Bradley A. U. Levinson – författare

This anthology introduces some of the most influential literature shaping our understanding of the social and cultural foundations of education today. Together the selections provide students a range of approaches for interpreting and designing educational experiences worthy of the multicultural societies of our present and future. The reprinted selections are contextualized in new interpretive essays written specifically for this volume.

This book explores the diversity of American roles in such cross-cultural engagement in education for democracy, both within the United States and around the world. Cross-cultural engagement in education for democracy inevitably bears the impressions of each culture involved and the dynamics among them.Even high-priority, well-funded U.S. government programs are neither monolithic nor deterministic in their own right, but are rather reshaped, adapted to their contexts, and appropriated by their partners. These partners are sometimes called recipients, although that label is problematic. “Recipient” both gives a misleading impression that partners are relatively passive in the overall process, and its use is a reflection of some outside donors’ or experts’ stance that they are delivering goods or expertise. The authors of these chapters pay close attention to the cultures, contexts, structures, people, and processesinvolved in education for democracy. Woven throughout this volume’s qualitative studies are the notions that contacts between powers and cultures are complex and situated, that agency matters, that local meanings play a critical role in the dynamic exchange of peoples and ideas. The authors span an array of fields that concern themselves with understanding languages, cultures, institutions, the close view of daily life, and the broad horizon of the past that shapes the present: history,anthropology, literacy studies, policy analysis, political science, and journalism.Together, these 10 chapters provide a rich sampling of the diverse contexts and ways in which American ideas, practices, and policies of education for democracy are spread, encountered, appropriated, rejected, or embraced around the world. While not meant to provide a complete or systematic overview of the American influence on education for democracy around the world, the volume nevertheless introduces concepts, identifies processes, notes obstacles and challenges, and reveals common themes that can help us to understand American influence on education for democracy more clearly, wherever it occurs.

This book explores the diversity of American roles in such cross-cultural engagement in education for democracy, both within the United States and around the world. Cross-cultural engagement in education for democracy inevitably bears the impressions of each culture involved and the dynamics among them.Even high-priority, well-funded U.S. government programs are neither monolithic nor deterministic in their own right, but are rather reshaped, adapted to their contexts, and appropriated by their partners. These partners are sometimes called recipients, although that label is problematic. “Recipient” both gives a misleading impression that partners are relatively passive in the overall process, and its use is a reflection of some outside donors’ or experts’ stance that they are delivering goods or expertise. The authors of these chapters pay close attention to the cultures, contexts, structures, people, and processesinvolved in education for democracy. Woven throughout this volume’s qualitative studies are the notions that contacts between powers and cultures are complex and situated, that agency matters, that local meanings play a critical role in the dynamic exchange of peoples and ideas. The authors span an array of fields that concern themselves with understanding languages, cultures, institutions, the close view of daily life, and the broad horizon of the past that shapes the present: history,anthropology, literacy studies, policy analysis, political science, and journalism.Together, these 10 chapters provide a rich sampling of the diverse contexts and ways in which American ideas, practices, and policies of education for democracy are spread, encountered, appropriated, rejected, or embraced around the world. While not meant to provide a complete or systematic overview of the American influence on education for democracy around the world, the volume nevertheless introduces concepts, identifies processes, notes obstacles and challenges, and reveals common themes that can help us to understand American influence on education for democracy more clearly, wherever it occurs.

Sally Anderson's book on sport, cultural policy, and “civil sociality” in Denmark has been a long time in coming, but it's well worth the wait. Based on many years of familiarity with Danish society, and countless hours of intensive fieldwork, Dr. Anderson provides us with a unique anthropological perspective on the process by which state cultural policy actively engages civil society in a quest to shape social relations in the public sphere. The particular domain of policy and social activity is nonschool, voluntary sport, in its various forms. By definition, of course, such activity takes place outside the regular Danish school curriculum, but it is not for this reason any less "educational." Indeed, although it is very broadly attended and institutionalized, perhaps because Danish after-school sport is not compulsory, it is all the more compelling for children and youth, and therefore more powerful in certain ways. Indeed, Dr. Anderson has a signal talent for showing us how afterschool sport in Denmark both transmits and produces social knowledge, and powerfully shapes social relations.

Sally Anderson's book on sport, cultural policy, and “civil sociality” in Denmark has been a long time in coming, but it's well worth the wait. Based on many years of familiarity with Danish society, and countless hours of intensive fieldwork, Dr. Anderson provides us with a unique anthropological perspective on the process by which state cultural policy actively engages civil society in a quest to shape social relations in the public sphere. The particular domain of policy and social activity is nonschool, voluntary sport, in its various forms. By definition, of course, such activity takes place outside the regular Danish school curriculum, but it is not for this reason any less "educational." Indeed, although it is very broadly attended and institutionalized, perhaps because Danish after-school sport is not compulsory, it is all the more compelling for children and youth, and therefore more powerful in certain ways. Indeed, Dr. Anderson has a signal talent for showing us how afterschool sport in Denmark both transmits and produces social knowledge, and powerfully shapes social relations.

This book on bilingual education policy represents a multidimensional and longitudinal study of “policy processes” as they play out on the ground (a single school in Los Angeles), and over time (both within the same school, and also within the state of Georgia). In order to reconstruct this complex policy process, Anderson impressively marshals a great variety of forms of “discourse.” Most of this discourse, of course, comes from overheard discussions and spontaneous interviews conducted at a particular school—the voices of teachers and administrators. Such discourse forms the heart of her ethnographic findings. Yet Anderson also brings an ethnographer’s eye to national and regional debates as they are conducted and represented in different forms of media, especially newspapers and magazines. She then uses the key theoretical concept of “articulation” to conceptually link these media representations with local school discourse. The result is an illuminating account of how everyday debates at a particular school and media debates occurring more broadly mutually inform one another.

This book on bilingual education policy represents a multidimensional and longitudinal study of “policy processes” as they play out on the ground (a single school in Los Angeles), and over time (both within the same school, and also within the state of Georgia). In order to reconstruct this complex policy process, Anderson impressively marshals a great variety of forms of “discourse.” Most of this discourse, of course, comes from overheard discussions and spontaneous interviews conducted at a particular school—the voices of teachers and administrators. Such discourse forms the heart of her ethnographic findings. Yet Anderson also brings an ethnographer’s eye to national and regional debates as they are conducted and represented in different forms of media, especially newspapers and magazines. She then uses the key theoretical concept of “articulation” to conceptually link these media representations with local school discourse. The result is an illuminating account of how everyday debates at a particular school and media debates occurring more broadly mutually inform one another.

Universal Primary Education programs are being promoted around the globe as the solution to poverty and health problems, but very little in-depth qualitative knowledge is available about the experiences of these programs in children's life-worlds.Hopes in Friction offers a vivid portrait of life and the implementation of Universal Primary Education in Eastern Uganda, based on long-term fieldwork following a group of children as they grow up. The book considers how the actions and hopes of these children and families, to attain what they perceive as 'a good life', are crosscut by political aspirations and projects of schooling and health education. When hopes are in friction inspiration as well as disappointment occur.Policy makers in Uganda and in international organisations expect health improvements as one of the bonuses of education programs. Families in Eastern Uganda also hope for and experience health – in the local sense of a good life – as part of schooling. Lotte Meinert explores the taken for granted effect of schooling on health and focuses a careful eye on how boys and girls appropriate and negotiate ideas and moralities about health in the context of what is possible ethically, materially and experientially.