Book Chapters by Alex McCormick
Higher Education, Pedagogy and Social Justice, 2019
In this chapter, we place discussions of social justice in the context of teaching about global i... more In this chapter, we place discussions of social justice in the context of teaching about global issues and perspectives in education. In our use of ‘global’, we refer to the actors, stakeholders and issues that exist and are addressed in global, regional and international, rather than through a lens of national or local contexts; framing issues of social justice in this global or, more accurately, multi-level, scale is what primarily distinguishes this subject from others in the university (Education) degree programme within which it is taught. Drawing on student-level data, supported with prior systematic reflections (Shah et al. 2017), we highlight the pedagogi- cal practices of teaching an undergraduate unit of study, ‘Global Perspectives, Poverty, and Education.’ We describe and analyse some of the pedagogical tensions that we navigate and negotiate as educators who research and teach in areas that entail often-confronting questions of social (in)justice.
comparative and International Education: survey of an Infinite Field, 2019
Through the ideas of and within Oceania that we outline, and within which we locate architecture ... more Through the ideas of and within Oceania that we outline, and within which we locate architecture and institutions for CIE regionally, we illustrate the identified turning points through analysis of dynamic and intersecting trajectories of the Oceania Comparative and International Education Society (OCIES), formerly the Australia and New Zealand Comparative and International Education Society (ANZCIES), and the Vaka Pasifiki, formerly the Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative for and by Pacific Peoples (RPEIPP) project. We offer initial responses to an over-arching theme in posing the question: how, and through what processes, have these groups influenced understandings of 'regionalism' for CIE within Oceania? This involves examining the conferences, financing, membership, the Society journal/publications and aspects of CIE education of the two bodies.
In The Global Educational Policy Environment in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Editor Jules, T.
Journal Articles by Alex McCormick
International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 2017
In this paper, we critically interrogate the way in which comparative and international education... more In this paper, we critically interrogate the way in which comparative and international education coursework at two large institutions in Australia and New Zealand embody or challenge teleological, colonial, and Western/Northern-centric perspectives on education and development. Embedded within a broader and introspective examination of our roles as comparative and international educators in these universities, we deconstruct the intent behind our course objectives, readings, lecture content and assessment tasks, and place them into conversation with our own pedagogical self-reflections, observations of practice and student feedback. In doing so, we highlight ways in which we believe we are beginning to prepare a new generation of more critically conscious, and regionally-minded set of teachers, development practitioners and researchers. Specifically, by 'making the familiar strange,' and encouraging our students to co-construct knowledge, we argue we can begin to create actionable spaces which encourage an alternative reading of the world; something colleagues from across Oceania and further afield have long argued for as part of the decolonizing process. We also highlight how this process has led us to better recognize our own positionalities and epistemologies as CIE educators, in hopes that it can lead to an ongoing space for dialogue between educators and researchers within and beyond the region.
In this article, I offer a reflexive auto-ethnography to revisit questions about knowledge and re... more In this article, I offer a reflexive auto-ethnography to revisit questions about knowledge and research practices in international contexts, influenced differently by aspects of globalization. Specifically, I position my experience of the Vanuatu research moratorium on 'foreign' researchers of 2013/2014 as a lynchpin to analyse and contribute to long-standing, recently revived debates about ethics in research, the politics of international comparisons, and their relationships with traditional knowledge. I base analysis primarily on my plurilevel research and experiences in parts of Vanuatu, in Australia and in our shared South Pacific sub-region in global context between 2008 and 2016, and on my plurilocal personal and researcher identity. In these spaces, the salience of postcolonial identities––with those already allocated, perceived, or shared––has long been tied to different actors' research aims, application, conduct, and funding. Lenses of critical globalization and postcolonial theories and critical discourse analysis have informed my research to date and, in undertaking this auto-ethnography, I confront current limits and possibilities in these. One aim is to shed light on how we might extend understanding and enactment of interrelated practices of ownership, production, and uses of knowledge situated within decolonizing discourses and more rapidly changing, integrated education and research contexts. I explore how understanding these dimensions can contribute to strengthening our understandings of and resulting approaches to knowledge production and sharing, which I see as the core work of research, research relationships and, ultimately, education and teaching.
This article is based on ongoing research in Vanuatu and the wider Pacific. It maps multi-level r... more This article is based on ongoing research in Vanuatu and the wider Pacific. It maps multi-level roles that education and development policy actors, and civil societies in particular, have increasingly been playing in official education and development policy activities. Most recently this has been in relation to the 'post-2015' agendas and processes that contributed to creating the 'sustainable development goals'. I argue that the decolonising discourses of self-reliance that gained traction in national independence movements have maintained emphasis in Vanuatu civil society and government approaches to national education and development policy. In considering these processes, I employ critical discourse analysis to interrogate some implications of current global(-ized) discourses and frameworks for education and development through lenses of decolonising regional histories and dynamic geo-political regional power relations. Dynamic, indigenous kastom beliefs and practices are central to most aspects of life for most ni-Vanuatu people (Regenvanu 2010). They have been a foundation for the recognition and revitalisation of the 'traditional economy' and 'alternative' visions of development (Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs 2012). Related aspects of traditional/modern dialectics have long underpinned education and development processes and thinking; their negotiation at the interstices of complex economic, historical, and political changes through multi-level education, governance, and research relationships has been striking. The associated policy relationships are as rich and promising—and as disparate and varied—as those in the field of comparative and international education.
International Journal of Educational Development , Aug 2014
A concern for social justice pervades the espoused curriculum of many pre-service teaching progra... more A concern for social justice pervades the espoused curriculum of many pre-service teaching programmes, but the extent to which that curriculum influences the beliefs students hold is an open question. With the goal of developing an instrument suitable for evaluating such beliefs at the degree programme level, the present study analysed responses to the Learning to Teach for Social Justice–Beliefs (LTSJ–B) Scale (Enterline, S., Cochran-Smith, M., Ludlow, J.H., & Mitescu, E. (2008). Learning to teach for social justice: Measuring change in the beliefs of teacher candidates. The New Educator, 4, 267–290. doi:10.1080/15476880802430361) from 304 Australian pre-service teachers. Exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis both indicated a two-factor structure, driven by a methodological artefact of item valence. We conclude from these findings that a short, five-item version of the LTSJ–B Scale would suitably balance psychometric and pragmatic considerations, in the broader context of working within an institutionally aligned system of teaching evaluation with multiple levels.
Conference Proceedings by Alex McCormick
’, In Dr. Brian Denman Australia New Zealand Comparative International Education Society (ANZCIES) (35th Annual Conference) 'International Co-operation through Education' , 2008
Book Reviews by Alex McCormick
Book Review: Neither World Polity Nor Local or National Societies: Regionalization in the Global South - The Caribbean Community, by Tavis Deryck Jules, Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2013, 322pp. ISBN: 978-3-631-60104-4.
Research Reports by Alex McCormick
Listening to the Partners - the Impact of a Demand-Driven Support: Impact Study, 2019
Gap-filling, just in time support Key findings from this section BACKUP Education's impacts on em... more Gap-filling, just in time support Key findings from this section BACKUP Education's impacts on emerging issues and trends within GPE and the SDGs Emerging issues and trends Attention to countries affected by fragility and conflict Gender responsive planning and policy actions Support to Early Childhood Care and Education Support to quality teaching and learning Support for inclusion Knowledge exchange
Papers by Alex McCormick
The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 2016
The collection of articles in this Special Issue makes a substantial contribution to existing com... more The collection of articles in this Special Issue makes a substantial contribution to existing comparative and international education (CIE) research through the range of methodologies, topics, and sub-sectors of CIE work in Australian higher education institutions. Bringing these aspects together, it contributes to the shifts in thinking and work in CIE that have come to be globally debated and documented in recent years (Phillips and Sweisfurth 2014; McCowan and Unterhalter 2015). This Special Issue presents the research of authors who have, together, been based within Australian institutions, even as they each have conducted their work from diverse locations, perspectives and situations. While these authors have shared a common experience in space and time, they bring significantly different engagement and relationships within and beyond the nation-state of Australia, as it is currently called and known to the world. At this point, I acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Is...
The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 2016
This article is based on ongoing research in Vanuatu and the wider Pacific. It maps multi-level r... more This article is based on ongoing research in Vanuatu and the wider Pacific. It maps multi-level roles that education and development policy actors, and civil societies in particular, have increasingly been playing in official education and development policy activities. Most recently this has been in relation to the ‘post-2015’ agendas and processes that contributed to creating the ‘sustainable development goals’. I argue that the decolonising discourses of self-reliance that gained traction in national independence movements have maintained emphasis in Vanuatu civil society and government approaches to national education and development policy. In considering these processes, I employ critical discourse analysis to interrogate some implications of current global(-ized) discourses and frameworks for education and development through lenses of decolonising regional histories and dynamic geo-political regional power relations. Dynamic, indigenous kastom beliefs and practices are centr...
Research and practice in education and development has, in recent decades, been consumed with equ... more Research and practice in education and development has, in recent decades, been consumed with equity gaps. From World Bank reports about “Closing the gap” (De Ferranti et al, 2003) to calls from UNICEF (2010) about “Narrowing the gaps,” to national explorations of achievement gaps (Bohrnstedt, Kitmitto, Ogut, Sherman, & Chan, 2015), it seems organizational bodies, institutions, and individuals are consumed by reducing gaps in education. But what are gaps? Gaps necessarily signify a divide, a rift or a space between entities; conceptualization of the gap itself influences both the ends and the means of research and action, in terms of how it might be bridged, filled, or simply recognized in education research, policy, and practice. And who defines the gaps? Who is involved in the production and reproduction of the gaps? Who is most affected by the gaps? These and other questions serve as meaningful prompts, albeit at times in competition, for broader debates about the purposes and as...
The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 2017
In this article, I offer a reflexive auto-ethnography to revisit questions about knowledge and re... more In this article, I offer a reflexive auto-ethnography to revisit questions about knowledge and research practices in international contexts, influenced differently by aspects of globalization. Specifically, I position my experience of the Vanuatu research moratorium on ‘foreign’ researchers of 2013/2014 as a lynchpin to analyse and contribute to long-standing, recently revived debates about ethics in research, the politics of international comparisons, and their relationships with traditional knowledge. I base analysis primarily on my plurilevel research and experiences in parts of Vanuatu, in Australia and in our shared South Pacific sub-region in global context between 2008 and 2016, and on my plurilocal personal and researcher identity. In these spaces, the salience of postcolonial identities––with those already allocated, perceived, or shared––has long been tied to different actors’ research aims, application, conduct, and funding. Lenses of critical globalization and postcoloni...
Higher Education, Pedagogy and Social Justice, 2019
This chapter highlights pedagogical practices developed as educators teaching the unit of study ‘... more This chapter highlights pedagogical practices developed as educators teaching the unit of study ‘Global Perspectives, Poverty, and Education’, and places discussions of social justice in global education contexts. This unit was conceived at multiple conceptual and geographical levels, paying specific attention to global power imbalances and concomitant dynamics that affect students across varying contexts. A primary purpose is to expose higher education students—particularly pre-service teachers—to conceptions of social (in)justice across diverse contexts. These include changing demographics, for example relating to asylum and migration; deepening inequality within and between nations; discrimination within education and policy processes and structures; multiple inequities and poverty. Through close consideration of located assumptions, students’ and our own, the chapter problematises tacit understandings of ‘social justice’ using global and multi-level frames.
International Education Journal Comparative Perspectives, Dec 1, 2011
This article considers a parallel marginalisation of Education for All (EFA) as a holistic approa... more This article considers a parallel marginalisation of Education for All (EFA) as a holistic approach to education, and the civil society actors and coalitions who address sidelined Dakar goals of early childhood care and education, adult literacy, quality and non-formal education. I argue that in spite of over two decades of EFA rhetoric prizing national ownership and broad participation, education policy processes in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, including attempted sector-wide approaches, have incorporated only dominant financial donors and narrowed conceptions of state leadership. One corollary has been a focus on the Millennium Development primary education and gender goals. The 2009 inauguration of the Civil Society Education Fund, through the EFA Fast Track Initiative, offers potential for reversing the situation. I present evidence from critical discourse analysis (CDA) of EFA policy documentation and processes, including fieldwork and interviews with key policy actors, conducted from 2007-2009. I consider how language and intertextuality instantiate elements of dominant global discourses in national education policies, and demonstrate pervasive inequalities in policy participation.
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Book Chapters by Alex McCormick
Journal Articles by Alex McCormick
Conference Proceedings by Alex McCormick
Book Reviews by Alex McCormick
Research Reports by Alex McCormick
Papers by Alex McCormick