(2020). Positioning Selves in Narrative Accounts of Military Trauma. Applied Linguistics, v41 n3 p389-407 Jun. Linguistic and narrative strategies employed in two dyadic interviews of male veterans of the war in Afghanistan were analysed and compared. Each interviewee told chains of connected stories that positioned them in relation to catastrophic events and their effects. These incidents were framed as being linked to decisions that the teller had taken in perilous circumstances. Sequences of generic clauses in sections of orientation were used to manage knowledge asymmetries, to establish story world norms, to display professional, soldierly and veteran identities and to present danger, serious injury, and death as normative in the context of military work in a conflict zone. Resolutions to narratives involving death or injury resided not in specific narrative event clauses but in sections of evaluation that framed the outcome of a preceding story chain in terms of its personal, current significance to the speaker. Our exploration of contrasting accounts of similarly catastrophic events by… [Direct]
(2022). The Struggle against the Citizenship Amendment Act in India: Recovering the Insurrectionary Praxis of Critical Pedagogy. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, v19 n3 p139-163 Dec 2021-Jan. This paper locates the emergence of critical pedagogy (CP) as praxis in the protest movements in New Delhi, India, against the new citizenship amendment laws that were brought about by the Indian government. The ruling government in India brought amendments to the existing provisions for citizenship, such that persons from Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian religious communities from neighbouring Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan were allowed Indian citizenship. Muslims, however, were excluded from this. This exclusion, coupled with the national project established for finding illegal immigrants in India — called the National Citizenship Registry project — affects the Muslim communities in South-Asia and has been widely resisted across India, by Muslims and other social and political organisations. This paper traces the development of such a struggle in Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi, and proposes that CP as a critique of the social, emerged from the specificity of the… [PDF]
(2021). Continuing Learning for the Most Vulnerable during COVID-19: Lessons from Let Us Learn in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Liberia, Madagascar and Nepal. Innocenti Research Brief 2021-02. UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every aspect of society. In mid-April 2020, 192 countries had closed their schools, putting 9 out of 10 enrolled children out of school. These closures disproportionately affected marginalized children, worsening existing inequities across education systems worldwide. This brief draws on the experience of five UNICEF education country programmes supported by the Let Us Learn (LUL) initiative, to document tangible lessons in adapting education programmes to support the most marginalized children during school and learning centre closures. The evidence in this brief stems from a series of semi-structured interviews with Education and Child Protection specialists, as well as a document review of available COVID-19 response studies, in the five LUL-supported UNICEF Country Offices…. [PDF]
(2021). Expanding beyond World War II to Encourage Peace Education and Deconstruct Militarism. Journal of Peace Education, v18 n3 p239-259. How individuals interpret the justifications for historical war can have a large effect on how they see modern warfare. In the social studies classroom, particularly in the U.S. context, so much of what educators focus on in regard to war are the events of World War II. This focus on the Second World War is understandable. However, it could also be dangerous in the pursuit of more peaceful and diplomatic solutions in the world today as it creates a narrative that war is justified, necessary, and a path towards a more just world. In the social studies classroom, educators should move the frame of war outside of the purview of World War II, as World War II in many ways is the anomaly of U.S. conflicts. If they can do this in the history course, they may be able to show students the times when war is often futile and counterproductive. Educators can use the frameworks of war such as the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, World War I, Vietnam, and the more… [Direct]
(2014). The INSPIRE Project: Using the "Unknown" to Co-Construct a Training Course on Humanistic Counselling in Afghanistan. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, v36 n3 p305-316 Sep. This article details a collaborative project between the University of Strathclyde (UK) and the University of Herat (Afghanistan). The aim was to co-construct a model of training, based on humanistic approaches, in order to enhance counselling services in Afghanistan and to establish counselling training at the University of Herat. Two groups of participants received 120 h training each. In February 2014 a selected group received a further training for trainers. Strengths and limitations of this project are explored as well as its impact on the Afghan community and further developments for counselling in this context…. [Direct]
(2017). Supporting Our Troops: Library Services and Support for Veterans. Public Services Quarterly, v13 n3 p152-167. Veterans are a unique population that can be found in libraries across the United States. Libraries of all types are developing new approaches to the veterans in their patron populations in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This study identifies several common strategies that libraries, especially public and academic libraries, are employing to support their patrons who are veterans, as well as distinctions in strategy according to library type. It further explores whether libraries are relying upon library staff who are veterans when developing services and programming for patrons who are veterans…. [Direct]
(2019). Measuring Early Learning and Development across Cultures: Invariance of the IDELA across Five Countries. Developmental Psychology, v55 n1 p23-37 Jan. Relatively little research has addressed whether conceptual frameworks of early learning generalize across different national contexts. This article reports on a cross-country measurement invariance analysis of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). The IDELA is a direct assessment tool for 3- to 6-year-old children, intended to measure Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, Motor, and Social-Emotional development. Its generalizability is evaluated using samples from 5 countries: Afghanistan (N = 2,629); Bolivia (N = 480); Ethiopia (N = 682); Uganda (N = 504); and Vietnam (N = 675). The 4-domain model of the IDELA was supported in each country, although the domains were highly correlated. Measurement invariance analysis revealed that most IDELA items do not provide a basis for comparing children's development over the 5 countries. This research supports the use of the IDELA for program evaluation and within-country monitoring purposes, but cautions against its… [Direct]
(2014). Social Studies Teachers' Viewpoints of the Social Studies Lesson "Sample of Turkey and Afghanistan". Educational Research and Reviews, v9 n9 p245-254 May. This study was conducted to reveal the perceptions of history, geography and social studies teachers giving the social studies lesson at primary schools in Turkey and Afghanistan towards the social studies lesson. The working group of the study involves history, geography and social studies teachers rendering service in Tokat and Kayseri provinces of Turkey and Cevizcan and Sar-i Pul provinces of Afghanistan in the school year of 2012 to 2013. In the study conducted using the qualitative research methodology, purposeful sampling selection was used in determining the participants, semi-structured interview form in collecting the data and descriptive analysis method in analyzing the acquired data. It could be asserted that social studies teachers that graduated from the departments of history and geography and are teaching social studies in our country still adopt the single-discipline approach and keep away from the interdisciplinary approach, which is the nature of social studies. It… [Direct]
(2014). Social Studies Teachers' Viewpoints of the Social Studies Lesson "Sample of Turkey and Afghanistan". Educational Research and Reviews, v9 n9 p245-254 May. This study was conducted to reveal the perceptions of history, geography and social studies teachers giving the social studies lesson at primary schools in Turkey and Afghanistan towards the social studies lesson. The working group of the study involves history, geography and social studies teachers rendering service in Tokat and Kayseri provinces of Turkey and Cevizcan and Sar-i Pul provinces of Afghanistan in the school year of 2012 to 2013. In the study conducted using the qualitative research methodology, purposeful sampling selection was used in determining the participants, semi-structured interview form in collecting the data and descriptive analysis method in analyzing the acquired data. It could be asserted that social studies teachers that graduated from the departments of history and geography and are teaching social studies in our country still adopt the single-discipline approach and keep away from the interdisciplinary approach, which is the nature of social studies. It… [Direct]
(2020). Better Quality of Education in Asia: Taking Panel Data of State Legitimacy, Democracy and Public Services. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, v15 n6 p1685-1697. The key purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of legitimacy, public services, and democracy on the quality of education in the selected Asian economies like India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The data was collected from various sources like world bank, word economic forum, as well as transparency international. The analysis was performed by using EViews and various statistical tests were also applied in order to analyse the trends in data and the relationship between the study variables as well. The results of ARLD test showed that all three dependent variables were significantly associated with the quality of education. Literacy rate was correlated with the rise in quality of education in the long run, as well as the short run. Population growth also showed a rise in quality of education in the long run but not in the short run. Only state democracy showed positive association in the long run but showed no… [PDF]
(2014). Feasibility of Open Schooling in Disturbed Societies: The Case of Afghanistan. Journal of Learning for Development, v1 n2. Most countries have enshrined the right to education in their constitution but, in reality, to fulfil this commitment, countries do face a number of challenges. And this is true with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which unlike other countries has a long history of war, conflicts, insurgency, and hence insecurity. Although there have been positive steps towards rehabilitation of the education system and signs of promise can be seen in its achievements, access to quality education remains inequitable, particularly across the provinces as a result of remoteness and geographical isolation, harsh climate, insecurity which impedes growth and sustainability of access points, high gender gap in all sectors of education, particularly from the lower secondary stage to the higher stages of education, poor infrastructure prevalent in most schools, untrained teachers and the low number of female teachers affecting participation, retention, and continuity of studies. This paper highlights… [PDF]
(2019). Strengthening Child Inclusion in the Classroom in Rural Schools of Pakistan and Afghanistan: What Did We Learn by Testing the System Dynamics Protocol for Community Engagement?. Research in Comparative and International Education, v14 n1 p158-181 Mar. Access to education has been the central tenet of the Millennium Development Goal 2, which focused strongly on increasing enrolment yet failed to promote education quality and equity and address contextual complexities that sustain exclusion. As a consequence, many children are not learning. There is growing recognition that effective, efficient and equitable education for all will not be achieved without better accountability. The present paper details innovative methods for strengthening the learning process through better social accountability. The paper defines and tests in rural schools of Afghanistan and Pakistan a community-based system dynamics protocol using participatory group model building (GMB) techniques. We tested the protocol with two groups of teachers and one group of children, with the three produced causal loop diagrams highlighting factors that influence learning in the classroom from the perspectives of the participants. The sessions showed interest, engagement,… [Direct]
(2017). I Raise My Voice: Promoting Self-Authoring through a Curriculum-Based Project. English Teaching Forum, v55 n4 p14-21. Learners of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) bring an array of backgrounds, identities, and experiences to the classroom. Through exposure to other views, learners can reflect on their own place in their world and engage in "self-authoring"–a term coined by Hernandez-Zamora (2010) that refers to critical-thinking skills development and acquisition of language resources to take charge of one's life. In this article, the author describes a study on the use of a self-designed ESL online curriculum to cultivate self-authoring within the context of an EFL online class with a female student in Afghanistan. A computer-mediated communication (CMC) tool called VoiceThread was used for this project; however, due to Internet connectivity issues, it played a secondary role. While this study centered on a teaching context in Afghanistan, the themes and content explored are applicable to any classroom context and can be adapted to other language levels and classroom… [PDF]
(2013). Transnational Links of Afghan Madrasas: Implications for the Reform of Religious Education. Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, v43 n1 p69-84 Mar. Described as "terrorist factories", the South Asian madrasas have become the subject of great controversy since September 11, 2001. In Afghanistan, people commonly blame Pakistani madrasas for recruiting Afghan youth into militant groups. In response, the Afghan government has initiated a comprehensive reform of the Islamic education sector. Yet, little analytical attention has been paid to Afghan madrasas and their transnational links. This article examines more closely the role of religious education in Afghanistan, transnational connections with madrasas in Pakistan, the alleged links to militancy, and the scope for reform of the religious education sector in Afghanistan…. [Direct]
(2022). 'The Teacher Makes Us Feel Like We Are a Family': Students from Refugee Backgrounds' Perceptions of Physical Education in Swedish Schools. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, v27 n5 p531-544. Background: Over the past five decades, the number of people from refugee backgrounds in developed countries has been on the constant rise. Although the field of refugee and forced migration studies in relation to education and sport has grown considerably in recent years, very little is known about refugee-background students' perceptions of Physical Education (PE).Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate refugee-background students' perceptions of PE in Swedish high schools, using a salutogenic approach. Participants and settings: This qualitative study was conducted in two Swedish high schools and involved eleven students from refugee backgrounds aged 16-18 years (seven boys and four girls) who originated from a variety of countries including Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia and Albania. Data collection/analysis: A total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the interviews were systematically coded and analyzed using the sense of coherence (SOC)… [Direct]