US-China Education Review 2013(10B)

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US-China

Education Review

B

Volume 3, Number 10, October 2013 (Serial Number 29)

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US-China

Education ReviewB

Volume 3, Number 10, October 2013 (Serial Number 29)

Contents

Educational Sociology

The Dormant Outcome of Racial Microaggressions in Taiwan: Language-Delayed Mixed

Children and Their Immigrant Mothers 735

Sa-hui Fan, Hao-pai Ni

Teacher Education

Enhancing Teacher Quality in the U.S.: Developing Reform-Oriented Teacher Education

Programs for Elementary Science Teachers 749

Thomas J. Diana, Sudipta Ghose

Educational Policy and Management

Strengthening Industry-University Linkages Through Public-Private Partnerships

in Capacity Building 761

Mary Chepkite Lopokoiyit, Grace Soprin Amurle, Roselyne Wangare Gakure

School Governance: An International Comparison 772

Simona Franzoni, Francesca Gennari

UPAEP High School Summer Academy at Oklahoma State University 780

Maria G. Fabregas Janeiro, Pablo Nuño de la Parra, Blanca Elena Lozano

Educational Economics and Management

Painful Transformation of the CEECs From Their Former “Inefficient” Command

Economy to the “Fraudulent” Modern Market Economy 786

Dusan Soltes



European Leonardo Project ARIADNE: Process of Transferring Managerial Skills

in the Social Economy 795

Thibault Cuénoud

Vocational and Technical education

Scientific Literacy Measurement Model Based on Occupational Variation 803

Liang Ai-ying, Xiao Wen-bin, Huang Yi, Zhang Na, Wang Ke-wei



US-China Education Review B, ISSN 2161-6248

October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 735-748

The Dormant Outcome of Racial Microaggressions in

Taiwan: Language-Delayed Mixed Children

and Their Immigrant Mothers

Sa-hui Fan

National Taichung University of Education,

Taichung, Taiwan

Hao-pai Ni

Da Chien General Hospital,

Miaoli, Taiwan

This study explores how racial microaggression toward Southeast Asian immigrant mothers in Taiwan, results

in language delays for their children. This study, spanning more than two years, used an ethnographic

data-gathering approach to examine the contextual factors surrounding bicultural language-delayed children and

their mothers in Taiwan. Following four cases of mixed children with nonorganic language delays, this study

attempts to answer these questions: In the families of language-delayed mixed children, what forms of racial

microaggression, if any, appear? What impact does racial microaggression have on the mental well-being of

Southeast Asian immigrant mothers? What linguistic environments are typically provided by the mothers who

were targets of microaggression? The data showed that racial microaggression not only caused the mothers’

isolation, incompetence in maintaining jobs, and passiveness, but it also hindered them from providing their

children with sufficient linguistic input at early ages, consequently delaying the children’s language

development.

Keywords: language delay, immigration, racial microaggressions, ethnography, sociocultural theory

Introduction

Dating back to the last two decades of the previous millennium, globalization gradually became a

significant issue. According to Harvard scholar of immigration studies (Suarez-Orozco, 2001), there are three

pillars of the globalization movement: (1) new information and communication technologies; (2) the emergence

of global markets and post-national knowledge-intensive economies; and (3) unprecedented levels of

immigration and displacement (p. 345). As the third pillar implies, it has become a worldwide trend for people

to emigrate or immigrate for pragmatic reasons, and people in Asia have followed this global movement as well.

In Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, and Japan, there has been an intensively growing flow of immigration,

which includes immigrant spouses from Southeast Asian countries. Legal entrances for these new immigrants

have been granted mainly because their marriages have been arranged through cross-national marriage brokers.

Acknowledgement: The authors’ deepest gratitude to the National Taichung University of Education, which commissioned this

research project NTCU97210.

Sa-hui Fan, Ph.D., assistant professor, English Department, National Taichung University of Education.Corresponding author: Hao-pai Ni, M.D., attending physician, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Da Chien

General Hospital.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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THE DORMANT OUTCOME OF RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS IN TAIWAN736

This new form of immigration in Asia involves closer and deeper personal contacts than the older forms of

immigration in the Western world. The individual attitudes of members of the host society have been either

more beneficial or more detrimental to the new immigrants. Because of the fresh and unfamiliar outlook of this

new immigration, some of the novices hosting societies continue to struggle with how to accommodate their

new immigrants respectfully and adequately. The following scenario illustrates one of the examples of struggle

occurring in Taiwan.

In May 2004, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Education in Taiwan publicly disparaged the birth

rights of Southeast Asian immigrant spouses in Taiwan (Lan, 2004). He appealed to such immigrant spouses

not to give birth to too many babies, because, as this official posited, for the sake of eugenics, children born

into these types of families would more likely become problematic once reaching adulthood. This racist

statement received many attacks after it was reported, giving rise to the broad public discussion and debate.

This controversial statement, similar to the proverbial tip of the iceberg, is indeed indicative of the popular

racist attitudes toward the explosive growth of the immigrant population in Taiwan.

A widespread belief regarding the mixed children of immigrant spouses in Taiwan is specifically related tothe language development of these children. Several reports in the newspapers discussed the problems that

these children might face (Chuan, 2004; Hsia, 1997), while some researchers (Lin, 2004; Tsai, Yang, Huang,

Yu, & Chou, 2004) have echoed the viewpoint that due to the sociocultural disadvantages encountered by these

children, it seems to be reasonable to expect these children from the bicultural families of immigrant spouses

will perform less well in school compared to their traditional Taiwanese counterparts (Lin, 2004) and will also

experience delayed language development.

To unravel this unexamined controversy regarding the language development of this group of children, a

group of educational researchers (Wang et al., 2006; Yeh, 2006) conducted several large-scale statistical studies,

in which they compared the academic achievements, including the language and literacy development of

elementary school children from families of immigrant spouses with those of their counterparts, children from

traditional Taiwanese families. The results of their studies indicated that with regard to language development,

children from the families of immigrant spouses did not seem to perform significantly less well than their

traditional Taiwanese peers. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan (Department of Statistics, Ministry of

Education in Taiwan, 2004; 2005; 2006) conducted a similar three-year (consecutive) investigation into the

academic achievements and distribution of this specific population in elementary schools. The results of that

investigation showed similar findings. That is, children from families of Southeast Asian immigrant spouses

did not perform significantly less well than their counterparts. Thus, it can be concluded that the above research

appears to refute the theory of eugenics.

However, it is too soon to claim that the mixed children of immigrant spouses adapt well to languagelearning. For example, Yeh (2006) noted in her paper that there appears to be a significant discrepancy between

the “preschoolers” from families of immigrant spouses and their Taiwanese counterparts with regard to literacy,

as the culturally mixed preschoolers performed significantly less well before grade school than their traditional

Taiwanese counterparts. Nevertheless, these slow language learners seem to catch up in later years after

entering elementary school, perhaps, because they are immersed in more abundantly linguistically stimulating

environments in the elementary schools. In another statistical report of Hsiao (2007), it was found that the

higher the quality was of cognitive ability-related activities between the immigrant mothers and their children,

the more distinctive their children’s cognitive abilities were. Therefore, to conclude from these two studies, it



THE DORMANT OUTCOME OF RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS IN TAIWAN 737

seems that the environment for language learning is more crucial to the language development of these mixed

children than genetic factors are. Hence, the question to be asked with regard to the discrepancies in language

development between the children from culturally mixed families and traditional Taiwanese families might

instead be “What environmental factors contribute to the early language delay of these culturally mixed

preschoolers?” This contextual perspective has also been supported by scholars of the Sociocultural Theory of

Literacy (Heath & Street, 2008), which asserts that language acquisition is not simply affected by the

individual’s cognitive skills, but it is also affected by environmental factors.

Borrowing from a perspective that allows us to examine the environmental factors of language acquisition,

this study attempts to utilize the theoretical framework of racial microaggression (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, &

Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue, Nadal, Capodilupo, Lin, Torino, & Rivera, 2008), as it explores immigrant

mothers’ experiences with the host society, as well as the linguistic environments these mothers have created

for their second-generation children. Most East Asian cultures are characterized as being circular/implicit rather

than linear/overt in their styles of thinking and expressions. Because the Taiwanese style of communication is

prone to being subtle and indirect, compared to Western styles of communications, racism can exist at a covertlevel, rather than as an explicit form of attack. By adopting the framework of racial microaggression, it was

useful to examine and identify the implicit racial environment existing in bicultural families of Southeast Asian

immigrant spouses in Taiwan. Specifically, this study intended to answer the following questions:

(1) In the families of language-delayed mixed children, if there is evidence of the existence of

microaggression, what form or forms does this racial microaggression take?

(2) What impacts does racial microaggression have on the mental well-being of Southeast Asian

immigrant mothers?

(3) What linguistic environments are immigrant mothers who are victims of microaggression usually able

to provide for their children?

The Subtle Form of Racism: Microaggressions

The various forms of racism in host societies that accept immigrants have become an (almost) universal

social problem. Studies (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008) on mental

health have found that an environment filled with racism causes significant damage to the psychological

stability of immigrants and minorities. Derald Wing Sue, professor of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at

the Teachers’ College of Columbia University, compiled a series of qualitative data and noted that a new subtle

form of racism was slowly beginning to replace the traditional, more overt forms of racism (Sue, Bucceri, Lin,

Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008). Sue also found that the harmful effects of this more

civilized form of racism on the mental health of immigrants and minorities were no less severe than the effectsof the more overt racism. Sue called such an evolving form of modern racism “microaggression” and stated that

“racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities,

whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults

to the target person or group” (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007, p. 7). This newly defined modern and

implicit racism can be divided into three theoretical categories, “microassaults, microinsults, and

microinvalidations”, and it can be expressed in eight themes in everyday life (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, &

Torino, 2007) (see Figure 1).




Figure 1. Categories and relationships among microaggressions.

Definitions of the Three Racial Microaggression Categories

The first category of racial microaggression is “microassault”. According to Sue and his colleagues (Sue,

Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008), “Microassault is an explicit racial

derogation characterized primarily by a verbal or nonverbal attack meant to hurt the intended victim through

name-calling, avoidant behavior, or purposeful discriminatory actions” (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino,

2007, p. 274). Sue and his colleagues also posited that of the forms of microaggression, the microassault is the

most similar to traditional overt racism. The perpetrators of microassaults conduct this form of racism with

more self-awareness, and its harmful effects are more obvious, compared to the other two forms of

microaggression. Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, and Torino (2007) defined the second form of racial

microaggression, “microinsult”, as being “characterized by communications that convey rudeness and

insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity” (p. 274). According to the descriptive details in

Sue’s studies (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007), a microinsult can take the form of an

implied condescending tone when speaking to someone, or it might be evidenced in nonverbal ways, such as

avoiding or ignoring a person of color. Third, Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, and Torino (2007) defined

“microinvalidation” as being “characterized by communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the

psychological thoughts, feelings, or experimental reality of a person of color” (p. 274). One example of amicroinvalidation is to ignore the skin color of the immigrant/minority intentionally.

Eight Themes of Racial Microaggressions

Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, and Torino (2007), Sue et al. (2007), and Sue et al. (2008) investigated the

general forms of microaggressions and divided them into eight themes that occur in everyday interactions. The

first four themes can be identified as sub-categories under microinsults, while the latter four appear as

sub-categories under microinvalidations. Along with the more overt form, microassaults, all the three forms of

microaggressions are woven together, thus, resulting in what we now classify as environmental

Racial microaggression

Environmental microaggressions (macro‐level)

Microinsult

•Often Unconscious

•Ascription of intelligence

•Second class citizen

•Pathologizing cultural Values/communication styles

•Assumption of criminal status

Microassult

•Often Conscious

Microinvalidation

•Often Unconscious

•Alien in own land

•Color blindness

•Myth of meritocracy

•Denial of individual racism




microaggressions. Sue et al.’s (2007) specific descriptions of the individual themes are briefly explained as

follows:

(1) Ascription of intelligence: Assigning a degree of intelligence to a person of color on the basis of his or her race;

(2) Assumption of criminal status: Presuming a person of color is dangerous, criminogenic, or deviant on the basis of race;

(3) Pathologizing cultural values/communication styles: Promoting the notion that the values and communication styles of

the dominant culture are ideal;

(4) Second-class citizen: Giving preferential treatment to a white person as a consumer over a person of color;

(5) Alien in own land: Assuming Asian Americans and Latino Americans are foreign-born;

(6) Denial of individual racism: Making statements that deny the individual’s (white person’s) racial biases;

(7) Color blindness: Making statements that indicate that a white person does not want to acknowledge race;

(8) Myth of meritocracy: Asserting that race does not play a role in success. (p. 78)

The Latent Effects of Racial Microaggression

At first glance, this implied the form of racism and microaggression, might seem too invisible to inflict

any harmful or damaging effects on immigrants/minorities. However, a series of studies (Constantine, Smith,

Redington, & Owens, 2008; Constantine & Sue, 2007; Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al.,

2007; Sue et al., 2008) been conducted on different ethnic groups in the U.S. indicated that the invisibility of

this racism actually produced profound psychological problems for its victims. Sue et al. (2008) described its

latent but powerful effects as follows.

Microaggressions have a harmful and lasting psychological impact that may endure for days, weeks,

months, and even years. Participants reported feelings of anger, frustration, doubt, guilt, or sadness when

they experienced microaggressions and noted further that the emotional turmoil stayed with them as they

tried to make sense of each incident. The research team members’ observations of that many participantsseemed to become distressed as a result of retelling their stories (e.g., crying/tearing, fluctuations in voice

volume, and stammering over words) provided additional evidence substantiating the long-lasting effects of

the stress and trauma experienced from being subjected to various microaggressions (Sue et al., 2008. p.

336).

A series of studies have noted that the severe harmful effects of microaggression are generally latent and

long-lasting and its effects are particularly noticeable in the self-esteem and emotional turbulence of the

individuals. Solorzano, Ceja, and Yosso (2000) noted that the daily common experiences of racial aggression

could have a significant impact on racial anger, frustration, and self-esteem. Sue et al. (2007) also indicated that

overt racial discrimination was identified as one of the potential social risk factors for mental illness. Common

comments from the studied groups indicated that they felt trapped, invisible, and unrecognized (Sue et al., 2007,

p. 78). Additionally, Chakraborty and McKenzie (2002) and Kim (2002) provided empirical evidence that

microaggression is related to the physical well-being of minorities/immigrants and such forms of racism

contribute to their levels of stress, depression, and anger. Williams, Neighbors, and Jackson (2003), in their

studies that examined the relationship between racism and mental health, also found that higher levels of

discrimination were associated with lower levels of happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and feelings of

mastery or control. Thus, as evidenced by the previous research, it can be clearly concluded that there exists

latent damaging effects of racial microaggressions on immigrant groups.




Mode of Inquiry

Ethnography has been long employed by literacy researchers as an effective method for examining the

contextual factors of language learning (Heath & Street, 2008; Knobel & Lankshear, 2003; Street, 1995a;

1995b; 2000; 2003; 2008). The current study used ethnography as the main mode of inquiry to examinecontextual microaggression in the families of Southeast Asian spouses in Taiwan. The fieldwork lasted for

more than two years. The data from this study form a portion of a larger project on the home literacy events of

mixed children in Taiwan. The current study focused on examining how racial microaggression in daily

interactions hindered Southeast Asian immigrant mothers from providing their children with sufficient

linguistic inputs.

The Field Site

The main research site was the home of each of the four participating language-delayed children, who

were referred by the hospital of the second author. All of the homes were located in an agricultural county,

where the targeted population was large because of its high population of blue-collar workers and farmers

(Wang, 2001). The researchers visited the families, the schools, the communities, and the hospital at a

minimum frequency of once every other week.

Participants

All four participating families were recruited from the hospital and were referred by the second author, a

physiatrist for more than 14 years. The participants included one girl and three boys. The ages of the children

ranged from five to eight years old. The fathers of these children were all Taiwanese, and they all worked either

as blue-collar workers or as farmers. The mothers, including three Vietnamese women and one Indonesian

woman, had lived in Taiwan for seven to nine years. Detailed background information of the participating

children is provided in Table 1.

Table 1

Background Information of the Participants

Pseudonyms Wang Yu Wei Chen

Age 8 6 6 5

Father’s highest education levelElementary school

graduate

Senior high school

graduate

Junior high school

graduate

Elementary school

graduate

Mother’s highest education levelElementary schoolgraduate

Elementary schoolgraduate

Junior high schoolgraduate

Elementary schoolgraduate

Mother’s country of origin Vietnam Vietnam Indonesia Vietnam

Mother’s years in Taiwan 9 8 9 7

Sex Male Female Male Male

Family’s financial status Lower SES (SocialEconomic Status); Father is a blue-collar worker.

Lower SES; Father isa blue-collar worker.

Lower SES; Fatheris a farmer.

Lower SES; Father is afarmer.

Methods of Data Collection

The main methods of data collection included formal, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations,

and non-intrusive observations. At least one formal interview was conducted with the parents, the language

therapists, the schoolteachers, and the school counselors during the fieldwork, while the informal conversations,

especially with the fathers, mothers, and children, occurred whenever the opportunity arose. The nonintrusive

observations occurred during class meetings, parenting classes at school, sessions with language therapists, and




family or community gatherings.

Diagnosis of Language Delay

The participants were recruited from an early intervention clinic for language-delayed children located at a

hospital. The children were diagnosed with delayed language development when their test results on theinstrument (Lin, 1992) were at least two standard deviations from the norm. Children who had known

congenital diseases or organic brain lesions that could possibly affect their normal language development were

excluded from the study.

Data Analysis

The field data were first categorized into 38 themes (see Appendix) pertaining to the overall home

language environments of the four children. In the second round of the data analysis, the focus was on the

themes of the three categories and the eight sub-categories of microaggression, the latent emotional responses

of the victim/mother, and the home language environment. An analysis software program for qualitative data,

MAXQDA, was employed to assist in the analysis of the data.

Findings

Summary of Findings

The findings indicated that racial microaggression caused diffidence and emotional damage to immigrant

spouses, and these impacts were easily evidenced in the Taiwanese mixed families with language-delayed

children. However, not all of the themes and categories elicited in the previous American studies (Sue,

Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008) could be applied directly in the current

research. This difference might have occurred because racial microaggression can appear in forms that are

shaped by specific local contexts. Nevertheless, the findings indicated several similar themes of racial

microaggression between the Taiwanese context and Sue’s studies, although the topics of the incidents were

not the same as those in the American incidents. The results also directed our attention to the negative

psychological responses of the immigrant mothers, including isolation, incompetence at work, and passiveness.

These latent effects of microaggression echoed the findings reported in Sue’s (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, &

Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008) studies. The resulting damage prevented the victimized

immigrant mothers and other families from co-creating a functional environment for language learning for the

second generation, and instead, a dysfunctional environment was constructed for the children to learn the

language (see Figure 2).

The Emerging Categories of Microaggressions

In these four Taiwanese families with Southeast Asian immigrant spouses, several themes of

microaggression and their sub-categories emerged in daily family interactions. Microassaults and

microinvalidations of the immigrant mothers’ native languages and two sub-categories, assumption of

problem-maker status and second-class citizen of microinsults, recurred during the period of fieldwork.

Microassaults. A microassault is a conscious assault by people in the mainstream. The bias originates

from overt intentions to denigrate the targeted person. Two levels of microassaults were evidenced in these four

families. The first appeared at an environmental level, as the father of the first case expressed his anger at being

labeled the husband of an immigrant spouse by the school. In addition, according to the school counselor, the

father had transferred to his own family of his anger that was triggered by this negative stereotype, which he




had already internalized. The second level of microassault appeared inside these mixed families, in which the

communication styles, languages, and cultures of the immigrant spouses were overtly belittled. Vignettes of

examples are presented as below.

Figure 2. Summary of findings.

School counselor: I have an example of a father who feels very ashamed that he was called “a husband of an

immigrant spouse”. Our school has been holding several parenting workshops designed for such culturally mixed families.

I usually send out notices in advance to every qualified family. One day, a father sent to me his crying daughter and askedme to stop sending them this type of notice. He was very angry to be acknowledged as a husband of an immigrant spouse

by the school.

Wang’s father: If I could have made the decision again, I would rather not have married an immigrant spouse. She is

so difficult to communicate with! She has become such a burden to me!

Researcher: Do you speak Vietnamese with your child?

Chen’s mother: I have tried sometimes, but my husband and my parents-in-law want me to stop using Vietnamese to

talk to the child.

Microinsults. Microinsults indicate the form of an implied condescending tone when speaking to

someone or through nonverbal forms. In this study, it takes the form of assumption of problem-maker status

and second-class citizens.

Assumption of problem-maker status. One category of microinsults—assumption of problem-maker

status, occurred in most of these families. The microinsults in this project tended to assume that the immigrant

spouse was the cause of problems or had a flaw in her personality. The immigrant spouses were the targets of

derisive comments and were referred to as “lazy” persons and “slow learners of Mandarin”, and they were

deemed to be the cause of the children’s language delays. These negative stereotypes of the immigrant spouses

prevailed in almost every participating family.

Wei’s father: She speaks simple Mandarin and Taiwanese. She has been in Taiwan for more than nine years, but can

only speak simple Mandarin. She is just lazy!

Forms of

environmental

microagressions

•Microassaults

•Microinsults

• assumption of problem‐maker status

• second‐class citizen

•Microinvalidations of languages of the mothers

Consequential status of mental health

• Isolation

• Imcompetence at work

•Passiveness

The Resulting language learning environments for the children




Language therapist: Wei’s mother does not accept the responsibility of rearing the children. Over the past several

years, many Southeast Asian immigrant spouses from Southeast Asia have come to Taiwan. I found that they have caused

some problems. The mixed children constituted a high percentage of the student population in rural elementary schools.

Many of these Southeast Asian mothers ran away and left their poor children to the fathers. Many of the immigrant

mothers just ran away and never came back.

Yu’s father: She does not like to interact with Taiwanese people… Taiwanese bosses and workers tend to assume that

Indonesian spouses are prone to laziness and crime.

Chen’s mother: My husband and my sister-in-law thought at first that Chen’s language delay was caused by me. They

thought that it was I who was the problem because I had a strong accent when I was speaking Mandarin.

Second-class citizens. The larger Taiwanese population views the immigrant spouses as second-class

citizens due to two major policies that generally disadvantage immigrant spouses. First, in some suburban

counties, immigrant spouses must take a written Chinese test to obtain a driver’s license to operate the most

common transportation vehicle in Taiwan, a scooter, regardless of their level of Chinese literacy; and Second, a

new immigration policy full of discriminatory laws was recently established. Any immigrant spouse must have

evidence of having deposited a large amount of money, equal to USD 14,000 in her bank account to apply for

Taiwanese citizenship. These two policies generally display the environmental biases that cause immigrant

spouses to be perceived as second-class citizens.

Yu’s father: She drove the kids around on a scooter, but she did not get a driver’s license. I have gone to different

governmental institutions. They told me they did not prepare any special test for immigrants. All the immigrant spouses

need to take written tests in Chinese in Taiwan.

Wang’s father: The government set a new policy for immigrant spouses who apply for a Taiwanese identification. An

immigrant spouse will need to deposit NTD 400,000 in her bank account (approximately USD 14,000) if she wants to

apply for Taiwanese identification. If I had that much money, I would not need to marry an immigrant spouse from

Southeast Asia.

Microinvalidations. In this study, microinvalidations appeared in the form of invalidating the native

languages of the immigrant mothers. Compared with the microassaults on the mothers’ languages in the

previous section, microinvalidations were more implied and indirect ways of invalidating the mothers’ native

languages. Further, their languages were generally suggested to be ignored by their families, and the

immigrant mothers’ illiteracy in Chinese language was regarded by the families as a personality flaw or

weakness.

Researcher: Did she talk to the kids in Vietnamese?

Yu’s father: Seldom. She talked to them only in Mandarin.

Researcher: What languages do you expect Yu to learn well?

Yu’s father: After she has learned Mandarin well, then she can learn English.

Researcher: In what language does your boy talk to you?

Wei’s father: In Taiwanese.

Researcher: The same with his mother?

Wei’s father: The same: Taiwanese.

Researcher: What languages do you want Wei to learn?

Wei’s father: Well, if he can learn Chinese well, then English. His mom can also speak English. She learned English

in Indonesia.

Consequential Status of Mental Health

The immigrant mothers living in the areas where microaggression was perpetrated were found to struggle




with issues related to their mental well-being. The three themes related to the mothers’ emotional problems that

emerged from this study were the mothers’ isolation, incompetence related to work, and passiveness. This

finding echoed Sue’s (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008) descriptions

of the effects on the mental health of victims of microaggression.

Isolation. According to the descriptions of the fathers, the immigrant mothers easily felt to be isolated.

Yu’s father: If you work in the factory, you need to be very sociable and get along with other coworkers. She did

not adapt herself very well to the social network among Taiwanese laborers. She felt that other coworkers badmouthed

her! She does not make friends with any Taiwanese. She even sometimes rejects people from her homeland.

Wei’s father: She does not go out and hang out with people. She has few contacts with people outside the family.

Researcher: How long has your wife (Wei’s mother) been here?

Wei’s father: About nine years.

Researcher: Did she meet any good friends here?

Wei’s father: She does not talk to any other people outside the family, not even to the Indonesian women in the

neighborhood.

Incompetence related to work. From the interviews with the schoolteacher and the fathers, the

victimized mothers were evidenced to lack competence to work in their communities.

Schoolteacher: Wei’s mom is very incompetent. She could not even finish the task assigned by the leader of the

volunteer mothers. No one in this neighborhood wants to hire her, even for a tentative job, because they do not believe that

she can do it well.

Yu’s father: She (Yu’s mother) prefers to work on the tea tree farm. She likes leaf-picking because it is individual

work. She is not able to work in the factory because then she would need to interact with other Taiwanese.

Passiveness. The immigrant mothers were generally regarded by people around them as holding passive

attitudes.

Language therapist: Wei’s mother looks to be in poor health. She is so skinny! She looks quite passive… Accordingto Wei’s schoolteacher and neighbors, Wei’s mom is quite lazy, very lazy, very passive!

Language therapist: I knew that she (Yu’s mother) was depressed for several years when Yu came to language

therapy. She did not talk to me at all in the beginning.

The Resulting Language Learning Environments for the Children

The language learning environments for the children of mixed heritage in this study appeared to be

constrained. The two main themes that emerged from the field data were insufficient linguistic interactions

between the mothers and the children and the mothers’ lack of understanding of the learning format in

Taiwanese schools. The insufficient linguistic interactions were the result of the mothers’ diffidence and

insecurities associated with using their

second language, Mandarin. Similar causes might also

have discouraged immigrant mothers from exploring and understanding the learning format in Taiwanese

schools.

Insufficient linguistic interactions between mothers and children. The following conversations

indicate that the mothers did not actively interact verbally with their children.

Researcher: Mrs. Yu, do you plan to do anything to help Yu to learn the language better?

Yu’s mother: (Silence).

Yu’s father: She might just… leave it to me.

Researcher: Is it just because she looks up to you?




Yu’s father: I need to make most of the decisions. Even now, she is not willing to take the kid to the hospital for

therapy by herself. She wants me to go with her every time… Sometimes, I tell her that I am also a person with limitations.

It is impossible for me alone to provide all the necessary resources for this family.

Wei’s father: Wei’s mother is not able to speak or understand Mandarin well. Wei uses and learns Mandarin in

kindergarten. But when he gets back home, his mother does not understand what he has learned in school.

Lack of understanding of the learning format. According to the family and teachers of these families,

the immigrant mother seemed to be unfamiliar with the educational values and school format.

Wang’s aunt: You (Wang’s schoolteacher) should help us in telling his (Wang’s) mom not to take Wang to Vietnam

during the school semester. It influences his performance in school.

Wang’s schoolteacher: Oh, yes, it reminds me that Wang took a two-week leave to go to Vietnam with his mom

during the midterm last school year. It did influence his schoolwork!

Wang’s aunt: She (Wang’s mother) does not understand the importance of schoolwork and just takes Wang back to

Vietnam anytime she wants.

Conclusions

Many people in a dominant society unconsciously believe that children who have an immigrant/minority

parent might learn languages more slowly due to their disadvantaged immigrant/minority status. Most of the

research on how to enhance the learning of language-delayed children reduces the scenario to that of a sole

character, the child, or of two characters, the child and the mother. Thus, according to these studies, the

cognitive skills of the child or the mother’s child-rearing methods might easily be assumed to be either the

entire, or at least a partial, the cause of the language delay. This study went beyond this single- or double-

character scenario to address some deeper causes that are embedded in the infrastructure of the society. In the

case of Taiwan, hostile racial microaggression is likely a potential cause of language delay among children of

mixed heritage.

According to the field data, different themes of the microaggression perpetrated against the immigrantmothers were evident among the four participating families of the children who are language delayed. Similar

to the many cases reported by Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, and Torino (2007), Sue et al. (2007), and Sue et al.

(2008), the latent damaging effects of microaggression were apparent in these immigrant mothers as they

responded to derogatory speeches and condescending situations with negative emotional responses, such as

isolation and passivity. There is little doubt that these immigrant mothers were unable to provide a language

learning environment with abundant linguistic stimulation for their children, and they were also not capable of

assisting their husbands in doing so. Thus, it can be concluded that the deficient language learning environment

was actually rooted in the microaggressions perpetrated by the mainstream society.

Due to the limited number of participants in this study, it would be inappropriate to generalize the results

and claim that racial microaggressions in the environment is the only causal factor in language delays in

children of mixed heritage. Furthermore, it is not the main purpose of this study to single out Taiwan as a

nation that discriminates against new immigrants as it might be part of the universal nature of humans to

condemn or think less of people who belong to other groups. Instead, this study aimed to identify the

significantly harmful results of unconscious racial microaggression perpetrated by any mainstream society. The

extent of the consequences can go far more beyond what the perpetrators expect when they engage in behaviors

of microaggression. In fact, the latent effects were so severe that they impacted the development of the next

generation and the development of the school system, thus affecting the whole society. As suggested in Sue’s




(Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007; Sue et al., 2007; Sue et al., 2008) papers, the best way to deal with

racial microaggression is to acknowledge it and bring it out into the open, rather than covering it up or hiding it.

With hope, this study will provide a reflective direction for studies in Taiwan regarding how to perceive and

how to assist children of mixed heritage who are delayed in language development.

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Appendix

Code System

Academic achievement of the childCare-taker of the childChildren’s attitudes towards the mother’s language and culture

Children’s bicultural experiences

Children’s bilingual experiencesChildren’s cultural identities

Common characteristics of the two groupsDelay causes: possible causes of language delay claimed by the family members or the language therapistsDifficulties encountered by the immigrant mothers

Familial problemsFamilial supports for the mother’s adaptation

Family geographic backgroundFamily support for the mother’s heritage language

Father’s educational expectation for the childFather’s role in the family

Father’s linguistic events with the childFather’s backgroundLanguage development

Language therapyLinguistic environment in the family

Macro factors of the linguistic environmentMandarin proficiency of the motherMarital relationship of the parents

Micro factors of the linguistic environmentMicroagression/micorinvalidation

Microagression/microassaultMicroagression/microinsult

Mother’s adaptationsMother’s role in the family

Mother’s backgroundMother’s social circle in Taiwan




Mothers’ educational expectation for the childParental attitudes towards language therapiesParticipations in the orientation programs (mother)

Preschool or kindergarten experiencesProgress of the language therapy

Social supports or interventions for the motherSocio-economic status of the family




October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 749-760

Enhancing Teacher Quality in the U.S.: Developing

Reform-Oriented Teacher Education Programs

for Elementary Science Teachers

Thomas J. Diana

Utica College, New York, United States

Sudipta Ghose

Delhi University, New Delhi, India;

Utica College, New York, United States

This paper provides an overview of reform efforts made to strengthen elementary science education in the U.S.. To

sustain our place as a world leader, it is crucial that the U.S. not only continue to make gains in science, technology,

engineering, and mathematics, but also for the citizens of the U.S. to have a firm grounding in science and how it

applies to their daily lives. This can be attained by having effective, reform-oriented science teachers in all

elementary classrooms. This paper discusses research directed towards determining crucial components which

influence elementary science methods courses and offer innovative strategies for enhancing the quality of science

teacher education programs.

Keywords: teacher education programs and policy, preservice teacher education, teacher education reform, teaching

elementary education (Grades pre K-6), technology, science, science education

Introduction As the 21st century moves forward, the educational system in the U.S. is continuously subjected to intense

scrutiny. While, current stakeholders in K-12 education are primarily concerned with the economic difficulties

in the field and how to evaluate both student learning and teacher effectiveness, concerns over the status of

education in the U.S. and the desire to maintain our prominence as a world leader exist. As the need to maintain

high quality education in the U.S. has been recognized, there is a significant awareness of the role played by

teachers and teacher education programs. Throughout U.S. history, the education system has undergone several

major waves of reform in the hopes of creating a system that fosters successful learning at all levels (Abell &

Lederman, 2007; Hurd, 1986). Over the past 50 years, science education has gone through continual waves of

reform and also been subjected to intense scrutiny.

Beginning with the launch of the earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik in 1957, the A Nation at Risk report by the

National Commission of Excellence in Education published in 1983, and more recently with the report Rising

Above the Gathering Storm published in 2005, U.S., science education is at a crossroad in determining how

best to meet the needs of our future citizens.

This crossroad for science education includes developing the NGSS (next generation science standards)

Thomas J. Diana, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Education, Utica College.

Sudipta Ghose, Ph.D., associate professor, S.P.M. College, Delhi University; formerly visiting professor, Utica College.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D



ENHANCING TEACHER QUALITY IN THE U.S.750

which will guide K-12 science teachers for years to come (National Research Council, 2012). The concern of

the current status of K-12 science education is persistent among the stakeholders in the field of science

education who continue to debate over the most effective ways to prepare and support both elementary and

secondary science teachers. However, there is a clear consensus that teachers do play a significant role in the

development of children in the U.S. (Hanushek, 2011; National Commission of Teaching and America’s Future,

2003).

The U.S. mirrors every society in its attempt to determine how to adequately prepare the current

generation of youth for life and work in the decades ahead. Societies continually refine their educational system

in an effort to make adjustments based on the changing times (Yager, 2004). The following describes the most

recent reform mandates aimed at enhancing the field of science education in the U.S..

Recent Efforts to Improve Science Education in the U.S.

The U.S. is vigorously continuing its attempts at systematic reform as these national initiatives continue to

have substantial influence on all educational disciplines. Most notably, the federal “NCLB” (No Child LeftBehind) Act of 2001 calls on educational practitioners to use scientifically-based research in an attempt to close

the achievement gap that currently exists in American schools. The central goal of NCLB (now referred to the

ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act)) is to have all students reach proficient or advanced levels of

state academic achievement standards in both math and ELA (English-language arts) (Hombo, 2003). ESEA

legislation also requires that a highly qualified teacher be teaching in every classroom in America. Yet, in the

science education field, this legislation comes at a time when uncertified or inadequately prepared teachers are

teaching in thousands of science classrooms across the country.

In response to the growing need of qualified teachers, federal legislation has called for the need to bring in

30,000 professionals into the U.S. high school classrooms under the ACI (American Competitiveness Initiative),

which committed almost six billion U.S. dollars in 2007 and more than 50 billion U.S. dollars over the next 10

years. In partnership with the private sector, state and local governments, and colleges and universities, the ACI

aims to promote new levels of educational achievement and economic productivity. One of the most formidable

goals of ACI is to strengthen the quality of American education and give students a strong foundation in math

and science. More recently in 2009, the federal government developed a grant competition for K-12 schools

called the RTTT (Race to the Top) Fund. RTTT is a 4.35 billion U.S. dollars competition developed to spur

innovation and reforms in states and local school districts across the U.S. (U.S. Department of Education, 2009).

A key feature of the RTTT competition is the emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and

mathematics) fields. RTTT is the latest national reform mandate to impact K-12 science education and the

results of this reform will hopefully lead to improved science teaching and learning and all levels, starting withelementary science. Simultaneous to these federal mandates and programs, educational researchers have

continued to investigate elementary science education and its impact on student learning.

Research on Elementary Science Teacher Education

In the midst of these reform efforts, science education stakeholders have continued to try and meet the

challenges of developing and supporting K-12 science teachers. The CSMEE’s (Center for Science,

Mathematics, and Engineering Education) report, Every Child a Scientist: Achieving Scientific Literacy for All

(CSMEE, 1998) stressed that all students should have strong content knowledge in science education and the



ENHANCING TEACHER QUALITY IN THE U.S. 751

curriculum should enable them to gain an understanding of the science and technology that they need in today’s

society. In addition, the reports Taking Science to School (National Research Council, 2007a) and Ready, Set,

Science: Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms (National Research Council, 2007b) suggested

that training preservice teachers in the same way in which they would be expected to teach in their future

classes. This includes a focus on clinically-rich field experiences and student teaching. The National Research

Council (2010) report, Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments and the research

reported by the CAISE (Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education) (2010), Making Science

Matter: Collaborations Between Informal Science Education Organizations and Schools, stressed the need for

further collaborations between science institutions, community organizations, and schools so that young

learners have engaging, comprehensive science learning experiences. By examining science teacher preparation

programs, we can better understand how to adequately prepare K-12 science teachers in an effort to improve

the science teaching and learning in today’s classrooms. As a result, if as science teacher educators, we can

effectively prepare all science teachers to be successful in the classrooms, then, the results will likely be

translated into higher achievement by our K-12 science students.Past educational research has proposed that learning to teach takes place along a continuum of

professional development experiences and programs which begins with preservice teacher preparation and

continues through the induction years (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Wilson,

Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2002). The NCTAF (National Commission of Teaching and America’s Future, 2003)

report argued that teacher preparation programs must play a significant role in ensuring that highly qualified

beginning teachers are available to fill our nation’s classrooms. A number of research studies have also shown

that teacher education programs can, and do play a pivotal role in recruiting, preparing, and supporting future

teachers in becoming effective school leaders (Adams & Krockover, 1997; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy,

2002). Yet, there is a growing body of research that suggests these programs are often a series of disjointed

experiences that lack of meaningful coherence and fail to recognize that learning to teach is a continuum of

experiences (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Garet, Porter, DeSimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Goodlad, 1990). Unless

teachers have access to lasting and meaningful professional learning opportunities throughout the entire

continuum of their careers, they are unlikely to become agents of change in bringing about improvements in

public education (Ball & Cohen, 1999).

There appears to be agreement among education stakeholders that effective science teachers should have

deep knowledge of the science content contained within the K-8 curriculum, know how students learn science

and how children’s understanding of core ideas in science builds across K-8, not just at a given grade,

understand the conceptual ideas that students have in the earliest grades and their ideas about science itself,

know how to assess children’s developing ideas over time, and know how to interpret and respond(instructionally) to the results of assessment (National Research Council, 2007a). While these aspects of teacher

education should be developed during the teacher education program and continuously during their teaching

career, like in any learning situation, preservice teachers come to teacher education classes with varying levels

of knowledge on these aspects of teaching and learning. Nevertheless, it has been shown that the development

of teachers’ knowledge required to teach science effectively depends on: (1) teachers having a strong

conceptual knowledge of the content; (2) teaching experience with respect to specific topics; and (3) knowledge

of students’ conceptions and learning difficulties (Smith, 1989).

If we focus our research efforts on how to effectively prepare teachers, the results will likely be translated




into an overall positive impact on the students in the classrooms. Teacher education and the professional

development of beginning elementary science teachers’ needs to continue to be the subject of more in-depth

research investigations. In an effort to determine the best methods of supporting beginning science teachers,

past researchers (Luft & Cox, 2001; Luft & Patterson, 2002; Luft, Roehrig, & Patterson, 2003) have focused on

teacher preparation programs to determine how to meet their needs as they make the transition from their

formal education programs to the early years of their careers.

This paper extends this effort and discusses preservice elementary science teacher education in hopes of

preparing them for successful careers in the science teaching field. In addition, this paper examines several

critical professional development components of elementary science methods courses in an attempt to meet the

needs of preservice science teachers and support their professional learning as they make the transition to their

own elementary science classrooms.

Context

This paper discusses the central components which influence elementary science methods courses andhow to overcome the obstacles often found in preparing preservice elementary teachers to teach science. These

components include integrated professional learning experiences, reform-oriented teaching methods,

microteaching lessons, elementary science fieldwork experiences, examining misconceptions of both students

and teachers in science, and lesson/unit planning.

Although numerous studies have been conducted to investigate science teacher education programs in the

U.S., few studies have explored the way in which elementary science methods courses have impacted the

preparation of teacher candidates. In addition, few studies have centered on how to support beginning

elementary science teachers as they progress into the early years of their careers.

As recent reforms in the U.S. education have shifted the attention towards teacher education, the role that

teacher education programs play has become a focal point in the preparation of our future elementary science

teachers. Most education stakeholders claim that educational reforms, including the federal NCLB Act of 2001,

have caused a watering down of the science curriculum (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). Until 2007, state mandated

testing focused on math and ELA. As a result, many schools were forced to cut back on their science

curriculum. Starting in 2007, states have to test students once a year in science within three grade spans: 3-5,

6-9, and 10-12. For most science educators, the hope remains that the state mandated testing will cause a

renewed focus on science teaching and learning in the elementary grades, even though at this point the scores

will not count toward schools meeting AYP (adequate yearly progress). Along with the renewed focus on

science teaching in elementary schools comes a key question on what science elementary teachers should know

as they enter the teaching profession in order to be able to balance the challenges of a high-stakes testingenvironment and meaningful science learning. This question has plagued science teacher educators for years.

Elementary Science Methods Courses

The overarching goal of elementary science methods courses is to provide preservice students with

practical and theoretical knowledge that they need to become highly effective classroom teachers in elementary

science. Elementary science teaching is complex and requires a solid understanding of science concepts, lesson

and unit planning, curriculum development and modification, and appropriate teaching and assessment

strategies. The objective of the course needs to prepare the preservice students for the student teaching




experience with the knowledge and skills that are essential for effective science teaching to occur. Emphasis

should be placed on teacher decision-making that is research-supported. The decision-making promotes

ongoing professional development practices throughout the preservice teacher education program and into each

student’s career as an educator. The science methods course should also be designed to provide a

comprehensive overview of the objectives, skills, concepts, experiments, materials, and methods necessary to

teach science to elementary school children. The integration of the curriculum also needs to be addressed.

Methods of cross-cultural language and academic development should also be integrated into the course. The

class activities should be geared toward engaging preservice students in as many authentic science teaching and

learning experiences as possible. Students enrolled in the teacher education program discussed in this paper

participate in microteaching episodes, demonstrations, role-playing exercises, class discussions, and inquiry

activities throughout the semester.

Methods

This paper represents a small scale inquiry project aimed at reforming one elementary science teacher preparation program. The authors of this paper discussed, developed, and incorporated a hands-on and

minds-on science methods course correlated with state and national science education standards, for improving

and strengthening preservice science teacher education. One of the authors, who was also the course instructor,

developed the course content for preservice elementary science teachers. The other author served primarily as

an observer. The course material was presented to the undergraduate students in two lectures per week, each

lecture lasts one hour and 15 minutes. The following will describe the key components of the methods course

(see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Key components of elementary science methods course.

Elementary science methods course

Microteaching

Misconceptions

Fieldwork Experiences

TechnologyIntegrated

Learning

Lesson & Unit Planning

Reflection




Context of Elementary Science Teacher Education Program

School

The E-STEP (elementary science teacher education program) is one of the several programs offered at a

private liberal arts college located in the northeastern region of the U.S.. Other programs include arts andsciences, health professions, and business and justice studies. The private college has 37 undergraduate majors,

21 minors, and 21 graduate programs with a total enrollment of 2,537 undergraduates and 736 graduates. There

are 128 full-time faculties.

Program

The E-STEP is designed for candidates who are seeking state certification in early childhood and

childhood areas. The candidates major in a liberal arts field (for science, these include: biology, chemistry,

physics, and geology). In order to be state certified prospective teachers, they are required to complete a

bachelor’s degree, including the teacher education program requirements, and pass the mandatory state teacher

certification examinations. Courses in the teacher education program include both observation and fieldwork in

diverse educational settings as well as regular course work.

One of the major aims of E-STEP is to provide preservice elementary science education students with a set

of integrated and coherent experiences that will continually expand their professional development as science

teachers. These experiences permeate throughout the entire program, although they become a major focus area

within the elementary science methods course. These experiences give students the opportunity to consider

their current conception of effective science teaching and learning and also offer them the chance to reflect on

their own pedagogical growth and change as their ideas develop over time. At each stage of the program,

preservice students are placed in situations where they can refocus their ideas or modify them to fit their

constantly evolving conceptions of what it means to be an exemplary science teacher.

Participants

During the spring semester of 2012, 20 undergraduate students were enrolled in the elementary science

methods course at the private liberal arts college described earlier. Enrollments into the childhood or early

childhood/childhood certification program are for any student who has an interest in education. Once admitted,

students continue through a sequence of coursework and fieldwork experiences until their final culminating

experience, student teaching or teaching practice. None of the students enrolled in the course has extensive

experience with science beyond their K-12 schooling. All of the students enrolled in the elementary science

methods course were in their third or fourth year of college. The following sections describe the central

components of the reform-oriented elementary science methods course.

Microteaching LessonsMicroteaching in teacher education programs serves many purposes. The microteaching experience is

often the first real teaching experience for many teacher candidates. As novice teacher candidates prepare to

enter the profession, the more experience they have, such as preparing to teach, presenting their lessons and

teaching to a group of learners, and then reflecting on their teaching experience, the smoother the transition will

be when they have their own classroom. Microteaching gives students the opportunity to experiment with

teaching in a controlled setting. In addition, microteaching also allows peers to observe and critique various

teaching behaviors and techniques.

During the methods course, each student develops two lesson plans that attempt to exemplify inquiry




science teaching and learning strategies covered in the course. One is focused on the physical sciences while

the other on the living environment. These lessons are designed around the state learning standards, as well as

the “National Science Education Standards”, using the state core curriculum guide to select appropriate science

content. Once, feedback on their original lesson plan is given by the course instructor, each student then teaches

these lessons to a group of science learners. Feedback from the instructor and other students is provided to the

teacher immediately following the microteaching episode. Ipad technology is used to record the teaching

episode and immediately following the lesson, the course instructor plays several segments of video focusing

on strength and areas that are in need of improvement. Areas that are consistently viewed and commented on

are questioning strategies, teacher presence (voice projection, tone/pitch, etc.), and teaching strategies. Students

then reflect on their teaching experiences based on their own beliefs regarding the lesson in addition to the

feedback from the course instructor and peers. The focus of microteaching lessons is not on developing a

flawless lesson, but on how each lesson can be improved.

Integrated Learning

With the current emphasis being placed on math and ELA learning in the elementary curriculum, science

teachers continually feel the pressure to be able to teach science. One strategy to effectively teach science

content while maintaining a focus on both math and ELA concepts is to teach science through an integrated

approach. Incorporating science within the math and ELA curriculum is a strategy that elementary teachers can

employ to develop lessons that correlate to the state and national standards as well as engage students in

meaningful science learning. Two examples include teachers’ utilization of trade books while teaching the

science curriculum and analysis of mathematics data from in class science activities (National Science Teachers

Association, 2003). The aforementioned microteaching lessons in the science methods course consist of an

integrated learning component, so preservice teachers can have the experience of developing and teaching

interdisciplinary lessons.

Fieldwork Experiences

Each preservice elementary science teacher experiences at least 20 hours of fieldwork in an elementary

science classroom. The fieldwork component of the methods course is designed to provide students with a way

to experience “theory in action”. Students observe experienced science teachers as they work with children in

their classrooms. Students are strongly encouraged to spend the majority of time in the field trying out the

techniques and strategies that are covered in the methods course. Since each field site is unique, students are

expected to work with their field site mentor teacher(s) to create an experience which is meaningful to them.

Ideally, students work with children in a variety of ways throughout the semester. Each K-6 science teacher

videotapes himself/herself teaching at least two lessons during his/her fieldwork experiences. In addition, each

science teacher may be observed by a college supervisor in addition to the host teacher. The evaluation reports

from these observations can be collected as a source of data related to the preservice science teachers’

demonstrated classroom practices covered in the methods course. Ideally, the fieldwork experiences should

reflect the philosophy of the science teacher education program. For example, reform-oriented philosophies

including such items as inquiry, constructivism, and inclusive practices are focal points for the E-STEP program.

Misconceptions

Misconceptions are prevalent both in science teaching and science learning. Beliefs, ideas, and concepts

that in conflict with currently held scientific thought remain a challenge for both the elementary science




teachers and the elementary students. Misconceptions continue to be a common issue that science teachers

consistently need to overcome in K-6 classrooms. Effective science teachers need to learn how to effectively

identify student misconceptions, and then, address them through their instruction (Davis & Smithey, 2009).

When it comes to misconceptions, the bottom line is that if a science teacher does not identify student

misconceptions (by making assumptions of what students understand), then, students will not likely to undergo

conceptual change. Misconceptions serve as one focal point during the elementary science methods course.

Students interview a group of science students regarding a specific science content area covered in the

elementary curriculum. Preservice teachers are asked to probe student misconceptions in their fieldwork

classroom and reflect on their experience interviewing students. First, students need to determine their own

knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of a particular science concept, and if needed, learn the scientifically

accepted concept and idea. Students often add to their own understanding of science concepts and ideas and

explicitly think of ways in which teachers can identify and eliminate student misconceptions. Students then

reflect on their interview results and develop teaching strategies on how they can both identify and address

student misconceptions for the entire class.

Lesson Planning and Unit Planning

To provide further evidence of the preservice science teachers’ beliefs and practices, sample lesson plans

and unit plans are developed and taught during the elementary science methods course to further demonstrate

reform-oriented practices. Unit plans reflect student-centered lessons that are connected to one another in such

a way as to develop a coherent content story line instead of a series of unconnected science activities

(Moscovici & Nelson, 1998). Each student develops an extensive 10-day unit plan that includes: a unit

overview with objectives and a timeline of events, daily lesson plans, and assessment components. This unit

plan is developed by the student, but often includes ideas and materials suggested by the mentor teacher in

fieldwork. The unit plan encompasses a wide variety of inquiry-based teaching strategies, assessment

techniques, activities, and resources that demonstrate the depth and breadth of knowledge and skills the student

possesses. All elements of the unit plan reflect the intent of the “National Science Education Standards” with

regard to teaching elementary science for understanding through an inquiry approach.

Technology

An Internet search for educational technology will return thousands of results, many looking to sell a

product or provide a service. However, despite the abundance of educational technology available, there are

limited educational research studies about how technology is being utilized in the classroom, and there are even

less studies examining how to incorporate technology into teacher education programs. Educational researchers

have determined that technology is often underutilized and poorly integrated into K-16 science activities (Abell

& Lederman, 2007).

For adults, technology permeates almost every aspect of today’s society and our work and personal lives

are greatly influenced by technology (Tinker & Vahey, 2002). It has been found that 78% of American children

from the ages of 12-17 go online regularly (Levin & Arafeh, 2002) and as many as 90% of American children

aged 5-17 use computers regularly (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). Even more alarming is the fact that

99% of American schools are connected to the Internet with a 5:1 student-to-computer ratio (U.S. Department

of Education, 2004), yet, little is known as to how much impact the Internet and technology have on the

learning of our nation’s youth.




Elementary science teacher preparation programs need to highlight the role educational technology plays

in elementary science education and demonstrate how elementary science teacher educators can integrate

technology into their curriculum. Emerging technology in the classroom has the potential to change the

traditional roles and behaviors of teachers and students and develop a new vision for teaching and learning. The

current generation of preservice students is technologically savvy, and therefore, adept at using technology in

the classroom. The NCTAF (2003) summary report, No Dream Denied, a Pledge to America’s Children, stated

that education stakeholders must:

Adopt modern technologies and make use of research findings that enable teachers to diagnose student learning needs

and deploy appropriate teaching strategies that customize instruction appropriately. Use Internet based, Networked,

learning communities that enable teachers and students to participate in high quality learning anytime, anywhere. (p. 18)

The NCREL (North Central Regional Education Laboratory) report stated, “Educators must prepare for a

technology-rich future and keep up with change by adopting effective strategies that infuse lessons with

appropriate technologies” (NCREL, 2005, p. 3). Technology and its impact on elementary science teaching and

learning must be a major focus in future research studies in the science education field.

Using the Internet for information, YouTube for exemplar, calculators for cutting down manual

calculations, and therefore, precious time is common place in education circles today. Virtual tours of remote

places from space to the depths of the ocean are all possible today with the advancing technologies that are

available to teachers. Utilizing e-books on tablet computers and e-readers which also have music, animation,

and interactive elements are one example of emerging technology elementary science teachers need to integrate

into their science curriculum. There are also several adaptations, such as listening to a narrator which may be

useful for children with special needs.

Technology can even be used for differentiating instruction for different learning styles; transmitting

science content to students unable to be present in class, etc.. However, some perplexing questions, such as thedesirability of using social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for teachers communicating with students and too

much texting in lieu of direct communication, remain unanswered. Reading an e-book may feel like playing a

video game and children may be distracted by animations and games like features within e-books which may

interfere with their learning. Although, the cons need to be weighed with the pros of technology today, what is

clear is that teacher education programs and science methods courses need to expose preservice teachers to the

benefits and drawbacks so that when they make the transition to their own classroom, they will be equipped

with the experience to make informed decisions when it comes to technology.

Throughout the spring semester of 2012, the course instructor integrated ipad technology into the

elementary science methods course. This served as a model of one type of technology students will need to be

accustomed with when they enter student teaching and as they make the transition to their classrooms. The ipad

represents one example for the course instructor to model several science teaching strategies. These strategies

include how to effectively provide science demonstrations, discrepant events, integrating video into the

classroom, utilizing cooperative learning, using a differentiated instructional approach, and using technology

for assessment purposes. The integration of ipad technology into the methods course gave students ample

opportunities to experience numerous “Apps” related to science and science teaching.

These “Apps” were used to demonstrate appropriate level science content in addition to serving as a tool

for modeling how to effectively use the ipad in the science classroom.




In addition, students enrolled in the science methods course were able to experience how to choose

appropriate curriculum for the K-12 classroom. Students worked with Apps that were designed to help meet the

needs of students with special needs. For example, students were able to examine such “Apps” as: ABC

Data—an App created to assist students in ABA (applied behavior analysis) and Web Reader—an App created

to provide text to speech for assistance in learning how to read.

Students were also able to examine interactive textbooks and analyze the pros and cons of integrating

digital textbooks into the science curriculum. Examples include McGraw-Hill texts for Biology, Chemistry, and

Physics.

Using the Ipad as a Reflective Tool During Microteaching

With the integration of ipad technology into the science methods course, preservice students are able to

immediately playback both video and audio from their microteaching presentations. This immediate feedback

assists the instructor to discuss the pros and cons of their lesson paying particular attention to specific teaching

behaviors (questioning skills, presentation style, voice projection, etc.). The integration of ipads into the science

methods course is used for the students to watch their teaching episodes on their own and reflect on their

teaching practices. By watching their actual lesson, preservice students are able to think about and reflect on

specific teaching behaviors that were displayed during their presentation. The ability to playback their actual

lesson significantly enhances their reflective practice. This reflective analysis allows the students to provide a

much richer description of how to evaluate their own teaching performance. The videos of actual teaching

practices can then be integrated into electronic teaching portfolio.

Discussion

One of the challenges in science education is keeping abreast with research in both science and methods of

science education. By bringing in reports of recent developments in science and technology into the classroom

in a manner in which students can understand and relate to, teachers will not only enable the young learners to

appreciate science, but also to be rational and reflective in their thinking and their everyday lives. Reports of

contemporary research regarding genetic engineering, global climate change, dangers of pseudoscience, and

other discoveries and inventions, when discussed in classrooms, enable students to be not only keep abreast

with new information, but also develop in their interest and passion for learning science. Similarly, everyday

new breakthroughs on how children learn and how children learn science are being unraveled. A teacher not

engaging with new research and research-based practices will continue to teach in confirmation with the

Piagetian Stages, though, current researchers, such as Shayer and Adey (2002), claimed that there is much more

on science learning. The goal of continuous progress in science education makes it even more imperative that

teacher preparation program and more specifically, science teacher preparation programs need to continuallyrefine their goals for teaching and learning which include making program changes, so that the continually

changing needs of preservice teachers are adequately addressed.

This paper provides a discussion of the need to further investigate preservice science teacher preparation.

More research is needed on the various aspects of teaching and learning and the feasibility of implementing

those aspects in real learning situations for their students. Preservice teachers need to experience the process of

articulating their evolving beliefs in relation to new knowledge gained through course work. They need

experience and practice in making that typically unconscious act conscious and reflective. Through that process,

preservice teachers can identify the gaps between their beliefs and practices while teacher education programs




need to develop and incorporate more effective ways of organizing teacher preparation and professional

development experiences that meet the changing needs of teachers.

Conclusions

As science teacher educators, it is imperative that we understand how to adequately prepare prospective

elementary science teachers to overcome the daily struggles that accompanied with the early induction years of

their career. In the science education field, there has been a widespread disagreement concerning the impact of

science teacher preparation programs on prospective science teachers. This paper discusses the impact key

professional development experiences have on elementary science teachers’ beliefs and practices at various

stages of their teaching career.

Science teacher educators need to continue developing professional development experiences that have the

potential of lasting impacts for many of their graduates well beyond their formal education. Following the

incorporation of these professional development experiences into teacher education programs, science teacher

educators need to investigate whether or not these specific experiences are meaningful and worthwhile.Hopefully, this assessment performed by science teacher educators will then lead to changes in how these

experiences are incorporated into their programs.

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October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 761-771

Strengthening Industry-University Linkages Through

Public-Private Partnerships in Capacity Building

Mary Chepkite Lopokoiyit

Egerton University, Nairobi, Kenya

Grace Soprin Amurle

African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi, Kenya

Roselyne Wangare Gakure

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya

This paper reviews two case studies of innovations in public-private partnerships in capacity in public universities.

The paper discusses the efforts of RUFORUM (Regional Universities Forum) and the AERC (African Economic

Research Consortium) in capacity building in universities that are focused on retooling of lecturers and the

development of relevant curricula. These organizations focus on ensuring that teaching and research in the

universities are geared toward action learning and research that would address the needs of industry. The activities

carried out in the partnerships include: the development of faculty staff, exchange visits for staff and students,

industrial attachment and sabbaticals, curricula reform in universities to meet industry needs, and the development

of a Pan-African pool of expertise and community of practice that will drive the development agenda in Africa.

This has led to the development of relevant regional academic programmes, shared pool of expertise across

partner universities, improved teaching-learning experience, information sharing, and increased e-learning. The

inclusion of innovative courses in communication, personal development, and ICT (information and

communication technology) ensures that graduates transit better to the work place with faster returns to industry.

The partnership structure and functioning are explored to draw out characteristics, outcomes, and possible impact.

In particular, the roles of various partners and the role of these broker organizations in facilitating, sponsoring,

and managing the partnerships are examined. Lessons for up-scaling such partnerships are proposed and the

impact of such partnerships to industry growth is drawn. The paper stimulates discussion on developing such

partnerships to enhance the quality of graduates and the role of industry in developing relevant curricula in

universities.

Keywords: public-private partnership, universities, industry, broker organization, curricula

The Role of Higher Education in Economic Development

Rising demand for knowledge and highly skilled labour have changed the role of universities not only in

Africa but also in many countries in the world. The driving factor is the unprecedented evolutions in the global

Mary Chepkite Lopokoiyit, M.B.A., M.Sc., Department of Agricultural Education and Extension, Egerton University.

Grace Soprin Amurle, M.B.A., director, Finance and Administration, African Economic Research Consortium.Roselyne Wangare Gakure, Ph.D., professor, School of Human Resource Development, Jomo Kenyatta University of

Agriculture and Technology.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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STRENGTHENING INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY LINKAGES762

economic environment now haunted by new challenges like the effects of climate change (De Ferranti, Perry,

Gill, Guasch, Maloney, Sánchez-Páramo, & Schady, 2003). Africa is more vulnerable with not only the effects

of climate change but also issues on food insecurity, natural resource management, and conflict (AERC

(African Economic Research Consortium), 2010). The question is: Does Africa possess adequate human capital

with the requisite skills to cope with the globalization trends and the emerging challenges? The productivity of

highly-skilled human capital is undoubtedly the main contribution that universities make to a nation’s

innovation system. As argued by De Ferranti et al. (2003), efforts to upgrade the technological infrastructure

and stimulate innovation are unlikely to yield a high return if not complemented with sufficient stock of

advanced human capital.

Taking cognizance of these challenges facing higher education in Africa, the development of

public-private partnerships in strengthening the local capacity of individuals and institutions constitute a new

mode of operation in development. As noted by Hartwich, Gottret, Babu, and Tola (2007), few models of

public-private partnership are known to have succeeded in making significant impact in strengthening

capacities of partnership in Africa. According to Hartwich et al. (2007), prerequisites for successful public-private partnership entail capacities to identify opportunities, develop common interest, tap into external

expertise, and commitment to the partnership agreement. UNDP (United Nations Development Program) (2002)

defined capacity as the ability of people, institutions, and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and

set and achieve objectives while capacity development is the process in which individuals, groups, and

organizations enhance their abilities to mobilise and use resources in order to achieve their objectives on a

sustainable basis. Efforts to strengthen the abilities of individuals, groups, and organizations comprise: human

skills development, organizational change and developments, networking, and changes in

governance/institutional context (ADB (Africa Development Bank), 2004).

Tennyson and Wilde (2000) argued that the partnership broker is a new kind of leader, who works behind

the scenes, often unrecognised and unacknowledged to bring about robust and productive partnerships for the

benefit of all, particularly those most at risk. This paper critically reviews the work of two partnership brokers

in higher education in Africa; the RUFORUM (Regional Universities Forum) (see Appendix) for Capacity

Building in Agriculture and AERC (African Economic Research Consortium) have identified a need and have

built successful and sustainable partnerships and networks of individuals and institutions across SSA

(sub-Saharan Africa) and the rest of the world. They have enabled the strengthening of capacity through

capacity building in advanced skills and knowledge development and sharing in higher education. RUFORUM

and AERC have enabled access to knowledge and information networks and linkages that would not otherwise

have been achieved by the individual organizations and universities on their own. As noted by Oghenekohwo

and Abu (2011), the inadequate public investment in higher education research provides a justification for private initiatives in university teaching, training, and research.

The Role of Intermediaries and Brokerage Organizations in Partnerships and Networking

Tennyson and Wilde (2000) defined a partnership as an alliance between organizations from two or more

sectors that commit themselves to working together to undertake a sustainable development project. Such a

partnership undertakes to share risks and benefits, review the relationship regularly, and revise the partnership

as necessary.

Successful partnerships have partners who share four key characteristics:



STRENGTHENING INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY LINKAGES 763

(1) Uphold the principles of openness and equity;

(2) Share risks and benefits;

(3) Adapt well to change;

(4) Work towards empowerment: Shared resources, capacity building, and institutional support.

As public policy comes to grips with these new ideas, it is becoming increasingly apparent that

intermediary organizations, which sit between and connect different agents involved in networks and

partnerships in developing countries are important as they fulfil boundary work and play a role in “bridging”,

“bonding”, and “linking” social capital (Fisher & Vogel, 2008; Hall, 2006; Heemskerk & Wennink, 2004;

Mytelka, 1993; Szogs, 2008). They are third-party catalysing agents necessary to bring partners together,

motivate them, provide information, and enable space for negotiations (Kristjanson et al., 2009). Networking is

about sharing and creates space for joint learning and innovation. Networking can only be effective when

network members are able to effectively communicate with each other, and when communication infrastructure

and information services are available. Achieving innovation depends upon the quality of the communication

and learning processes embedded in the networking efforts of relevant social actors (Heemskerk & Wennink,2004). One of the most intriguing issues emerging from the study of networking for innovation is its apparent

arbitrariness: Different social actors generally perceive the same situation quite differently, coming to different

and often conflicting proposals for intervention. As a result, institutional arrangements are continuously

renegotiated and adapted, both formally and informally. This underscores the fluid nature of successful

configurations and the balance of power within these that may govern the course of innovation at any one

moment in time.

Characteristics of Networking as a Strategy for Improving

Inter-organizational Innovativeness

Several scholars have identified the role and characteristics that networks play in sustaining partnerships in

consortiums (Fisher & Vogel, 2008; Howells, 2006; Johnson, 2008; Kristjanson et al., 2009; Leeuwis, 2004;

Mytelka, 1993; Szogs, 2008). They are summarized as follows:

(1) Networks are purposefully created by agencies;

(2) Mutual inter dependence exists as the main reason for joining up;

(3) Technical solutions and intervention objectives are open to debate;

(4) Active participation of all members organizations/agencies is a formal requirement and a working

standard;

(5) Networks recognize and nurture mutual interdependence of actions/programmes for mutual support,

services, and participation in public debates;(6) Network organizations and staff engage in communication for innovation.

Network Activities

Marques, Alves, and Saur (2005) summarized the key activities carried out by brokerage organizations in

managing networks.

Learning through joint reflection. The objective of encouraging learning through joint reflection is to

make use of the combined analytical powers of staff members of like-minded development agencies,

facilitating the sharing of knowledge ideas and experiences, hence, increasing the quality of operations




(Howells, 2006; Johnson, 2008). Successful networks require a critical mass of actors, in terms of quality and

quantity of the relationships. A small network may not be able to provide these conditions. Network

participants should exhibit complementary idiosyncratic abilities. The integration of these abilities provides a

base for common developments. The creative combination of complementary activities, knowledge, and skills

enables the desired synergies.

Services. Services within a network include training, communication, documentation, intellectual property

management, and information services (Leeuwis, 2004). In providing these services, the network organization

tries to make optimum use of existing capabilities and facilities among its members. The opportunity and

frequency of informal gatherings appear to be important success factors in innovation networks because they

serve to create and reinforce trust-based relationships between partners (Kristjanson et al., 2009; Van Lente,

Hekkert, Smits, & Van Waveren, 2003).

Advocacy. Advocacy is the activities performed or facilitated by the network organization on behalf of its

members with respect to participation in the public or government development debate, putting forward the

aims related to their mission statement and clients. The network may formulate proposals on contemporarydevelopment issues, voice these in the public media, as well as organize conferences, contribute articles to

scientific journals and distribute relevant publications, and also build coalitions with relevant parties outside the

network or with other networks. Network success is dependent upon the capacity of its members to share a

common vision and clear cooperation goals (Howells, 2006; Johnson, 2008). A strong and viable idea is needed

to give shape and direction to the network. This idea should be ambitious enough to congregate interests and

wills and, as stated before, give members a positive sense of ownership. Network brokers require the capacity

to continuously promote and evaluate relationships and processes within the network and to act in order to

adapt and reinforce its activities. The involvement of firms’ top executives in the network improves the

conditions for productive cooperation. The high-level representation in network meetings allow for agile,

flexible, and solidary decision-making processes.

Network management. This is the facilitating aspect of the network process itself and includes caring for

network communication infrastructure, network operating procedures, the monitoring of network resources,

activities, and outputs, and coordination with other organizations and networks (Coles & Dickson, 2003).

Network institutional structures, such as rules, regulations, and obligations, both formal and informal, are

necessary to create and manage relationships within the network.

From a policy perspective, it is important to understand the effectiveness of different brokerage

mechanisms and the processes that govern these organizations in specific contextual settings (German &

Stroud, 2007; Spielman, Von Grebmer, & Hartwich, 2007). The experiences of innovation brokers in higher

education are important in order to draw lessons from these cases. The paper discusses the factors thatdetermine their effectiveness and explains the circumstances that have led to the emergence of these

arrangements. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this experience to higher

education in Africa.

Networking and Collaboration in the AERC

The AERC has undertaken successful and innovative capacity building programmes over the last 20 years

in SSA (AERC, 2010). Established in 1988, AERC principle objective is to strengthen local capacity for

economic policy research in SSA through a synergetic programme combining economic research with post




graduate training in economics (AERC, 2010). AERC strength is founded on two key success factors: its

network of researchers, students, resource persons, collaborating institutions, institutional partnerships, policy

makers, and funding institutions. The network comprises individuals and institutions from Africa and other

parts of the world. Its unique and lean governance structure enables AERC to operate independently, and yet,

synergistically feed into each other in ensuring relevance, quality, and maximum use of resources that support

an African based strategic agenda which is adaptable and evolves in tune with the challenges in the global

environment. Similarly, AERC ability to mobilize resources to finance the collaborative programmes is a

reflection of its record of achievements as noted by various evaluations and programme reviews (AERC, 2010).

AERC recognizes that generation of new frontier knowledge is acquired by building local capacity for

independent and rigorous inquiry into problems pertinent to the management of Africa economies. This is

achieved through a series of peer review research workshops coupled with technical workshops on

methodological aspects and other special research areas, such as climate change, gender, and communicating

research outputs to policy makers among others. Increasing the pool of researchers requires generation of a

critical mass of well trained individuals. AERC efforts in the postgraduate training programme of Masters andPh.D. is achieved through a collaborative model that brings together over 24 universities in over 20 countries

across SSA, covering both the anglophone and francophone countries. This collaboration requires the adoption

of a common curriculum in the teaching of core courses, lecturers exchange programmes between universities,

and the teaching of electives at a joint or shared facility to enable a large menu of elective courses to be taught

by highly qualified professional group of lecturers selected through an internationally competitive process.

High quality standards are managed and monitored by Academic Boards consisting of members drawn from

collaborating universities. This model has several positive effects including building capacities of collaborating

universities by improving infrastructure through support for equipment and teaching materials, lecturers’

exchange programmes, faculty research support, and network linkages. The Ph.D. student thesis process is

equally linked to the research peer review and resource persons’ support to develop a higher quality of thesis

proposals to develop the research skills of these students. AERC facilitates the attachment of student and

researchers to various institutions locally and internationally to tap into frontier information, knowledge, and

practical skills. The model facilitates production of high quality group of competitive professionals, retention of

such capacity in Africa, and increasing the pool of quality teaching staff in the universities (AERC, 2010).

Through this effort, AERC has facilitated the training of over 2,500 researchers, 2,500 master students, and

over 300 Ph.D. students.

RUFORUM for Capacity Building in Agriculture

The RUFORUM for Capacity Building in Agriculture is an African owned network organization of 29

universities in Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa established in 2004. The consortium had previously

operated as a program of the Rockefeller foundation beginning in 1992. RUFORUM is registered in Uganda as

a not-for-profit limited company and is currently in the process of registering as an international NGO

(non-governmental organization). RUFORUM is a consortium of 29 universities in Eastern, Central, and

Southern Africa. It is mandated to oversee graduate training and networks of specialization in the COMESA

(Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) countries. RUFORUM was explicitly created to engage

African universities with development processes in agriculture through strengthening (quality and quantity)

human resource capacity and subsequently agricultural research for development to improve the productivity of




small-holder farmers. It seeks to redress decades of underinvestment in agricultural training and research and

puts agricultural tertiary education and training in tandem with labour market requirements and actors in the

agricultural sector through regularised forums and collaborative training and research. The member universities

are presented in Appendix. A total of 265 M.Sc. and 99 Ph.D. students have been trained. Women consitituted

33.58% and 25.5% at the M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels respectively (RUFORUM, 2011). Over 150 academic staff

have benefited from RUFORUM support in terms of short course training and attending conferences. Several

learning platforms, at national and regional levels, have been held.

The partners and stakeholders in RUFORUM consist of not only member universities but also affiliated

universities, professional organizations in education, agriculture, research, and higher education, NARI/O

(national agricultural research institutes/organizations), ministries of higher education, regional and

international research organizations, international partner universities, regional and international funding

agencies, and a rich network of individuals in the region and internationally.

The RUFORUM governance structure is designed to promote ownership of the organization by the

member universities, while at the same time, ensuring good international practices and quality. RUFORUM isrun by a highly qualified staff head by a CEO (chief executive officer), who employs a total of 21 technical and

support staff (RUFORUM, 2011). There are several governance organs that are serviced by a regional

secretariat as the management and service delivery unit. Each of these organs has distinct responsibilities that

are interlinked or fed into each other. The key governance structure of the consortium are:

(1) Annual general assembly. This is the annual meeting of RUFORUM member universities and other

stakeholders and it is the supreme organ of the organization. It provides the overall orientation of RUFORUM

mission and programmes;

(2) Board of directors. The Board of Directors consisting of 15 members is composed of representatives of

vice chancellors, civil society, and private sector, NARS (national agricultural research stations)/regional

research and training networks and organizations, and continental/international organizations. The board meets at

least once a year and it is the legal representation of RUFORUM. It recruits regional staff and supports resource

mobilization and linkage to national governments;

(3) IAP (International Advisory Panel). In recognition of the increasing partnerships with international

organizations and funding agencies, the IAP was set up to provide international oversight and quality assurance,

mobilize international support and partnerships, and provide policy advice to the Secretariat and Board of

Directors. This panel consists of six eminent international experts, four from within Africa and two from outside

Africa. It is a new organ to support international recognition of RUFORUM and its programs;

(4) Technical committee. This committee is composed of five elected representatives of the participating

faculties in RUFORUM and seven representatives of stakeholders from outside the university system. Thiscommittee is gender-balanced consisting of six male and six female. The committee meets usually twice a

year and is charged with establishing proposal write up guidelines and reviewing and approving of grant

proposals;

(5) Deans committee. This committee consists of deans of participating faculties. It meets at least twice a

year to review issues from the national forums and regional thematic groups and provide feedback information to

the Secretariat and Technical Committee on activity progress and issues emerging at individual university and

country levels.




RUFORUM Activities

In line with its mandate, RUFORUM has facilitated donors to maximize their assistance to higher

education and research in Africa by providing a brokerage role, monitoring the evaluation of programs, and

activities, providing fund management and auditory role. Through RUFORUM, participating universities have

strengthened research, postgraduate programmes, university curricula, and outreach activities to the rural

farmers. Specific activities and programmes include:

(1) Joint regional training programmes have been developed by universities under RUFORUM. These are

regional programmes in which students from the region can apply. This enables a regional credit transfer

system and increased student intake and visibility in target universities. A summary of these programmes is

presented in Table 1;

Table 1

Regional Postgraduate Programs and Host Universities Program in Host University, Country M.Sc. Level

Postgraduate programme University Country

M.Sc., research methods Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology Kenya

M.Sc., agricultural information and

communication management

Egerton UniversityUniversity of Nairobi

Haramaya University

KenyaKenya

Ethiopia

Ph.D., plant breeding and seed systems University of Zambia Zambia

M.Sc., plant breeding and seed systems Makerere University Uganda

Ph.D., dryland resource management University of Nairobi Kenya

Ph.D., plant breeding and biotechnology Makerere University Uganda

Ph.D., aquaculture and fisheries University of Malawi Malawi

Ph.D., agricultural resource economics University of Malawi Malawi

Ph.D., soil and water management Sokoine University of Agriculture Tanzania

Ph.D., ARI (agricultural rural innovation)

Egerton University

Makerere University

Kenya

Uganda

Note. Source: Summarised from RUFORUM annual reports.

(2) Strengthening skills and competencies of academic staff: Regional training sessions have focused on

proposal writing, data management, personal mastery, and experimental design gender mainstreaming;

(3) Strengthening regional networking and learning activities: These include hosting of women in science

conference for African women, RUFORUM biennial conference for universities and facilitating participation in

several network meetings. These meetings and learning platforms are used to interact, share research findings,

challenges, and to strengthen RUFORUM networks and partnerships;

(4) Regional e-learning approaches integrated into curricula of at least one regional programme. The

e-platforms, e-books, learning resources, and social networks for the regional programmes are maintained byRUFORUM;

(5) Provision of scholarships to graduate students. Seventeen research Scholarships available on

competitive basis every year;

(6) Staff exchange programmes awarded through Food Security Center Initiative;

(7) The CGS (Competitive Grants System) comprises a number of different competitively awarded grant

programmes including the GRG (Graduate Research Grants), the CARP (Community Action Research

Programme) for staff, and the FAPA (Field Attachment Programme Awards) for students to engage with




prospective employers and clients of their research. Over 70 grants have been awarded, through the

RUFORUM TAC (Technical Advisory Committee);

(8) Facilitating a regional field attachment and student internship;

(9) Scoping studies on capacity gaps, M & E (monitoring & evaluation) practice and capacity gaps at

secretariat and member universities done;

(10) Developing the universities M & E capacity, including the specific strategies to build capacity to

track RUFORUM grants and research support, as well as develop capacity to track agricultural research and

training performance;

(11) Fundraising, fund management, and facilitating universities to fund raise through proposal writing.

Characteristics of the Brokerage Roles of RUFORUM and AERC

for Successful Partnership

The success of AERC and RUFORUM are hinged on several pillars of success attributed to the unique

characteristics of these organizations:(1) Founded and established by a consortium of organizations with a common vision;

(2) Commitment by members and actors to support the institution;

(3) Clear governance and management structures;

(4) Well developed monitoring and evaluation systems;

(5) Lean, efficient, and flat organization structure;

(6) Highly qualified and innovative staff;

(7) Ability to raise and manage funds on behalf of donors weary of direct funding to institutions;

(8) Playing a mediatory role and auditory role between institutions and funding agencies;

(9) Ability to develop networks and partnerships;

(10) Activities based on gap/need studies and research in the identified core areas operation.

Common Activities Carried out by RUFORUM and AERC

An analysis of the activities, characteristics, and brokerage roles of RUFORUM and AERC reveals

common traits that contribute to the organizations success in brokering capacity building in higher education

among various governments, partners, and universities. These characteristics focus on building social capital

and trust through effective communication, networking, and prudent management of resources, and include:

(1) The ability to influence policy and organizational change in universities and ministries of education in

partner countries;

(2) Clarifying benefits, roles, and responsibilities among partners and stakeholders;

(3) Maintaining strong training and capacity development of university faculty;

(4) Facilitating exchange, pooling, and sharing of highly qualified expertise among institutions of higher

learning;

(5) Establishment and facilitating access to electronic knowledge databases, platforms and library;

(6) Joint development and sharing equipment, laboratories, and facilities for advanced research and

scholarly work;

(7) Development of regional academic programmes at Master and Ph.D. levels to meet emerging needs in

SSA;




(8) Initiating curricula review with stakeholders in the public and private sector to address industry needs

strengthening university-industry linkages;

(9) Facilitating relevant action oriented research to address local and industry challenges that impact on

development;

(10) Improved competencies in pedagogical and andragogical teaching methods to develop critical

thinking, problem-solving approach, creativity, and initiative in students;

(11) Recruitment of students from different countries to enhance and enrich learning, sharing, and

reflection experiences;

(12) Facilitation of student placement in SEP (supervised experiential programmes) preparing graduates

for better transition to the work place and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Challenges and Opportunities

To achieve sustainable economic development requires effective management of a nation’s resources.

Knowledge-based workforce is a prerequisite for the rapid and sustainable transformation of an economy(Ebong, 2007). The MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) (2000) articulated in its 8th goals and

development of global partnership for sustainable development. Likewise, UNESCO (United Nations

Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) (1998) mandated in the world declaration on higher

education for the 21st century in its Article 17 on partnership and alliances, required higher education

institutions to engage themselves with public or private and the civil society groups in the proves of research

for sustainable development in African continent. Akinpelu (2005) noted that higher education system in most

African countries in their present structure is not contributing to achieving this mandate neither has it explored

to its fullest, the opportunities envisaged in public-private partnerships. Few innovative institutions have,

however, played a facilitative role in enhancing capacity of a large pool of individuals and higher education

institutions through effective public-private partnership in specific niche areas of economic development. This

model has so far been replicated by other institutions in other parts of the world, such as the LACEA (Latin

American and Caribbean Economic Association) and the AEA (American Economic Association). Likewise, in

Africa, the APHRC (African Population and Health Research Center) and the PASGR (Partnership for African

Social And Governance Research) are other examples of institutions that have replicated this innovative model.

It is recommended that these innovative networks and brokerage approaches implemented by RUFORUM

and AERC models could be up-scaled by private and public universities and other stakeholders in respective

industry regionally and internationally to facilitate the strengthening of the quality of teaching and research, and

to inform policy in Africa.

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Appendix

RUFORUM Member Universities:

Africa University, ZimbabweCatholic University of Mozambique, Mozambique

Eduardo Mondlane University Mozambique, MozambiqueEgerton University, Kenya

Gulu University, UgandaHaramaya University, Ethiopia

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, KenyaKenyatta University, KenyaKordofan University, Sudan

Kyambogo University, UgandaMakerere University, UgandaMekelle University, Ethiopia

Moi University, KenyaMzuzu University, Malawi National University of Burundi, Burundi

National University of Rwanda, RwandaSokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Uganda Martyrs University, UgandaUniversité Catholique De Bukavu, Dr-Congo

University of Botswana, BotswanaUniversity of Gezira, Sudan

University of Juba, SudanUniversity of Lesotho, LesothoUniversity of Malawi, Malawi

University of Nairobi, KenyaUniversity of Namibia, Namibia

University of Swaziland, SwazilandUniversity of Zambia, ZambiaUniversity of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe




October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 772-779

School Governance: An International Comparison

Simona Franzoni, Francesca Gennari

University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

To improve school’s quality and autonomy, it is necessary the switch from “school government” models

characterized by higher powers to “school governance” models which produce consent around their own choices,

on the basis of a wide involvement of stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to verify if there is a governance model

which is able to build, manage, and develop school network, analysing the actual situation about the relationships

between school and its stakeholders and the actors’ role in the educational decision-making processes (as condition

for the establishment and development of network and their managing through new governance models) in some

European countries (such as Greece, Italy, Romania, Sweden, and the Netherlands). The analysis reveals beyond

the differences in the educational systems of all countries involved, the weakness of an effective governance model

where each key actor shares a common purpose and collaborates to draw on individual strengths, respect a variety

of perspectives, and actively promote learning opportunities and economic development.

Keywords: governance, international comparison, schools

Introduction

The success of the educational system is becoming increasingly important for the economic development

of society and the social growth of local, national, and international territories. Today, the European educationsystem needs to promote new models of the development of knowledge, and in particular, to define new

competences in the social and professional context.

As globalisation continues to confront the European Union with new challenges, each citizen will need a

wide range of key competences to be flexible to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world. Therefore,

the mission of the educational system can be summarised as the development of knowledge, abilities, and

attitudes for personal realisation, active citizenship, social inclusion, and inclusion in the world of work. This

means to pursue the “eight key competences for lifelong learning” recommended by European Union

(2006/962/EC).

Nowadays, the school is called on to improve the quality of services, in order to respond to the educational

needs of the community. To optimise the use of public financial resources and the relations with its

stakeholders, the school needs the efforts of inter-institutional cooperation among the different actors involved

and the integrated development of educational services in order to respond to the educational and training

expectations of a local community (OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), 2011;

Although the article is the result of a team effort, S. Franzoni can be considered the author of sections: “Introduction”,

“Empirical Research”, and “Discussion of Findings—Governance”; and F. Gennari, the author of sections: “Discussion of

Findings—School and Local Community” and “Conclusion”.Simona Franzoni, M.B.A., associate professor, Department of Economics and Management, University of Brescia.Francesca Gennari, M.B.A., assistant professor, Department of Economics and Management, University of Brescia.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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SCHOOL GOVERNANCE: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON 773

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), 2008). The school should be

integrated within the local community so as to create a network (Caldwell, 2009), which implies the adoption

of a governance model where every actor—school, public authority, enterprises, universities, non-profit

organization, etc.—plays a significant role in the territory.

In addition to the contributions to managerial and leadership models, development conditions of schools

refer to two main research fields in education: school effectiveness (Mortimore, 1998; Scheerens & Bosker,

1997; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) and school improvement (Joyce, Calhoum, & Hopkins, 1999), a new

paradigm called “school governance”, which has been characterized international education systems under the

spur of the public governance approach (Kooiman & Van Vliet, 1993; Bovaird & Loffler, 2002; Schedler, 2003;

Osborne, 1998; 2010). In particular, the public governance concerns the role of public administration in

networks. The networks are formed by public actors as well as non-profit organizations, enterprises, and

organizations as expressions of civil society in which the processes of dialogue and negotiation are activated in

order to foster cooperation on the development of projects and policies.

The school is the basic operational unit of the educational system, its core business is related, however, toa complex network of relations of the following nature (Sliwka, 2003; Kenis & Provan, 2009; Klijn, Steijn, &

Edelenbos, 2010): vertical within the public system of reference; horizontal, with reference to all the actors of a

community, who have a direct or indirect interest in the quality of educational outcomes compared to their

expectations.

This situation and the progressive realization of the crucial role of the school for the economic

development of a community, has emphasised the need for a modern model of governance of the education

system aimed at enhancing the network of relationships with the various relevant actors, and seems to represent

the most appropriate way to safeguard autonomy of actors while maintaining the capacity to create synergies at

the same time and to achieve the best results in an environment characterised by increasingly financial

resources constrained.

This study is mainly intended to answer the following question: Which is the actual situation about the

relationship and the cooperation between school and its stakeholders and the actors’ role in order to safeguard

the quality of educational services?

Therefore, the article has the following research objective: To verify if there is a governance model which

is able to build, manage, and develop network analysing the actual situation about the relationships between

school and its stakeholders and the actors’ role in the educational decision-making processes (as condition for

the establishment and development of network and their managing through new governance models) in some

European countries (such as Greece, Italy, Romania, Sweden, and the Netherlands).

Empirical Research

The aim of the analysis is to verify the key actors’ role in the educational system, and the relationship and

the level of cooperation between school and its stakeholders in some European countries (such as Greece, Italy,

Romania, Sweden, and the Netherlands) and to understand if the model discussed in the section above can find

an effective application.

The tools used to conduct the empirical research were the “focus groups” (Morgan, 1997). In particular,

five focus groups were simultaneously made in the partner countries in February-March, 2011; they were

composed by about a dozen people representing the main categories of school’s stakeholders, namely principals,



SCHOOL GOVERNANCE: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON774

teachers, pupils (at least 14 years old), parents, and other stakeholders (politicians and employees of education

in the local public authorities, employees in vocational guidance and counselling service, executives of cultural

and sports associations, enterprises, universities, etc.). The questions addressed to all stakeholders were:

(1) Does integration exist between the school and the local community? Is there anything that can be done

in order to improve the relationship and cooperation between school and local community?

(2) How does each actor participate in the educational decision-making processes (since decisions are

taken till when they are realised)? Which could be the role of each actors to produce high-quality education

through more participation and responsibility?

Discussion and Findings

Questions proposed to people taking part in the focus groups reflect two areas:

(1) School and local community;

(2) Governance.

School and Local Community

Table 1 highlights the difference in answers given in the same country. In Greece, the stakeholders’

opinions (principals and teachers) depend on not only the place where the school is situated, but also the people

working in it. Other external stakeholders, in particular, administrative staff working in offices of education

believes that school is not well integrated in the local community. Teachers who were “detached” from their

school post in order to serve education from an administrative (secretarial) position tend to believe that

cooperation between local authorities, parental boards, and other stakeholders is not always good, effective, or

with a positive impact on the school due to the excessive workload.

Table 1

Integration Between School and CommunityWhat does integration exist between the school and the local community?

Principals Teachers Students ParentsOther externalstakeholders

Greece Different opinions Different opinionsSome initiatives,

but, not systematic

Not or moderately

connected Not well integrated

Italy Strong integrationVarious and sometimescontradictory scenario

Some initiatives, but, not systematic

Well integratedSome initiatives, but, not systematic

Romania (*) Well integrated Well integrated Very well integrated (*)

SwedenIt depends on schoollocation

Well integrated, but often, itdepends on teachers’commitment

Not so much Very well integratedIt varies from regionto region and schoolto school

The Netherlands

Answers are very

different, dependingon in which locationand schools

It depends on the location Existing, but toimprove (*) Close collaboration

Note. (*) Focus groups were not carried out for organizational reasons.

In Italy, opinions are contrasting; furthermore, there is a general satisfaction about the relationships

between school and community. The principals’ opinion refers to a strong integration of schools in their own

local community: There are experiences of cooperation between schools and the world of work for internships

and stages.

Many of such “other external stakeholders” recognize the social role of the school and its capacity to cope




with social problems/emergencies, but, the relations with schools/local public authorities are often difficult and

the co-operation is generally weak.

In Romania, stakeholders interviewed are substantially satisfied about integration between school and

community.

In the Netherlands, the answers depend on the location, otherwise, schools and communities seem to be

integrated as a part of labour market, socially via program activities of “sport & exercises”. Other external

stakeholders say that, in general, there is a close collaboration with school, but, not within the working field.

In Sweden, school and local community are generally considered to be well integrated, although, with

regional peculiarities. The contact with the local community is considered to be easier in early stages of

education. Students often felt they were less well integrated.

In Table 2, there are the stakeholders’ suggestions to improve the relationship between school and local

community. The answers differ according to the stakeholders’ category and the country. However, some

opinions are recurrent, in particular, in regard to the improvement of communication and tools for removing

bureaucratic ties and to favor greater involvement.

Table 2

Suggestions for the Improvement of the Relationship Between School and Community

Is there anything that can be done in order to improve the relationship between school and local community?

Principals Teachers Students ParentsOthers external

stakeholders

Greece

To open school’s doors;

to remove bureaucraticties; and awareness of

the school’s role in theterritory

To open the school’sdoors; more

communication

Systematic dialoguewith other stakeholders

Initiatives’acknowledgement;more

communication

Less bureaucracy;society and local

community should befully informed of whatthe school community

does, implements,

plans, aims at, oraspires

Italy Proactive school

To open the school’s

doors; to maintangood relationship

Stable relationship

with the community

Involvement of thesocial and cultural

initiatives of theterritory

Involvement of allstakeholders towards

common goals,optimizing resources

Romania (*)

Reinforcement of

partnership andcommunication

Involvement of

students in extracurricular activities

Involvement of

students in extracurricular activities

(*)

SwedenMore emotionalinvolvement by

teachers and parents

School more careful

about territory

School more careful

about territory

School opened alsofor extra curricular

activities

Schools should be

interested in the localcommunity and they

should be interested inand take initiative with

the creativityThe Netherlands

To make the school

“visible” for thecommunity

To open the school’sdoors

To let people from thefield giving classes

(*)

Teachers should visit

the practice more orhave work experience

Note. (*) Focus groups were not carried out for organizational reasons.

In Greece, stakeholders’ suggestions are made in two major directions. First, they tend to make school

more extroverted through various events, projects, community work, and volunteering; and second, they tend to

make curriculum less analytical and cognitive and more connected to real life and local community interests.

In Italy, there are a number of obstacles, such as financial and prejudicial ones, but, many suggestions are




given on improving cooperation with schools, non-profit organizations, families, and enterprises, in terms of

mobility, cultural, and social activities.

The Romanian skakeholders say that in order to improve the relationship between school and local

community, the schools need more communication and skill to promote performances and partnerships.

In the Netherlands, all groups suggested to open up school for community, make school visible by hosting

events, involve community in teaching processes, and make school fitness facilities available for local

community.

In Sweden, teachers, principals, and stakeholders highlighted the potential for a lot of co-operation within

the educational structure. Schools should be interested in the local community, and local community itself

should be interested in and take initiative with the creativity that students have.

Generally, the stakeholders interviewed say that there is, more or less, an effective or potential integration

between school and local community. All of them perceive the importance of this relation and they clearly

underline the need to improve it.

Governance

In regard to the effective participation of relevant stakeholders in decision-making processes, Table 3

shows that in Greece, the principal has a crucial role, characterised by wide responsibility, but not connected

with substantial authority. Other external stakeholders also report a limited involvement in the school

decision-making processes.

Table 3

Stakeholders’ Role in the Decision-Making Processes

How does each actor participate in the decision-making processes of the school (since decisions are taken till when they are

realized)?

Principals Teachers Students ParentsOthers external

stakeholders

Greece

Leading role in theschool unit with a lot ofresponsibilities without

the correspondingauthority

Complex role, notinvolved, but proposedsolutions given; lots of

constraints andlimitations

Limited

Little to noneinvolvement;

supportive role in thelearning process

Mediatory and

transactional role

ItalyCrucial, fundamental rolein any aspect of the

decision-making process

Significant role, but lackof participation;individual over collective

Have representation, but not listened to

Listen to, but can nottake decisions; weakrepresentation; little

interests

(*)

Romania (*)Information disseminator coordinator

Organizer or

co-organizer of publicevents andvolunteering activities

Participants, and,

sometimes,co-organizer of extracurricular activities

(*)

SwedenLegal responsibility, but they must involve

stakeholders

Through work teams anddirectly with the head;lots of opportunity to

influence

Not consistantinfluence; difficult toaccess the principal

directly

Representation inschool boards

Involved indecision-makingand sustainability

of school

The

NetherlandsVery active role

Connecting theory with

practice and offer theirexpertise

Can influence lessons

planning(*)

Involvement indevelopment of

new curriculum; participation in

public events

Note. (*) Focus groups were not carried out for organizational reasons. In particular, in Italy, “other stakeholders” did not take

part in the decision-making processes.






In Italy, all stakeholders hope for a substantial participation in the decision-making processes in a very

active way. In particular, principals need to deal discussion about different choices in a systematic way with all

stakeholders. Students need more information about what happens inside and outside the school and they hope

to improve the dialogue with all stakeholders in decision-making processes. Parents need tools and traning to

improve their role and to better communicate.

In Romania, the stakeholders hope for more involvement by everyone. In particular, the students need to

be more involved in participation and organization of events and extracurricular activities.

The Dutch and Sweden answers are more focused on personal characteristics (open mind, capacity to

relate with others, etc.) than on external tools for active involvement.

In fact, the Dutch principals should be customisable and able to promote networking. The students would

like to interact with other internship places (as hospitals) and other external stakeholders propose to introduce

experts from practice into the school.

The Swedish parents and the other external stakeholders would have more activities and a clear division of

responsibility, indeed, educators have little time and external actors who want to work with schools can havedifficulty in getting a response.

Generally, there is a limited involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making processes of the school

with the consequent difficulty of moving towards common objectives and results. The majority of the partner

countries involved in the project are characterised by educational governance systems not marked by the

sharing of mission and strategies through the actors’ engagement in the educational choices.

Nevertheless, in all countries, all stakeholders involved hope for the development of a governance model

where each actor, according to its level of importance and defined responsibilities, takes part in the

decision-making processes.

Conclusions

The above considerations show that the school needs to apply a broader approach that is increasingly

oriented towards integration in local contexts. In gereral, a lot of focus groups put forward similar suggestions

for further integration—co-ordination, scope, and flexibility through a varierty of incentives aimed at teachers,

parents, students, and stakeholders in order to cooperate together with the future education. The stakeholders

response vary and reflect the different levels of school autonomy. Nevertheless, all of them say that the

advantages a school gets by participating in a network are immediately measurable referring to the possibility

of sharing investments, exploitation of innovation and technology, containment, and rationalization of

production costs and risks.

The considerations above highlight the need for the different European countries to commit themselves inorder to achieve, together with schools, well-structured and managed network systems consistent with the needs

for the improvement of overall benefits. Indeed, networking among institutions and individuals in education is,

therefore, increasingly seen as a powerful stimulus to organizational learning and development.

The analysis reveals beyond the differences in the educational systems of all countries, the weakness of an

effective governance model where each key actor shares a common purpose and collaborates to draw on

individual strengths, respect a variety of perspectives, and actively promote learning opportunities. Therefore,

an effective governance should encourage the sharing of a common vision and purposes among all stakeholders.

In this context, each actor, according to its level of importance and defined responsibilities, takes part in the




decision-making processes in order to pursue the mission of an educational system which is able to produce

new knowledge and competences, and in general, to participate to the economic development of society and the

social growth of local, national, and international territories.

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440-456.

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Effectiveness, Paris.




October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 780-785

UPAEP High School Summer Academy at Oklahoma

State University

Maria G. Fabregas Janeiro

Oklahoma State University,

Oklahoma, United States

Pablo Nuño de la Parra

UPAEP University,

Puebla, Mexico

Blanca Elena Lozano

Oklahoma State University,

Oklahoma, United States;

UPAEP University,

Puebla, Mexico

Short-term study abroad programs have grown in popularity during the last years. These programs are designed

to meet students’ specific needs. In 2012, UPAEP’s (Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla) high

school requested OSU (Oklahoma State University) to host a two-week program for students enrolled at UPAEP

high school. These programs were designed and delivered by the UPAEP Liaison Office in the United States.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of designing and delivering a two-week program called

Summer Academy UPAEP 2012. This program took place in Stillwater, Oklahoma, at the OSU campus.

Twenty-five Mexican students participated in the program. This program was a new experience for both

institutions (UPAEP and OSU). The Summer Academy 2012 was a success. The students and professors’

evaluations showed that the program exceeded their expectations. The goal of this program was to offer high

school students the opportunity of a short international experience, aiming to contribute to the improvement of

students’ leadership, entrepreneurship, and intercultural competence skills, preparing them to face the challengesof the 21st century.

Keywords: summer programs, study abroad, high school, international programs.

Introduction

Employers around the world are seeking leaders and entrepreneur professionals who are able to work with

people from different cultures. These types of professionals are valuable and appreciated. This tendency leads

to an increasing number of students seeking comprehensive study abroad experience that will prepare and offer

them the required tools to succeed in a global market (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992; Golay, 2006; Rizvi & Walsh,

1998; Stier, 2006). Higher education institutions have been provided these opportunities for years. However,

the opportunities for high school students are very limited. Short- and long- term study abroad programs have

proven to help facilitate students’ expanded global awareness and meet those specific goals and academic

objectives (Herbst, 2011; Keefe, 2008).

More than 85% of the higher education institutions in the United States are offering some kind of

Maria G. Fabregas Janeiro, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor, Colleage of Human Sciences, Oklahoma State University.

Pablo Nuño de la Parra, Ph,D., general director, International Relations of Graduate Programs and Research, UPAEPUniversity.

Blanca Elena Lozano, M.Sc., Oklahoma State University; M.A., UPAEP University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D



UPAEP HIGH SCHOOL SUMMER ACADEMY AT OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY 781

short-term study abroad programs, almost 250,000 students participated in those programs during 2010.

However, these opportunities and experiences are not as popular in other countries (Whalen, 2008). UPAEP

(Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla) is one of the few international universities that offers

these programs (Fabregas Janeiro, Lopez Fabre, & Tello, 2012). In 2011, UPAEP offered four short-term

academic programs to undergraduate students, these courses supported the institutional goal of increasing the

number of students traveling abroad (Fabregas Janeiro et al., 2012). Due to the success of four undergraduate

faculty-led programs in 2011, UPAEP decided to include high school students and designed summer programs.

The efforts were coordinated by the UPAEP Liaison Office at OSU. The Summer Academy 2012 took place

from July 7th to July 21st, 2012, at OSU (Oklahoma State University). Twenty-five UPAEP high school

students were enrolled and attended the Summer Academy 2012. Three professors accompanied the students to

OSU.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of designing and delivering a two-week program forUPAEP high school students, called Summer Academy UPAEP 2012.

Theoretical Framework

Summer Study Abroad Programs

Short-term study abroad programs have grown in popularity during the last years. These programs are

more affordable than one or two semesters’ abroad programs, and can fulfill some of the needs of students’

internationalization (Donnelly-Smith, 2009). The students are engaged in short-term study abroad experiences

for less than eight weeks. These programs are known to offer a more focused and intense international

experience for their participants (Donnelly-Smith, 2009; Mills, Deviney, & Ball, 2010).

High School Study Abroad Programs

High school is considered to be the most advantageous time to study abroad. During this period, students

are able to gain a sense of independence, develop critical thinking skills, practice tolerance, and develop

self-acceptance. They also meet new friends, have the ability to interact for the first time in an unfamiliar city,

and learn to speak another language. Studying abroad in high school provides options not otherwise considered,

developing leadership skills and adding insight into self-realization and personal development. It also

encourages students to improve their understanding of world politics, globalization, socioeconomic concepts,

and to be informed and educated citizens of the world, in journeys introduces study abroad programs for high

school students (Alabama State University, 2009; Buss, 1986; Smithsonian, 2009).

Although, many may consider summer programs (short-term) may not have long-term effects in thelearning process, a 2009 survey of more than 6,000 alumni from 20 universities, who had participated in study

abroad programs (Donnelly-Smith, 2009), reported no difference in the global engagement among students that

have studied abroad for longer or shorter time periods. This effect in the students is achieved in a more

affordable way than attending longer programs. The short-term programs are a good alternative for students and

professors who for different reasons may not be able to engage during long periods of time (Mills, Deviney, &

Ball, 2010). Short-term summer programs may be also used as a tool for recruiting future students for different

colleges (Fabregas Janeiro et al., 2012).



UPAEP HIGH SCHOOL SUMMER ACADEMY AT OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY782

Participants Institutions

UPAEP is a private university located in Puebla, Mexico. Since it was founded on May 7, 1973, it has

become a recognized university with strong presence in the state and the region. UPAEP has a population of

more than 13,500 students enrolled in the undergraduate and graduate programs, and offers over 50

Undergraduate Programs, 33 Master Degree Programs, and 13 Doctoral Programs. UPAEP also has a high

school system, with nine high schools, in the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala. In December 2010, two of those

high schools were recognized by the International Baccalaureate to impart the diploma program (UPAEP,

2011).

OSU is a public, land-grant university located in the State of Oklahoma, in the United States of America.

It was founded in 1890, and by 2011 fall, its population was over 35,000 in the undergraduate and graduate

programs. OSU has four campuses located in Stillwater, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Okmulgee. OSU is

organized academically in colleges, such as Engineering and Architecture, Education, Administration,

Agriculture, Veterinary Science and Arts and Science, and School of International Studies and Outreach (OSU,

2012a; 2012b).UPAEP and OSU started their academic relationship by signing a MoU (memorandum of understanding)

in 1992. This memorandum set the general framework to start the academic collaboration between both

institutions. In 2002, UPAEP and OSU started offering exchange opportunities for students and faculties, and

in 2006, OSU and UPAEP developed more than 19 Masters’ Dual Degree Programs. By 2013, OSU and

UPAEP are offering 38 Dual Degree Programs, including Master and Ph.D. Programs, having more dual

degrees than any other university in America. In 2011, both institutions started to offer short-term faculty-led

programs (Fabregas Janeiro et al., 2012; Fabregas Janeiro & Nuño de la Parra, 2012).

Development of the Project

Background

In September 2011, UPAEP Liaison Office at OSU received an authorization to organize summer

academy programs at OSU for the 2012 summer. High school students will travel with professors to OSU. The

program will be two weeks long. Both institutions got together and defined UPAEP Liaison Office

responsibilities. The basic responsibilities included: (1) determine the objective of the program; (2)

development of the day-by-day agenda; (3) selection and interviews of professors, staff, trainers, and

academic and cultural visits; (4) budgeting; (5) institutional authorizations; and (6) students’ invitations

(including parental authorization for minors).

Objective of the Summer Academy

The objective of the summer academy was to offer high school students the opportunity of a short

international experience, aiming to contribute to the improvement of students’ leadership, entrepreneurship, and

intercultural competence skills, preparing them to face the challenges of the 21st century.

Pre-arrival Responsibilities

Once the summer academy proposal was approved, the UPAEP Liaison Office defined the pre-arrival and

the development of the 2012 Summer Academy Program responsibilities. The pre-arrival activities included: (1)

adjusting budget according to the final number of participants; (2) hiring professors and staff members; (3)

designing final agenda, including academic and cultural visits; (4) staff training; (5) designing logo and




organize reading materials and orientation sessions; (6) receiving copies of passports and visas; (7) contracting

housing, transportation, classrooms, and meal plans at OSU; and (8) collecting release and authorization forms.

Development of the 2012 Summer Academy Program

The Mexican students arrived at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma city on July 7th, 2012, this program lasted for two weeks (until July 21st). Twenty-five UPAEP students were enrolled and attended the

Summer Academy 2012, nine students from Santiago campus, six students from Angelopolis, three from

Cholula, and seven from Huamantla UPAEP High School. Along with the UPAEP students, three professors

participated in the program.

The students were welcomed at the airport and transported to Stillwater by bus. During the first two days

of the program, the rooms were assigned, materials were distributed, and the orientation session took place.

During the orientation session, students were informed of general rules, as well as expectations for the program.

The students received a day-by-day itinerary and met staff, professors, and trainers. The students also

participated in a rally on campus. Throughout the two-week long program, students had the opportunity to

attend four different courses: (1) leadership; (2) entrepreneurship; (3) English conversation; and (4) working in

a diverse society. They also participated in several sports activities, such as a boot camp and sports tournaments

organized exclusively for the participants of the program.

Alongside the academic activities, the participants had the opportunity to attend recreational and academic

field trips, integration activities, such as campus and stadium tours, rope courses, lake swimming, cook outs,

kayaking in the Illinois River, and visit museums and shopping centers. Wal-Mart Distribution Center and Fly

Safety were also included in the program. The program concluded on Friday, July 20th, with a graduation

ceremony and the presentation of the students’ experiences during the two weeks they spent at OSU.

Conclusions

There is a need to design and deliver short-term study abroad programs for Mexican high school students.

Short-term study abroad programs have shown to be as valuable in the experience for students as longer

programs in global engagement (Donnelly-Smith, 2009; Mills, Deviney, & Ball, 2010; Paige, Fry, Stallman,

Josic, & Jon, 2009).They are short in duration, but long in the effects they have on participants.

The success of the program depends on the effective planning and delivering. During the process of

designing and delivering short-term summer program, it is important to set objectives for each one of the

academic and non-academic experiences, maintaining the academic standards of courses and practices while

working towards a personal growth and intercultural learning related to the outside classroom activities

(Hoffa, 2007). While working with high school students, choosing the right instructors, as well as developing

the adequate programs become even more important. There is a need to meet the students’ expectation of the program being not only educational, but also funny. Encouraging and helping them in meeting new

people and getting to know new cultures, Summer Academy 2012 was successful in accomplishing all these

goals.

The summer academy hosted by OSU and organized by UPAEP Liaison Office in OSU was successful

and will be replied adding one more week for the experience. One of the clues for success of this short-term

program depends on the organization skills and commitment and support of both institutions. The parents’ trust

is also an important factor for the success.



UPAEP HIGH SCHOOL SUMMER ACADEMY AT OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY784

Final Reflection

The program was able not only to bring together three different UPAEP campuses to work together, but

also built strong friendship bonds between each other. When talking to the participants of the program about the

professors and coordinators they worked with, they had nothing to say but positive comments about theirAmerican and Mexican professors. Several students commented not only on how much respect they have for

them, but also trust and how fun it was to working throughout the classes and academic trips. During

graduation, some of the students were asked to talk about their experience. Several comments related with

changing stereotypes, knowing new cultures, friendship, and trust were made. Some students talked about how

amazing it was to live and learn so much in two weeks.

OSU and UPAEP did not have experience in designing and delivering short-term study abroad programs

for high school students. Due to the evident success of the program, it will be something that the university will

encourage in the future. We also invited the students to consider OSU as one of their options when choosing

colleges in the near future.

References

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Fabregas Janeiro, M. G., Lopez Fabre, R., & Tello, R. (2012, April). Developing successful international faculty led programs.

US-China Education Review, 2(4), 376-382.

Fabregas Janeiro, M. G., & Nuño de la Parra, P. (2012, February). Developing flexible dual master’s degree programs, UPAEP

University & Oklahoma State University. US-China Education Review, 2(2), 223-227.

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international programs at Florida State University (Doctoral dissertation, Florida State University). Retrieved May 15, 2013,

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Teacher, 44(2), 209-226.

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design in the northeast (Doctoral dissertation, Johnson & Wales University). Retrieved May 15, 2013, from http://

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October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 786-794

Painful Transformation of the CEECs From Their Former

“Inefficient” Command Economy to the “Fraudulent” Modern

Market Economy

Dusan Soltes

Comenius University of Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia

The paper deals with some of the most complex problems of transition of the former socialist countries in the

CEECs (Central and East European countries) from their previous socialist command economy to the modern

capitalist market economy. In addition to many problems linked directly to the complexity of this transformation

itself, the entire process has been further made even more complex by some other factors in the parallel running

processes like transformation from the previous one-party political system to the so-called multiparty “democracy”

that has also not been an easy and straightforward process, as there have also not existed any previous experiences

from such a new political system. As all that would not be just enough, these very complex processes have been

further made even more complex and painful by the fact that many of the CEECs have at the same time to go

through another very demanding process that is being the building of their independent statehood after breaking

away from their previous multinational states like that in the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czecho-Slovakia,

etc.. And in order to make it even more complex, in parallel, there has been running a process of integration of the

new market democracies into the regional and global structures like the EU (European Union), NATO (North

Atlantic Treaty Organization), OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), UN (United

Nations), etc..

Keywords: transformation, market economy, privatization, unemployment, CEECs (Central and East European

countries), command economy

Introduction and Some Background Information

Within the last 20-25 years, the CEECs (Central and East European countries) have been passing through

a very complex and complicated process of transformation from their former socialist command economy that

has been often criticized for its inefficiency and various other shortcomings—after all that finally also

contributed to the total demise of the socialist system and its command economy—to the modern capitalist

market economy. But now, after more than 20 years of that transition to the market economy, the experiences

are very often quite mixed ones and less than satisfactory in comparison with what has been originally expected

from the new system after 40 years of or so the socialist one-party domination with its command economy.

The CEECs are nowadays very often for various objective but also subjective reasons more frequently

experiencing many of the potential negatives of the market economy than its benefits. There is a relatively high

Dusan Soltes, professor, Faculty of Management, Comenius University of Bratislava.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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PAINFUL TRANSFORMATION OF THE CEECs 787

unemployment, the former socialist property has been privatized in a way that is often called just as a total

fraud on the people who have that enormous amount of the former national/state property created. The former

relatively highly-developed industry has not been existing anymore and the countries are fully dependent on

this respect for the FDIs (foreign direct investments) and/or imports often of very questionable quality.

Especially, instead of expected positives, the FDIs are often bringing just a lot of new and before unknown

problems like huge amounts of laid-off workers under the pretext of their redundancy, inefficiency, over

employment and subsequent huge and before absolutely unknown unemployment, high productivity, especially

in the traditional assembly plants but with very low wages, etc.. On the other hand, there are offered huge

incentives for investors, tax holidays, and then, shortage of tax incomes for the state budgets, etc.. In view of

this and many other problems, the standard of living for a big portion of the society has been often still lower

than before this ongoing, and never ending transition with its permanent inflation and monopolic high prices

dictated by the international monopolies, etc..

The following parts of the paper in more details deal with these and other problems in the context of in the

parallel running processes of integration of the CEECs into the international regional and global structures likethe EU (European Union), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), Eurozone, OECD (Organization for

Economic Co-operation and Development), etc..

Some Most Visible Factors and Main Problems of the Painful

Transformation to Market Economy in the CEECs

In the following parts of this chapter, we deal in more details with at least some of the most typical

problems and weaknesses of the ongoing painful transition to the multiparty democracy, and especially, to the

modern capitalist market economy at least to such an extent as it is possible within the required scope of this

paper.

Privatization as One of the Fundamental Most Painful and Fraudulent Transformation Process Towards

the Modern Market Economy

Especially, in the first year after the total demise of the socialist system in the CEECs, a massive process

of privatization of the former state property has been launched, and to some extent, it has not been completed

even until now. Because also in some paradoxical situation, that inefficient command economy has created

such huge properties that there is still something that could be privatized and/or as some cynics call it “to

stealing or robbing” it. In different countries, it has had some specific, but the common ground has been that the

previous state property in many cases has finished in the hands of the new “private owners” who were nobody

else as in many cases, their previous socialist party nomenclature cadres with all their shortcomings and

inefficiency that finally also led to the demise of the entire communist system. In a very short time after such a privatization, many previously somehow running companies were on the brink of collapse and bankruptcy.

Thus, instead of creating the so-called “domestic national capital generating class of new capitalists”, their

newly and cheaply acquired private properties were soon either completely robbed or in the better case offered

for the sale off to foreign investors very often for the fraction of their real market value. It is not surprise that

the foreign investors very often came as “savers of the last resort” of such on the verge of bankruptcy being

former socialist and then newly privatized companies. They have taken all possible benefits in the form of

various incentives, grants for “creation of new or keeping existing jobs”, have taken several years of tax and

other related holidays, etc.. Finally, when all these and other perks have expired, they have just moved further



PAINFUL TRANSFORMATION OF THE CEECs788

to the East for even cheaper labor, lower costs, etc., having left behind them just closed production facility,

unpaid wages, other social payments and contribution, and mainly their unemployed former employees.

However, the biggest fraud in the process of privatization has been made on ordinary people, i.e., the

former so-called “owners” of the socialist national property. For example, in the former Czecho-Slovakia, their

compensation has been organized through the so-called “voucher” privatization, i.e., every citizen could for

some nominal fee acquire then for free shares of privatized companies in the nominal value of 10,000 Korunas,

i.e., in the particular conversion exchange rate to euro, it represented an amount of about 330 euros? In many

cases, like in the case of the author who was contributing to the creation of that former socialist national

properties for 25 years with the salaries of about double of that time average salaries, and of course paid the

adequate taxes to the state budget, it represented a “reward” and/or compensation of about 13.20 euros per year?

And of course, those shares acquired through this voucher privatization have mostly never brought any

dividends or other income as most of particular companies being offered for the voucher privatization have

soon been in the above-mentioned process of bankruptcy or other forms of closure or just simply have not

existed anymore, etc.. In this way, millions of the “new owners” of the privatization vouchers have beengradually striped off their newly acquired private property that has represented billions of euro value of the

former socialist so-called national property. In many cases, that all has just simply disappeared in the hands of

often very doubtful new domestic or foreign capitalists. And it would not be the end of the entire voucher

privatization, many owners of the absolutely no value have even now to pay “maintenance” fees for so-called

administration of their totally worthless shares often not existing companies. Not surprising that many authors

call this process of the privatization as a “fraud” and “robbery” of the millennium, as such chance could happen

really only once in generations and the entire region as a wild East.

Unemployment as the Most Painful Consequence of the Above Privatization and Transformation to

Modern Market Economy

In view of the above “wild” and fraudulent privatization in the CEECs, a lot of the former maybe mostly

not the most efficient production capacities have just gradually disappeared, thus, left out enormous numbers of

the so-called “redundant” workforce, jobless and unemployed in the countries that have never before had

known such problems. It is quite common that the unemployment has officially been up to 25-30% of the total

workforce. However, even nowadays, it has still been relatively too high being in different CEECs between

10-25%, in spite of the fact that hundreds of thousands have—within the EU free movements of persons—

found often not the jobs within their qualifications but at least some although less qualified but still better paid

jobs than in their home countries of the CEECs region. Luckily enough, this kind of free movement has existed

as otherwise the unemployment in many countries would be hovering close to the catastrophic levels of over

30-35% what already represents numbers that are really threatening by serious social unrests, enormouscriminality, etc.. Of course, the most negatively affected people of older age groups, who lost their share on the

national property in the above wild privatization and then also any social guaranties as in the age of 40 plus, it

is often very difficult to find a job and also go to work as a foreign worker abroad even within the above EU

free movement of persons. The former socialist countries, thus, are nowadays loosing several times enormous

financial and human resources as mostly well qualified young people being educated home are working and

contributing to the growth in their new countries of work. While older people are left on the unemployment

“benefits” or minimal pensions, as there is a popular saying that the society in general becomes older and there




is not enough resources for their better pensions. But the problem is not that objectively people live longer, the

real problem is that there is not enough young people who would be working at home, thus, in the kind of a

solidarity would be contributing to the pension funds as it was before this transition. Many young peole are

either abroad or unemployed, and many of them are unfortunately forced to various anti-social activities, such

as prostitution, criminality, drugs, etc.. What is just further negatively affecting the overall socio-economic

situation in the CEECs that never before has been existing in such a huge scope.

Negative Consequences of the Modern Market Forces Are the Same as in the Old Capitalism—Profit by

Whatever Ways and Means

In view of the above still rather huge unemployment, the functioning of the market economy has been

further contributing to the very negative socio-economic development in the CEECs, as the higher

unemployment means not only the above negative consequences, but also many subsequent ones. It is a vicious

spiral that the higher unemployment and lower incomes also mean lower domestic consumers demand, and thus,

also lower demand for production, quality of production, less pressure for innovations, etc.. That finally again

forces companies to the reduction of production, and thus, also further lowering their demand for employing

new workforce, etc.. It is again one of the paradoxes of the market economy in the CEECs region, although, the

economy has been in many cases growing faster than the average of the EU or OECD, etc., such a positive

macroeconomic growth has not generated any new jobs as normally it is the case of the economy growth. It

looks like that it is growth for statistics of the EUROSTAT (Statistical Office of the European Communities),

WB (World Bank), IMF (International Monetary Fund), OECD, and other international organizations, but not

for the people of the particular CEECs.

Those who are luckily enough having jobs have under such situation a much lower chance for more

adequate wages, less intensive work, better social and health benefits, etc.. Basically, the employers could

dictate very tough conditions for their employees who have to be happy to have any job, as there is a long cue

of unemployed who are ready to immediately take over any job after those who would like to apply in practice

one of their fundamental human rights, like a right to strike, etc., that otherwise is a very popular and almost a

national hobby in many old EU member states. Although, the productivity in the CEECs has nowadays reached

almost the levels in the old EU member states, the wages are just a fraction of the salaries of their partners in

the same companies being based in their home countries in the old EU member states. In general, the wages in

the CEECs region are representing for about the same quality and capacity of production only about

one-quarter or one-third of the wages of their colleagues in the old EU member states. This situation has also

negative consequences on many aspects of the standard of living in the CEECs. If we take quality of food for

example, we could say that the quality of the food in the CEECs is much lower than that in the rest of the EU.

As a consequence of the lower purchasing power in these countries, a lot of the food stuffs in the CEECs are oflower quality, made of lower-quality components, being before expiration of the period for consumption, and

with various doubtful substitutions for more healthier or nutritious foodstuffs by their less qualitative but

cheaper substitutes. Then, it is not surprise that the CEECs have become a dumping area for less qualitative

foodstuffs and other commodities in recent years. That could be illustrated by some of the most recent affairs in

this respect, e.g., an import to the CEECs of several times repacked chickens being after their original

expiration dates, poisoned chicken eggs, cooking oil with dangerous carcinogen substances in it, rotten or

otherwise damaged vegetable and fruits, alcoholic beverages not only with ethanol but also with killing




methanol, etc.. It is especially the case of the agricultural products as due to the much lower subsidies to

agriculture in the CEECs in comparison with their counterparts in the old EU states and also the higher taxation

of foodstuffs, the former highly efficient socialist big agricultural farms cannot just compete with their

competitors from the other part of the EU common market within its free movement of goods. Thus, the CEECs

region also for this reason has become an area with enormous and normally unnecessary imports of all various

agricultural commodities, e.g., even potatoes that are now imported to such countries like Slovakia, where have

always been almost ideal conditions for growing potatoes serving even for a solid export, but now, the country

has become an importer of this staple even from such untypical potatoes countries like France, Germany,

Belgium, Italy, etc., and of course, the prices are quite naturally sometimes much higher than that of the

domestic production. And such examples we could bring much more from various other parts of the

“functioning” of the EU common market!

Fraudulent Marketing as One of the Most Negative Aspects of the Entry of the Modern Market

Economy Into the CEECs

One of the most negative consequences of the modern contemporary market economy that has come to the

CEECs, together with all other processes of transformation, has also been the modern marketing methods and

techniques that are really representing almost scientific perfection of the manipulation with potential customers

and clients. In this respect, they clearly violate any even the minimum standards of the protection of consumers

as it has been enshrined in the EU “acquis communautaire” (Community Legislation of the EU), i.e., the EU

community legislation on the protection of customers. In this respect, it is really necessary to hail the stance of

the EU institutions that has also been demonstrated by such an important fact that there does not exist any

possibility for funding any project related to marketing from the EU funding schemas.

The generally negative consequence and impact of the fraudulent marketing have been further enhanced

by the fact that the population of the CEECs has been for years of their socialist system of almost absolutely

freed of any not to mention a fraudulent marketing. Therefore, it is just an undeniable fact that this kind of the

mostly fraudulent marketing has managed to cause, especially, at the beginning of the process of transportation,

a lot of severe damages of the moral, financial, and various other damages. One of the most typical practices of

this kind of the marketing has been the fact that in many cases it has led to the total and/or very serious

misunderstanding from the side of the potential customers, clients, etc.. In many cases, it is hardly believable

that somebody could become to be attracted by such various unfair fraudulent marketing practices. For example,

to this author, so far nobody has explained what is the difference between the popular marketing slogan, e.g.,

for cars with four-wheel drive a typical marketing slogan is in this respect “All wheel drive”. Have anybody

ever seen any (personal) car with more than four wheels? Or all those on the miraculous training machines,

instruments, tools, and nutritious supplements (often of the most dangerous doping substances otherwise fully prohibited even for the professional sportsmen) that in a few weeks or maximum couple of weeks they manage

to change your body from of whatever shortcomings to the bodies of the most famous bodybuilders or movie

superstars, etc., they are of course demonstrating those advertisements. And of course, all that can be achieved

only for the fraction of the normal price “now only being available for the miraculously low prices of only

particular absolutely lowest price ending by “.99”. Especially dangerous are these fraudulent practices of the

modern marketing for the young people who are most eager to believe all those stupid, silly promises, etc..

With this kind of fraudulent marketing very closely has also been associated the common practice to use even




the youngest children for marketing and advertisement practices, although, it has to be clear to any company

and producers that misuse of children for commercial purposes has been for years already forbidden by the UN

Convention on the Rights of Child that has been ratified by all countries in the world but two! And a child has

been defined there by the age of 18, so any misuse of children in this respect is a clear violation of the

particular UN convention, but who cares if it is going to achieve the highest profit margin!

We do not need to go any further about the fraudulent marketing and advertisement, especially by some

companies from pharmaceutical industry. They are one of the most aggressive on the TV screens regarding

miraculous effects of all possible and impossible medicines and cure elements being freely available for sale

without medical prescription, but if you want to use it, you have to read at least 3-4 pages of instruction that are

warning you about all possible and impossible negative consequences on your body even in case of such a

common medicine like ordinary painkillers, but the most important is that you have already bought it in the

good belief that it will do everything as you have seen it in the expensive TV promotion shots. It is clear that all

those very expensive advertisements have to be paid by patients through still more and more expensive

medicines and that all in the countries where just quite recently the health care and also education has to beaccording to the national constitutions still—at least nominally and on “paper”, but unfortunately, not in

reality—for free. Among most popular fraudulent marketing practices belong to such methods like the same

price but for a smaller product or even lower price but disproportionally much smaller or less quality product

where banana in chocolate is substitute by only a banana flavor, etc.. It could be possible to mention here also

unfair practices of marketing regarding the misuse of the most modern and fashionable social networks, but the

size of the paper does not allow us to cover all the negative consequences of the fraudulent marketing and

advertisement of the contemporary market economy that is dangerous, especially in the CEECs. Just for

generations, they have not been used to withstand such a primitive but finally efficient pressure. Its substance is

just simple convincing you to buy anything whatsoever, just buy it, the rest is then already your own problem.

After all, nobody has been and/or could force you to anything, we are just a part of the market economy and

democracy where everybody is responsible for its destiny!

Euro as an Unwanted Victim of the Whole Range of the Fraudulent Practices of All Kind of Vendors

One cannot deny the fact that sometimes even the best intentions like it has been in the case of the euro as

the so-called “common currency” of the EU finally could not meet its original objectives and could be misused

for something completely else. First, not so correct is the term of the “common” itself, as even after more than

decade, it is common still just for 17 out of 28 EU member states, and then, there are following many other

aspects that unintentionally make the euro an instrument of the potential and not only potential fraud. The main

of them are as follows:

(1) In spite of their relatively high value, the euro coins almost automatically create an perception that it is

just a coin, i.e., a small change, so people are paying by them also the relatively high prices that otherwise

would look to them as too high. We have to realize that the highest value coin is two euros, what is a relatively

big value if compared with the US dollar that has the highest coin as a half dollar and already one US dollar is a

banknote, although, one euro is now about 1.35 US dollars. This simple fact leads costumers to be less

conscious on the real fact of the particular price that automatically looks like penny price, although, it is much

higher in fact. For example, also in case of Slovakia, such a small change like a coin of one euro represents 30

korunas what was already an amount that was considered differently than now it is with a small change in the




form of coin;

(2) This fact is especially attractive for all kinds of vendors and sellers as it is very easy to “rounding”

prices to some more specific prices, while for customers, it is still just a case of some “pennies” that are not

worse of any specific concern;

(3) Some vendors, like in the oil industry, they go even that far that they quote their prices not in real euro

values but in fraction of them, although, in reality, one euro consists only of 100 cents, but the prices as a rule

are displays up to 999 cents per liter;

(4) As a consequence of this games with euro, the prices since introduction of euro have sky rocketed up

to the previously unbelievable high levels. For example, while in Slovakia, on the day of introduction of euro

on January 1, 2009, the exchange rate was one euro to 30,126 former Slovak korunas, now, just less than four

years, that original exchange rate remained only for salaries and other incomes of citizens, while the prices are

nearing one euro to 10 korunas in common prices, while in some relatively low prices in and around 1-2 euro

coins, the trend is already in many cases equal to the exchange rate of 1:1 and/or very near to it as, e.g., all

prices that before were bellow 10 korunas, i.e., about 33 cents do not exist anymore and the lowest mostcommon prices are mostly on the price tag of 50 cents or more. Not to mention the prices of immobilities where

the current prices are already higher in Euro than they used to be, e.g., in Slovak koruna.

Again, for the required scope of the paper, we cannot go into any elaboration regarding all other negative

aspects of euro that finally led after less a decade to the current stage when the very existence of the so much

hailed common currency has been on the verge of the total collapse and demise, earlier than it could celebrate

its 10th anniversary of its birth when even a special champagne wine has been introduced. To our knowledge,

there has not been any celebrations of the first decade of its existence and most probably nothing similar has

been planned for the near and but so near future!

Energies in General and the Crude Oil in Particular as the Real Paradise for Any Possible Fraud on

Customers

If anything could be presented as a typical example of the fraudulent activity of the contemporary market

economy, then we cannot find any better example than the energy sector, and in particular, its most attractive

part, i.e., the oil industry. And again, the main victims of any fraudulent behavior are if not all but definitely

some of the CEECs including of course also the Slovak Republic.

In this connection, it is necessary to state at the beginning that the main energy commodity supplies (crude

oil and gas) have been still provided like before, through the special pipelines from the former Soviet Union,

i.e., nowadays, from the Russian Federation, and it is also necessary to state that these supplies are provided on

the long-term contracts, so no specific spot volatile daily changing prices from the commodity stock exchanges

are applicable. But it would not be a modern market economy if also in such situation, it would not find waysor means on how to increase the prices for these so-called “black gold” commodities. In spite of the above

specifics of the supplies of them, on the basis of the long-term contracts, the market prices in the CEECs are

derived from the spot prices on the commodity markets in Amsterdam, London, etc.. In principle, there is

always a quoted price on that one market among them, where the spot price for the delivery within some weeks

or days is going up. It is interesting that those prices are regarding of the crude oil that has nothing to do with

the Russian oil, but it is, e.g., the North Sea’s Brent or whatever other kind of the crude oil, but definitely not

the Russian one. The other fraudulent market price policy in this respect is the fact that those prices from the




spot markets are quoted only when the prices are there going up. In such case, the increase of the price is

implemented immediately although accordingly the particular market rules that price is quoted for some future

delivery in weeks or months. But when there is the opposite trend and prices, e.g., in Amsterdam, London, or

wherever are going down then it is called just as a “temporary” turbulence on the markets and our prices in the

CEECs are that case absolutely stable, i.e., remain higher than those declining spot prices. And, if finally prices

here also have to go down then only by 1-2 cents/litter while going up the immediate increase is usually by

some multiplier of these decreases.

Hence, thanks to these simple fraudulent market and marketing policies, these commodities are extremely

expensive in the CEECs. In addition to these fraudulent manipulation with the different kinds of the crude oil

prices, there is an enormous tax burden on the prices, finally, the final price of petrol for drivers, e.g., in

Slovakia, is much higher than that of all neighboring countries in the region, including Austria, with its salaries

being higher than here by about 3-4 times in average. The main paradox in this case is that the same petrol on

both sides of the common border is often from the same refinery. That is also the proof of the common

knowledge that some governments do not miss any chance to grab from their citizens whatever higher profitthrough not only higher basic prices but also adequate taxes and their cumulative effect. Absolutely specific in

this connection is the reaction of the oil prices here to any potential or real disaster or instability wherever in the

world that immediately used as a good excuse and a good reason for a substantial increase of oil prices. For

example, when there was the Arab spring revolt in Libya, the prices of course went up immediately, although,

the total export of crude oil from Libya has been only about 2% of the world oil market, but its impact on our

prices was immediate and much higher than those 2%. And again it has happened, in spite of the fact that

Libyan oil has absolutely nothing to do with our import of that commodity directly from Russia. Or if anything

happens in any other OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) or non-OPEC country (storm, dry

weather, rain, strike, heat, cold, demonstration, and/or any other event) that often has no whatsoever relation to

the world oil market and also absolutely nothing with our oil import from Russia, everything is a good reason

for the price hike on the markets of the CEECs and/or at least some of them including always also the Slovak

Republic.

Conclusions

In the above list of various specifics of the transformation to the modern market economy, we could

continue with many more examples of the potential and real fraudulent activities, but the required limited size

of the paper does not allow us to cover all of them. Hence, at least briefly, we have to mention in this

connection at least some of them. For example, that the foreign banks in the CEECs are charging for their

services here much higher and various other fees and payments than in their domestic and much richer homecountries in the EU. That housing and its construction have been much more expensive here than, e.g., in the

Austrian metropolitan Vienna being three times bigger and with much better infrastructure than in the

neighboring Bratislava. There is still a very high taxation of still relatively low incomes where on incomes has

been applied a common 20% income tax but on all purchases and services an other 20% VAT (value-added tax),

then, it is not surprise that the purchasing power in the CEECs has been very low, and thus, not any driving

force for any higher demand, production, etc.. The part of the privatization has been carried out through the

state monopolies of the old EU member states, which is another good example for how that wild privatization

has been carried out on the pretext that the state is the worst owner of any property. It means that most probably




some states are considered to be more suitable for owning that such privatized property in the CEECs than their

own states. Unfortunately, that is really true! In some countries, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has been

growing in a record high tempos like in Slovakia, but what are the results of such a growth? Where are newly

generated jobs? Where are lower prices thanks to high productivity and more efficient production, distribution,

etc.? And so on and so forth, we could continue in the new examples on how the modern market and capitalist

economy have been often (mis-)applied in the CEECs.

In the end, it is perhaps worth to mention that the former DDR/GDR (the German Democratic Republic)

or the East Germany is the best example that something has been going here really not in the best possible way

regarding our transformation to the market economy. The former DDR/GDR has passed in difference to all

other CEECs in a completely different way. In difference to them, it has needed not 20 years and more for that

transformation and transition from one day to the next one, the former socialist East Germany has become from

one day to the next one—an integral part of the Federal Republic of Germany, and thus, also a part of the EU,

and its citizens became citizens of the EU, and the country as a member of the OECD, etc.. The former

People’s Army of the DDR/GDR during the one day has become the Bundeswehr (German army), and thus,also a part of the NATO, and so on and so forth. But recently, there was a survey on the 20th anniversary of the

unification of Germany, almost 40% of the citizens of the former DDR/GDR expressed their wish that they

would rather live in the former DDR/GDR with all its shortcoming and restrictions, a powerful Stasi (their

KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti)) than in their new unified homeland. Those 40% could also be

understood as practically almost all people who could remember their life in their former first German state of

workers and farmers as the former DDR/GDR has been calling itself. That all in spite of all multi-billion

transfers from the West to the East Germany since its unification. In spite of the fact that the former East

German mark has been changed to the West German mark in the artificially much better exchange rate of 1:1.

That all Germans immediately without any starvations, belt-tightening, and accession negotiations, entry

criteria have become automatically the citizens of the EU, i.e., the number one economy in the EU and one of

the strongest in the world, etc..

Also, from this German example, it is clear that most probably something has really gone wrong with the

transformation of the former socialist CEECs to the modern capitalist market economy within the EU and all its

supporting funds, assistance, development programs, etc..

References

Soltes, D. (1999). International economic integration and critics of the current enlargement of the EU (p. 210). Bratislava:

SINAEL. ISBN: 80-85565-01-3

Soltes, D. (2004). Global trends in FDI and regional integration (p. 329). Bratislava: KEPS. ISBN: 80-968606-1-5

Soltes, D. (2007). Enlarged EU-27 and the growing fragmentation of its enlarged internal market. Proceedings of The 10th International Conference of SGBED, Ryokuku University, Kyoto, Japan and Montclair State University, USA. ISBN:

13-978-0-9797659-0-2

Soltes, D. (2008, January). Euro: A common currency of the EU, but... Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on

Banking and Finance , Langkawi Island, Malaysia. ISBN: 978-983-42220-2-1




October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 795-802

European Leonardo Project ARIADNE: Process of Transferring

Managerial Skills in the Social Economy

Thibault Cuénoud

France Business School, Poitiers, France;

University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France

The European Leonardo project ARIADNE intended to create a training module for managers in the social

economy. The aim was to capitalize on the partner’s experience already providing training to improve transfer

process to those not qualified. After two-year working with Budapest Business School (Hungary), Ciriec (France),

Euricse (Italy), France Business School (France), Hautes Etudes Commerciales Liège (Belgium), Mac Team

(France), Open University (U.K.), and Ynternet (Switzerland ), this article describes the steps that were necessary

to complete this project. The challenge was twofold: How to distinguish managerial skills from the social economy

actors (undeveloped field of the study today) and how to provide European training significance (social economy

does not appear homogeneous between countries of project partners)? The approach was based on the construction

of different learning materials ultimately validated by academic and professional experts to sit the legitimacy of the

process. Partners have first realized a synthesis of innovative teaching practices about social economy training.

European managerial specific skills to managers in the social economy were then created training skills. An

important methodological work in the training module structuring came reinforce the inclusion of European

diversity. Conducting a seminar test in Hungary (partner does not have training in the social economy sector) has tochange for the better content of the module. Holding seminars in other countries, validating the relevance of the

constructed throughout the project, have confirmed the transfer of managerial skills among academic and

professional actors.

Keywords: transferring skills, training module, social economy managers

Introduction

The social economy is stronger in Western European area. It now represents 10% to 15% of national

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and 12% of salaried jobs in these countries. However, social enterprises face

major challenges in terms of international context changing: competition, mergers, new rules... The

globalization challenge is the increased professionalization of their supervisors. Faced with this state of affairs,

existing courses in the social economy are mainly oriented on job skills without taking into account the

specificities of the sector (modes of governance, non-profit objectives, and multiplicity of goals). This

situation is more significant in Eastern Europe where this sector is not really existent. The main objective of

the project is to transfer an innovative management training in the social economy, prepared at the request of

companies in other European countries which do not possess. The construction of a European training on

Thibault Cuénoud, teacher, researcher, France Business School; University of Poitiers.

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EUROPEAN LEONARDO PROJECT ARIADNE796

social economy based on the exchange of experiences developed in the project partner countries already

benefit from training in this area (Belgium, England, France, Italy, and Switzerland) for transposition at

Hungarian partner. It must show by European reference for management training in the social economy

validated by academic and practitioner experts. In support of this tool, the construction of a training module

will form a methodological structure to improve the social economy lectures in Europe, coupled with specific

lessons for each country. Hungary has no training on the social economy today. But this country will improve

transfer process and future dissemination to other countries of the European Union. To illustrate the common

process of training portability in the social economy, each project partner is committed to include at least part

of the European training module in their current offering. A dissemination plan will complement the

achievement of this goal.

Determination and Transfer of Social Economy Educational Specificities

An educational approach leads to have a pragmatic and innovative thinking in the profile and about the

topic discussed. To harmonize its assimilation method, ARIADNE partners (Budapest Business School, Ciriec,Euricse, France Business School, Hautes Etudes Commerciales Liège, Mac Team, Open University, and

Ynternet) are based on the ECVET (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training) approach

“knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or methodological abilities in work situations, or study the

professional and personal development” (Aribaut, 2009). However, training in the social economy is

characterized by a differentiating approach than traditional lessons. The social economy carries values that have

shaped attitudes and behaviors to a specific culture. Educational characteristics were defined collectively to

help shape ultimately creating a training module for three days in the social economy. At the beginning of the

project, Euricse, France Business School, Hautes Etudes Commerciales Liège, Open University, and Ynternet

are committed to make this transfer in terms of the social economy teaching skills they offered already.

In a collegial approach and partnership, it was decided to make a synthesis of specific educational sector

specificities. This work has helped Hungarian partner in the experiment module on its territory. This way of

working is the result of experimentation and exchange between teachers, researchers, and professionals in the

social economy. Relational and human values must be including within their teaching: How can you transmit

the values of the social economy? Table 1 summarizes the pedagogical and methodological elements that are

significant. The approach is based on the determination of the characteristics in the social economy, the

educational purpose, and the learning method.

Table 1

Synthesis of Specific Teaching in the Teaching of Social Economy

Social economy specificities Pedagogy goal MethodologyHistorical culture and development

Long history about social economyorganizations into volunteers, general

interest, pioneering experience

Explain the signification of social

economy purpose

Personal testimonies from pioneers in the field

and bibliography of historical research

Legal and organizational forms adopted

The social economy statutes permit toembody democracy between all

stakeholders

Understand the advantages andlimits to the social economy statutes

Presentation of all social economy statues and

after determination about their possibilities whenyou create an organization (which link between

social economy statutes and the type of social project of the structure)



EUROPEAN LEONARDO PROJECT ARIADNE 797

(Table 1 to be continued)

Sectors, modes of production, and service provision

The social economy activities are more presented in social services (they permit

to create a better link between economic

viability and social services)

Understand why social economy can

be more competitive in certain typesof economic activities

The presentation of best practices in specifics

activities with case study permit to illustrate thetype of social economy competitiveness

Financing-mix (hybridization of resources)

Social economy organizations can use

different types of financing (depends onthe type of their activities)

Capacity to define the type of

activities and after to convincevarious potential financers

Social business plan written with different type of partners (public, private, both) and after an

validation by various audiences (for example, bankers or associates)

Social innovation and creativity

Social economic sector is stronglyoriented in the ability to experiment and

innovation

Social economy must constantlyrenew themselves to be socially

efficient (societal needs in changing)

Analysis of historical social needs evolution(expert interviews, conferences, etc.) and after

creative workshop with psychologists

Governance

Social economy has a strongconfiguration to take into considerationall stakeholders

Capacity to define which type of

configuration to illustrate the socialeconomy governance. But also todemonstrate its relevance and social

impact

Define tools to measure and assessment

governance impact on case studies

Human resource management aspects

Manage human resources and

volunteers where particular attention tomotivation (it is the goal of social

economy)

Ability to successfully manage asocial enterprise which this diversity

of human resources

The creation of role play to embed all types of

human resources (employees, volunteers…) permit to illustrate the wealth but also the

difficulties of this human configuration

Collaborative management

The management in social economy

should be unifying, meaningful, respectthe diversity of employees, a minimumdemocratic

To develop students’ capacities to

collaborate and develop consensualagreements

Guided reading of selected texts; online peer

discussion forums; use of case studies and best practices

Assessment with extensive feedback; use of Wikison online platform for small group collaboration;

peer assessmentSmall group work at occasional residential schools

European Framework About Specific Managerial Skills in the Social Economy

The creation of training must go through the questioning of experts in the field (academic and professional)

compared with their needs. Although, few studies have been done on the role of manager in the specific context

of social enterprises (Darbus & Lazuech, 2010), a methodological approach has been adopted in implementing

the European training module. The strategy was to define the specific managerial competencies in the social

economy to synthesize the process of formalizing the module. Indeed, the completion of training must be based

on the determination of upstream elements to be transmitted. The approach is pragmatic and consistent with the

expectations of professionals. Social enterprises are characterized by the multiplicity of objectives (social purpose, economic activities, and political objectives), actors (volunteers, consumers, beneficiaries, public

authorities, local authorities, etc.), and resources (monetary and non-monetary, market and non-market, etc.)

(Defourny & Nyssens, 2006). Tensions may arise because of these multiplicities related to various aspects of

management practices. There are managerial skills common to all structures. But others appear specific to this

sector, particularly between the object of societal structure and economic pressure in the market.

To carry out this work, four main steps were necessary. Firstly, an exploratory phase of the literature

review with interviews of experts in the social economy management. These factors helped to build the first

version of a repository of expertise in the social enterprises management. From the outset, it was agreed to




define sector-specific skills, knowing that leaders and managers may have differentiated skills in relation to

their activities. Each partner country with the European ARIADNE experience then came the repository during

group interviews conducted with 97 social enterprises managers in Europe (England, Belgium, France, Italy,

Hungary, and Switzerland). Discriminatory criteria were taken into account to focus attention on the role of

manager (size, legal form, activities, etc.). Based on this information, the competency model has been enriched

and ultimately approved collectively by the partners of the European project ARIADNE. Repositories of seven

specific managerial skills were divided into three sub-groups: knowledge (know), skills (power), and behavior

(behaving). Without developing a comprehensive whole tool, Table 2 briefly lists these skills:

Table 2

Repository of Specific Management Skills in the Social Economy

(1) To develop a strategy allowing to sustain the social economy multiple goals

(2) To know, understand, and mobilize the internal governance system

(3) To manage the various external stakeholders

(4) To manage the human resources(5) To manage the financial aspects

(6) To know, understand, and be able to position the social economy

(7) To develop a feeling of membership and pride belonging to the social economy

Training Methodology for a Modular Approach on Management

in the European Social Economy

A methodological approach was made to structure the training module, in particular to be experienced in

Hungary. Several tools have been used in the ARIADNE project to carry out this work. There was the synthesis

of specific educational social economy and repository of management skills specific to the social economy. The

characteristics of each ARIADNE project partner have strengthened the process. These elements have helped to

define a general framework to develop a European training program on management in the social economy.

From the beginning, the training module was based on a modular approach that can be used ultimately in

different countries (as an autonomous formation is inserted into existing courses). Structure, based on three

days is presented in Table 3.

Table 3

Structure of the Training Module

Day 1: The role, definition, and characteristics of the social economy and its actors

Session 1

The social economy in Europe

Session 2

The social economy of the country

Day 2: Specific managerial skills to social economy

Session 3

Presentation of the European reference management skillsspecific to social economy

Session 4Focus on some specific managerial skills in social economy

Day 3: Future trends and the development of social economy

Session 5

The development potential of the social economy in Europe

Session 6

Local dimension and growth opportunities for social enterprises

The following briefly describe the variables that have been listed to define the methodological framework

proposed to constitute the training module:

(1) Part of existing training: The training can be autonomous (e.g., Hungary and Switzerland), used to




enrich existing training social economy (e.g., Italy, Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom) even to

sensitize managers classic (as in France);

(2) The body education: Teaching in training social economy requires specific expertise between

theoretical and practical approach. It should provide the necessary resources, based on cutting

teachers/researchers/practitioners;

(3) The target audience: The project wanted to focus on leaders and managers (practitioners), but there are

different levels: beginners of leaders and managers in the social economy, experienced leaders and managers in

the social economy, and other sectors’ leaders and managers who are potentially interested in the social

economy;

(4) The national context: Each partner country has ARIADNE project specificities and complementarities

with other partners. These sessions set common to all countries and country-specific sessions;

(5) Managerial skills priorities: Each partner has conducted focus groups to test the repository of expertise.

This information can be used to help determine the priority management skills to be used during the training;

(6) The European dimension: The ARIADNE project was based on a dual dimension national/Europeanconstruction module. Stakeholders should keep in mind these two elements in the construction of the sessions;

(7) Format: The training module is designed for three days divided into several sessions to be taught

consecutively or divided. Each session can be completed to allow a thorough discussion of a topic;

(8) The method of teaching: A combination of teaching techniques can be used to improve the teaching:

lectures, project work (analysis of their own situation and proposing solutions), case studies, presentation of

best practices, learning by experience (stories, role plays, site visits, and internships), and peer exchanges.

The Experimental Training Module in Hungary

Most of the actors in the social economy were created in 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This sector

is still young today where very few organizations have more than 20 years of existence. In light of this context,

there is no training available today in Hungary on management in the social economy (see Table 4). Thus, a

specific approach in Hungary was made to feed the transfer process of educational innovation. The target is

specifically the managers who work in the social economy, and therefore, the approach is quite unique in

Hungary. Participants in the experimental module of training provided in Hungary were extremely varied. The

gender distribution was nearly equal. There were people aged from 23 to 64 years old, although, the majority

were between 35 and 50 years old. All Hungarian regions were represented. The majority of staff had a high

level of qualification (in the field of economics, law, sociology, or B.A.) and most of them work in

organizations with important responsibilities of the social economy.

The training was shaped by education face to face structured by individual work and collaborative groups.Stakeholders were mixed between lecturers and professional experts to broaden the educational approach. Lack

of time was not conducive to informal exchanges compared with the experiences of each, even if they were in a

common housing during the three days. Sharing e-mails between students and practitioners offered the

opportunity to strengthen the network effect. The most popular training module was undoubtedly the

description of the social economy in Hungary, little or no data is currently available. The training framework,

which served as the basis for the Hungarian module reinforced the relevance of the approach. Emphasis was

placed on specific managerial skills:

(1) To develop a strategy allowing to sustain the social economy multiple goals;




(5) To manage the financial aspects;

(6) To know, understand, and be able to position the social economy;

(7) To develop a feeling of membership and pride belonging to the social economy.

Favorable return students came consolidate these educational choices. The following show the key points

they have emphasized in return they could do:

(1) A precise knowledge of the sector with appropriate definitions for the social economy;

(2) The interest of European reference management skills specific to the social economy;

(3) The illustration of case studies/expert testimony selected competencies;

(4) The description of the process of membership of social enterprises;

(5) The stakeholder’s analysis (identification, operation, evaluation, and mobilization).

Table 4

Organization Module Provided Three Days in Hungary

Day 1: Introduction of theoretical fundamentals and specific presentation of managerial skills in the social economy

1.1 ConferencePresentation of the meaning of the social economy and social enterprise. Presentation of models and practices of the socialeconomy in Hungary and Europe. European Commission initiatives for the future development of social enterprises.

1.2 RoundtableWhat are the types/forms of the social enterprise? Advantages and disadvantages of different legal forms. Difficulties ofmanagement of organizations, the types of personal affection.

2.1 ConferenceIntroduction of the repository of management skills specific to the social economy developed during the project ARIADNE.2.2 Roundtable

Determination and application of managerial skills most important in relation to the student profile.

Day 2: Development of managerial skills specific: from the theoretical to the practical

3.1 Teamwork

Technical development of interpersonal skills, communication, and negotiation.3.2 Practices

Case studies in Hungarian and French.3.3 RoundtableQuestions, comments, and feedbacks on case studies based on personal experiences.

4.1 ConferenceDevelop business skills (how to get money?).4.2 Practices

Case studies in Hungarian and French.4.3 Table discussion

Questions and/or comments on the case studies based on personal experiences.

Day 3: Explain and understand the sense of membership

5.1 Conference

What is the sense of belonging in the social economy?5.2 Roundtable

Why and how an organization can appeal to the sense of belonging and pride?

5.3 TeamworkVisit an organization of the social economy in Hungary.

Shared Process Module to Improve Quality Training

An evaluation process was conducted throughout the project to ensure the consistency of the training

module with the expectations of business partners on specific managerial skills provided. This process came to

perfect the process of transferability of managerial skills and educational project ARIADNE. Evaluation can be

defined as the deliberate collection, analysis, and discussion of the evidence from relevant sources regarding

the quality, value, and effect of disposition. The evaluation aims to identify changes induced by the project




activity, not only in the immediate outputs, but also in the long-term results. When designing an educational

assessment, apart from its goal, it is important to consider the following factors:

(1) The nature of actors with interests in the project (leaders and managers of social economy, pedagogical

experts, participants in the project);

(2) The life cycle of the project and timelines appropriate assessments (this is to define the modalities of

examinations of students, updating the content of the training data collected as part of the recruitment process);

(3) The assessment methods need to be appropriate to the specific configuration of these factors.

This evaluation (along with other elements of the project) has benefited from the use of various tools to

draw on the best practices of project partners of the ARIADNE. Terms of assessments therefore rested on the

following elements:

(1) When creating the repository of European managerial skills in the social economy (exchange with

experts in the field, formation of group interviews, content presentation at scientific conferences, and validation

with academic partners and professionals of the ARIADNE);

(2) Upon completion of a training methodology for a modular approach to management in European socialeconomy (content presentation at scientific conferences and validation with academic partners and professional

ARIADNE);

(3) During the experiment of the training module in Hungary (evaluation/satisfaction of students and

stakeholders);

(4) At a seminar taught in other partner countries (UK, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland). Each

project partner of the ARIADNE was a group of academic experts and professionals to come and ultimately

validate the consistency in its entire educational approach.

The ARIADNE project wished to embody an innovative approach in training social economy managers in

Europe. A quality process was carried out with an evaluation process at each stage of the project to come

increment. Table 5 serves to illustrate briefly the type of assessment carried out by the project partners of the

ARIADNE (here, the seminar held in England, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland). This approach is

considered necessary to validate fine in teaching material, especially for future partnership, and strengthens the

construction of the collegiate training module.

Table 5

Evaluation Modality to ARIADNE Seminar

Two distinct groups (teachers and professionals in the social economy)

Presentation by the project partner of the ARIADNE (20 minutes)

Exchanges the elements of the ARIADNE project group separately (45 minutes)

Restitution by both groups collectively (45 minutes)

Fill the questionnaire (return on project elements and aspects of inquiry on the dissemination of ARIADNE) (20 minutes)

Supports

Slides for the introduction (ARIADNE project presentation)

Data of the Leonardo European project ARIADNE

European reference managerial skills specific to the social economy

Methodological framework proposed to constitute the training module

Structuring module provided three days in Hungary

Questionnaire challenge from the two groups on the elements of the ARIADNE project




Conclusions

The ARIADNE project calls European management in the social economy. The approach is experimental

as little work in this direction exists today. The synthesis of specific educational social economy came to

describe how to proceed in the acquisition and transfer of skills determined. The social economy appearsspecific in terms of its culture and values it preaches. Teaching methods should at least be correlated with the

relational and behavioral characteristics to prepare students for the social economy sector. As the repository of

managerial skills specific to the social economy, it had intended to raise the sector’s needs required to

implement the training provided. It creates a link between supply and demand in order to make all relevant

educational activities in this direction. Ultimately, this framework has helped to identify the methodological

strategy in the choice of teaching to meet. Of course, the repository must be regularly updated to include

developments in the art in light of the changing business environment. The methodological framework of

training to develop the module was powered tools above. They form the basis for the main topics related to the

management of the social economy from a theoretical/disciplinary perspective and an expert/professional

management in the social economy. Thus, this tool allows you to set the number of topics covered and the

depth of analysis required. It provides an overview of national and European managerial challenges in an

approach based on the skills needed to pass. The evaluation process has been proposed throughout the

ARIADNE project, it has positively challenged European actors, both academic and professional. Efforts to get

a specific training module to managers of the social economy have been appreciated (little training data in this

direction is currently available).

References

Aribaut, M. (dir.). (2009). Get to know ECVET better, questions and answers. European Credit System for Vocational Education

and Training, European Commission, Education and Culture.

Chatelanat, G., & Pelgrims, G., (2003), Education and special education: Ruptures and integrations Collection Reasonseducational. De Boeck Superior Publication (p. 248). ISBN: 9782804144050

Cuénoud T., Moreau C., & Mertens S., (2013), The specific managerial in social enterprises: A European approach by

management skills. International Review of Social Economy, 329, 80-91.

Darbus, F., & Lazuech, G. (2010). .What professional identity for executives of the social economy? Paper presented at The 23rd

Symposium, ADDES Association pour le Développement de la Documentation sur l’Economie Sociale (ADDES), Paris.

Retrieved from http://www.addes.asso.fr/IMG/pdf/2010-10_Darbus_Lazuech.pdf

Defourny, J., & Nyssens, M. (2006). Defining social enterprise. In M. Nyssens (Ed.), Social enterprise (pp. 3-26). London and

New York: Routledge.

Parodi, M. (2007). The ECU: Pedagogy in cooperative acts. International Review of Social Economy, 306 , 2-36.




October 2013, Vol. 3, No. 10, 803-811

Scientific Literacy Measurement Model Based on

Occupational Variation*

Liang Ai-ying

South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

Xiao Wen-bin

Guangdong Science Center, Guangzhou, China

Huang Yi

Ming Chuan University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

Zhang Na

Guangdong Science Center, Guangzhou, China

Wang Ke-wei

Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Guangzhou, China

The Miller’s model has been mostly adopted in practice around the world, however, it has some shortcomings.

Exclusive qualified threshold failed to address the differences of the measured groups or satisfy in different

contextual measurement, especially while it was adopted in developing countries. Grounded on the Miller’s system,

this article proposed a new measurement model based on occupational variation to assess scientific literacy by

comparison instead of the threshold, so as to have relative levels of scientific literacy rather than absolute ones.

Furthermore, the new model was advanced with dimensions with weights. Research adopted the new model to

assess the TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) practitioners, by comparing their both comprehensive scores and

dimensional scores with the control group. Results addressed that the TCM practitioners had more comprehensive

system of science knowledge and the pharmacists had the highest comprehensive literacy scores in the filed. The

new measurement model explored further understanding of public scientific literacy in terms of occupational

variation in both broad and narrow senses, and offered a more comprehensive foundation for civil scientific literacy

measurement.

Keywords: scientific literacy, measurement, occupational variation, dimension, weight

Introduction

As a major component of civic literacy, scientific literacy reflects a country’s comprehensive power and

its international competence, thus, most countries attach great importance to the fundamental work of civic

scientific literacy survey. To broadly and accurately understand the levels of civil scientific literacy becomes

The paper is sponsored by Science and Technology Program of Guangdong Province, China; Program No. 2011b0106000209.

Liang Ai-ying, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, South China Normal University.Xiao Wen-bin, M.A., deputy director, Department of Business Development, Guangdong Science Center.

Huang Yi, M.A., Department of Computer Science, Ming Chuan University.Zhang Na, M.A., Department of Research and Design, Guangdong Science Center.

Wang Ke-wei, Ph.D., deputy director-general, Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology.

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SCIENTIFIC LITERACY MEASUREMENT MODEL BASED ON OCCUPATIONAL VARIATION804

the test criteria of the national education system as well as the basic reference for relevant laws and regulations.

Nowadays, countries in the world prevalently adopt the measurement system proposed by American

scholar Jon D. Miller. Miller considered scientific literacy was composed of such three dimensions: (1) a basic

vocabulary of scientific terms sufficient for one to read articles in newspapers or magazines; (2) an

understanding of the process or nature of scientific inquiry; and (3) awareness and understanding of the impact

of science and technology on both individuals and society. If one could reach a reasonable degree in each

dimension, he/she would have the capability to learn scientific and technological policy in media and

understand the importance of relevant argumentations as well as to get involved (Miller, 1998).

The Miller’s model laid the foundation of American NSF (National Science Foundation) biennial

scientific indicator surveys since the late 1970s, a large amount of measurement effort has been taken ever

since then in America. A number of countries and regions like Britain, Canada, Japan, and India successively

applied Miller’s measurement indicators and methodology to carry out various surveys in practice.

China first adopted the Miller’s model on a national scale in 1990, and in 1994, 1996, 2001, 2003, 2005,

and 2007, six national wide scientific literacy surveys (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) had beencarried out to the public aged from 18 to 69. Taking the 2007 questionnaire as an example, the assessment

focused on scientific terminology, scientific methodology, and relations between science and society. Valuable

data of civil scientific literacy were acquired in such nationwide surveys.

Defects of Extant Scientific Literacy Measurement Systems

As the survey practice and theoretical research have been accelerated in depth, some drawbacks of the

Miller’s model become more and more obvious, especially, while applied in developing countries like China,

whose social features and education systems differentiate largely from those of developed countries. Generally

speaking, the Miller’s model exposed to be absolute and simple on measurement.

The Miller’s model was based on a “threshold measurement”, requiring the public to reach the “minimal

level of literacy”. However, adopting a sole threshold in assessment failed to differentiate scientific literacy and

only measure absolute scientific literacy, thus, it is unable to provide sufficient information to accurately

embody disparity and variation of civil scientific literacy, or to offer prospective guidance for national social

development policy and science education system. The “threshold measurement” simply divided the public into

two categories: “qualified for minimal level of literacy” and “not qualified”. Such black and white way of

measurement inevitably buried some detailed information of scientific literacy. For instance, in the Chinese

survey of 2007, the threshold of the second dimension was 10 questions, i.e., people who could pass the second

dimension had to answer at least 10 questions correctly. Therefore, people who got nine questions correct could

only be defined as “not qualified”. In fact, it was hard to tell the difference of scientific literacy between themand those passed 10 questions. On the other hand, people who got only one answer correct were categorized

into the same category with those who got nine answers correct, and the disparity between them could be huge

but could not be reflected in measurement.

Furthermore, there was no weighted dimension in the Miller’s system. Only to reach three thresholds of

the dimensions respectively could be called as having scientific literacy, which counterbalanced the importance

of each scientific literacy dimension. In fact, the relative importance of each dimension is interacted with one

another, and varies in different historical background and social context. In order to be adopted in different

countries, the Miller’s model was always modified appropriately or simplified, which reflected shifts in



SCIENTIFIC LITERACY MEASUREMENT MODEL BASED ON OCCUPATIONAL VARIATION 805

definition or in substance of scientific literacy (Beveridge & Rudell, 1988). Because of the existence of

disparity in historic and cultural contexts, a particular domain of scientific knowledge suitable to one country

might be biased toward other countries（Raza, Singh, Dutt, & Chander, 1996; Raza, Singh, & Dutt, 2002). A

country might have its distinctive understanding and orientation of scientific literacy indicators as well as their

relative importance, which might be greatly different from the other countries, thus, simple and unified

dimension model did not fit in different contexts.

Refined Measurement Model of Scientific Literacy Based on Occupational Variation

In order to perfect such limitations of the original measurement methodology, based on the Miller’s

three-dimensional model, this article proposed a measurement model with weights, to assess scientific literacy

among different occupational groups by comparison. Such measurement model does not have a threshold any

more. It is designed to carry out comparison among both comprehensive scores and dimensional scores of

scientific literacy to acquire relative scientific literacy rather than absolute one. By both horizontal and vertical

comparison, we can learn each individual’s or the targeted group’s scientific literacy, as well as the advantagesand disadvantages in various indicators, Thus, the refined measurement model turns out to provide a solid

foundation for differentiating civil scientific literacy, which facilitates to promote a more targeted science

popularization and scientific literacy education. The refined model contains the following features.

Comparison Measurement Based on Occupational Variations

We consider that individual citizen has certain scientific literacy, thus, it is more important for the

government and educational organizations to learn what exactly each indicator of scientific literacy is than Yes

or No judgment. Moreover, as scientific literacy is comprehensive and dynamic, we need to build up a

measurement model to keep track of it on the ground of certain variable.

Occupation, is closely related to economy, politics, culture, and other social contexts, thus, differences

among occupations demonstrate disparity in such background factors to a great extent. Meanwhile, a same

occupation in different countries or regions is yet highly commensurable. Therefore, we choose

“occupation” as variable in measurement. “Occupational variation” referred here contains both broad and

narrow meanings. Judging from the broad sense, professional variation refers to the discrepancies among

different professional fields, such as the discrepancies between educational professionals and financial

professionals. Whereas, in the narrow sense, it refers to discrepancies among different categories in one

professional filed. For example, multiple job categories like doctor, nurse, technician, etc. in the medical

professional field. The refined model takes advantage of comparison methodology rather than the threshold

measurement, to get more precise understanding of scientific literacy of different professional groups by

intra-professional and inter-professional comparisons. In such way can the measurement not only grasp theoverall level of certain professional group, but also understand strength and weakness of different

professional categories in science knowledge system. Thus, it not only facilitates us to fully learn the

characteristic structure of scientific literacy of a certain group so as to offer them a more effectively

targeted science education scheme. Moreover, comparison research could be further carried out among

scientific literacy of various professionals in the same country or scientific literacy of certain professionals

in various countries, thus, to effectively remedy the weakness of “minimal level” uncertainty in different

contexts.




Measurement System With Weights

In order to build up a measurement model more flexible in different contexts, we calculate the weights of

the dimensions of scientific literacy accordingly. We take advantage of expert rating to determine the weights

locally exclusively. We develop a small range of experts sampling survey where experts rank and scored each

dimension according to its relative importance, then we use the Fuzzy-AHP (Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process)

coming with experts’ comments on sequence to determine the weight of each dimension. The judgment matrix

of the Fuzzy-AHP uses decimals between zero and one, which is in favor of integrating a few experts’ opinions

to determine weights.

First, the Fuzzy-AHP needs to set up a fuzzy complementary judgment matrix. Second, it uses a factor

set . The fuzzy complementary judgment matrix for pair-wise comparisons of factors

to determine their importance is shown as below:

11 12 1

21 22 2

1 2

n

n

n n nn

r r r

r r r

R

r r r

In the matrix, 0 1

ijr ， 1

iir ， 1ij jir r , r ij is the membership degree indicating factor C i has a

higher importance than factor C j. A higher r ij value means a higher importance of factor Ci than factor C j, r ij =

0.5 indicates factor C i and factor C j are equally important.

Following the requirements of AHP, experts were asked to compare any two factors and determine their

relative importance with numbers one to five. Then the mean value was calculated in order to incorporate the

opinions of the experts. The scale method adopted in AHP was then replaced by the scale of Fuzzy-AHP, and

the elements of the fuzzy complementary judgment matrix were created. Thus, weights could then be calculated

with the fuzzy complementary judgment matrix determined by mean values of the experts.Experts we selected are mainly from the fields of science education and science popularization, such as

from universities, science museums, science research institution and education department of the government,

etc., who are deemed to have a better understanding of scientific literacy and its indicators. Therefore, their

opinions are representative in one context to a greater extend. While carry out measurement among different

countries or regions, the weights can be calculated according to the methodology above, and the local scientific

literacy could be obtained after weighted calculation. Measurement results derived from such a method can be

more suitable to the real local level, thus, it meets the demands of scientific literacy’s socialization, which is in

favor of cross-cultural comparison.

Case Study of the New Scientific Literacy Measurement Model

In order to prove its feasibility, the new model should be tested among different occupations. The first

occupation we chose was the field of TCM (traditional Chinese medicine). TCM is a broad range of medicine

practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China for more than 2,000 years,

including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage (tuina), exercises (qigong), and dietary therapy.

Until the end of 2009, China had established 37,268 medical institutions that have TCM treatment. Chinese

medicine professional staff had reached a high record of 517,400. TCM had spread into more than 160 countries

or regions. On the contrary, there had been no effective methodology to measure scientific literacy in the sphere of




Chinese medicine professionals, which left emptiness in the study of Chinese medicine professionals’ scientific

literacy. Therefore, in order to testify the validity and feasibility of the model proposed in this research, we took

Chinese medicine professionals as the pilot to be initially assessed by the new model. Based on the professional

discrepancies, the model measured various occupations within Chinese medicine professionals and carried out

data analysis and comparison between Chinese medicine professional group and contrast group.

The term Chinese medicine professionals in the case study is defined as all personnel directly engaging in

the field of TCM. It includes six categories: physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, technicians, and others

(company employees, pharmaceutical representatives, managers, and related personnel).

Gathering of Data and Information

Considering sample group’s occupational distribution of TCM professionals, we selected professionals

for measurement mainly from the GHTCM (Guangdong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine), GHTCM

Branch in the GZHEMC (Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center), Guangdong No. 2 Hospital of

Traditional Chinese Medicine, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangmen Hospital of

Traditional Chinese Medicine, Panyu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou Jingxiutang

Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Guangzhou Chenliji Pharmaceutical Company Limited, and Guangzhou

Pangaoshou Pharmaceutical Company Limited. Totally, 1,500 questionnaires were issued and 1,403 valid

questionnaires were recovered. Samples in the contrast group were randomly selected from visitors to the

GDSC (Guangdong Science Center) which included public servants, teachers of primary and secondary

schools, army men, bank employees, journalists, company technical staff, and employees of property

management companies. Totally, 300 questionnaires were issued and 262 valid questionnaires were

recovered.

Defining Weights

We invited 80 experts from the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, Bureauof Science and Technology of Guangzhou, Guangzhou Association for Science and Technology, and the Sun

Yat-Sen University, who were engaged in science and technology management and science

communication/research to have pair-wise comparison and determine their sequencing. Totally, 80

questionnaires were sent out and 79 were recovered. Table 1 shows the statistic results below.

Table 1

Dimension Weights

Scientific terminologies Scientific awareness Social functions of science Others

Weight 0.20000 0.33333 0.26667 0.20000

Note. Unit: person-time.

Calculating Comprehensive Scores and Dimension Scores

After the weights were defined, scores of scientific literacy were calculated. We designed different

questions of the questionnaire according to the scope of content in each dimension. Consideration was given to

the uniqueness of answers. Therefore, we would have dimensionless scores by removing the percentage symbol

from the correct rates of answers. After standardized (mean = 100 and standard deviation = 25), each score was

multiplied by the weight of the corresponding dimension, and the comprehensive score of scientific literacy

was achieved.




Measurement Results

According to the measurement methodology stated above, based on both broad and narrow senses of

“occupational variation”, comprehensive scores of scientific literacy and dimensional scores were obtained, to

analyze and validate the impact of occupation variation toward the level of scientific literacy.

Table 2

Comprehensive Scores of TCM Practitioners by Category

Occupation Comprehensive scientific literacy score

Physician 102.582

Nurse 103.064

Pharmacist 103.169

Teacher 100.570

Technician 102.570

Others 101.615

Nurses and pharmacists generally had higher comprehensive scores of scientific literacy, and teachers hadlower ones. There were distinct difference between occupational category and comprehensive score (P = 0.000

< 0.05） by ANOVA (Analysis of Variance), thus, it demonstrated that occupational variation had distinct

influence on comprehensive scores of scientific literacy in the narrow sense (see Table 2).

Table 3

Dimensional Scores of TCM Practitioners by Category

Occupation Scientific terminologies Scientific awareness Social functions of science

Physician 116.240 112.351 94.146

Nurse 107.589 111.516 103.637

Pharmacist 113.083 113.646 96.169

Teacher 109.336 111.822 84.442

Technician 108.193 110.912 99.268

Others 107.607 109.611 95.736

The TCM practitioners scored higher in two dimensions: “scientific terminologies” and “scientific

awareness”. Whereas, they scored relatively lower in the dimension of “social functions of science”. Teachers,

physicians, and pharmacists had relatively higher scores than the other categories. There were distinct

differences between categories of TCM practitioners and dimensional scores (P = 0.000 < 0.05) by MANOVA

(Multivariate Analysis of Variance), it also demonstrated that occupational variation had distinct influence on

dimensional scores of scientific literacy in the narrow sense (see Table 3).

We found out that occupational variation was an important factor toward comprehensive scores as well as

dimensional scores of scientific literacy by analysis above; thereby, the feasibility of scientific literacy

measurement based on the narrow sense of occupational variation is validated. By dimension, scores of

“scientific awareness” were most centralized, whereas, scores of “social functions of science” were most

divergent. By category, teachers and practitioners in the “others” category had relatively stability in

dimensional scores, whereas, physicians or nurses did not. It could be explained that higher specialization and

minute division of labor were required for physicians and nurses that they might pay more attention to some

specific domains of knowledge instead of all. The comprehensive scores ranked in a sequence as pharmacists,




nurses, physicians, technicians, others, and teachers.

TCM practitioners had lower comprehensive scores than the contrast group, which suggested that scientific

literacy of TCM practitioners be a little bit lower than the level of the public. There were distinct differences

between comprehensive scores of TCM practitioners and the contrast group (P = 0.024 < 0.05) by ANOVA,

thus, it demonstrated that occupational variation had distinct influence on comprehensive scores of scientific

literacy in the broad sense (see Table 4). Both groups had obviously different distributed figures of

comprehensive scores by age. Interestingly noted, the oldest of the control group had the highest score among

all the sub-groups (see Table 5). Both groups had similar fluctuation while comprehensive scores by

educational background were compared. Samples with college background scored highest in the group of TCM

practitioners and samples with polytechnic school and below background scored highest in the contrast group

(see Table 6).

Table 4

Comprehensive Scores by Occupation

Occupation Comprehensive scientific literacy score

TCM practitioners 101.946

Contrast Group 102.615

Table 5

Comprehensive Scores by Age

Ages TCM practitioners Contrast group

1820 100.808 101.851

2130 102.307 102.958

3140 101.507 101.603

4150 102.752 102.528

5160 101.102 105.007

Table 6

Comprehensive Scores by Educational Background

Educational background TCM practitioners Contrast group

Polytechnic school and below 101.734 103.645

College for professional training 102.166 103.376

College 102.183 102.449

Post graduate and above 101.475 101.595

Table 7

Dimensional Scores by OccupationOccupation Scientific terminologies Scientific awareness Social functions of science

TCM practitioners 110.294 110.753 94.877

Contrast Group 110.957 111.207 94.645

The contrast group was better at dimensions of “scientific terminologies” and “scientific awareness”.

There were distinct differences between occupations and dimensional scores（P = 0.000 < 0.05） by MANOVA,

it also demonstrated that occupational variation had distinct influence on dimensional scores of scientific

literacy in the broad sense (see Table 7).




Similar to its narrow sense, occupational variation also had distinct influence on both comprehensive

scores and dimensional scores of scientific literacy in the broad sense, therefore, it demonstrated in a way that

occupational variation could be one important factor to scientific literacy assessment. There was a wide gap

between the scores of the two groups in the dimension of “scientific terminologies”, however, both groups were

almost at the similar level of dimension “social functions of science”. Overall, TCM practitioners performed

more evenly in three dimensions than the contrast group, which addressed that TCM practitioners had more

comprehensive system of science knowledge than the contrast group.

Conclusions

With unceasing progress of technology and rapid growth of global knowledge, civil scientific literacy

becomes an indicator of national power. Scientific literacy measurement pervasively used all over the world is

the Miller’s model that defined scientific literacy through absolute scales. In practice, the Miller’s model is not

specific and accurate enough while implemented under various social backgrounds. Therefore, the exploration

of diversified measurement approaches and the application of measurement results to meet the demands ofsocial development are the fundamental solutions.

Based on the Miller’s three-dimensional measurement system, with a focus on its limitations in practice,

we proposed the solution through setting occupational differences as the foundation to carry out measurement

by comparison, thus, to obtain the relative scientific literacy. Moreover, with structural analysis on scientific

literacy, the improved measurement model calculates the weight of each dimension with scientific statistical

methods to improve the validity of measurement indicators and mitigates the limitation of relatively low scores

in the Miller’s system.

We attempted to take TCM practitioners as subjects and creatively applied the comparison measurement

model to explore further understanding of public scientific literacy in terms of occupational variation in both

broad and narrow senses. Targeted data were provided for comparison horizontally among different

professional groups and vertically among different job categories of a professional group, and offered a more

comprehensive foundation for public scientific literacy measurement. In conclusion, the scientific literacy

measurement model based on occupational variation will have broad prospects for research and application and

is to be further developed and studied among different occupations.

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US-China Education Review 2013(10B)