would have identified other concerns more salient to them. What lies ahead for scholars interested in this work are almost certainly expanded opportunities, as the world grows increasingly interconnected

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and professional practices like teaching and the field of education becomes more globally conversant. I generally see this as a positive development, as education needs to expand beyond the parochialism that has too often thwarted its discursive growth. But those engaged must do so with a measure of uncertainty and circumspection, as it is very easy to fall into patterns of behavior and thinking that are not congruent with the intellectual and social aims of our work generally. Notes 1. A pseudonym. 2. Names of India students, teachers and personnel associated with ILF, as well as ILF, are pseudonyms, while those affiliated with Teachers College are not.

References Attenborough, R. (Director). (1982). Gandhi [motion picture]. India: International Film Investors/U.S.: Columbia Pictures. Bowers, C. A. (2005). The false promises of constructivist theories of learning. New York, NY: Peter Lang. International Leadership Fund. (2006). Nurturing leadership. New Delhi, IN: ILF Foundation. O’Brien, J. & Kohlmeier, J. (2003). Leadership: Part of the civic mission of schools? The Social Studies, 95(4), 161–166. Owen, H. (2007). Creating leaders in the classroom. London, UK: Routledge. Transparency International. (2009). Global Corruption Index. Retrieved from http:// www.transparency.org/ Watson, L. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilla_Watson

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Chapter 9

“I Saw It with My Own Eyes” The Knowledge-Construction Process in International Educator Exchanges Anatoli Rapoport Purdue University

Global processes in economy, science, and technology have given a tremendous impetus to changes in values, customs, and mores. Regardless of how positively or negatively globalization is seen throughout the world, it has already started to change the world. Mankind is on track to create a new human global community. It is yet to be determined how the new community is going to function, but one thing remains certain: The new global order will require a new global Weltanschauung, a radically new framework of concepts, beliefs, ideas, and skills rationalized, internalized, and eventually institutionalized through individual and societal mechanisms that are only beginning to appear. In other words, the new global community will need a new citizenry whose individual members will possess knowledge, skills, and dispositions consistent with the realities of the new world order. The new

Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 185–204 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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global citizenry is being formed. This uneasy process is dialectic: The new citizenry is being shaped by changing global paradigms, and at the same time, global paradigms are being shaped by the new emerging citizenry. Education and knowledge will be playing a significant transformative role in the emerging global society. Globalization is the epitome of transformation. Globalization, as a set of rapid economic, cultural, social, technological, and interpersonal changes and movements caused by intensification of science and communication (Matus & McCarthy, 2003), is the result of numerous developmental processes. At the same time, globalization is a means that can help to recalibrate our perspectives and to renegotiate traditional meanings of such phenomena as nation, citizenship, education, or knowledge in the wake of a new globalized world. In other words, globalization helps us to get prepared for the gradually evolving global community or global citizenship. In this troubled time of recalibration, renegotiation, and reevaluation, education and knowledge, which have always been an invaluable asset, have become even more important due to new contexts and the changing nature of human relations. However, we do not know much about the implications and applications of globalization in education. Education is a very specific field, where, unlike industry or agriculture, the results of any intervention or phenomenon are hard to predict. Theorists and practitioners are still at the initial stage of studying and understanding the impact of globalization and the corresponding reaction of various systems of education (Burbules & Torres, 2000; Stromquist & Monkman, 2000; Suarez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004). Undoubtedly, the world is on the threshold of systemic educational reforms with emphasis on new content, standardization, systemic integration, and new methods (Carnoy, 2000). A new globally minded citizenry needs innovative approaches to citizenship education that is not limited to only national models of citizenship. The newly reconceptualized citizenship paradigm in turn requires new reformed curricula. The scale, depth, and intensity of curricular reforms will be determined by the political, ideological, economic, or cultural nature of the curricula. Driven by ideologies, national, regional, or even local, curricula represent the intersection of socially constructed meanings, emotional aspirations, and power (McLaren, 1989). Like every programmatic reflective text, curricula can be highly ambiguous: On the one hand, they demonstrate a traditionalistic consistency to preserve social cohesiveness; on the other hand, they normally also pave the way to new societal, political, and ideological goals. Curricula are never static. One of the important characteristics of any curriculum is the ability and capacity to absorb and incorporate new innovative elements of content or methodology. Curricular dynamism thus has become a vehicle of educational reforms on all levels. Like ideology, culture is also a critical component that influences curriculum development. The first of the many fallacies that George Counts

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(1932/1978) mentioned in one of his lectures was the view that man is born free. Man is born into a culture, asserted Counts, and thus is doomed to seek and find ways to interact with other “species.” Brislin and Yoshida (1994) added a third certainty to Franklin’s famous dichotomy of “death and taxes”, that is, the inevitability of interaction with “others from very different cultural backgrounds, whether they are prepared to do so or not” (p. 1). Although we are becoming “denationalized citizens” (Sassen, 2003), we are not, and in the observable future, will not become “deculturized” citizens. We are still very unlikely to surrender our “collectively held set of attributes, which is dynamic and changing over time” (Dahl, 1997, p. 21), or in other words, culture. What is the transformative potential of culture in the design of new curricula? How does cultural diversity influence curricular decision making? How does culture factor into the process of constructing knowledge? These questions appeared in the process of data analysis for a larger study (Rapoport, 2008) whose purpose was to explore the impact of international programs in education on curricular decisions, pedagogies, and the social status of their participants. The study included open-ended “life story” phenomenology-based interviews with 26 educators who were alumni of international exchange and training programs from 10 regions of the Russian Federation. In this chapter, I present my reflection on a part of data drawn from this study that specifically addresses the questions of knowledge construction by participants of international programs. The international exchange or training program presents a unique opportunity to observe and to record potential challenges of intercultural and cross-cultural communication among educators and to witness how old meanings are negotiated and new meanings emerge. The presented data and their subsequent analysis demonstrate how cultural context, broadly defined, impacts epistemological paradigms and practice of knowledge construction of international exchange program participants. The aim of this analysis is to identify components of the knowledge-constructing process and the role of participants’ culture in the selection, interpretation, and implementation of the new knowledge and practices. International Programs in Education International programs in education have been growing in importance since World War I as a result of major cultural and political transformations in the world (Bu, 2003; Thomson & Laves, 1963). Initially folded into vaguely defined “international cultural exchanges,” international exchange programs in education gained additional momentum after the Fulbright Act of 1946 and the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and soon became an important aspect of U.S. international policy (Coombs, 1964; Richmond, 1987; Thom-

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son & Laves, 1963). The improvement of international understanding in an increasingly interdependent world after the Cold War clearly became a main educational imperative. The exchange of educators and educational practices was one of the most important and effective means for achieving that goal, both in the short run and through its multiplier effect in the long run (Richmond, 2003). The dramatic political changes in the 1980s in the Soviet Union and other countries in Eastern Europe resulted in an intensifying of secondary school exchange programs and training programs that involved educators on both primary and secondary levels. New conditions and new leaders needed different approaches to education in general and civic education in particular (Quigley & Hoar, 1997). In young democracies where new educational goals and objectives were inconsistent with outdated approaches, methods, and content, the majority of social studies teachers belonged to the “old” generation and were unlikely to learn to teach in a different way (Polozhevets, Schechter, & Perlemuter, 1997). Both educators and government officials in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe “have increasingly sought the assistance of American civic education organizations in creating educational programs conducive to the development of responsible and effective citizens in free society” (Quigely & Hoar, 1997, p. 12). The mid- and late 1990s witnessed an outburst of numerous curricula developed by various centers and universities in the United States and Western Europe specifically for the new democracies. The new programs and curricula were based on updated content and introduced student-centered pedagogies that aimed at the development of critical thinking skills (Bahmueller, 1997; Craddock & Harf, 2004; Hamot, 2003; Leming & Vontz, 1997; Patrick, 1994; Patrick, Vontz, & Metcalf, 2002–2003 ; Polechova, Valkova, Dostalova, Bahmueller, & Farnbach, 1997; Polozhevets et al., 1997; Remy & Strzemieczny, 1997; Ridley, Hidveghi, & Pitts, 1997). With the reemergence of an independent Russia, the new state both ideologically and politically emerged and distanced itself from the former Soviet Union by positioning itself as a new republic dedicated to democratic development. One of the challenges that the Russian Federation faced was globalization, which deeply influenced the school reform development: It unexpectedly generated new discourses, and Russian citizens discovered a never-seen-before multiplicity of truth. Debates about globalization and curriculum revealed the centrality of properly negotiated terms and meanings as well as the importance of culture in the understanding of citizenship and citizenship education. Globalization has profoundly influenced the very notion of citizenship education rationales by not only infusing a more distinct global perspective but also by challenging the core principles of citizenship as an idiosyncratically nation or nation-state related concept. Survival in this new era required people to acquire new knowledge, to learn

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and to practice new skills, and to carefully reexamine their values. The most challenging curricular task in this new environment was to develop the ability to deconstruct previously unquestioned assumptions (Smith, 2003) (e.g., my government is always right or private property is always bad) in order to reconstruct and eventually to renegotiate newly contextualized meanings. At that time, the countries with long traditions of democratic governance, such as the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany already had relatively stable and developed systems of education for democratic citizenship. Exchange programs, professional development programs, or training workshops for Russia’s educators could potentially accelerate the development of new curricula in civic education and prepare new cadres for democratizing Russia’s schools. Such programs, workshops, and seminars eventually resulted in new curricula and new curricular materials, instructional practices, lessons, units, stable partnerships, and publications (Pakhomov & Schechter, 2003; Zelentsova, Spensly, & Schechter, 2005). However, from the very outset, exchange, professional development, and training programs designed for Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union became a subject of controversy. The main points of disagreement among practitioners and theorists were the effectiveness of such programs and to what degree were the intents of new program developers ethical, that is, to what extent the new Varangians were able to keep a fragile cultural balance in a very sensitive area of education. On the one hand, the overall positive effect of new international programs, projects, and curricula on civic education (Partners in Education, Street Law, DEEP, Civics Mosaic, Project Citizen, Teaching of Professionals, and others) has been recorded by a number of evaluative and descriptive studies (Craddock & Harf, 2004; Kupchan, 2000; Pakhomov, 2002; Patrick et al., 2002–2003). Direct interactions and contacts with different cultures, political or educational systems, and representatives of these cultures are beneficial to teachers. International contacts (1) improve teaching about the places visited, (2) engender educators’ responsibilities for passing on the experience and for opening windows to the world for others, and (3) encourage teachers to try more cross-cultural encounters (Wilson, 1984, 1986). Merryfield (2000) pointed out that dissonance between identity and the meaning coming from the experience during the encounter with another culture made “the lived experiences become, in retrospect, milestones in the development of a consciousness of multiple realities” (p. 440). Researchers reported that “cross-cultural experience made a difference in their teaching” (Wilson, 1983, p. 84), and international sojourners teach more accurately, enthusiastically, and creatively. In general, they are committed to passing on their knowledge to students and community (Merryfield, 1998; Wilson, 1986). Teachers with international experience make connections across cultures and civilizations and across global issues in-

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stead of teaching these areas separately; they identify historical antecedents to current world issues and problems and link global content to the lives of their students; and they also teach tolerance and appreciation of cultural differences (Merryfield, 1994, 2000). On the other hand, many challenged the success of the “West as expert model” (Burton, 1997, p. 219) and identified political, intercultural, or educational obstacles that potentially slowed the process of reform. The democratization of Eastern and Central Europe through the Westernization of the curriculum was compared with “surreptitious imperialism” where the benefactor was also the beneficiary. The existing disparity in systems of education, the allegedly subordinate role of Eastern universities, the inadequate information used by researchers in the East that was no longer “fashionable” in the West led to accusations of “educational and cultural imperialism” against the West in general and the U.S. in particular (Arndt, 1987; Burton, 1997; Smith, 2000). Using the dependency theory framework, Burton and Robinson (1999) argued that “the exportation of educational ideas from more economically developed to less economically developed countries promotes the expansion of the western economic and political system” (p. 25). The main criticism was directed at the cultural factor. In the critics’ opinion, the newly designed programs contained pedagogical ideas and practices that contradicted traditional pedagogical beliefs in Eastern Europe. They argued that cultural differences were unsurpassable in social interaction in the course of international programs that required both understanding and negotiation of meaning, status, significance, and codes (Burton, 1997; Burton & Robinson, 1999; Muckle & Prozorov, 1996; Stones, 1996). The alleged inability to decode cultural and behavioral patterns made collaboration within culturally diverse situations frustrating and could result in mistrust and justifiable suspicion on both sides. Muckle and Prozorov (1996) reported more than a little protest in the Russian educational press against Western attempts to impose various pedagogical practices on Russian educators. They cited teachers who were “profoundly disturbed by the intellectual level of the projects” (p. 36) proposed by their Western colleagues. Some teachers and teacher educators from Eastern Europe “have been healthily critical of the ‘carpetbaggery’ of Western educationists peddling pedagogical snake oil,” argued Stones (1996, p. 5). Obviously, the criticism of the exchange and training programs designed for the new democracies raised the question of ethics, not so much the ethics of interpersonal relations, but the ethics of intent. The accusations of surreptitious educational and cultural imperialism in regard to exchange programs imply that program developers intentionally imposed foreign culturally ambiguous or even culturally harmful concepts and principles onto new audiences and secretly infused culturally unacceptable ideas into

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new curricula. Although there is clear historical evidence that points to the attempts of many in the U.S. government to use exchange cultural and educational programs to directly influence political processes in foreign countries (Bu, 2003; Coombs, 1964; U.S. Senate, 2000 ), there are also numerous examples of ongoing debates regarding the role of such programs, even direct recommendations that “no program of international cultural relations should be an instrument by means of which one people attempts to impose its ideas or conceptions upon another, or to achieve cultural ascendancy, or to accomplish non-cultural objectives” (Minutes of General Advisory Committee, in Thomson & Laves, 1963, p. 44). Judging by my personal experience with international program alumni and developers and by other research (Zimmerman, 2006), the general accusations of unethical intent and educational imperialism in regard to exchange and training programs in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union seem exaggerated1: a. There is no evidence of coercion or forceful imposition of any methodology, pedagogies, or curricula in the course of programs. On the contrary, there are recorded cases of banning international programs by local authorities in host countries due to political reasons using the notorious accusation of insensitivity to the needs of local population (Miller, 1997). b. Concerns and skepticism about international programs or foreign instructors at training programs sometimes expressed by local teachers are usually evoked by more nuanced feelings than openly declared cultural insensitivity of the former. In many cases, these feelings and attitudes are the result of ideological inflexibility of school culture complicated by disbelief in the ability of the foreign system to help, or by pride, sometimes unsubstantiated, of success and the achievements of the country’s own educational system; by suspicion of hidden self-interests; and, as in the case of the former Soviet Union, by “inherited” political and propagandistic prejudices (Muckle & Prozorov, 1996; Rapoport, 2006; Stones, 1996). c. Culture plays a critical role in constructing knowledge. Even if international program recipients were provided with information that seemed culturally inappropriate, they normally decoded this information and subsequently constructed new knowledge using codes or “lenses” of their own culture. This issue of interrelation of knowledge and culture will be addressed in more detail later in this chapter. All international exchange programs, particularly training programs, are aimed at introducing and developing changes in various realms of educa-

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tion, although research shows that schools, by their nature, are very resistant to change and reformation. In many cases, it is not the school bureaucracy that is to blame but the tenacity of the school culture and values that prevent new “foreign” trends from penetrating the educational process. Teachers and school administrators in many cases are too persistent in their values about students, their subjects, or methods of instruction (Popkewitz, Tabachnic, & Wehlage, 1982; Spindler, 1982; White, 1985); they “shape incoming, new curricula, substituting them for what was formerly there, but transforming them so that they become just another means to serve the same overreaching cultural ends” (White, 1985, p. 239). International exchange and training programs for educators are usually designed as professional development programs with a specific focus on providing guest teachers with experiences and information about the host country that they can use later in their pedagogies. However, research lacks data on how participants of international programs select, acquire, interpret, implement, and eventually institutionalize new knowledge. In what follows I will describe the process of knowledge construction by international program participants based on evidence drawn from data from the 2005–2006 study of the impact of international programs on their participants. The evidence will demonstrate that program participants use what authors usually call cultural lenses to interpret the received information and experiences and to convert them into knowledge. Epistemological Constructivist Theory Several theoretical frameworks inform this analysis. Holistically based on the theory of the ecology of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), it draws on the paradigms of epistemological constructivist theory (Dewey, 1925/2003; Garrison, 1997; von Glasersfeld, 1989), hermeneutic theory of culture (Gadamer, 1982; Heidegger, 1962), and theories of intercultural communication (Dahl, 2004; Hall, 1983; Hofstede, 1994). Methodologically, the study from which these data come was based on the interpretive phenomenological approach (Husserl, 1964; van Manen, 1990). There are two principal epistemological theories. Objectivists contend that knowledge is the awareness of objects that exist independent of any subject. According to the objectivist approach, objects have intrinsic meaning, and knowledge is a reflection of a correspondence to reality. In this tradition, knowledge should represent a real world that is thought of as existing, separately and independently of the observer, and this knowledge should be considered true only if it correctly reflects that independent world. According to the objectivist position, the world is real, it is struc-

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tured, and our mind only reflects the reality through analyzable thought processes (Jonassen, 1991). Unlike objectivism, constructivist theory argues that knowledge and reality do not have an objective or absolute value, which means that we have no way of knowing this reality (von Glasersfeld, 1989). Observers interpret and construct a reality based on their experiences and interactions with the environment. Two main constructivist theories, cognitive and social, are often identified in constructivist epistemology. Cognitive constructivists, following Piaget’s model of knowledge, emphasize that individual knowledge construction is based on prior experience, and it results from interaction with the subject of the knowledge and environment. Social constructivists, exemplified by Vygotsky, Bandura, Bruner, on the other hand, emphasize a socio-cultural environment in which the individuals co-construct knowledge in interactions with others. Ernest (1995) developed a set of theoretical underpinnings common to constructivist epistemology that can be summarized as follows: (1) knowledge as a whole is problematized; (2) methodological approaches must circumspect and reflexive because there is no “royal road” to truth; (3) the focus of concern is the learner’s cognitions, beliefs, and conceptions of knowledge; (4) the focus of concern for the teacher is not just with the teacher’s knowledge of the subject matter and diagnostic skills, but with the teacher’s beliefs, conceptions, and personal theories about the subject matter, teaching, and learning; (5) although we can tentatively come to know the knowledge of others by interpreting their language and actions through our own conceptual constructs, others have realities that are independent of our own; we can never take any of these realities as fixed; and (6) an awareness of the social construction of knowledge suggests a pedagogical emphasis on discussion, collaboration, negotiation, and shared meanings (p. 435). Other theoretical frameworks that this analysis is based on are the theory of cultural hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1982; Heidegger, 1962) and theories of intercultural communication (Dahl, 2004; Hall, 1983; Hofstede, 1994). These theories will be addressed in more detail later in this chapter when the interpretative mechanism of the knowledge construction process is described. Acquiring New Knowledge In the course of a study of the impact of international exchange and training programs on 26 educators from Russia, I found out that the following were the components of an epistemological paradigm that influenced the new knowledge construction of the international program participants:

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1. Prior knowledge that international program participants bring with them to a new environment 2. A new conditioned environment where observers acquire new information 3. New information presented through texts (written and oral), images, and personal interactions that are contextualized within a new environment and delivered through a nontraditional but recognizable system of symbols (foreign language and speech) 4. Observers’ own conceptualization of knowledge 5. Reflection and interpretation of what observers consider raw knowledge through cultural lenses 6. Presentation of what observers consider new knowledge through a traditional and familiar system of symbols (native language and speech) International Participants’ Prior Knowledge Based on the purposes of the international programs, we should distinguish two main domains of prior knowledge that program participants usually bring with them. The first domain is the amount of pedagogical content knowledge that program participants regularly use in their practice. Because we suppose that this knowledge is practically and experientially based, environmentally contextualized, and negotiated and delivered through a familiar and recognizable symbol system, we can assume that this knowledge is viable to the degree that it ultimately satisfies participants’ needs. However, the viability of the other domain of knowledge that international program participants bring with them is questionable. What we routinely call knowledge here is a number of assumptions and stereotypes about the host country and about the host country’s system of education. This “knowledge” is much less viable and is the most distorted. When I asked my respondents about their source of information about the United States, the most frequent answer was “American movies.” This is what Christy said: “But I had a stereotype that Americans are not very smart, judging by comedies. And they have problematic sense of humor. And education, I thought, was problematic. I don’t really know why. Maybe what we see about their president [in 2006], it really impacts.” Alexis was “stunned” when she met an African-American environmental activist in Albany—she was sure that African-Americans still lived in ghettoes and were not allowed to participate in public policy. Tricia was saddened by what she observed in poor Native American reservations because her image of American Indians was based on characters from James Fennimore Cooper’s books.

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New Environment and New Information For international program participants, practically everything is new. The recruitment system, particularly in regard to programs for the countries of the former Soviet Union, is specifically designed to involve as many new participants as possible and to minimize the number of those who already participated in such international exchange programs. For the majority of the respondents, this was the actual stage of learning that consisted of comprehension of new concepts and negotiation of meaning. But what is meaning and how do we negotiate it? Let us consider the role of language in meaning-making on the part of international exchange participants. The core of Dewey’s behavioral theory of meaning is that all meanings originate in social relationships, in cooperative behaviors carried out for a common purpose (Garrison, 1997). This means that an observed phenomenon becomes a fact and acquires a meaning only after it has been properly negotiated. One cannot negotiate meaning without language. For Dewey (1925/2003), all meanings are linguistic in origin: “Meanings do not come into being without language, and language implies two selves involved in conjoined or shared understandings” (p. 261); and “through speech a person dramatically identifies himself with potential acts and deeds” (p. 170). Thus, language becomes the primary facilitator in meaning negotiation and the primary concern when both parties speak a different language. Here are several examples that demonstrate the importance of semantics and hermeneutics in knowledge construction. Community is one of the most important concepts in U.S. political and civic life. However, none of more than 20 translations of this word in the English–Russian dictionary conveys the meaning for Russian speakers of this very simple phrase, “Community plays a very important role in school life.” A simple translation of this phrase would be meaningless for Russian speakers. Another example is public policy, the concept that all Russian participants, regardless of their level of English language proficiency, understand as a policy conducted by public, nongovernmental organizations (the confusion is obviously caused by the false cognates). Conceptualization of Knowledge Regardless of how we theorize knowledge, individuals routinely conceptualize knowledge in their own ways. From my interviews, it became obvious that respondents conceptualize knowledge as everything new that they encountered in the United States and what they were unaware of. Theoretically, such a traditionalist approach is based on the assumption that knowledge is objective and eventually can be obtained through experience.

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Dewey called the mistake of thinking that experience is capable of putting us in a knowledge relation “the great intellectualistic fallacy” (Garrison, 1997, p. 310). In the course of the study, I observed two phenomena related to constructing new knowledge that seem to be uniquely attributed to international exchange programs. I call them the pioneering effect and the eyewitness effect. Pioneering Effect Participation in international programs made several respondents feel the uniqueness of their experiences; they reported being first using practices that, in their opinion, no one had used or been engaged in before. Helen contended that she was one of the first to start civic education in Russia because allegedly no one had known about it before. “At that time, we in Russia did not have civic education and we had no idea what it was at all. I can say that I was one of the first . . . or maybe the first.” As a confirmation of her unique experience, she also added, “I think that at the moment, I am the unique owner of the maximum amount of literature in Russia in this area [civic education]. I collected it.” Lori referred to the fact that nobody before her trip had known about civic education in her hometown, either. Vladimir, for example, also talked about civic education and active new methods. He assumed that it was easy to implement new methods because everything was new and his school was the first in his town to have civic education: I guess it worked because our school was the first to offer civics in our city. Active methods. Practically, they only started to appear in (name of the town). No, there were none of them. My acquaintance with them, then I received manuals, these all enabled us to organize first seminars. Then, in (name of city) in 1998, well, it was the outcome, like impulse, we organized city Olympiads in civics.

Eyewitness Effect In many accounts, particularly when respondents told me how convinced they were that new pedagogical practices were doable and could be implemented in their schools, they used the phrase, “I saw it with my own eyes,” or simply, “I saw it.” When we discussed how international program participants disseminated the acquired information, Lori said, “They [her colleagues] got the information from the primary source. When we say, we can tell something, and here they have a person as a primary source, as a document, I saw it and I could tell them about it.” This reference to herself as a primary source is very important. Although the information that Lori transmitted to her colleagues in Russia was no longer what she had seen during her trips but rather an image and text interpreted through the filter of her conscience and presented with the help of her language, Lori was absolutely confident

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that she was presenting undistorted truth. However, both the eyewitness effect and the pioneering effect have become motivational factors for the use of new techniques and methods by the respondents themselves and also for the encouragement of colleagues to use novel methods. Almost all the program participants told me that they observed, saw, acquired, and brought to their schools new teaching techniques and methods. Sometimes informants indicated what techniques they had observed or brought; however, the majority used general terms, “active methods” or “interactive methods.” Helen: First, I saw those strategies and methods, how they are used, organized, interactive interaction, what was new for us then. Not only did I see that, but also received some materials that helped me replicate it here. I studied, I did it myself, that’s why, I think. . . . When I came back, I worked with school students and I used all the strategies and methods of civic education that I learned. These were simulations, these were mock trials, these were Project Citizen, well project method I can say, that they used.

Reflection and Interpretation Through Cultural Lenses This component in international program participants’ epistemological process is the most mysterious. Really, how do people who knew very little about the educational system in the United States, for example, who were often literally prejudiced against the methodology and content of education in the U.S., who sometimes barely spoke English later become proponents of innovations and agents of change? To understand this puzzling transformation, we have to look at how so-called cultural lenses work. In other words, what is the role of cultural interpretation or as it is sometimes called “hermeneutics turn” (Sampaio, 1999)? Hermeneutics, which initially appeared as a philosophical movement, today refers to cultural paradigms, too. However, to understand how hermeneutics and culture are related, we first have to understand what culture is. Culture is a very broad multifunctional and multidimensional concept that has numerous characteristics (Dahl, 2004; Spencer-Oatey, 2000) and layers (Hofstede, 1994). The characteristics that are particularly critical for understanding how intercultural communication occurs are a value paradigm and “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the member of one group or category of people from another” (Hofstede in Dahl, 2004, p. 3). Values serve as selective criteria that are “programmed” in a particular culture. Thus, culture is a mechanism that people subconsciously use to juxtapose phenomena or artifacts that they encounter. Hall (1983) pointed out that the comparative mechanism began to function

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when people were challenged by a different culture. Culture set limits of what is culturally acceptable, “where to draw the line separating one thing from another. These lines are arbitrary, but once learned and internalized they are treated as real” (Hall in Dahl, 2004, p. 3). A hermeneutics concept of culture teaches us that any meaning is contextdependent and unstable. In this rejection of objectivity, cultural hermeneutics is very close to social constructivism. Heidegger (1962) introduced two important concepts that help explain the process of cultural hermeneutics, namely destruction and retrieval. Destruction is described as a dismantling of traditional concepts and as a recuperation of their original source. Destruction also involves a retrieval of some aspects of our cultural tradition, but the retrieval must be understood as a creative and active process. Thus, the Heideggerian notions of destruction and retrieval invite us to transform and to appropriate creatively the content of cultural traditions. According to Heidegger (1962), interpretation is not “the acquiring of information about what is understood; it is rather the working out of possibilities projected in understanding” (p. 132). We may say that Heidegger’s cultural ideal constitutes basically an endless process of active and creative interpretations of past productions. From a Heideggerian perspective, culture must not be considered as an activity directed towards the discovery of pre-existing structures and objective meanings, but as a creative process directed towards the exploration of the possibilities opened up by past works (Sampaio, 1999). Thus, cultural hermeneutics helps us understand how international program participants reflect on the experiences, information, or skills they acquired in the course of their programs; how they interpret the results of their professional development activities; and how they eventually present those results in terms and symbols that are easily interpreted by the recipients. When asked how she used the new methods and materials in her classrooms, Lori explained (we talked about active student-centered methods): At first, I couldn’t believe this would ever work with my students. And I was also afraid my administration would be strongly against. You know how it is in schools—if you don’t keep discipline, you are a bad teacher. But then I understood that I had to adjust my materials and my approaches. . . . It was hard at first, but the changes and adjustments worked.

What Lori and the other respondents called “adjustment” was what Gadamer called “fusion of horizons.” This is how Sampaio (1999) described this process: Whenever I try to understand a particular work or cultural production, I must reformulate my grid of prejudices in order to overcome the strangeness of a different cultural horizon. Through this process, my background of expectations is expanded, the meaning I ascribe to the world is revised, and my ability

“I Saw It with My Own Eyes”    199 to understand the otherness of the other is improved. I’m always a hostage of my prejudices, but the particularity of my perspectives can be progressively overcome through an endless process of fusions of horizons.

Bridges: Symbolic and Real I started this chapter in Indiana and I am finishing it in St. Petersburg, Russia, where I came to attend a workshop for alumni of an international program that my colleagues and I coordinated in the United States. The first news my friend gave me when I landed was the coming acquisition by WalMart of a Russian retail chain; the first news I watched on TV was BP’s futile attempt to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Symbols . . . metaphors. . . . We live in a world of symbols and metaphors. Thanks to Thomas Friedman (2005), we now know that there is a risk of crashing the Lexus into an olive tree on our flat planet. As powerful as this metaphor is, it does not and cannot convey the idea of globalization in its entirety. Globalization is a complex phenomenon that has not yet completely manifested itself and whose multiple effects are still to be discovered. Scholars dispute when globalization started. Historians and archeologists probably can find the first trade treaty, but I believe it started when a human realized that there is a world beyond his or her settlement. Globalization is no longer a process. It is gradually becoming a state of mind, a method of perception, a fourth mental dimension that mankind has to accept as it accepted the first physical three. New contexts dictate new patterns of behavior and new moral rules. Ethics, as all human related phenomena, is dialectically paradoxical: It shapes us while we shape it. This is an invisible process that takes place on a daily basis. Our disputes and discussions about globalization and global ethics are our attempts to avoid a collision of the Lexus into the olive tree; they are part of a learning process that takes time. The analysis presented here has confirmed important tendencies regarding the impact of international programs on participants’ pedagogies and their professional growth. It identified a number of important steps and effects that are critical for the construction, dissemination, and eventual application of new knowledge. Through their culturally determined reactions, teachers make sense of the new for themselves, for their colleagues, and what is most important, for their students. The adjustment process, also known as “fusion of horizons,” is a two-way street: On the one hand, international program alumni make foreign practices close to and applicable in their own educational system; on the other hand, they make their students and colleagues more sensitive and perceptive to the reality of a globalized, interconnected world. The data also suggested that the construction of viable solid knowledge is a complex process that requires more than simple reflection. An in-

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terpretation and application of new information through one’s own cultural codes demonstrated that knowledge construction is a more nuanced phenomenon than simple imposition of information onto recipients. Does this mean that there are no ethical problems in international exchange programs for educators? Not at all. How does participant selection and recruitment take place? What are program participants’ expectations and reasons to participate? Who controls the daily life of participants during programs? To what extent should participants’ individual and collective interests be considered in the course of program development? How well are program developers and organizers aware of participants’ regional or ethno-cultural differences? And, the last but not the least, what happens to the alumni after they return to their workplace? There are a lot of data on the resistance, both personal and institutional, to the ideas that alumni bring from their programs. As a result, some alumni have to change schools, even to change their careers. The relationship of education to globalization is much more complex than that of globalization to trade or science. For more than two centuries, since it became public, education has been perceived as a fundamentally national, in many cases even local, institution. Education is so strongly rooted in national cultural space that the first international educational programs in the 1930s and immediately after World War II were designed and meant for engineers or academics but not for teachers. However, schools are most likely to face a much more challenging task in the era of expanding globalization than any other sphere of human activity. It is no longer enough to “continue mimicking . . . mechanically copying from each other and borrowing curricula” (Suárez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004, p. 2). We educators have at least three big goals to reach: (1) to make our curricula globally relevant, (2) to make ourselves globally relevant, and if we succeed in these two, or at least properly address them, we will be able (3) to help our students to be globally relevant. By bridging international educational practices to the practices in their schools and by disseminating them in their immediate or extended educational communities, exchange program participants expand the pedagogical possibilities of other teachers and equip school faculty with new tools so needed to prepare responsible citizens for the future global community. They teach tolerance, understanding, empathy, justice, and perspective conscience. Therefore, they become living examples of how global ethics emerges. Note 1. Editors’ note: This point is somewhat contested by Stevick (this volume) who portrays the motives and intentions of those importing educational ideas to the former U.S.S.R. as well as those receiving them as suspect.

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202   A. RAPOPORT Hamot, G. E. (2003). Civic education trends in post-Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. ERIC Digest. Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). San Francisco, CA: Harper. Hofstede, G. (1994). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind: Intercultural. London: Harper Collins. Husserl, E. (1964). The idea of phenomenology (P. A. Alston & G. Nakhnikian, Trans.). The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff. Jonassen, D. (1991, September). Evaluating constructivist learning. Educational Technology, 36(9), 28–33. Kupchan, C. (2000). U.S. assistance for democratic reform in Russia: An assessment. The Harriman review, 12, 46–49. Leming, R. S., & Vontz, T, S. (1997). Implementing new civic education programs in Indiana and post-Communist countries. The International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 126–133. Matus, C., & McCarthy, C. (2003). The triumph of multiplicity and the carnival of difference: Curriculum dilemmas in the age of postcolonialism and globalization. In. W. Pinar (Ed.), International handbook of curriculum research (pp. 73– 82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates McLaren, P. (1989). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education. New York, NY: Longman. Merryfield, M. M. (1994, April). In the global classroom: Teacher decision-making and global perspectives in education. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED401249) Merryfield M. M. (1998). Pedagogy for global perspectives in education: Studies for teachers’ thinking and practice. Theory and Research in Social education, 26(3), 342–379. Merryfield, M. M. (2000). Why aren’t teachers being prepared to teach for diversity, equity, and global interconnectedness? A study of lived experiences in the making of multicultural and global educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 429–443. Miller, J. (1997, September 4). Soros closes foundation in Belarus. The New York Times [Electronic version]. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/04/ world/soros-closes-foundation-in-belarus.html Muckle, J., & Prozorov, V. (1996). Teacher education in the Republic of Karelia: A Russian case study. Journal of Education for Teaching, 22(1), 27–38. Pakhomov, V. P. (Ed.). (2002). Proekt “Grazhdanin”: Metodika I praktika realizatsii [Project Citizen: Methodology and practical application]. Samara, Russia: Samara Regional Center of Civic Education. Pakhomov, V. P., & Schechter, S. (Eds.). (2003). Osnovy grazhdanskogo obrazovaniya [Foundations of civic education]. Samara, Russia: Nauchno Tekhnicheskiy Tsentr. Patrick, J. J. (1994). Civic education in former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Tech. Rep. No. 143). ERIC Document reproduction Service No. ED374056.

“I Saw It with My Own Eyes”    203 Patrick, J. J., Vontz, T. S., & Metcalf, K. K. (2002–2003). Learning democracy through Project Citizen in Lithuania, Latvia, and Indiana. The International Journal of Social Education, 17(2), 49–68. Polechova, P., Valkova, J., Dostalova, R., Bahmueller, C. F., & Farnbach, B. (1997). Civic education for democracy in the Czech Republic. The International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 73–83. Polozhevets, P., Schechter, S., & Perelmuter, R. (1997). Civic education and the future of democracy in Russia. The International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 84–100. Popkewitz, T. S., Tabachnic, B. R., & Wehlage, G. (1982). The myth of educational reform: A study of school responses to a program of change. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Quigley, C. N., & Hoar, J. N. (1997). Civitas: An international civic education exchange program. The International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 11–26. Rapoport, A. (2006). Beware of Greeks? Some aspects of inter-cultural communication in international training programs for educators . Intercultural Education, 17(2), 179–194. Rapoport, A. (2008). The impact of international programs on pedagogical practices of their participants: A Russian experience. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 14(3), 225–238. Remy, R., & Strzemieczny, J. (1997). Education for democratic citizenship in Poland. The International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 38–61. Richmond, Y. (1987). U.S.–Soviet cultural exchanges, 1958–1986: Who wins? Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Richmond, Y. (2003). Cultural exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University. Ridley, H. S., Hidveghi, B., & Pitts, A. (1997). Civic education for democracy in Hungary. The International Journal of Social Education, 12(2), 62–72. Sampaio, R. (1999). The hermeneutics conception of culture. Paideia: Philosophy of Culture. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cult/CultSamp.htm Sassen, A. (2003). The repositioning of citizenship. The New Centennial Review, 3(2), 41–66. Smith, D. G. (2003). Curriculum and teaching face globalization. In W. Pinar (Ed.), International handbook of curriculum research (pp. 35–52). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Smith, T. W. (2000). Teaching politics abroad: The internationalization of a profession? PS: Political Science and Politics, 33(1), 65–73. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000). Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London, UK: Continuum. Spindler, G. (1982). Introduction. In G. Spindler (Ed.), Doing the ethnography of schooling: Educational anthropology in action (pp.  1–12). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Stones, E. (1996). Donkeys and parrots. Journal of Education for Teaching, 22(1), 5–8. Stromquist, N., & Monkman, K. (2000). Defining globalization and assessing its implications on knowledge and education. In N. Stromquist & K. Monkman (Eds.), Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across cultures (pp. 3–26). Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield.

204   A. RAPOPORT Suárez-Orozco, M., & Qin-Hilliard, D. (2004). Globalization: Culture and education in the new millennium. In M. Suárez-Orozco & D. Qin-Hilliard (Eds.), Globalization: Culture and education in the new millennium (pp. 1–37). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Thomson, C. A., & Laves, W. H. C. (1963). Cultural relations and U.S. foreign policy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press U.S. Senate. (2000). Exchange programs and the national interests. Hearing before the subcommittee on foreign relations. 106th Congress. September 14, 2000. Retrieved from http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_senate Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. von Glasersfeld, E. (1989). Cognition, construction of knowledge, and teaching. Synthese, 80(1), 121–140. White, J. J. (1985). What works for teachers: A review of ethnographic studies as they inform issues of social studies curriculum and instruction. In W. B. Stanley (Ed.), Review of research in social studies education 1976–1983 (pp. 225–242). Boulder, CO: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Sciences Education. Wilson, A. H. (1983). A case study of two teachers with cross-cultural experience: They know more. Educational Research Quarterly, 8(1), 78–85. Wilson, A. H. (1984). Teachers as short-term international sojourners: Opening windows on the world. The Social Studies, 75(4), 153–157. Wilson, A. H. (1986). Returned Peace Corps volunteers who teach social studies. The Social Studies, 77(3), 100–106. Zelentsova, A., Spensly, K., & Schechter, S. (Eds.). (2005). Aktivnaya shkola: Teoria, praktika, perspektivy [Active school: Theory, practice, perspectives]. Moscow, Russia: CIVITAS@Russia. Zimmerman, J. (2006). Innocent abroad: American teachers in the American century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Afterword

Philosophical Resources for International Curriculum Work Barry L. Bull Indiana University–Bloomington

As the chapters in this volume vividly and often movingly demonstrate, the activities of developing and executing curriculum and instruction projects across international borders are not only logistically and technically complex, involving for example multiple languages, but also consistently ethically problematic. The ethical problems that such activities raise are especially difficult, partly because of the differences in the cultural and political contexts in which they usually take place, but particularly because of the power disparities that are typical of the circumstances in which such work occurs. These cultural differences raise questions about whether or under what conditions it is morally1 permissible for those representing one specific culture or political regime to use educational means to bring about changes in another culture or regime to accomplish purposes that seem justified according to the conceptual scheme of the first culture or the political interests of that regime. Of course, the willing consent of the partners involved in such a project might be the condition of its moral acceptability.

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However, the added existence of power differentials in such contexts makes it difficult if not impossible to determine whether those who themselves or whose children are being educated have explicitly and willingly consented to a project involving international curriculum and instruction work and thus whether the project is morally justifiable. Moreover, the existence of these differentials is endemic to many situations in which international curriculum work occurs. These power differentials often stem from the vulnerable status of one participant in the arrangement, sometimes as a result of the formerly colonized status of one participant by another and often as a result of the disadvantaged economic position of one partner in comparison to the other that both provide the occasion and the incentive for the involvement of the disadvantaged partner. But even when neither institutional partner is relatively vulnerable in these ways, the recipients of the curriculum and instruction that are being developed—namely children and adult students—almost certainly are. Of course, almost all education takes place with such vulnerable populations. However, the domestically determined education of children usually is developed and delivered by adults who participate in the culture that is the basis of that education and who are subject to the political regime that authorizes that education. Although it is possible that these locally determined forms of education may not be morally justified, the presence of developers and teachers from the culture that is taught and the participation or the consent of the political regime associated with that culture assures that the most obvious and objectionable forms of external imposition are not included in the educational process—that is, the imposition of standards that do not apply in the lives of the instructors and the application of instructional procedures that are inconsistent with the political mechanisms at work in the society. Therefore, curriculum and instruction projects developed in an international context cannot rely on some elements of moral justification that projects of purely domestic origin do, namely, the demonstration that they and their instructional procedures are acceptable according to standards and procedures that are locally developed and justified. As noted, the use of these elements is no guarantee that a project is morally justified, but they do meet some moral objections to the projects. As a result of these complications and difficulties of the moral justification of international curriculum and instruction projects, it is important to consider whether there is a theoretical perspective on moral justification that can be of help in overcoming these problems. One of the most tempting perspectives is social ethical relativism, a doctrine often appealed to by postmodern philosophers who resist the use of what they call ethical grand metanarratives and who, following Michel Foucault, demonstrate great concern about the moral acceptability of applications of social and epistemological power. This doctrine holds that a practice or outcome is

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morally justified for the members of a local culture if and only if it accords with the moral standards of that culture. Rather than there being a limited number of moral standards to which adequate justification must appeal, social ethical relativism holds that all local cultures or local ways of thinking about morality are equally justified, at least for the members of those cultures. Using this doctrine, an international curriculum and instruction project, it seems, would be justified if it meets the moral standards of all the cultures involved in its development. If, however, there is any disagreement among the involved cultures about any aspect of the project’s justification, it is not morally justified. However, there are grave problems about this doctrine. One way of interpreting social ethical relativism is that asserted by the logical positivists, especially by A.J. Ayer (1936). These philosophers doubted whether moral assertions had any cognitive content at all. Ayer held that such assertions simply are emotional expressions that do not make any claims whatsoever about truth or falsity. On this account, social ethical relativism’s claim that all local cultures’ moral views are equally justified is true because none of them is justified on cognitive grounds. On this interpretation, what appears to be a doctrine that respects all cultures’ moral beliefs in fact equally deprives all cultures of respectability, at least if that respectability is based on the cognitive content of those cultures’ moral views. In other words, from the logical positivists’ perspective, all moral views are equally justified in the sense that they are all meaningless. This interpretation of ethical relativism is, as a result, much less attractive than it seems at first. What is needed, then, is an interpretation of this doctrine that preserves the meaningfulness of ethical discourse and thus the cognitive content of cultures’ ways of thinking about morality. Unfortunately, this interpretation is equally problematic. Essentially, any interpretation of ethical relativism that preserves cognitive content must hold that a culture’s moral beliefs are true for the participants in that culture. Now, this interpretation seems to have an unfortunate implication that violates the usual meanings attached to the truth and falsity of beliefs because on this account, beliefs can be both true and false at the same time if the members of two different cultures disagree about a moral doctrine. But perhaps the usual assumptions about the meaning of truth are mistaken. What is most disappointing is that this interpretation does not, contrary to initial appearances, imply that the members of all cultures should respect and tolerate the moral beliefs of other cultures. For example, one culture might hold the second-order moral belief that all who do not accept its first-order moral standards are heretics who should be punished, enslaved, or brainwashed for their beliefs. According to the cognitive-content-preserving interpretation, this second-order belief is true for the members of the first culture, and presumably the members of that culture are justified in acting on it. If, therefore, the members of a second

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culture reject at least one of the first culture’s first-order beliefs, it is justifiable for the members of the first culture to take action against the members of the second. Obviously, this interpretation of social ethical relativism does not imply anything about the members of different cultures having a moral duty to respect the beliefs of other cultures. On this interpretation, social ethical relativism actually supports the efforts of some cultures to extinguish or to change coercively the beliefs of others because it holds that one cultures’ beliefs about the unacceptability of the beliefs of the members of a second culture are true for the members of the first culture and therefore may be the basis of morally justified action against the members of the second. As a result, neither interpretation of this doctrine—cognitive content-denying or -preserving—provides a satisfactory way of overcoming or at least coping with the moral problems that arise from the contact and conflict between cultures in general and from international curriculum and instruction projects in particular. Now, I take the lesson of this analysis to be that the moral theory that is needed in these cases of cultural contact, unlike social ethical relativism, is one that makes it possible to render at least some independent normative judgments about cultures that hold across cultures. In other words, such a theory would maintain, for example, that sometimes, at least, it is possible to conclude rationally that some moral beliefs of cultures are mistaken and therefore that the actions based on those beliefs are not morally justified. In the example of conflicting beliefs cited above, the application of such a theory might therefore allow one to conclude that the first culture’s second-order belief that condemns the first-order beliefs of a second culture is rationally mistaken and therefore that the action based on that belief is morally unjustified. Such a theory would prevent one from sometimes having to hold that the same action is both morally justified and unjustified when cultures hold different second-order beliefs about it. More important, it could perhaps authorize intervention as justifiable to prevent some of the most inhumane consequences of cultural disagreement. There are many different types of moral theories that meet this requirement of justifying at least some cross-cultural moral judgments. And many specific instances of these types of theory have been developed recently by philosophers who are focused on the complexities of cultural contact and the difficulties of cross-cultural justification. The next section of this chapter explains and considers the adequacy of several of these types of moral theories and some specific examples of them in meeting the moral challenges presented by these contexts. The most obvious type of theory that meets (and perhaps exceeds) the requirement of justifying some moral judgments between cultures is what philosophers call universalism, the general doctrine that some moral values are universally justified. Although the idea that some values have this

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quality raises important objections among many scholars, it is important to observe that there is a wide variety of different sorts of universalism, some of which may be less objectionable than others. The sort that generates the most objections is infallible universalism, that is, doctrines that identify with certainty the objects of moral value that are considered to be universal. There are three traditional categories of moral theories of this type. The first is infallible teleological universalism, the most widely known example of which is utilitarianism that identifies human happiness as the single aim of justified moral action. The second example is infallible deontological universalism, the best known example of which is Immanuel Kant’s doctrine that identifies justified moral actions as having no specific aim but whose principles can be applied to everyone without contradicting themselves. And the third example is infallible procedural universalism that identifies morally justified action as that determined by a particular decision-making procedure, the most notable example of which is democratic theory. Now, the quality that makes these doctrines objectionable to many thinkers is precisely their ostensible infallibility. To establish this quality, proponents often propose arguments that they represent as demonstrating the necessary moral value of their object—a particular outcome, action, or decision procedure. However, the infallible truth of such conclusions has come under serious philosophical scrutiny for at least two reasons. The first is that if the argument is empirical, it is always possible that the arguer has incorrectly observed events or has incorrectly inferred empirical causes of such events. The second is that if the argument is entirely analytical, depending that is on the meaning of terms or their logical consequences, it is possible that there is a different but equally plausible conceptual scheme according to which other meanings hold and for which case the analytical conclusions would not be forthcoming. The imposition on others, therefore, of any of the ostensibly infallible theories would be without a clear rational justification and would thus be morally problematic. It is important to note that this conclusion applies to procedural as well as teleological and deontological theories. It thus has the consequence of implying that even determinations made by participation in decision-making according to a specific democratic theory, for example, are morally questionable if that theory maintains that the decision-making procedure leads infallibly to morally justified results. After all, neither analytic nor empirical arguments can be relied upon to confer this kind of certainty on their conclusions. In fact, W. V. Quine (1953) has demonstrated that the distinction that we wish to draw between analytic and empirical arguments does not bear close philosophical scrutiny, and the hope that we might have that rigorous logical arguments might be able to escape the wellestablished fallibility of empirical arguments must ultimately be dashed.

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Our reflections thus far conclude that no specific moral theory can infallibly identify the goals, acts, or decision procedures that are morally justifiable, which might make it tempting to conclude either that no moral theory is true or false because all have no cognitive content or that the truth or falsity of all theory is dependent entirely the social context. However, we have also found that these positions are insupportable. What options remain, then, for moral theory that might be helpful in cross-cultural situations such as those that occur in international curriculum projects, or are moral theory and perhaps morality itself useless in these situations? Several contemporary moral philosophers have attempted or are attempting to construct moral theories that assert neither ethical relativism nor moral infallibility. The remainder of this chapter considers the work of several of these philosophers and its potential usefulness for international curriculum work. John Rawls was probably the most eminent political philosopher writing in English in the second half of the 20th century. His best known book is A Theory of Justice, which appeared in 1971. In that work, using the liberal social contract tradition, he argued for a public morality to organize the basic institutions of society, a morality that included principles of equal liberty, equal opportunity, and the distribution of income to maximize the position of the least advantaged members of society. To many observers, it seemed that Rawls’s theory was an example of what we have called infallible universalism—assertions about morality that were argued to be absolutely true for all human beings in all societies. However, in later work, Rawls clarified in two ways that his theory did not have any such universalist intentions. First, in Political Liberalism (1993) Rawls explained that his theory was only the most egalitarian of theories of justice that might be rationally agreed to be valid by the citizens of a politically liberal society. Therefore, even among societies with a moral commitment to liberty, opportunity, and fair distribution of income, principles other than those Rawls had defended earlier could be reasonably judged to be morally appropriate for the allocation of those goods. Second, in The Law of Peoples (1999), Rawls explained that there were non-liberal societies that could be regarded as morally decent. Here, Rawls explained that liberal societies were not the only ones that could maintain a central core of moral commitments to non-aggression toward other societies and to enforcing the basic human rights of its own population, including rights to the goods identified as morally valuable for all members of its society. Despite his efforts to persuade his readers of the value of his account of social justice in his original work, Rawls clearly admits that human reason is not powerful enough to conclude that only one set of human goods is morally appropriate and that there is only one justifiable way to distribute these goods.

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For these reasons, Rawls is not asserting a form of infallible universalism that we have found to be unjustifiable. But before exploring the value of Rawls’s thinking for international curriculum work, we should consider whether Rawls’s approach represents either form of ethical relativism that we have found to be equally problematic. First, does he assert that moral considerations and moral principles have no cognitive content, as do the logical positivist theorists discussed above? Even though Rawls holds that human reason is not powerful enough to settle all questions of morality— notably all questions about what is good and what is right, he does not deny that reason is relevant to thinking about these questions. As a result, he holds that some moral assertions are true or false even though that truth or falsity cannot be determined once and for all by human rationality. In this way, Rawls takes a classical fallibilist position with regard to morality, maintaining that some moral positions are right or wrong but that humans cannot always determine with certainty which are. Second, does he assert that all moral positions are equally valid for those who embrace them even though they may conflict with one another? Again, Rawls’s fallibilism leads him to hold that, when moral positions conflict, it is possible that one of them is right but that people cannot always tell with certainty which it is. Of course, it is also possible that both are wrong or even that both are right because the conflict was in the end only apparent rather than real. Thus, in cases of the conflict of two plausible moral positions held by the members of different societies or cultures, the most reasonable thing to do, according to Rawls, is to take them both seriously in the short run even though one or both may eventually be rationally demonstrated to be wrong so that one can continue to inquire about their truth in the long run. It is important to note that Rawls is not asserting a specific form of fallible universalism in which particular values are tentatively and fallibly nominated as universal because he remains agnostic about whether there are in fact any values that might prove to have universal validity. Even the criteria on which liberal and what Rawls refers to as “decent” non-liberal societies agree, namely, non-aggression and basic human rights, he does not assert these as demonstrated by rationality to be true, even provisionally. Rather, they are for him simply what those societies can agree upon in the interests of pursuing the ways of life that they not unreasonably think best for their people. However, Rawls does not deny, as the ethical relativists do, that these or some other values might in fact be universal whether or not human beings can ever prove it, even tentatively. For ethical relativists, the possibility of universalism must be rejected altogether either because those values have no cognitive content or because some culture or civilization might embrace values that contradict any candidates for the universal, in which case ethical relativism would require one to find that those values are true for the members of that culture even if they are

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widely rejected by other cultures, thus contradicting the possibility that the candidate values are universal. Thus, for Rawls the status of the values that he supports is not their truth but either that they are reasonably agreed to by the members of their society or are reasonably implied or presupposed by the values on which they reasonably agree. In other words, he finds reasonable consensus rather than plausibly universal truth to be the foundation of political morality. Nonetheless, he does not reject in principle the possibility of universal truth. As a result, Rawls asserts non-aggression and basic human rights as cross-cultural values, not because they are plausibly true but because they are the product of reasonable agreement among the cultures of reasonable peoples. This way of thinking about international morality is analogous to what Rawls sees as the basis for justice in politically liberal societies, where justice is a result of a rational agreement about principles that can be accepted by individuals who hold a wide diversity of different conceptions of the good, an agreement that Rawls labels an overlapping consensus. As such, the principles of justice do not presuppose the truth of any particular conception of the good, and they also can be somewhat different in liberal societies where the citizens hold different reasonable conceptions of the good and can vary from time to time in a single society as the reasonable conceptions of the good held by its citizens change. Politically liberal justice therefore does not depend upon an account of the good that is metaphysically true. By the same token, international morality does not depend on the truth of its principles but rather their acceptability to the societies of the world’s various peoples. This analysis suggests that there are two possible ways of seeing Rawls’s work as relevant to moral judgments about international projects, including international curriculum work. The first is whether those projects adhere to and promote the values that Rawls identifies as included in the current overlapping consensus about international ethics, namely, nonaggression and basic human rights. The second is whether the projects make it possible for the continuing emergence and evolution of an overlapping consensus about international morality among decent liberal and non-liberal societies. Several of the chapters in this book focus on education for democracy or appeal to democratic principles in assessing the moral acceptability of other sorts of curriculum projects—specifically those by Mason; Pereira and Avery; Stevick, Camicia, and Bayon; and Gaudelli. From Rawls’ perspective, effective self-governance of a society is important so that the society can actually produce the goods for its people that its culture deems valuable but also so that it can take its rightful place as an independent entity in the community of nations that is capable of expressing, achieving, and protecting the values of its culture. In governing itself, each nation has, Rawls

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argues, a moral obligation to govern itself in a way that is non-aggressive toward other nations and that respects the basic human rights of its own people. However, Rawls is clear that democracy is not the only way for a society to govern consistently with these moral requirements; he specifically notes that what he calls a decent consultation hierarchy2 is consistent with these values, and there may be other morally acceptable governance arrangements as well. Thus, Rawls does not make an absolute and universal commitment to democracy, as an infallible proceduralist morality might. As a result, respect for self-governance implies that the use and meaning of democratic forms of politics are not specified by the principles of international morality. Therefore, if democracy forms the substance or justification of a curriculum project, it is the right of each nation to negotiate noncoercively with others involved in the project the relevance of democracy and, if it is relevant, the nature of the democratic practices that are to be taught to children or of the democratic values that justify other elements of the curriculum. In other words, from Rawls’ perspective, democracy is not necessarily a justified element of or a justification for international curriculum projects, and likewise the morally authoritative meaning of democracy is not specified by the content of international morality. Thus, for example, the negotiation by the authors of several chapters included here about the meaning of democracy with their international partners is perfectly justified, according to Rawls, for there is no morally required content of democracy in an international context. What is morally required with regard to self-governance is that a nation is to be effective in delivering the goods of the culture to the society’s populace and that it is not aggressive to other societies and respects basic human rights among its own people. Thus, according to Rawls, there are moral obligations that nations have to assist what he calls burdened societies in developing the capabilities for selfgovernance, but those capabilities are not necessarily those of democratic governance unless the values of the culture require them. Some moral theorists believe that Rawls’ account of international morality is too restricted in two ways. First, it is too limited in the power it grants to human rationality. Second, and as a result, it does too little in developing an account of the substantive content of universal human values. Of course, for the reasons cited above, these values cannot be known or demonstrated with certainty, but many theorists believe that human reason can provide more guidance about international morality than merely enabling people to seek agreement about it. Two such theorists who take Rawls’s work seriously but who believe that the conclusions that he reaches about international morality are too limited are Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Sen (1999, 2009), a Nobel laureate economist, finds that Rawls has given human reason both too much and too little credit. In Rawls’ original work on liberal justice, he finds that Rawls aimed at the wrong target, seeking

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a transcendentally ideal theory of justice rather than a theory that allows one to make practical judgments about how changes in particular social arrangements would produce more just but not necessarily ideal results. For Sen, therefore, the aim of applying human reason to morality is to improve the social choices that societies make, not to describe or to achieve the moral ideal at which they should aim. But, in later characterizing his original work as applicable only in societies that have a liberal tradition or aspiration, Rawls, Sen finds, has neglected the universal potential of some of the insights contained in his original work. Thus, some of the features of justice in that original work can be seen as revealing the very idea of human morality and, therefore, are not of limited application only to those societies that are or that see themselves as liberal. For example, Sen believes that Rawls correctly identified the two basic and universal elements of justice, freedom and capability, but that in attempting to formulate an ideal theory, Rawls incorrectly argued for specific principles for the distribution of these two elements and for a hard-and-fast moral priority of liberty over capability. Thus for Sen, unlike Rawls, human reason is able to identify the essential and universal features of international morality, but it is not capable of determining universal principles for the morally ideal nature and allocation of those features. Beyond this, human reason can tell us what social arrangements are capable of making the type, quantity, and allocation of these features better, even if it cannot tell us what an ideal arrangement for all human beings would be. Reason coupled with empirical observation can tell us, for example, that the alleviation of the extremes of poverty and disease improve a society’s achievement of justice even though reason alone cannot specify exactly what the allocation of wealth or health in a society should be. Similarly, reason and observation can tell us that wider involvement in social decision-making and improvements in women’s literacy in many impoverished societies usually enhance in a wide variety of ways the morally appropriate quality and allocation of freedom and capability, although they cannot determine their ideal characteristics and allocation. In this way, human reason can generate a universal sense of injustice that can guide some of our social decisions, but it cannot produce a specific account of justice for all societies. In this way also, once a society has been enabled to deal with the types and sources of patent injustice that it faces, it must be left alone to work out for itself what moral ideal seems appropriate, given its traditions and cultures, and how to achieve it. On this account, then, Sen offers a form of fallible universalism. He identifies certain values as universal but believes that, beyond the imperative to correct patent injustices, the precise meaning of those values is not entirely determined by philosophical argument but rather by cultural interpretation, political negotiation, or empirical observation. The application of this perspective to international curriculum work depends on the extent

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to which the partners involved maintain some aspects of a social system that is unjust. If some do, the obligation of the other partners is to make it possible for the violating partners to overcome the most blatant and extreme forms of injustice in their societies. However, if basic injustice is not at stake, it is inappropriate for some nations to enforce their interpretations of freedom or capability on others or perhaps even to provide incentives to disadvantaged countries to adopt those interpretations. Moreover, attention to the empirical consequences of policy sometimes suggests that the most effective way to correct a patent injustice may not necessarily be to confront the injustice directly. For example, Sen (1999) cites research that shows that improvements in women’s literacy tend to lower the birth rate and thus to ameliorate poverty. In fact, such indirect methods often can be more effective in the long run than what seem to be direct ways of confronting a problem (such as long-term food aid) and, as in this example, they often correct two problems at the same time in that the deprivation of literacy is itself a form of injustice. Because of this double effect of educational programs, it is important that curriculum designers pay careful attention to the consequential as well as the inherent effects of such programs on the correction of injustice. For example, civic education not only provides the means for participation in civic life but also may have the effect of reducing poverty by discouraging dependency. However, it is also important from Sen’s perspective to recognize that international morality justifies only those interventions that correct basic injustices. Interventions that do not have this result or intention often enforce the interpretations of justice of richer and more powerful nations on others. Thus, civic education projects involving nations that do not face basic injustices should be attuned to the culture and traditions of those nations even if the resulting education does not reflect the sponsoring nations’ interpretations of democracy. Martha Nussbaum is a contemporary philosopher who proposes a form of fallible universalism that is inspired by John Rawls and Amartya Sen but that goes beyond their work. In Frontiers of Justice (2006), she agrees with Sen’s interpretation of Rawls that freedom and capability are both central aspects of justice, but she finds that these two qualities do not explain the moral purpose of justice, which she finds to be the promotion and recognition of human dignity. In other words, for her the point of supporting the freedom and capability of others is to acknowledge the universal value of dignity, a value that she therefore adds to those recognized by Sen. Because of the connection between justice and dignity, she also argues that certain specific capabilities constitute universal values, namely those capabilities that are necessarily for a life with dignity. Sen does not believe that it is appropriate to specify a list of capabilities required by international morality because he believes only that the correction of injustice is justified by universal values and that the specification of particular capabilities holds that a

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particular conception of justice is universally valid. Thus, the identification of particular capabilities for Sen involves the specification of a conception of justice, although no such universal agreement is reasonably possible, and thus the enforcement of that conception would illegitimately involve one culture’s imposition of its own beliefs and interpretations on others. However, Nussbaum’s work with representatives of other nations gives her reason to accept that a universal theory of justice is possible, a theory that is admittedly incomplete but consists of the provision up to a threshold of ten specific capabilities necessary for a life of dignity. However, this list of capabilities and the theory of justice is still fallible because in part it results from conversations of those in many different cultures and in part it can be corrected by further conversations across cultures. Finally, Nussbaum argues that her conception of justice is consistent with individual and cultural freedom because individuals who develop those capabilities are to decide for themselves whether the life that they judge best for themselves is or is not to include the exercise of those capabilities. Now, education is implicated as a consistently important means for the development of each of the ten capabilities that Nussbaum includes in her list.3 This conclusion is obvious for some capabilities, such as the capability of senses, imagination, and thought and the capability of practical reason. But even the capabilities that seem to emphasize having particular material wherewithal or legal protections also have a significant educational dimension. For example, the capability of life requires that one know how to make reasonable use of the resources that might be provided for this purpose. Because of Nussbaum’s assertion of the universal value of these capabilities and the importance of education in their acquisition, her theory can provide systematic guidance to international curriculum work, guidance that is more far-reaching than that provided by either Rawls or Sen. For example, her theory specifies the nature and purpose of civic education as a means to develop the capability for the control over one’s political environment. As a result, she regards democracy defined in this way as of universal value as Rawls does not, and she is willing to specify the morally relevant nature of democracy in a way that Sen finds to be inappropriate. Moreover, because of the relatively wide range of her list of central capabilities, Nussbaum’s theory is relevant to a greater variety of educational subject matter than the moral theories of Rawls and Sen. For instance, for Nussbaum sexuality education is of central moral concern because of its relevance to the capability of bodily integrity. For Rawls, such education is probably subject to people’s cultures and traditions rather than international morality. And for Sen, sexuality education may have an international moral dimension in places where it is empirically connected to the production and distribution of other goods relevant to correcting basic injustices but not elsewhere. However, it is also important to recognize two things in implementing Nuss-

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baum’s wide-ranging account of international morality. The first is that the purpose of human dignity is, according to Nussbaum, only rarely achieved by violence and coercion in the implementation of the requirements of justice; therefore, implementation of those requirements by discussion and persuasion is to be the rule. Moreover, Nussbaum explains that these universal values can be achieved in multiple ways. As a result of these two considerations and of the fallibility of the theory, the clear provision of opportunities for local partners to make contributions to the specific form of the curriculum is appropriate even though that curriculum aims to achieve universal values. The purpose of this brief review of the relevance of some recent philosophy to international curriculum projects is not to evaluate these specific resources or to claim that there is no other relevant philosophy. Indeed, this evaluation is an important undertaking, but it would require more systematic exploration of these theories and their logical and empirical implications than is possible here, and many other philosophers are working on the problems of developing a reasonable approach to international ethics. Rather, the purpose is to demonstrate by example how philosophy may be relevant to this work. It often seems that international curriculum workers have the choice between some sort of infallible universalism and ethical relativism, both of which, we have found, are inappropriate for thinking sensibly and humanely about the ethical issues that arise in their work. However, this seemingly forced choice is more apparent than real, for the approaches to international ethics developed by Rawls, Sen, and Nussbaum demonstrate that there is potentially a fruitful middle ground between these alternatives. In the end, whether any of these approaches or others that are being developed can resolve satisfactorily the issues that the authors of the previous chapters have shown to arise in such curriculum work is unclear, but at least this work is able to draw upon systematic recent thinking about ethics that might prove of assistance in thinking and making decisions about this increasingly frequent and important dimension of curriculum theory and practice. Notes 1. In this chapter, I have used the terms “ethical” and “moral” interchangeably. 2. Rawls includes here authoritarian regimes that consult with the leaders of various groups within the society about the effects of their policies on those communities. 3. This list includes the following capabilities: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotion; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one’s environment, political and material. See Nussbaum (2006) pages 76–78 for a detailed definition of each capability.

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References Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, truth, and logic. London, UK: Victor Gollancz. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Frontiers of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Quine, W. V. (1953). From a logical point of view. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Contributing Authors Patricia G. Avery is a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include civic education, political socialization, and political tolerance. ([email protected]) Alfredo Bayon is professor of social studies education at Southern Leyte State University-Tomas Oppus, Philippines. His research focuses upon the history of colonization in the Philippines and how this history is represented in the social studies curriculum. ([email protected]) Barry L. Bull is professor of philosophy of education and education policy studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research focuses on the moral status and justification of the education enterprise and of particular education policies. Steven Camicia is an assistant professor in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Utah State University. He researches curriculum and instruction in the areas of perspective consciousness, postcolonial theory, queer theory, global education, and social justice as they relate to democratic decision making processes. ([email protected]) Nikoletta Christodoulou is a lecturer in the department of pre-primary education in the School of Education at Frederick University, Nicosia, Cyprus. She is also the project coordinator of the Cyprus Oral History and Living Memory Project at Frederick University. Her academic interests include curriculum studies, teacher and student learning experiences,

Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 219–221 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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politics of education, teacher education, and oral history and education. ([email protected]) Walter S. Gershon is an assistant professor in the School of Teaching, Learning & Curriculum Studies at Kent State University. Although his current work focuses primarily on educational actors’ ways of knowing and being through the senses, his research interests includes the relationship between curriculum and students, the sociocultural contexts that inform curriculum and studenting, and the qualitative methodologies utilized to examine educational ecologies. ([email protected]) William Gaudelli is associate professor in the department of arts and humanities at Teachers College, Columbia University where he is also the coordinator of the program in social studies education. He is interested in global citizenship education, particularly as it takes shape in the lives of teachers and students through various media. ([email protected]) Rob Helfenbein is associate professor of curriculum studies at Indiana University-IUPUI. His research interests include curriculum theory, qualitative research methods, cultural studies, and urban education. He has published and edited numerous research articles and book chapters about contemporary education analysis in urban contexts. ([email protected]) J. Gregory Keller is a senior lecturer at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. His academic interests include moral thinking, the practice and theory of dialogue, the nature and practice of spirituality, philosophy of literature, utopian thought, and cosmopolitanism. Steven Khan is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of curriculum and pedagogy, The University of British Columbia. His academic interests include the intersections among mathematics, aesthetics, and ethics in education. ([email protected]) Jean-Francois Maheux is a professor in the Didactique section of the mathematics department of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Montreal, Quebec. His research interests are in primary and secondary mathematics education and questions of ethics and epistemology in researching, teaching, and learning (with or without technology). (www.math.uqam.ca/ maheuxjf) Terrence C. Mason is a professor in the department of curriculum and Instruction in the School of Education at Indiana University, Bloomington where he is also the director of the Center for Social Studies and International Education.  His academic interests include social studies, education for democratic citizenship, and teacher education. ([email protected])

Contributing Authors    221

Carolyn Pereira is the executive director emeritus of the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago. Founded by her in 1974, CRFC’s mission is to educate students about their rights and responsibilities in a democracy. Her primary work is includes teacher professional development and curriculum/program design with a special emphasis on deliberation and service. ([email protected]) Anatoli Rapoport is assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education at Purdue University. His academic interests include citizenship education, global education, and cultural aspects of education. ([email protected]) E. Doyle Stevick is assistant professor of educational leadership and policies at the University of South Carolina and director of the Office of International and Comparative Education. His research spans education policy, culture, and education for democracy. ([email protected]) Dalene M. Swanson is Professor of Education in the School of Educational Research and Engagement at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, and Adjunct Professor at the Universities of British Columbia and Alberta in Canada. Her research interests span mathematics education, democratic education, global citizenship, teacher education, international education, indigeneity, cultural studies, critical studies, and social and ecological justice. ([email protected];[email protected])

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Index A

B

active/student-centered teaching methods, 16, 32, 99–101, 100, 196–197 advocacy, 63–66 Africa, Civitas program in, 5 Agar, Michael, 61 Agoncillo, T.A., 80 aid. See resources Albania DID project, 42 Macedonian Question, 104 alterity, 146–149, 164 anthropology and international curriculum work, 52, 56, 61, 68 Aoki, Ted, 149 Appiah, K.A., 12, 46, 108 applied ethics, definition of, 4 appropriation, 66–69 Aristotle, xxvii Armenia, SAC model implementation, 28–29 Asia, Civitas program in, 5 Austin, J.L. 63 authority, ethics of, 177–179 Avery, Patricia G. (co-author), xiii, 25–46, 219 Ayer, A.J., 207 Azerbaijan, DID project, 26, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42

Barzun, Jacques, 18, 20 Bayon, Alfredo (co-author), xiii, 73–90, 219 Bentham, J., 115 Blum, L.A., 52 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Project Citizen, 13 Brislin, R.W., 187 Bruno, 62–63 Bulgaria, national identity, 106 Bull, Barry (author), xiv, 205–217, 219 Burton, D., 190 Bush Doctrine, 36 Butler, J., 75

C California state curriculum, 155–156 Camicia, Steven (co-author), xiii, 73–90, 219 censorship, 42–43 Center for Civic Education, 5–6, 9, 42, 61 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, DID project, 26, 29, 30, 32–33, 35, 36–41, 43 CHEM (Chemical Education Materials) Study, 33

Ethics and International Curriculum Work, pages 223–231 Copyright © 2012 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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224   Index Christodoulou, Nikoletta (co-author), xiv, 111–137, 219–220 citizen juries, Jefferson Center, 27 citizenship democratic citizenship education, 55–58 global citizenry, 185–187 globalization and identity, 11–14, 17 See also civics/citizenship education civic enlightenment/engagement, 43–44 civic identity. See national identity Civic Mission of Schools, The, 31 Civic-Link in N. Ireland, 13 civics/citizenship education American vs. European models, 64–65 DID project, 25–46 globalization, 186 globalization and national identity, 11–14, 17 importance of schools, 31 Latvian teachers on, 10–11 Lithuanian teacher’s survey, 9–10, 14–15 in Russian Federation, 187–192 See also Civitas International Educator Exchange civil society, 64 Civitas International Educator Exchange program, 4–21 Civitas Baltic’s partnership, 5 curriculum context, 4–8 democracy, definitions/dilemmas, 8–11 globalization and national identity, 11–14 issues, identified, 7–8 program objectives, 5, 6–7, 64 Project Citizen curriculum, 5, 6–8, 9, 12–17, 19–20 sustainability, 19–21 cognitive constructivism, 193 collaboration. See cross-cultural collaboration colonizer/colonized and curriculum development, 73–90 Columbia, SC (U.S.), DID project, 26 communication. See dialogue communicative interests and international curriculum work, 54–55 communism, legacy of, 6, 11, 53, 59, 66, 188–189

community, meaning of, 195 competition, student/school, Civitas program, 15–16 conceptualizing knowledge, 195–197 constitutionalism, 9, 65 constructivist theory, 193 context curriculum, 4–8 global vs. local, 182 historical narratives, 79–81, 88–89 local, 14–17 multiple national, 30–32 political and civic, 40 conversation, xxvi See also dialogue cosmopolitanism, xix, 12, 74, 76, 108 Council of Europe, 26, 31, 53 Counts, George, 186–187 critical geography, 103, 106 cross-cultural collaboration between colonizer/colonized, 73–90 DID project, 26, 29, 32–37 influence of resources on relationships, 58–63 local cultural knowledge, 57–58, 178 programs in Russian Federation, 189–190 U.S.-Cyprus, 122–125 U.S.-Philippines case study, 76–90 cross-cultural moral judgments, 206–208 cross-national awareness/understanding, DID project, 29 cultural anthropology, 56 cultural imperialism, xii, 18, 144, 165, 190 culture and curriculum, 57–58, 178, 186–187 curriculum as aesthetic text, 158 alliance, 74–75 Civitas International Educator Exchange program, 4–21 Civitas program, 4–8, 17–19 colonizer/colonized. See colonizer/ colonized and curriculum development critical questions about, xi–xii criticism of Westernization of, 190 culture/knowledge, 57–58, 186–187 decolonizing, 74–75 design, and dialogue, 154, 164 design, and interpretation, 158–159

Index    225 development, 145, 161–162 DID project, 25–46 envaluative, 159 ethics, 146–149 implementation, 149 institutionalized text, 159 international context, 165–166 International Leadership Fund (ILF) program, 173–183 interpretation, 158–159 knowledge-construction process, 185–200 leadership, 174–177 Macedonian Primary Education Project (MPEP), 95–109 in practice, 149–157 reciprocity, 18–19 reconceptualization of, 149, 162 review and analysis, 179–181 standardized, 146–147, 155–156 sustainability, 7, 19–21 U.S.-Philippines development, 76–90 curriculum in practice, 149–157 ethics of pretext, 162–165 internationalization of curriculum, 152 Cyprus, videoconferencing project, 111–137 Czech Republic, DID project, 26, 31, 34, 35, 38–39, 41, 43

D decolonizing curriculum, 74–75 Deliberating in a Democracy project. See DID project deliberation, described, 26–27 Deliberative Polling (James Fishkin), 27 democracy as contested concept, 40–41 deliberative, 27, 46n4, 59 morally acceptable alternatives, 212–213 Democracy and Diversity (meeting/conference), 5 democracy education collaboration between colonizer/colonized, 73–90 conceptualizing democracy, 17

definitions/dilemmas and Civitas program, 8–11 democratic citizenship education, 55–58 direct, multicultural/critical approaches, 8 Latvian teachers on, 10–11 Lithuanian teacher’s survey, 9–10, 14–15 traditional liberal concepts, 8, 9 democratic societies, 27 Denver, CO (U.S.), DID project, 26, 33–34 Department of Education (U.S.), 4, 26 dependency model of engagement, 156 Derrida, J., 143–144, 148 developing democracies. See emerging democracies development, curriculum, 145, 161–162 Dewey, J., 195 dialogue call for, xv conversation, xxvi curriculum design, 154, 164 forms of, xxvii–xxix hermeneutic, xxv–xxix mutuality, xxii, xxvi, xxviii openness, in classroom, 179 polemics vs., xxiii–xxiv U.S.-Philippines case study, 87–90 DID (Deliberating in a Democracy) project, 25–46 direct transmission model, 56–57 discussion boards. See online discussions dissemination to marginalized communities, 41–42 dissensus, 114, 116, 117–118 divided societies, Civitas program, 13 domestic violence topic, 37 donors/recipients, 58–64 Dragoman, Dragos, 41

E Eastern Europe, Civitas program, 5 emerging democracies Civitas program, 12 cultural deficit theory, 57 cultural imperialism, xii, 18–19, 144, 165, 190 curriculum as text/pretext, 165–166

226   Index envaluative curriculum, 159 epistemological constructivist theory, 192–193 Estonia civic education post-Soviet, 53 Civitas program, 4, 5, 6 DID project, 26, 30, 31, 37, 39, 42 international curriculum work in, 64–65 ethics of alterity, 146–149, 164 applied, 4 of authority and ILF, 177–179 and curriculum, 146–149 definition of, x, xxxi n1 ethical communities, 113, 116–117 ethical recognition, 75–76 ethical relativism, 206–207 ethical vs. moral, xi ethics/ethical defined, 112–113, 143–144 freedom and, ix–xv fusion of horizons, xviii, xx, xxii, xxiv, xxvii, xxx, 198, 199 of motivation and ILF, 181–182 of ownership and ILF, 179–181 surveillance and videoconferencing, 115–118 European Union, 6, 31, 53 Macedonia and, 105 national identity and, 12, 26, 31 exchange programs Civitas program, 6 DID project, 29, 30, 38–39 ILF program, 177, 179 U.S.-Philippines case study, 85 experience, xviii–xxiv elements of, xx, xxiii expression, freedom of, 40, 87–88

F Fairfax County, VA (U.S.), DID project, 26 feminism, 77, 89 Fishkin, James, 27 flexibility, DID project, 26, 32–33, 37–38 Foucault, Michael, ix, x, xviii, xx–xxi, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxix–xxx, 103, 114, 115–116, 206

Foundations of Democracy curriculum, 6, 9 Franklin, B., 76 Frederick University, Cyprus, 111 free exchange of ideas, 55–56 freedom, ethics and, ix–xv Freedom House, 37, 42 freedom of expression, 40, 87–88 Friedman, Thomas, 199 Friere, Paulo, banking model of education, 56, 120 Frontiers of Justice (Nussbaum), 215 Fukuyama, Francis, 66–68 Fulbright Act of 1946 (U.S.), 187 funding. See resources Fung, A., 27 fusion of horizons (Gadamer), xviii, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiv, xxvii, xxx, 198, 199

G Gadamer, H.G., xviii, xx–xxvii, xxx, 198 Gandhi, 177–178 Gastil, J., 27 Gaudelli, William (author), xiv, 173–183, 220 geography component of MPEP, 96–98 critical geography, 103, 106 spatial analysis, 95–96, 103–104, 107 Gershon, Walter S. (co-author), xiv, 111–137, 220 Gibson-Graham, J.K., 107 Gladstone, William, 104 Global Corruption Index, 173 globalization described, 73, 186 global vs. local context, 182 goals for educators, 200 impact on Russian Federation, 188–189 national identity, 11–14, 17, 104–106 teaching teachers in Macedonia, 105–109 good/best practices, 54, 66–67, 148, 151, 152 graphs, 152–153 Greece, national identity, 106 Grumet, Madeleine, 149 Guba, E., 66

Index    227 Gutmann, A., 26 Gutstein, E., 157

H Habermas, Jürgen, 53, 70n1 Hall, E.T., 197–198 Hann, 63 Heidegger, M., 198 Helfenbein, Robert J. (author), ix–xv, xix, xxv, 95–109, 220 hermeneutics, xxiv, xxv, 55, 67, 158–159 cultural, 193, 197–199 Hess, D.E., 39 hierarchy, decent consultation, 213 House, E., 11 Howe, K.R., 11 Hughes, A.S., 33 human rights, 13, 34, 210–214

I ILF program. See International Leadership Fund (ILF) program Illinois (U.S.) Civitas program, 4, 5 DID project, 26 immanent morality, xxiv implementation, project, Civitas program, 7–8 implemented curriculum, 149 importers of democracy, 18, 20 India Civitas program, 4, 5, 15–16, 19, 20 ILF program, 173–174 Project Citizen curriculum, 6–8 Indiana (U.S.) Civitas program, 4, 5 DID project, 26 infallible deontological universalism, 209 infallible procedural universalism, 209 infallible teleological universalism, 209 innovation curricular, export of, 33 vs. tradition, 14–17 institutionalized text, 159

intercultural communication theory, 193, 197–199 International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS), x International Court of Justice, 13 international curriculum theory, xii International Handbook of Curriculum Research, The, x International Leadership Fund (ILF) program assessment, 175 assessment/evaluation, 175, 189, 217 background, 173–177 ethics of authority, 177–179 ethics of motivation, 181–182 ethics of ownership, 179–181 leadership curriculum, 174–177 train-the-trainer model, 176 See also Civitas International Educator Exchange program international vs. transnational work, xii–xiii internationalization of curriculum, 152 Internationalization of Curriculum Studies, The, x interpretation and curriculum design, 158–159 Iowa (U.S.), Civitas program, 4, 5

J Japan, 4 Jefferson Center’s citizen juries, 27 Johnson, D.W., 29, 43, 46n4 Johnson, R.T., 29, 43, 46n4 Jones, A., 35

K Kant, Immanuel, xxvii, 209 Keller, J. Gregory (author), xiii, xvii–xxxii, 220 Kent State University (U.S.), 111 Khan, Steven (co-author), xiv, 143–167, 220 Kieren, K., 159

228   Index Klicperová-Baker, M., 31 knowing-within setting, 164 knowledge assumptions/stereotypes, 194 as content, 145, 147, 148, 159, 164 local cultural, 57–58, 178 knowledge-construction process, 185–200 acquiring new knowledge, 193–194 bridges, symbolic/real, 199–200 conceptualizing knowledge, 195–197 constructivist theory, 193 criticism of Western influence, 190 culture/knowledge, 178 epistemological constructivist theory, 192–193 eyewitness effect, 196–197 international programs in education, 187–192 introduction, 185–187 new environment/information, 195 objectivism, 192–193 participants’ prior knowledge, 194 Piaget’s model of knowledge, 193 pioneering effect, 196 prior knowledge, 194 programs in Russia, 187–192 reflection/interpretation, 197–199 Kohlmeier, J., 175–176 Kosovo, DID project, 30

L language issues, 36, 37, 57 Dewey’s behavioral theory of meaning, 195 teaching teachers in Macedonia, 102 U.S.-Philippines case study, 80–81 Latin America, Civitas program, 5 Latvia, Civitas program, 4, 5, 6, 10–11, 19, 20 Law of Peoples, The (Rawls), 210 leadership. See International Leadership Fund (ILF) program Levinas, Emmanuel, xiv, xviii, xx–xxi, xxiv, xxvii, xxviii, xxx, 75, 143–149, 152, 154–155, 157, 159, 162–164, 166 Levinas and Education (Egéa-Kuehne), 148 Levine, P., 27

Levinson, B.A.U., 56, 66, 69 U.S.-Philippines case study, 87 Lincoln, Y., 66 Lithuania Civitas program, 4, 5 DID project, 26, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37 teacher’s survey, on democracy, 9–10, 14–15 local cultural knowledge, 57–58, 178 global vs. local context, 182 local norms and progressive pedagogy, 14–17 logical positivists, 207 Los Angeles, CA (U.S.), DID project, 26 Lyons, N., x, xii

M Macdonald, J., 149 Macedonia, DID project, 26, 30, 34, 36, 37, 42 Macedonian Primary Education Project (MPEP), 95–109 Macedonian Question, 104–105 Maheux, Jean-Francois (co-author), xiv, 143–167, 220 Malawi Civitas program, 4, 5, 15–16, 19, 20 Project Citizen curriculum, 6–7 marginalized communities, dissemination to, 41–42 Maryland (U.S.), DID project, 26 Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, 175 Mason, Terrence C. (author), ix–xv, xix, xxv, 3–21, 220 Massey, Doreen, 106–107 mathematics education classroom episode (N. America, grade 7), 149–151, 160–161, 163, 164, 166 curriculum design, 144–146 MPEP, 96 meaning, behavioral theory of, 195 Merryfield, M.M., 189 Middle East, Civitas program, 5 moral justification/standards, 206–208 moral vs. ethical, xi morality, xxiv motivation, ethics of, 181–182

Index    229 MPEP. See Macedonian Primary Education Project (MPEP) Muckle, J., 190 multicultural approaches, democracy, definitions/dilemmas, 8–11 mutuality, xxiii, xxvi, xxviii Mutz, Diana, 43

N National Council for the Social Studies (U.S.), 10 national identity, 17 European Union, 12, 26, 31 globalization and, 11–14 Macedonian Question, 104–106 National Issues Forums, 27 nation-states, Civitas program, 12 natural morality, xxiv naturalism, 67–68 neoliberalism, 76, 144, 147–148, 161, 165 New Jersey (U.S.), DID project, 26 Nicosia, Cyprus, 122–125 Nicosia and videoconferencing, 111 No Child Left Behind Act (U.S.), 112, 117 Northern Ireland and Project Citizen, 13 Nussbaum, Martha, xiv, 213, 215–217

O objectivism, 192–193 O’Brien, J., 175–176 online discussions DID project, 29 U.S.-Philippines case study, 86 ownership, ethics of, 179–181

P Panopticism, 115–116 Parker, Walter, 28–29, 45 patronage, 62–63 Pereira, Carolyn (co-author), xiii, 25–46, 221 Philippine Normal School/University, 80

Philippines curriculum development, 76–90 Pinar, William, 149, 154, 158–159 Plato, xix, xxi polemics vs. dialogue, xxiii–xxiv Political Liberalism (Rawls), 210 Popkewitz, T.S., 69 positionality, xix, 77–79 postmodernism, x, xii, 75, 206 power relations cultural imperialism, xii, 18–19, 144, 165, 190 ethical recognition, 75–76 everyday practice, xxix–xxxi freedom and, xi fusion of horizons, xxx imbalance, 65–66, 83–84 positionality, 77–79 resources and relationships, 58–63 Project Citizen curriculum, 5, 6–8, 9, 12–17, 19–20 Prozorov, V., 190 Public Issues Model, 37 public policy, meaning of, 195

Q Quine, W.V., 209

R racial issues deliberation inclusiveness, 27 positionality, 77–79 Ranciére, J., 115, 116–117 Rapoport, Anatoli (author), xiv, 185–200, 221 Rawls, John, xiv, 210–217 recipients/donors, 58–64 reciprocity Civitas program, 8 DID project, 26, 32–33, 38–40 international curriculum work, 18–19 recognition, ethical, 75–76 reconceptualization of curriculum, 149, 162 reflexivity, 64, 156

230   Index resistance and spaces of possibility, 105–109 resources Civitas International issues in India/ Malawi, 7 influence on relationships, 58–63 patronage, 62–63 patterns of deception, 60 retrieval/destruction, 198 Robinson, J., 190 Romania, DID project, 26, 30, 33, 37, 43 rule of law, 9, 19, 112 Russian Federation DID project, 26, 30, 37, 41, 42 knowledge-construction process, 185–200

S Samoff, J., 54, 55 Sampaio, R., 198 Sanders, L.M., 27 schools classroom observations, 38–39 competition and Civitas program, 15–16 importance, in citizenship education, 31 local norms about schooling/society, 14–17 in Philippines, historical context, 79–81 self-consciousness, xxix Sen, Amartya, xiv–xv, 213–217 Serbia Civitas program, 20 DID project, 26, 30, 31, 37, 41, 42 national identity, 106 Slovakia, DID project, 41 Smith, D.G., 147 Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 (U.S.), 187 social capital theory (Bourdieu), 175 social constructivism, 193 social ethical relativism, 206–208 social studies, definition of, 10 sociality, xxviii Socrates, xx–xxi Soja, E., 95 South Korea, 4 Southern Leyte State University, Philippines, 73, 84

Soviet Union, 5 spatial analysis, 95–96, 103–104, 107 standardization, 146–147, 155–156 state curriculum, CA (U.S.), 149, 155–156 State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Fukuyama), 67 Stevick, E. Doyle (author), xiii, 51–70, 221 Stones, E., 190 Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) model, 28–29, 34 student-centered teaching methods, 16, 32, 99–101, 100, 196–197 students, competition and Civitas program, 15–16 sustainability of curriculum programs, 7 Civitas program, 19–21 Sutton, M., 66, 69 Swanson, Dalene (co-author), xiv, 143–167, 221

T teacher training Civitas program, 5–7 DID project, 42 Foundations of Democracy curriculum in Baltics, 6 MPEP, 99–100 train-the-trainer model, 97–101, 176 urban field experience, Ohio (U.S.), 118–122 See also specific projects Teachers College, Columbia University (U.S.), 173, 174, 176, 177 See also International Leadership Fund (ILF) program teaching methods/practices active/student-centered, 16, 32, 99–101, 100, 196–197 authoritarian value system, 14 Lithuanian teacher’s survey, 9–10, 14–15 local norms about schooling/society, 14–17 See also Civitas International Educator Exchange technical vs. communicative interests, 54–55 textbooks, 112 Theory of Justice, A (Rawls), 210

Index    231 Torney-Purta, Judith, 56 train-the-trainer model, 97–101, 176 transfer and appropriation, 66–69 transmission, direct, 56–57 Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, x transnational vs. international work, xii–xiii Tyler, R.W., x

curriculum work and, x tradition vs. innovation, 14–17 value conflicts, 17 Van Manen, M., 159 videoconferencing, 29, 30, 111–137 Vietnam, 3–4 Vilinius Pedagogical University, 5–6, 9

W

U Ukraine, DID project, 26, 30, 44 Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), 30 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 13 universalism, 208–212 Urasa, A., 33 urban field experience, Ohio (U.S.), 118–122 U.S. Baltics Exchange Seminar, 5 USAID (United States Agency for International Development), 96–97 U.S.-Philippines curriculum development, 76–90 Utah State University (U.S.), 73, 84

Washington, DC (U.S.), DID project, 33 Watson, Lila, 178 We the People: Project Citizen, 5 Wedel, Janine, 55, 58–59, 60, 62–63, 64 Whitehead, Alfred North, xxx Willinsky, J., 75 women’s literacy, 215

Y Yoshida, T., 187 Yugoslavia DID project, 30 national identity, 106

V values authoritarian value system, 14–15

Z Ziarek, E.P., 115