Democratic Research in a Post/Modern World

This semester I am taking a research methods course that focuses on "Action Research" or "Community Based Participatory Action Research," among other psudeonyms. One book I have found particularly compelling regarding the functions of history, writing, and research and indigenous communities is Linda Tuhiwai Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. She writes,

• Under colonialism indigenous people shave struggled against a Western view of history and yet been complicit in that view. . . . 'Why then has revisiting history been a significant part of decolonization?' The answer, I suggest, lies in the intersection of indigenous approaches to the past, of the modernist history project itself and of the resistance strategies that have been employed. Our colonial experience traps us in the project of modernity. There can be no 'postmodern' for us until we have settled some business of the modern. . . . (Smith 33-34).

Smith's book is an important read for anyone undertaking research in the humanities. While it makes a note to remind readers that the book is intended for indigenous researchers, critics like Konai Thaman, Professor of Pacific Education and Culture, and Unesco Chair of Education, University of the South Pacific, have states, "A book like this is long overdue." In reading through for the first time, I couldn't agree more.

Globalization, Economics, and the University

For those interested in the effects of globalization on economies and institutions, you might find Rector, Universidad Austral, Valdivia, Chile, Manfred Max-Neef's conference speech, published as a chapter titled "ECONOMY, HUMANISM AND NEOLIBERALISM" in People's Participation: Challenges Ahead to be of interest. As an educator, it makes one inevitably wonder about the state of things like higher education institutions. If ever there was an exigency to defend the relevancy of the humanities and social sciences, we may have found it in the emergent dialogues about globalization.

2009 SAT results . . .

Some food for thought: An interesting article from USA Today regarding the disparity in avg. performances along racial, ethnic, gender, and social class lines as determined from graduating high school seniors' 2009 SAT scores.