Thesis Chapters by Mariam Meynert
theory of two well known visionaries -Che Guevara and Paulo Friere -in order to explore the ways ... more theory of two well known visionaries -Che Guevara and Paulo Friere -in order to explore the ways in which the pedagogic legacies of these two historical personalities can contribute to Critical Pedagogy and revitalize pedagogic theory.
This paper consists of two parts. The first part attempts to define concepts like " women " , " s... more This paper consists of two parts. The first part attempts to define concepts like " women " , " sex " , " gender " , " feminism " and " patriarchy ". It then attempt to trace the historical evolution and contents of different types of feminisms, namely, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism, Socialist feminism, Post-modern feminism and the feminist discourses in India. The second part explores the distinction between " The Women-in-Development " (WID) approach and the Gender-Relations approach to Poverty. The paper then explores how health care can be feminised; what poverty alleviation from a gender perspective would entail; how population issues can be feminised; and the strategies for empowering women. Finally it eclecticizes the insights found in different schools of feminisms to make a unified statement about feminist theory that can be vital to development and health planning for women. A feminist perspective in population policy has to break beyond the narrow fertility reduction goals and help to work towards empowerment of women. The concept of responsible father-hood and husband-hood needs to be promoted in order to sensitise men into supporting women in their productive and reproductive roles. Questions like: Is it relevant at this forum to raise the question about what can be done about the asymmetrical alignment of the North and South in the World order and distribution of world resources, a symmetries in relation to power and resources within a nation? How can this dimension be worked into the Gender and Health concerns needs to be asked?
Papers by Mariam Meynert
Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies, Jul 13, 2016
XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018), Jul 17, 2018
Social sciences, 2018
This article explores the intersections between discourses on children from the North and South (... more This article explores the intersections between discourses on children from the North and South (India as a case in point). Some similarities can be seen between Western and Indian conceptualizations with the child occupying subaltern spaces. Both in the North and South children are marginalized in sociological discourses; there is a perceived emergent decrease in patriarchal control of children by adults, with adult-child relations becoming more democratic and participatory, manifested in greater negotiation of control by children. The New Sociology of Childhood that evolved in the "Century of the Child" notable as childhood has brought children into the arena of International politics and academic debates in both the North and the South.
This essay is my term paper submitted in partial fulfillment of my Swedish teaching degree (90hp)... more This essay is my term paper submitted in partial fulfillment of my Swedish teaching degree (90hp) in the ULV project. It is an attempt to understand the concept of inclusion and the degree to which it is being practiced in Swedish municipality schools. World Declaration on Education for All was followed by the political acceptance of “one school for all” in educational system and debates in Sweden. This was a clear expression of the democratic ambition to create an inclusive school where every student had a right to equal and comparable education. Yet the history of special education has shown that the goal to implement inclusive education has been difficult to achieve. The ideology of inclusive education is in conflict with the ground realities and the interests and values of the individuals involved in schooling children which has led to a compromise where “one school for all” has resulted in the persistence of the traditional paradigm where segregated schooling and integration has been seen as the appropriate solution. Although there is space for different kinds of solutions to support children of special needs within the concept of “one school for all”, a positive posture on the part of the personnel would help ground democratic inclusive schools where students are not sorted out in terms of their abilities/disabilities, rather one which is designed with pupil diversity in mind, and where the school setting is adapted to children s needs. Such an inclusive education would be one, which celebrates diversity and is grounded on the value that differences between students are a resource rather than a problem.
XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018), Jul 17, 2018
Sociology and Anthropology
Sociology and Anthropology
Over the last fifty years the debate between modernism and postmodernism has surfaced in the disc... more Over the last fifty years the debate between modernism and postmodernism has surfaced in the disciplines of social sciences. Epistemologically, there is a shift away from the concept of a "found" world, "out there", objective, knowable and factual, towards a concept of "constructed" worlds, thus problematizing postulates based on the autonomous, stable, unified, essentialized, coherent and integrated subject capable of rational action, and opening up spaces for a new understanding of subjectivity that is based on provisionality and contingency. From the ashes of these tendencies for fragmentation has arisen what is called the New Sociology of Childhood and the new directions in pedagogy and research creating new spaces for constructing notions of children and childhoods. The emergent child has an active agency making it possible to construct a more dynamic child, located in a multiplicity of domains, thus opening up spaces for more flexible pedagogies and new sensibilities in educational research. I have therefore undertaken a critical reading of texts in the area of childhood, pedagogy and educational research within the modern and the postmodern in order to extract, appropriate and integrate parallel but socially constructed discourses across disciplines such as Sociology of Childhood, Sociology of Knowledge and Sociology of Education. I aim to reconstruct the concept of childhood both historically and within modernist/ postmodernist paradigm. I finally try to sift out and document some of the implications for study of childhood, as well as for pedagogical practices and educational research resulting from the paradigmatic shift from modernity to postmodernity. Finally postmodern constructs are problematized and a critical postmodernist position is invoked in order to straddle progressive aspects of modernity and postmodernity.
International Journal of Special Education, 2014
This study examines the concept of inclusion and the degree to which it is being practiced in Swe... more This study examines the concept of inclusion and the degree to which it is being practiced in Swedish municipality schools and tries to draw some conclusions about the nature of pedagogy practiced in Sweden. This is a qualitative case study where primary data are collected from only five facilitators of children of special needs in one school in Sweden. Data were collected with an open-ended questionnaire, the variations in their responses are considered valuable in order to get a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the phenomena under study. Perceptions of the respondents indicate that they were participating in both organizational and pedagogic differentiation. The administrators were more vocal about the value of the segregated education. Integration was perceived as being the ideal because it made it possible to both compensate the child as well as facilitate their involvement in the general class room. Inclusion was seen as a higher form of integration and was associated with capital intensive specialized equipment and materials. Respondents feared that children with special needs would not be able to cope with the general curriculum in an inclusive educational situation. I conclude in this study that every fifth student in the middle school in Sweden is probably in need of differentiated activities, and there is a need for another form of teaching than what is being currently practiced in Sweden.
Kind of work: Master thesis (D-level), 10 points Summary: This essay explores the different disco... more Kind of work: Master thesis (D-level), 10 points Summary: This essay explores the different discourses that intersect to define and explain the concept of "identity" and consists of two distinct parts. The former being an attempt to eclecticize the discourses around identity and the structuring of identity under modern and post-modern conditions. The latter consisting of reflections on the methodological and pedagogical implications in a fragmenting postmodern and multicultural condition. This essay is a theoretical attempt to deconstruct the notion of the essentialized, stable, static and coherent modernist subjectivity/identity and tries to explore the construction of a multilayered, non-unitary, fragmented, plural postmodern subjectivity/identity. The essay aims to discusses the current politics of `identity´, `difference´, `recognition´ and `multiculturalism´ and explores the intricate enmeshing of concepts such as identity, ethnicity, minorities and nationalism. It further tries to construct the representation of identities within a world-systems paradigm. Modernity is seen as being convergent and a result of capital accumulation resulting in globalisation. Post-modernity is seen as a condition of fragmentation due to capital flight, resulting in discontinuities between different forms of collective and individual life. The deconstruction of modernist identity has methodological and pedagogical implications. This fragmentation and disintegration of stable hegemony has emancipatory potential within research. It has led to the decline of writing the "Other". Writing the "Other" is seen as a violence, as it silences and disallows the other from representing themselves. Mere ethnographic observation needs to give way to a dialogic methodology. This has resulted in a focus in research on self-definition, self-identification, autobiographical and local narratives and a replacement of flawed grand narratives. It has also led to a new awareness of pluralism and diversity and articulation of a cultural politics in which culture is bound up with power and resistance. Feminist identity perspectives have strengthened research methodologies by creating empowering and self-reflexive research designs -concerned with producing emancipatory knowledge and empowering the researched. Pedagogically, from the perspective of postmodernism, modernist authority privileges western patriarchal culture and represses and marginalizes the voices of the subordinated. Hence the essay suggests the need for practicing "critical pedagogy" that views education as a political, social and cultural enterprise, and "border pedagogy" that incorporates the notion of difference as an ideal. In practice the culturally divergent fragmented postmodern condition calls for advocating policies of multiculturalism and multiligualism in education.
Education and Society, 1998
Book Reviews by Mariam Meynert
This is a Review of a book called : Che Guevara, Paulo Friere and the Pedagogy of Revolution by P... more This is a Review of a book called : Che Guevara, Paulo Friere and the Pedagogy of Revolution by Peter McLaren, Culture and Education Series (eds) Henry A. Giroux and Joe L. Kincheloe, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford, 2000; pp xviii + 220, $22.95.
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Thesis Chapters by Mariam Meynert
Papers by Mariam Meynert
Book Reviews by Mariam Meynert