Reports

Seminar held to prepare articles for Journal of Korean Studies

Michael Robinson led a special seminar at Stanford University from June 27 to July 1 for the Journal of Korean Studies. This seminar was the result of an open call for papers on the general topic of the globalization of South Korean society. Five papers were chosen from thirty applicants for discussion, revision, and submission to the journal as a “special issue” to be published in the spring of 2006. Robinson reports that this seminar was among the most satisfying experiences of his entire academic career. It was a chance to work intensively with highly motivated young scholars to produce publishable papers drawn from Ph.D.and post-graduate research. The papers covered a diverse range of topics: the commodification of Korean Shaman ritual for national marketing during the World Cup, the feminization of the World Cup crowd, the scientization of Korean herbal medicine, global cable networks and the marketing of the Korean nation, and the interplay of global forces and family law reform in contemporary Korea.All the papers have been revised and resubmitted for external review.

Education Reform in China and Japan: course and study tour

Dick Rubinger (EALC), Heidi Ross (EDUC), and graduate assistant Lijing Yang (EDUC) accompanied fifteen undergraduate students on a very successful study tour to Japan and China in May. The trip, supported by the Freeman Foundation Undergraduate Asian Studies Initiative at IU, was part of the team-taught course Education Reform in China and Japan that brought together students from EALC and the School of Education. They spent eight days in each country visiting schools and hearing talks from education professionals on the state of education reform in East Asia. In Japan, students observed curricular reforms in a variety of schools in Tokyo and Tochigi Prefecture and in China were impressed by the stark disperity in educational provision between wealthy Beijing schools and struggling rural schools in nearby Hebei Province. At the end of the tour, each student submitted a comparative report on one aspect of educational reform in China and Japan and presented these findings in front of an audience of comparative education doctoral students at Tsinghua University in Beijing.The tour was rewarding both because of what it revealed about educational reform in each country (the significant gap, for instance, between national reform policies and on-the-ground practice) and because it cast a strong light on the fundamental differences in how the two countries approach educational reform.

Education research projects in China

Heidi Ross traveled to China twice this summer. In May she and Dick Rubinger accompanied a group of undergraduates on a study tour of educational reform in Japan and China (see previous report). After the tour, Ross stayed on in China to assist Dr. Laura Stachowski, Director of the School of Education's award-winning Cultural Immersion Projects, in setting up a teaching opportunity for IU graduates in Shandong Province (see following report).

Ross returned to China in mid-June to travel to Xian, Shaanxi to work with colleagues on a Ford Foundation initiative examining the challenges faced by administrators and teachers at China's private colleges and universities. As China's system of higher education shifts from an elite to mass enterprise, private university faculty are struggling to engage disinterested students and balance heavy teaching loads with demands for research productivity.

After completing the Ford Foundation project in Xian, Ross, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies doctoral student Jingjing Lou, and Batchelor Middle School social studies teacher Becky Boyle traveled to Dan Feng County in Shangluo, Shaanxi to begin a Pathways to Peace research project. The project is designed to support three interlinked activities: facilitating short-term exchanges of middle-school teachers between Bloomington, Indiana and Shangluo, China; engaging Chinese and American middle-school students and their teachers in an interactive activity to enhance global understanding and collaborative learning for peace; and creating virtual and real "sharing our voices" exhibitions of Chinese and American middle-school students' photography and essays. Ross and another Educational Leadership and Policy Studies doctoral student, Lei Wang, will return to Dan Feng County in late October to continue the project. During that trip Ross will also participate in a UNICEF-sponsored "First International Forum on Children's Development" in Beijing. Ross is looking forward to her first meeting at the Great Hall of the People, the conference venue.

IU Cultural Immersion Projects Expand to China

The Shandong city of Zibo is now a placement site for IU Teacher Education majors wishing to complete a portion of their student teaching in an overseas location. Since the early 1970s, the Cultural Immersion Projects in the School of Education have provided opportunities for pre-service teachers to teach,live,and learn in culturally different settings, thus expanding their perspectives on how others view the world, educate their children, and carry out their daily tasks of life. Through school and community-based experiences and structured reports requiring the identification of new learning and related insights, thousands of beginning teachers have demonstrated that such opportunities can broaden the worldview they bring to their own classrooms, thus impacting the youth in their elementary and secondary classrooms for years to come.

In May Laura Stachowski, Director of the Cultural Immersion Projects, visited several schools in China and met with groups of teachers who were strongly committed to hosting student teachers from the U.S. who could provide support for the development of Chinese pupils' conversational English skills, teach in various subject areas, and become involved in the schools' extracurricular programs. Since then, Stachowski has received approval from IU's Overseas Study Advisory Council to include China as a Cultural Projects option, and efforts are now underway to advertise this exciting new opportunity in the School of Education.

Stachowski notes that there are key individuals and groups who made this new program possible. Heidi Ross, on the faculty in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and her graduate assistant Lijing Yang were instrumental in identifying schools, arranging the itinerary, and traveling with Stachowski to Zibo for the school visits and meetings. Mrs.Yanju Wei, of the Zibo Educational Department, now serves as the “placement consultant” for IU student teachers coming to Shandong. And finally, the EASC's financial support, with funding from the Freeman Foundation, greatly facilitated the development of this new option in the Cultural Immersion Projects. Stachowski thanks all of these individuals and groups for their significant contributions to the success of this endeavor.

China is the twelfth host nation offered through the Cultural Projects, joining Australia, Costa Rica, England, India, Ireland, Kenya, New Zealand, Russia, Scotland, Spain, and Wales, as well as locations across the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Although designed for Teacher Education majors, international placements in the Cultural Projects are also open to non-education majors who are interested in seeking “school internships” abroad. Contact Laura Stachowski for more information (Education 1044; 856-8507; stachows@indiana.edu).

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