Local Meanings, Global Schooling Anthropology and World Culture Theory

by Anderson-Levitt, Kathryn

• ISBN13: 9781403961631
• ISBN10: 1403961638
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-02
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

These case studies from five continents use ethnography and history to challenge the sweeping claims of sociology's world culture theory (neo-institutionalism). They demonstrate how national ministries of education and local schools re-invent every reform. Yet the cases also show that teachers and local reformers operate "within and against" global models.

Author Biography

Kathryn Anderson-Levitt is Professor of Anthropology and Associate Dean, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan, Dearborn.

Table of Contents

Introduction A World Culture of Schooling? by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt * Part I. Ministries and Schools Transform * "Thai Wisdom" and gloCalization: Negotiating the Global and the Local in Thailand's National Education Reform by Susan Jungck with Boonreang Kajornsin * Transformations in South African Education: Policies and Practices from Ministry to Classroom by Diane Brook Napier and John D. Napier * Teaching by the Book in Guinea by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt and Boubacar Bayero Diallo * Part II. Teachers, Students and Parents Respond* Getting Beyond the "One Best System"? Developing Alternative Approaches to Instruction in the United States by Thomas Hatch and Meredith Honig* Resistance to the Communicative Method of Language Instruction Within a Progressive Chinese University by Huahua Ouyang * World-cultural and Anthropological Interpretations of "Choice Programming" in Tanzanian Education by Amy Stambach * The Politics of Identity and the Marketization of Schools: How Local Meanings Mediate Global Struggles by Lisa Rosen * Part III. Outside or Beyond a Global Culture * World Culture or Transnational Project? Competing Educational Projects in Brazil by Lesley Bartlett * Europeanization and Education in France: Supranational Policies and Regional Identities by Deborah Reed-Danahay * Transforming the Culture of Scientific Education in Israel by Kalanit Segal-Levit * Comment The Global Model and National Legacies by Francisco O. Ramirez

Introduction A World Culture of Schooling? by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt * Part I. Ministries and Schools Transform * "Thai Wisdom" and gloCalization: Negotiating the Global and the Local in Thailand's National Education Reform by Susan Jungck with Boonreang Kajornsin * Transformations in South African Education: Policies and Practices from Ministry to Classroom by Diane Brook Napier and John D. Napier * Teaching by the Book in Guinea by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt and Boubacar Bayero Diallo * Part II. Teachers, Students and Parents Respond* Getting Beyond the "One Best System"? Developing Alternative Approaches to Instruction in the United States by Thomas Hatch and Meredith Honig* Resistance to the Communicative Method of Language Instruction Within a Progressive Chinese University by Huahua Ouyang * World-cultural and Anthropological Interpretations of "Choice Programming" in Tanzanian Education by Amy Stambach * The Politics of Identity and the Marketization of Schools: How Local Meanings Mediate Global Struggles by Lisa Rosen * Part III. Outside or Beyond a Global Culture * World Culture or Transnational Project? Competing Educational Projects in Brazil by Lesley Bartlett * Europeanization and Education in France: Supranational Policies and Regional Identities by Deborah Reed-Danahay * Transforming the Culture of Scientific Education in Israel by Kalanit Segal-Levit * Comment The Global Model and National Legacies by Francisco O. Ramirez