Current Students
ADVISEES' ACTIVITIES

The students in the Program in Comparative and International Education (CIE) and International Educational Development (IED) engage in research appropriate to their concentration or discipline. In general, my advisees have selected one of the following concentrations for their M.A., Ed.M., or Ed.D. programs in the IED program: African Education; Curriculum and Teaching; Educational Policy; Health Education; International Humanitarian Issues; Language, Literacy, and Technology; or Peace Education. The Ph.D. students with whom I work usually specialize in one of the following disciplines in the CIE program: Anthropology, History, Political Science, or Sociology.

I have served on the Ed. D. and Ph.D. dissertation committees of students at Teachers College and at Columbia University with diverse research interests. The following list of dissertation titles gives an indication of the breadth of expertise among the students I have sponsored or advised as a committee member:

• "The (Im)Possibilities of Becoming: Hmong Youth and the Politics of Schooling and Development in Thailand" (Tracy Pilar Johnson, 2004)

• “Interdisciplinary Curriculum in Two Elementary Schools in Korea: An Investigation of the Meanings, Effects, and Implications of Curriculum Change” (Jangham Na, 2003)

• “Education, Gender and Religion: Catholic Women in Onitsha [Nigeria], 1885-1964” (Anene Ejikeme, 2002)

• “Language, Space, and Power: A Critical Ethnography of Dual Language Classrooms” (Samina Hadi-Tabassum, 2002)

• “Globalization and Educational Policy Borrowing: Mapping Outcomes Based Education in South Africa” (Carol Anne Spreen, 2001)

• “Tanzania’s Educational Language Policy: The Medium of Instruction at the Secondary Level” (Peter Mtesigwa, 2001)

• “From Symbols of Occupation to Symbols of Multiculturalism: Re-Conceptualizing Minority Education in Post-Soviet Latvia” (Iveta Silova, 2001)

Each year, I also supervise between five and ten M.A. and Ed.M. students working on their integrative projects. Some of the topics that my students have studied are as follows:

• "Biomedicine and Traditional Healing in West Africa: A Case Study of Buruli Ulcer Education" (Ned Garner, 2004)

• “Five Voices: A Case Study of Sierra Leonian Refugee Youth in a New York City High School” (Sarah Remignanti, 2002)

• “Project Proposal for Hope-Based Peace Education Efforts with Adolescent Refugees in the Former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes Region of Africa” (Andria Wisler, 2002)

• “Capacity-building with Women in Conflict: Advocacy through Technology” (Sara Poehlman-Doumbouya, 2002)

• “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights are Human Rights” (Yohei Ishiguro, 2002)

• “Conveying Confusion: A Bilingual Intercultural In-Service Program in the Highlands of Guatemala” (Philippe Hemmert, 2002)

Many of my students engage in professional internships during their program at Teachers College. The organizations where they work include the African Services Committee, the Jewish Guild for the Blind, the International Rescue Committee, and UNICEF. Students interested in internships with development organizations in New York City should speak with me about arranging an independent-study course based on the internship experience.

I encourage my advisees to publish their research when it is sufficiently developed and to seek funding for scholarships to cover the expenses associated with doctoral research. For example, one of my master’s students has had an article published in the leading journal in comparative education: Adjoa Florencia Jones de Almeida, “Unveiling the Mirror: Afro-Brazilian Identity and the Emergence of a Community School Movement,” Comparative Education Review 47 (2003): 41-63. In addition, several of my doctoral students have recently received funding for their research:

• Monisha Bajaj, Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Research Fellowship on African Youth in a Global Age. Research topic: Peace education and educational policy in Zambia

• Audrey Bryan, President's Grant for Student Research in Diversity, Dean's Grant for Student Research, and the Conflict Resolution Network Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Award. Research topic: Teaching in/tolerance in Irish schools

• Tonya Muro, Fulbright--IIE Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. Research topic: AIDS and 'Edutainment' in Tanzania.

• Janet Shriberg, President's Grant for Student Research in Diversity and Conflict Resolution Network Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Award. Research topic: Psychosocial health of internally-displaced teachers in Liberia.

• Aleesha Taylor, National Security Education Program. Research topic: The educational policymaking process in Tanzania

• Andria Wisler, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for Serbo-Croatian. Research topic: Conflict transformation in the Balkans

Other students in the CIE/IED program have recently received funding, including Fida Adely and Moira Wilkinson (Fulbright-IIE Dissertation Awards), Nancy Green (National Science Foundation Dissertation Fellowship), and Maud Seghers (Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Fellowship).

Four professors in our department, Lesley Bartlett, George Bond, Herve Varenne, and I, received a three-year (2002-2005) Spencer Research Training Grant to improve the quality of field research conducted by Ed.D. students. During the first year of the program (2002-03), we had four grant recipients: Monisha Bajaj, Aleesha Taylor, Laura Valdiviezo, and Moira Wilkinson. The Spencer-affiliated faculty worked closely with these students to help them develop pilot projects using qualitative research methods. Following their summer pilot studies, they all received funding to conduct their doctoral research in Zambia, Tanzania, Peru, and Brazil, respectively. The second year's Spencer recipients (2003-2004) were Tonya Muro (Tanzania), Mary Mendenhall (Argentina), and Janet Shriberg (Tanzania), who spent Summer 2004 at their respective field sites. In 2004-2005, we selected our final cohort of Spencer students: Peter Cronin, Paulo DaSilva, Krysty Krwvo, Portia Williams, and Zeena Zakharia.