Chapter 15 International Education

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 2 Common Elements in Education Around the World Social-Class Link to School Success Multicultural Populations and Problems Teaching Approaches and Conditions –Frustrations with time pressure, conflicting demands, unsupportive administrators –Rewards from student relationships and accomplishments

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 3 Differences Among Educational Systems Around the World National Resources Devoted to Education Extent of Centralization Curriculum Content and Instructional Emphases Vocational versus Academic Education Enrollment in Higher Education Nonpublic Schools Achievement Levels

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 4 Elementary School Enrollment Worldwide Developed countries: nearly 100% enrollment. Less developed regions (most of Africa, the Arab states, much of Asia, Latin America): only about 80% enrollment A few underdeveloped nations (such as Liberia and Sudan): less than 40% enrollment

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 5 Higher Education Enrollment Worldwide Many developing nations enroll less than 20% of their young people in higher education. Most industrial nations provide postsecondary education for more than a third of their young adults. U.S. no longer in the lead in enrollment in higher education.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 6 Conclusions of International Researchers National scores in subjects such as reading, math, and science tend to be highly correlated: nations that score well in one subject area tend to score well in the other areas too. On average, U.S. students scored well below students in the highest-scoring nations. However, the U.S. has a much greater spread between low- and high-performing students, and the performance of high-achieving U.S. students is comparable to that of the highest performers in other nations.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 7 Social class is strongly correlated with test scores in nearly all nations. Instructional characteristics (class size, instruction time, teacher experience, amount of homework) generally are not correlated with test scores. Compared with other nations, U.S. curricula are “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Improving performance of U.S. students will require systemic change. Conclusions of International Researchers (cont.)

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.15 | 8 Problems in Developing Countries National poverty limits educational investments Multiple languages and multiethnic populations pose special challenges “Brain drain” fueled by a lack of high-paying jobs