Exchange programs for educators: American and Russian perspectives

International exchange and training programs play a significant role in the development of international cooperation between educators from different nations. More and more teachers and school administrators participate in exchange programs and implement new curricular and instructional practices in their institutions. This paper presents findings of a phenomenological interpretive case study of the impact of international exchange programs for educators on their participants’ pedagogical practices, social status and professional careers. The study was conducted in 2005 in the US and Russia. Through observations and in‐depth interviews with 35 informants, the author compares the perception of exchange programs and their outcomes for American and Russian alumni. The findings demonstrate differences and similarities in participants’ perspectives on their roles in international programs and on the application of program outcomes.     

The Relationship between High School Sector and Educational Success: Focusing on the Social Background of Private High School Students

This study investigates the influence of high school sector on educational success in Japan. A range of previous research on disparities among high schools has revealed that high school rank (based on the academic ability of pupils, etc.) originated from the democratization of high school. However, given that the democratization of high school is supported by private high schools, high school sector may become a factor for high school ranking. The data used for the analysis are the 2005 National Survey of Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) in Japan. The results indicate that students who enter private high schools have lower academic ability than students who enter public high schools. By contrast, private high school students have greater educational success than public high school students. Moreover, this study reveals that private high school students are generally from a higher social class than public high school students. Given that the use of entrance examinations for private junior high schools has been increasing since the 1990s, in the future, the effect of private schools on educational success may become stronger in not only high schools but also junior high schools. This study thus emphasizes the importance of paying greater attention to the relationship between educational success and the private and public school sectors.     

Translators and Transformers: International Inspiration and Exchange in Social Movements

Cross-national traffic of ideas and practices contribute to the spread of collective action across borders. These processes have only recently become the subject of study and theoretical discussion. The theoretical models that have been developed so far fail to take into account the complex nature of intercultural communication. No attention is paid to problems of interpretation and translation that may occur and how potential adopters adapt foreign ideas and practices to a new context. Moreover, the central role of networks and existing (power) relations within these networks in this process is often neglected. Instead, I propose an empirically grounded, alternative model of the process, based on the cases of women's organizations against sexual violence in the Netherlands and Spain. My approach focuses on the processes of reception, recontextualization and the relations within the diffusion network. The reception of innovative repertoires was different for organizations that came across the example of pioneers at an early stage than for later groups. Early groups had less critical distance and more readily identified with pioneers than later observers. While some early followers aimed at ‘literal’ translation of an inspiring example, far more adaptations were made by the later groups. Innovative repertories traveled through networks, but within these networks power struggles emerged over ownership and the right to transform.