Reports

Goldman Sachs Award

Three international programs at Indiana University collectively won the 2005 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education. Winning in the Higher Education category and chosen from among five hundred applications, the East Asian Studies Center, the Center for the Study of Global Change, and the School of Education’s Cultural Immersion Project, an overseas student teaching program, share the prestigious award and were honored at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. in December.

The East Asian Studies Center places great emphasis on its teacher outreach through two flagship programs: the Teaching East Asian Literature in the High School workshop for high school English teachers and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) seminars for middle and high school teachers. These programs have enriched the knowledge of East Asia for nearly one thousand educators through extensive seminars led by scholars in the field. The East Asian Literature workshop is held for one week at Indiana University. The NCTA seminars consist of thirty hours of training over a ten-week period and are held in different locations throughout the Midwest and South so as to provide opportunities for the greatest number over a broad geographical area.

The Center for the Study of Global Change connects the university’s extensive international resources, scholars, and students directly to Indiana’s K-12 classrooms through live interactive video technology. The Center also offers summer institutes for teachers on international topics ranging from trade and global climate change, to populations at risk and conflict resolution.

The School of Education offers a Cultural Immersion Project option in which pre-service teachers spend part of their student-teaching assignment in schools abroad. Partnerships with schools and education officials now exist in thirteen countries, including China, India, and Russia.

Upcoming international conference at Indiana University

On May 19^th and 20^th, the East Asian Studies Center will host a major international conference, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics. This conference will examine China's political economy in comparative and theoretical perspective, bringing together thirty leading specialists. The keynote speaker will be UC-San Diego professor Stephan Haggard, one of the world's foremost scholars in political economy.

Scholars often portray China as being either a state with a plan-to-market transition economy, a developmental state, or a crony capitalist state. The Chinese government describes China as practicing “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Yet there is little substantive research placing China in comparative perspective to validate any of these claims. The conference's goal is to fill this gap. Papers will address a wide variety of issues, including: competing explanations for China's reform trajectory, the changing role of the Chinese state, corruption, foreign trade policy, strategies for technological innovation, protest, business lobbying, media reform, and chances for democratization.

The conference will be held at the Kelley School of Business. There is limited seating available for observers. For more information, visit the conference webpage (available beginning in February 2006), or contact organizer Scott Kennedy at kennedys@indiana.edu.

POSCO TJ Park Foundation NGO Fellowship Program to Begin September 2006

Mike Robinson (EALC) and the EASC have been invited to participate in a new five-year fellowship program for Korean non-governmental organization (NGO) members. Led by Stanford University's Korean Studies Program and generously funded by the POSCO TJ Park Foundation, this fellowship program has been established to provide key personnel of Korean NGOs the opportunity to spend time at leading North American universities gaining knowledge and experience that will further the development of NGOs in Korea.

The program will be supported by a consortium comprising Stanford University, Indiana University, Columbia University, George Washington University, and the University of British Columbia. Each university will host two fellows each year for five years starting September 2006.

Directed by Mike Robinson with administrative support provided by EASC, this program will be a major boost to Korean studies at IU. It will strengthen links to the professional schools, such as the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the School of Law, and greatly expand opportunities for faculty and students across a range of disciplines.

Fieldwork

Heidi Ross (EDUC/EALC) traveled to China in October to conduct fieldwork in Shaanxi Province with Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS) doctoral student Lei Wang. Ross and Wang were pre-testing a survey to be distributed next summer to one thousand eighth-grade girls participating in a “spring bud” educational access and attainment project in the cities of Ankang and Shangluo, Shaanxi.

Ross and Wang also collaborated with two Dan Feng County middle school teachers, Na Li and Xiaoli Mei, who are interviewing their students through a “photovoice” methodology designed to elicit from students views on life at home, in school, and in society. Photovoice is a participatory research method aimed at building dialogue among culturally diverse groups and examining individuals’ perceptions of social reality through the use of photographic images. Twenty-six students in China and at Batchelor Middle School in Bloomington were given disposable cameras to frame, record, and evaluate their experiences in three areas: home, school, and society. Then, in an open-ended interview session, students discussed why they took their pictures and exchanged their photographs and evaluations.

The two middle school teachers, Na Li and Xiaoli Mei, will be in Bloomington from January 26 through February 5. They will be working with several graduate students in the School of Education and a middle school teacher at Batchelor Middle School. The project is being funded through a Pathways to Peace Grant that provides social studies teachers and students with cross-cultural learning opportunities. Anyone interested in meeting Li or Mei can contact them through Heidi Ross.

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