Global Youth Leadership and Community Engagement (GYLCE)

10/14/2010

Global Youth Leadership and Community Engagement (GYLCE) is a six-unit cohort course that takes place over three semesters (spring, summer, and fall). Students take courses at the University of Minnesota (spring and fall) and at FLASCO University in Buenos Aires, Argentina (four week July/August summer session). This course is designed to introduce students to the theory and practice of youth-engagement and empowerment to address issues that affect their lives, their communities, and the broader global society. The course examines these issues through the lens of youth leadership whereby young people (ages 25 and under) are seen as having assets, talents, knowledge, creativity, and understanding that can be harnessed and applied to make positive advances in their lives and in society.  The course takes a global view by exploring some of the national youth engagement and youth leadership initiatives now underway in various countries. This course is designed for undergraduate students interested in the role of youth in promoting societal change and wish to deepen their understandings or the theories, research, and practices that undergird this work.

10/14/2010

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

● Understand and discuss the potential of youth to contribute to the advancement of society;

● Articulate various philosophies and theoretical frameworks that guide youth engagement research and practice, and how these conceptual pieces inform the development of youth community engagement programs

● Identify and apply best practices of community youth engagement and relate these practices to national and local contexts;

● Gain global perspectives on the role of youth engagement in community development initiatives in various countries; and

● Consider future directions for further study and research on youth engagement issues.

CSCI 8970 – Colloquium Series – Fall 2010 – Fifth Event

Database Support for Private and Personalized Location-based Services

Monday, October 11, 2010

Presenter:  Dr. Mohamed F. Mokbel

The fifth colloquium presentation of CSCI 8970 dealt with private and personalized location-based services. Dr. Mohamed F. Mokbel is currently working on a project that allows individuals to obtain services through the use of GPS technology without completely giving away their position or location. The Casper project does this by reducing the service-privacy trade off. While some individuals do not care about privacy and are interested only in obtaining a service (they obtain 100% service), other individuals are concerned about retaining various degrees of privacy, yet as privacy increases service tends to decrease. Casper’s location anonymizer diminishes this trade off by allowing users to switch their privacy requirements at any time. Cloaked in a wide location, an individual will receive four answers to their query, where some of which will be closer to various points within one’s cloaking area. Mokbel showed as a demonstration of this technology and how the Casper project has improved since 2007.

Answering various questions, Mokbel explained that Casper can change the user “identity” every time one submits a query. The more one moves, the more it is necessary to appear as a different person, since one increasingly separates oneself from the original group within which one was initially cloaked. They project recently expanded into possible applications for a P2P environment, a TinyCasper System (Sensornet), and it is continuously trying to improve its interface and its ability to provide services to users who wish to retain their privacy.

The second part of the colloquium dealt with the CareDB project. This project attempts to make user searching more specific. While we are currently able to find out where are the closest services, we have no way of knowing the quality of different businesses. CareDB takes those variables into account. The CareDB architecture includes user context/preference, environmental context and database context. Looking at different preference evaluation methods, the team decided to use Top-K, Skyline, K-Dom, K-Freq, and Top-K Dom in the project. The search system they designed allows the user to pick which evaluation method he/she wants to use. They then tested various approaches to make a system practical and scalable. Using a layered approached, which required only 200 lines of code, proved to provide bad or less accurate results. A built in approach provided very accurate results, but required 8000 lines of code! In comparison, the extensible approach, provided results almost as good as the built-in approach but only requiring 300 lines of code.

Currently the objectives of CareDB include providing better information through the search system as well as improving the FrexPref software prototype. Other projects Mokbel’s team is currently working on include: GeoSocialDB, FAST (A framework for Flash-Aware Search Trees), RecStore, Spatial Hadoop, Pantheon, and Predictive Queries over Spatio-temporal Streams. Attending the lecture was very informative as Dr. Mokbel is currently involved in very innovative work. One can only imagine the possibilities for his works applications. Currently Dr. Mokbel receives funding primarily from Microsoft and the NSF.

October 11, 2010

Chapter 18: Groupthink: The Desperate Drive for Consensus at Any Cost
Irving L. Janis (1971)  pp185-192

HEADINGS:
1. “Groupy” pp185 – 186
2. 1984 p186
3. Kill p186
4. Norms p186
5. Stress pp186-187
6. Symptoms pp187-190
7. Products p190
8. Support pp190 – 191
9. Pride p191
10. Remedies p191-192
11. How p192

The term groupthink was coined by Irving L. Janis. Through his research he developed a theory by which he accounted for individuals’ collective rationalization. To him, group think could have various negative effects such as the deterioration of mental efficiency, moral judgment, and reality testing. By thinking as a group, the group ignores alternative viewpoints. It is important for an organization to understand the problems that arise from groupthinking and reduce their influence by promoting critical evaluation, avoid stating clear preferences, outside experts should be encouraged to visit and challenge the views of the group members, group members should invest time in developing alternative scenarios. (Janis, 2005)

Chapter 47: Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony
John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan (1977)  pp505 -520

HEADINGS:
1.Prevailing Theories of Formal Structure p506-507
2. Institutional Sources of Formal Structure pp507 – 514
a. The Relation of Organizations to Their Institutional Environments pp509 – 510
b. The Origins of Rational Institutional Myths pp510 – 511
c. The Impact of Institutional Environments on Organizations pp511-514
3. Institutionalized Structures and Organizational Activities pp514-518
a. Types of Organization pp514-515
b. Structural Inconsistencies in Institutionalized Organizations pp515-516
c. Resolving Inconsistencies pp516 – 518
4. Summary and Research Implications pp518-519

Meyer and Rowan go through a series of examples in which myths have proven to influence institutions and their operating procedures. Overtime institutions develop rules that become rationalized by the organization. Rules help an institution gain legitimacy, stability and enhances its survival. In order to maintain legitimacy, institution sometimes becomes rigid as they try to reflect their funding myths rather than adapt to change. Loosely coupled parts of organizations are more likely to differentiate themselves from the rules institutionalized through organizational myths. The elaboration of rules in societies and states partly account for the increasing complexity of organizational structures. (Meyer & Rowan, 2005)

Works Cited

Janis, I. (2005). Groupthink: The Desperate Drive for Consensus at Any Cost. In J. Sharfritz, S. Ott, & Y. Suk Jang, Classics of Organization Theory (pp. 185-192). Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth.

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (2005). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. In J. Sharfritz, S. Ott, & Y. Suk Jang, Classics of Organization Theory (pp. 505-520). Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth.

Employing a meme framework, please evaluate the utility for your proposed term paper topic of four roles: the Hurdler; the Collaborator; the Director; and the Experience Architect. (Try to compose your evaluations within a total of two pages.)

Referencing your proposed term paper topic, please write an evaluation of the StoryTech material with respect to its utility in constructing cultural meanings, cultural simulations, cultural innovations, and cultural designs. (Try to compose your evaluation within a total of two pages.)

October 11, 2010

While I am interested in the growing use of mmorpgs and other computer games as an educational tool, I decided to change focus for the term paper topic in this class and develop a plan for implementing an innovative educational program in the Dominican Republic.

The Hurdler: Having a hurdler’s mentality allows an individual to transverse obstacles, and to continue moving despite complications. When looking for a new location in which to research, it is likely that various attempts to establish a connection will prove fruitless, yet perseverance allows an individual to increase his likelihood of success.

The Collaborator: Bringing individuals from different backgrounds together can greatly enrich a research project. By promoting the development of software that can be accessed either by mobile phones or computers with or without access to the internet at both private and public schools individuals of different social classes will have a stake in the success of the project. Promoting a common interest towards the success of the project can increase the national support for the initiative. To promote a rapid development within a country and deal with major problems such as corruption and broken institutions, the rift between social groups must be reduced. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” By listening to different interest groups and including them in the discussion the impact of the program could increase exponentially.

The Director: Rotating the master of ceremony and encouraging individuals to brainstorm can increase the rapport between individuals and their association and general interest in the success of the group’s projects. While there are various institutions dealing with ICT and innovation in the Dominican Republic, it is difficult to access to what degree they are communicating and brainstorming together. Proper direction from the government could increase their output and rate of innovation. In addition, it will also increase their collaboration.

Experience Architect: When trying to get everyone to admire a product and feel it is both innovative but endogenous what should be encouraged? To what degree should a country utilize elements of their past, and their culture when developing innovations? To what degree should they try to be avant garde, modern? Several of the concepts which were promoted by the Experience Architect persona appeared to be novel and sophisticated (Toilet Enclosed by Mirrors), yet Kelley also encourages organizations to focus on improving “trigger points”. With limited funds, what investment will bring about the greatest rate of return? What will most efficiently increase quality and satisfaction?

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StoryTech allows one to visualize large numbers of scenarios and possibilities. By using different innovations personae one can envision a particular scenario through different sets of glasses. StoryTech’s open ended scenarios allow one to frame the prompt to one’s personal interests and goals. Tom Kelley’s book enhances the experience by allowing the participant to analyze a prompt through a number of perspectives.

Please write a short evaluation of the meme material in Wikipedia, focusing on this question: How useful is the meme concept with respect to its utility in constructing cultural meanings, cultural simulations, cultural innovations, and cultural designs?

Employing a meme framework, please evaluate the utility for your developing career of four roles: the Devil’s Advocate; the Anthropologist; the Experimenter; and the Cross-Pollinator.

October 4, 2010

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According to Wikipedia, the word ‘meme’ originates from the Greek word μιμητισμός (/mɪmetɪsmos/) for “something imitated” (Wikipedia). The word functions as a unit of culture which is transmitted in society through imitable phenomena (speech, gestures, rituals, writing, etc…). Coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, a meme is comparable within human society to a gene within a human being.  Yet, one of the strongest criticisms of memes has been the ambiguity and differing sizes a meme can take. A meme can be a word, a phrase, an idea, a book, or any other unit of culture which is created and then transferred to others through imitation. As such a meme can be contained within another meme. Among the various uses of the concept, it allows an individual to visualize human culture as an ever changing structure where memes are constantly competing with one another for a space in which to replicate. Memes can spread both horizontally and vertically, and as they influence a greater number of individuals they increase their likelihood to carry on.

Yet, while the meme is an interesting concept, is a meme a significantly new idea or has cultural adaptation and replication been significantly addressed in other fields of study? Is there a need for this new term?  Other terms, including “culturgen” have failed to survive over the years. Will the concept of memes flourish, or will theories within fields such as of sociology, cultural anthropology, and social psychology dictate how the concept of culture, cultural adaptation, and cultural change is addressed within academic literature? Is the concept of memes itself a self-replicating meme?

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Devil’s Advocate:  As long as there is a strong sense of team work present, criticism can prove to be a very useful tool. However, if an individual is criticizing ideas by focusing on their weaknesses, even if there are only a few, and does so with the intention of discrediting the presenter, then that individual will likely have a detrimental effect in the innovative capacity of that organization. It is important to be honest and to provide one’s views and opinion but in a constructive manner.

Anthropologist: A good anthropologist will be aware of the cultural changes, and the new memes being replicated within an environment.  By carefully observing others and being aware of different memes they use, particularly memes used by competing organizations, clients, and prospective clients, an organization can adapt itself and increase its appeal to clients and prospects. Always being in the lookout can increase one’s ability to adapt and respond effectively to new memes and innovations.

Experimenter: As Tom Kelley contends, by bringing to the board more than one idea, it is more likely that you ideas and prototypes will be evaluated for their individual worth rather than as a reflection of others’ opinion of your general work. The criticism is also less likely to be perceived as personal. Memes are constantly being created, yet will these memes replicate themselves or perish? By having an array of ideas as well as constructive criticism, the organization will be in a better position to benefit from these innovations.

Cross-Pollinator:  Moving to the United States fundamentally altered my perceptions and broadened my perspective, this was not simply the result of learning a different language and having a higher standard of living, but more importantly it allowed me to perceive that there was more than one way to reach a goal, one way to interact with others, one way to see the world. Constantly travelling and anthropologically analyzing different contexts can allow for a cross-pollinator to build bridges between previously separated view points. As a cross pollinator, and a T-shaped individual, after obtaining a PhD, an individual can perhaps have both the credibility within their field of expertise, and a general knowledge of other fields of study to promote cultural innovations and the creation of new memes and cultural designs.

Problem Summary: How a principal’s limited leadership abilities within a highly coupled, culturally diverse organization led to an increased feeling of isolation, unappreciation, and alienation by a group of staff members, all of whom shared a common identity, by which they believed themselves to be grouped, secluded and ignored by the rest of the staff members from the administration’s decision making process. Poor leadership exacerbated cultural differences between staff members encouraging the development of an out-group, in-group dichotomy within the school.

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Hope Ranch Middle School, located in Ocala, Florida, opened its doors as a public charter middle school in 2008. The school promoted the increased use of technology in education, the importance of afterschool academic programs in math and science, and the correlation between hard work and academic success. This science and math academy was very successful during its initial year, including finishing the school year as an “A” school as a result of its FCAT scores. The school enrolled 80 students during its first year. The student body was demographically diverse. The school had a very successful chess, science and math team, finishing 3^rd in its regional science academy competition.

One of the most interesting aspects of the school was the composition of its staff. The staff was evenly composed of both men and women and international and domestic teachers. The social science and the humanities departments were comprised of domestic female instructors, while the natural science and math classes were taught by foreign male instructors. Many of the international teachers followed Islamic beliefs, while the majority of the domestic teachers and students observed Christian values. However, at first, these differences did not detrimentally influence the quality of the institution, instead, as a result of good leadership, they contributed to the student’s educational experience. The success of the school was credited to a large degree to its principal, who promoted a feeling of openness and camaraderie among the staff members. However, due to an administrative decision by the consortium of charter schools, the principal was transferred to another school within this charter school conglomerate.

This decision proved to be highly detrimental to the school. After the principal changed, the new administration’s actions appeared to favor one group of staff members over the other. In addition to the general staff meetings, the new principal would meet with the foreign male staff members in his office during after school hours, where they discussed school policies in a foreign language and did not inform the domestic teachers about the decisions taken during their meetings. The poor leadership exhibited by the principal led to a fragmentation of the staff and increased dissatisfaction. The conflictive and disruptive environment within the organization fostered a feeling of malaise and dissatisfaction within the student body, who openly discussed the conflict between staff members and the administration, as well as voicing their own dissatisfaction with staff members and the organization. The members of the staff who were part of the in-group did little to reduce the tension this division generated.

While the differences in the identities of the staff members, and the socio-cultural complexity of the institution could have promoted an environment of tolerance, understanding and cultural exchange, inadequate management exacerbated socio-cultural differences between the members of the staff and led to a breakdown of trust and communication. This contributed to a decrease in the quality of instruction, voiced dissatisfaction by some staff members in regards to their employment, and an increase in turnover rate among the isolated group of staff members.

In an increasingly cosmopolitan world, this study hopes to contribute to literature regarding the impact of leadership in culturally diverse environments, tightly coupled institutions and the importance of increasing communication within diverse environments. This study is another example of how poor leadership, and the development of an in-group, out-group dichotomy can detrimentally impact and threaten the sustainability of a recently established educational institution. The findings could be applied to many other organizations, but are particularly relevant for institutions that are tightly coupled and/or have hierarchical, centralized structures.

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Problem Summary: How a principal’s limited leadership abilities within a highly coupled, culturally diverse organization led to an increased feeling of isolation, unappreciation, and alienation by a group of staff members, all of whom shared a common identity, by which they believed themselves to be grouped, secluded and ignored by the rest of the staff members from the administration’s decision making process. Poor leadership exacerbated cultural differences between staff members encouraging the development of an out-group, in-group dichotomy within the school.

CSCI 8970 – Colloquium Series – Fall 2010 – Third Event

Probabilistic Models for Matrix Analysis

Monday, September 27, 2010

Dr. Banerjee’s presentation dealt with the new forms in which researchers are analysis matrixes, in particular, the use of Bayesian network analysis methods. Data matrixes had been able to process single label classifications, and optimized a problem to cluster similar values, yet the goal of Dr. Banerjee process is to not simply fit the data to the best model but analyze all possible straight lines. After evaluating different linear relationships, some of the lines will gain and lose weight according to how much they are used. Using gene expression analysis, it is possible to find some valuable data in the matrix. Through the use of a dirichlet distribution of all possible mixed memberships, and the use of plate diagrams, the use of a Bayesian co-clustering process permits for an accurate and rapid evaluation of data.

Through the use of variation inference, Dr. Banerjee demonstrated the results the process when analyzing movielens information and foodmart information. The datasets allowed for the comparison of RBC and RBC-FF to other matrix management systems including SVD. While SVD can be more accurate obtaining results, RBC obtained similar results at a faster rate. Dr. Banerjee’s team competed in the one million dollar Netflix challenge and their approach obtained significant praise. The tests showed how some information was better in providing taste predictions. When analyzing genre and cast, the matches were more helpful, while the use of plot data was detrimental. Other applications for this method of analysis includes: text classifications (discrimination between topics), cluster ensembles (combines multiple clusters of a dataset), and Bayesian kernel methods (nonlinear covariance among rows and columns).

In conclusion, unlike the other two presentations, this one was somewhat harder to follow, perhaps due to its mathematical complexity. The study was very interesting and demonstrated how important it is for constantly find different ways to look at data and find which evaluations methods will be most helpful. Another application which Dr. Banerjee shared with the audience included the use of multi label classifications, and their use in evaluating NASA aviation safety reports. Other applications for their matrixes analysis includes: covariance models – nonlinear, high-dimensional, online learning and tracking covariances over rows, as well as applications in climate science, finance and health care. Apart from the staff at the University of Minnesota, the project works in collaboration with the NSA and NASA.

Problem: How a principal’s limited leadership abilities within a highly coupled, culturally diverse organization led to an increased feeling of isolation, unappreciation, and alienation by a group of staff members, all of whom shared a common identity, by which they believed themselves to be grouped, secluded and ignored by the rest of the staff members from the administration’s decision making process.

September 27, 2010

While the differences in the identities of the staff members, and the socio-cultural complexity of the institution could have promoted an environment of tolerance, understanding and cultural exchange, inadequate management exacerbated socio-cultural differences between the members of the staff and led to a breakdown of trust and communication. This contributed to a decrease in the quality of instruction, voiced dissatisfaction by some staff members in regards to their employment, and an increase in turnover rate among the isolated group of staff members.

Hope Ranch Middle School is located in Ocala, Florida, and opened its doors as a public charter middle school in 2008. The school promoted the increased use of technology in education, the importance of afterschool academic programs in math and science, and the correlation between hard work and academic success. This science and math academy was very successful during its initial year, including finishing the school year as an A school as a result of its FCAT scores.

One of the most interesting aspects of the school was the composition of its staff members. The staff was evenly composed of both men and women and international and domestic teachers. The social science and the humanities departments were comprised of domestic female instructors, while the natural science and math classes were taught by foreign male instructors. Many of the international teachers followed Islamic beliefs, while the majority of the domestic teachers and students observed Christian values. However, at first, these differences did not detrimentally influence the quality of the institution, instead, as a result of good leadership, they contributed to the student’s educational experience. The success of the school was credited to a large degree to its principal, who promoted a feeling of openness and camaraderie among the staff members. However, due to an administrative decision by the consortium of charter schools, the principal was transferred to another school within this charter school conglomerate.

This decision proved to be highly detrimental to the school. After the principal changed, the new administration’s actions appeared to favor one group of staff members over the other. In addition to the general staff meetings, the new principal would meet with the foreign male staff members in his office during after school hours, where they discussed school policies in a foreign language and did not inform the domestic teachers about the decisions taken during their meetings. The poor leadership exhibited by the principal led to a fragmentation of the staff and increased dissatisfaction.

In an increasingly cosmopolitan world, this study hopes to contribute to literature regarding the impact of leadership in culturally diverse environments, tightly coupled institutions and the importance of increasing communication within diverse environments. This study is another example of how poor leadership can detrimentally impact and threaten the sustainability of a recently established educational institution. The findings could be applied to many other organizations, but are particularly relevant for institutions that are tightly coupled and/or have hierarchical, centralized structures.

**It is September 2015. You are a memetic designer whose task is to introduce culture change to the national education system of Tanzania. You are funded by UNESCO..

Your goal is to assist the leadership of the education system in its attempt to leapfrog hundreds of years of educational tradition, effectively moving from 12th-14th Century learning to advanced 21st Century learning, including routine knowledge production and innovation by students at all levels.

You are using the tools of the Anthropologist and the Experimenter. Indicate how you put these tools to use in your work, including how you solve problems that present themselves. Pay special attention to how simulations (including ‘serious’ games, if you so choose) play a role in your work.**

September 27, 2010

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Give or take, Homo sapiens have been around the earth for 200,000 to 100,000 years, yet in the past 100 years our level of innovation and the extent of generational and intergenerational change has increased exponentially. We have created items and innovations, and controlled nature to a degree that was reserved only to the Gods before us.

There has been rapid change, and great part of this change has been positive. However, during these years of rapid growth, humanity has also committed its most extensive atrocities. In addition, every day, we experience a greater separation from the general, cumulative human culture, as we are further unable to know, comprehend and retain a larger share of humanity’s collective data. This feeling of alienation can be dangerous. It can lead individuals to feel depressed, alienated, creating fear and leading some to return to what they know and then promote their (more manageable) traditional religious world views.

Promoting change and innovation can help individuals create the tools that will help to radically transform society. Yet, rapid change increases chaos, which in the past resulted in the establishment of reigns of terror and regressive leaps.

As an experimenter, one of my concerns would be to make sure that the change that is developed is not done without a comprehensive understanding of the context in which it will be promoted. Development can bring about a growth in economic production and increased material wealth, yet for thousands of years some traditional cultures flourished. At least according to their own perception, their society had been stable.

As such, the introduction of new ideas should happen only to the degree that they are willing to incorporate these ideas into their society. After all, can we truly say that our society is better today than it was yesterday? Perhaps we can, but then is modern society in the United States today better in every aspect than society in Tanzania, including by measurements of carbon emissions and the generation of solid waste or the production of toxic materials. If anything, their society proved to be sustainable.

As such, Tanzania’s goal should not be to emulate the west, or the east (China, India), or a different point of view, rather their goal would be develop a formula for their own development and to improve their own culture only as they see fit. Even if an intrusion to their society is done with the best intentions, the reaction to those trying to change the status quo can generate a mobilization against “modernizing” or development oriented policies. Change should be endogenous and external organizations should only guide them by providing them the support and guidance to implement an effective project to develop their country in their own terms.

As an anthropologist, I would train a group of individuals to assess what are the most urgent needs in their communities and how certain changes would be received by the community. What do they consider to be the problem? Will the change be welcomed? In addition, various projects should be pursued simultaneously, including a control group. The control group could possibly be composed of the parents who most strongly believe in children’s adherence to traditional values. The project would be extensively evaluated every six months, and minor modifications will take place through the year. Various schools will implement different changes, from increased use of ICT, to greater emphasis in service learning, peace education, and teacher-led education, among others. Micro credits would be available for new schools to be established and the system would promote a degree of openness to innovation reminiscent of the United States charter school movement.

Among some of the innovations which I would be particularly interested in promoting is to insure that they have an increased access to information through the internet. OpenCourseWare materials would include subtitles in their local language and the government would increase its budget devoted to education, to promote, among other things, for every child to have a laptop. Sugata Mitra’s “Holes in the Wall” would be a way in which communities could access information. They could learn whatever they wanted to learn. Enough augmented reality devices (developed for rough terrains) would be distributed to provide access to information to those wishing to have it. By then Google translate may be able to translate in the community’s language without major glitches. Modern society has accumulated, through its research and development, extensive libraries filled with valuable information containing western society’s memes. Providing access to the people of Tanzania and allowing them to develop their own schools and promote various types of innovations would be a way in which they could adapt the knowledge generated by other cultures into their own without feeling forced to “modernize” or “develop”.

They would also have access to advanced simulations through laptops, the “holes in the wall”, and other augmented reality devices, where individuals would be able to learn about other parts of the world and professions by experiencing them through a virtual environment. Using multi-modal learning, abstract concepts and descriptions could be further explained through the appropriate use of media such as pictures, audio clips and video. While information has been increasingly made accessible online, some countries have limited access to the internet and information in their own language. In addition, a large amount of valuable information has not been presented in a way that it can be attractive to the average viewer. A large portion of the population continues to be uninterested in thinking critically and innovating. This can be encouraged by promoting reasoning techniques such as the “Socratic method”, but they can also be further stimulated by making usually dry information more appealing.

Focal Country Essay – The Dominican Republic

September 23, 2010

The Dominican Republic was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, becoming an important colony of the Spanish government and a springboard for Spanish expeditions to colonize the rest of the Americas. Economically, the country has traditionally been an exporter of agricultural products such as sugar, coffee and tobacco. However, in recent years there has been a growth in the service industry, including tourism, which now accounts for over 66% of its GDP. This change has been beneficial to the Dominican Republic’s economy which has grown steadily since the 1980s, having an average economic growth rate of 5.43% from 2007 to 2009 and a Per Capita GDP of $8,300 (CIA, 2010). Neo-liberalism and free trade policies have led to the improvement of aggregate economic statistics for most Latin America countries including the Dominican Republic. Through tariff reduction policies and the positive effects of globalization including the increased exchange of ideas and products, most countries may in the future obtain a level of economic development only previously achievable by a few western states (Sachs, 2005).

Yet, the vestiges of colonization, including the poor educational system developed by European colonists within most of their colonies, has made increasing economic prosperity and reducing inequality a difficult challenge for most colonies to overcome. While the country’s economy has improved in recent years, its low educational achievements by world standards can be linked to its history as a resource extraction colony. The Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti had in place a plantation system in which only a small number of whites, constantly fearful of a revolt, controlled a much larger black slave population, who were constantly monitored and whose education was not encouraged (Moya Pons, 1992). As argued by Rodney (1972), the colonizers were fearful of educating slaves as it would make them more difficult to control.

Colonization in Latin America was sustained primarily through the use of force and fear. Various authors, including McMichael (2004), have argued that colonization in Latin America was a “colonization of settlement, which often eliminate indigenous people” (p. 4). Similarly, Frank Moya Pons argues that to a great extent in the Dominican Republic, the native population was annihilated during colonization. While there may have been up to 400,000 “taino” natives when Columbus discovered Hispaniola, by 1508 only 60,000 remained (Moya Pons, 1992). The Indian population was further reduced to 11,000 by 1517 and only 3,000 by 1519 (p. 29). Most of the natives died from epidemics as well as from the harsh treatment to which they were subjected by the Spanish colonists.

To continue the economic production and “development” of the island, the Spanish crown quickly began to import slaves from Africa and organized the island’s economy along various agricultural plantations. According to local documents, by 1546, black slaves accounted to around 12,000 individuals and which were controlled by a white population of only 5,000 (p. 34). During the colonial period, there was limited internal trade as a result of lack of roads and low levels of production. The main trading partners were the colonial powers, more specifically Spain, and the country experienced high military expenditures as various colonial powers attacked and attempted to control the island (OECD, 2008).

Today, 84% of the population considers themselves mixed or of African ancestry (CIA, 2010). As such, part of the “achievement gap,” is undoubtedly linked to the purposeful perpetuation of ignorance among the black and taino populations during the colonial era. The Dominican Republic attempted to address this and other problems through the General Education Law of 1953, and while there were noticeable improvements, the country continues to lag behind in educational achievements in comparison to other Latin American countries (Murray, 2005).

Recent demographic trends as well as a transition to a service economy have increased the challenges. The rapid urbanization of the Dominican Republic and the growth of its population contributed to government difficulties in developing the human resources needed to deal with the demands for new skills from the changing economy (OECD, 2008). In 1950, the Dominican Republic had a population of 2.134 million inhabitants of which 23.8% were urban dwellers. In 2010, according to CEPAL, the population of the Dominican Republic is calculated to be at 10.169 million inhabitants with 68.54% of the people living in urban areas (CEPAL, 2010).

In order to increase the quality and access to primary and secondary education in the country, a number of reforms have been implemented to develop a more complex and dynamic educational system (OECD, 2008, p. 92). In 1992, the country approved a major education reform through a 10 Year Plan (Plan Decenal) which promoted: 1) modernizing the educational structure, 2) the introduction of new technologies, 3) the promotion of literacy, 4) strengthening vocational education, 5) increased investment in education and 6) increasing community involvement (p. 104). [E1] Implicit in these reforms is the belief that integration into the world economy will benefit the Dominican Republic and contribute to its development. This is more consistent with the views of many modernization theorists than theories of development such as Dependency Theory, which are far more critical of the way in which the international economy and globalization functions and how developing countries are integrated into systems of international trade.

Plan Decenal (1992-2002) was seen as a possible solution to most of the country’s educational problems and as the greatest educational reform since 1953. It has since functioned as the basis for a number of important subsequent educational reforms, most notably in 1997 and, more recently, in the creation of the second Plan Decenal (2006-2016), which addressed some of the problems following the implementation of the Plan Decenal (Gajardo, 2008). Plan Decenal reforms yielded various positive results. Among them, the literacy rate increased steadily from 60.8% in 1980 to 70% in 1990, 78.5% in 2000, and 81.6% in 2008 (World Bank, 2010). Through Plan Decenal, the number of children between 6 and 17 that were attending school increased from 71.3% in 1991 to 86.4% in 2002 (p. 10).

However, despite moderate success in some areas, several indicators remain below expectations. By 2006, the average enrollment rate for Latin America and the Caribbean at secondary school was 87.2%, while in the Dominican Republic enrollment was only at 58.7%. The literacy rate remains below the world average of 88.2% and total public spending on education (% of GDP) is low, at a level of 2.2% during 2007, compared to a world average of 4.6% in 2006 (World Bank, 2010). In addition, according to a 2001 study by PREALC, urban children in the Dominican Republic performed the worst in an assessment of education of all of Latin America, and rural children performed only better than children in Bolivia and Peru, where Spanish is to many children a second language (p. 23).

Private education has increasingly grown in the Dominican Republic as a result of the inefficiencies of the public system. While there were only 24 private schools in 1961, there were at least 2,500 by the year 2000 (Murray, 2005). In the aggregate, Plan Decenal resulted in another limited attempt to solve the educational problems facing the state, partly as the result of the high levels of partisanship within the government administration and conflicts with the teacher’s union (Murray, 2005). According the Murray (2005), the educational system has been detrimentally impacted by an “obsessive” centralization, periodic teacher strikes, violation of the law by educators, and a high level of clientelism within the education ministry. Unless some of issues problems are addressed, the impact of future reforms may be also be limited.

Bibliography

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Gajardo, M. (2008). Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Dominican Republic – Country Case Study. New York: UNESCO.

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