Knowledge and Action
Graduate Students’ Perceptions of Poverty Attributions in the United States and Spain: An Individual and Societal Issue
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mioara Diaconu, Laura Racovita, Linda Reeser
In the last thirty years, the economy in the US underwent a boom that burst in 2008 after the housing market crash resulting in a state of recession ever since (Amadeo 2018). Across the world, due to an increasingly interdependent global economy, Spain’s economy was impacted in the form of astronomical debt, skyrocketing taxes, and freezes on salaries for government employees and pensioners (Hill 2013). As thirty years prior, while there are several differences in the economic systems and experiences in each country, with globalization and the concept of an interdependent global economy being the focus of recent professional literature (Diaconu et all., 2018), both the US and Spain have experienced record unemployment rates, increasing poverty levels, and need for social services in the last ten years. The current exploratory study aims to measure the perspectives on poverty attribution of both American and Spanish graduate social work students enrolled in two universities, one in the United States, and one in Spain respectively. Results show that social work students enrolled in both programs tend to disagree that poverty is rooted in individual causes, instead attributing it to social causes. The study compares students’ perceptions of the two main reasons for the existence of poverty. Because poverty is an international issue, more collaborations between school of social work are needed for a more complex view of poverty attributions from a historical perspective. Possible solutions should be taught from a worldwide perspective.
Quo Vadis – Global Education?: 30 Years after Berlin Wall Crumbles
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Juanita Babet Villena Alvarez
Higher education in the United States has made a huge push for internationalizing curriculums for a few decades now. Not only has there been a stronger push for American universities to conduct programs abroad, these institutions have also seen the value of welcoming international students to their campuses to increase diversity for their student populations. Thirty years after the end of the cold war, Eastern and Central Europe have become more accessible for study abroad programs to promote collaboration among higher education institutions that hope to become agents of change in global understanding and peace. This study focuses on the rise of global education in this region, using Poland as an example, as well as the myriad efforts from the Western World to continue the message of J. William Fulbright: to use education “to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.” With the rapid rise of digital technologies, how can global education capitalize on this development and more importantly, how can global education avoid the recent pitfalls that has marked politics through social technologies?
Transnational Education in China: Curriculum Development and Delivery from a Teaching Perspective
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ning Tang, Min Tang
Transnational education (TNE) is defined as 'the delivery of high education in a different country from the one where the awarding/overseeing institution is based' (British Council, 2014, p.6), and a form of the export-oriented internationalization of higher education (HE) (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Beerkens, 2002; Ziguras, 2003; Knight, 2004). TNE curriculum refers to the 'ensemble of content, assessment, and didactics' (Waterval et al., 2016, p.279). Curriculum content, pedagogy and students' learning experiences are three integrated elements involved in the TNE curriculum design and delivery (Stark & Lattuca, 1997; Campbell & Wende, 2000). However, TNE curriculum is one of the biggest gaps in TNE research (Zeng, 2016). Whilst China requires to incorporate both high quality academic courses from TNE providers and core teaching content from the Chinese curriculum into TNE curriculum (Guo, 2016), the exact percentage of TNE curriculum content from host and home institutions is varied between different TNE programmes, particularly when Ministry of Education requirements and disciplinary differences in China are taking into account. This paper investigates TNE curriculum design and delivery in China from a teaching perspective. Drawing from an ongoing doctoral project, the paper examines qualitative interview data collected from interviews with teaching staff involved in TNE programme delivery from both home and host institutions. Findings contextualise the concepts such as TNE curriculum introduction, adaptation, and integration addressing implications of national TNE policy development in China on institutional TNE curriculum development, as well as strategies of home institution on TNE curriculum design and delivery.
How Does Global Value Chain Participation Affect Employment Opportunities in European Countries?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zuohong Pan
As the global economy becomes increasingly integrated, international trade is moving from the traditional trade to the value-added trade, where the intermediate goods and services, instead of the final goods, are exchanged between countries, giving sharp rise to the global value chains. Using a set of comprehensive Global Value Chain (GVC) indices, this study evaluates the GVC’s employment impact with the most recent WIOD dataset between the years 2000 and 2014 from 56 industries in the major European countries. The main research question is to examine if deeper involvement in the GVC is beneficial or detrimental to the domestic job opportunities in European context where the countries often share geographic proximity and close economic connections.
