GLOBAL URBAN EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM IN PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL
August 13-26, 2008
Oakland University’s Global Urban Education Exchange Program in Brazil affords teachers, administrators, researchers, and policy makers the opportunity to directly engage with important educational innovations in Porto Alegre’s public school programs for the urban poor. Porto Alegre, a large urban center in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, has been receiving worldwide attention for its successes in K-8 educational reform (see, for example, Gandin & Apple in The Subaltern Speak, 2003). Participants in this 2-week intensive program receive 4 university credits while engaging in a daily combination of traditional classroom study and guided field visits to Porto Alegre’s Citizen Schools and other educationally significant settings in the region. The program is housed on the campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, and instruction will be provided in English both by Oakland University and native faculty at the Federal University. A typical program day will consist of morning classroom meetings from 9:30 to 11:45 on the university campus and guided field visits with faculty and an interpreter from 2:00 to 4:15 in the afternoon. There will be readings and small assignments to complete outside of these meeting times related to the themes of the course and the site visits.
Students will enroll in and receive credit for Educational Studies 620 (grad) or 520 (advanced undergrad): Social Theories of Education in Cross-national Contexts for the Summer 2008 semester. A preparatory orientation meeting will be held on the Oakland University campus in early August (online for those outside the region). Classes will meet in Porto Alegre beginning the morning of Wednesday, August 13, and ending the afternoon of Tuesday, August 26. No classes will be held on Saturdays and Sundays. Participants will complete a final project for the course, which they will complete and make available to classmates and faculty online upon returning to North America.
Oakland University faculty member Dr. Thomas C. Pedroni will lead class meetings on the university campus in Brazil. Dr. Pedroni, assistant professor of educational policy studies and social studies education at Oakland, has published two books as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters on the educational concerns of urban communities of color in the United States. Before becoming a faculty member he taught social studies in urban schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Dr. Pedroni and Dr. Luis Armando Gandin will lead field visits. Dr. Gandin is Professor of Sociology of Education at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. He is a founding editor of the journal Currículo sem Fronteiras (Curriculum without Borders) and has published six books as well as numerous book chapters and scholarly articles in Brazil, Portugal, Australia, the UK, and the U.S. One of his books, Temas para um Projeto Político-Pedagógico, is currently in its 8th edition and is considered to be among the most influential texts on the topic of participatory planning in education. He is considered to be one of the world’s foremost experts on educational reform and participatory governance in Porto Alegre. Program details are available at www.oakland.edu/brazil.