(2009). The Status of Quality Assurance and Accreditation Systems within Higher Education Institutions in the Republic of Yemen. Quality in Higher Education, v15 n1 p51-60 Apr
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the status of quality assurance and accreditation systems within higher education institutions in Yemen. The paper initially describes the stages of development and changes that have occurred in the field of quality and accreditation in Yemeni higher education. The paper shows that no formal mechanisms for quality assurance and accreditation processes have been fully developed within higher education institutions in Yemen. In addition, the discussion reveals that the continuing efforts exerted by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MHESR) to establish the quality assurance and accreditation systems in higher education institutions have resulted in increased awareness among university officials, academic staff and administrators about the quality concepts, quality standards and quality assurance system. The paper concludes by exploring the lessons learned about the changes in quality and accreditation… [Direct]
(2014). On the (Im)Possibility of Democratic Citizenship Education in the Arab and Muslim World. Studies in Philosophy and Education, v33 n3 p343-351 May
The euphoria of the recent Arab Spring that was initiated in northern African countries such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and spilled over to Bahrain, Yemen and Syria brings into question as to whether democratic citizenship education or more pertinently, education for democratic citizenship can successfully be cultivated in most of the Arab and Muslim world. In reference to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates) in the Middle East, we argue that unless gender inequality, mostly instigated by religious-tribal and patriarchal perspectives, is eradicated, it would be impossible to engender any plausible conception of education for democratic citizenship in most of the Arab and Muslim world. Our thesis rests on an understanding that, firstly, education in the Arab and Muslim world is located in an impoverished view of education for Muslims; and secondly, that the notable absence of democratic citizenship is… [Direct]
(2017). The Morphosyntax of Pronominal Possessors and Diminutives in Mehri. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Georgetown University
This dissertation investigates the morphology and syntax of the noun phrase in Mehri, a Modern South Arabian (Semitic) language spoken in Yemen and Oman. Using the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM), I focus on pronominal possessors and diminutive constructions while addressing themes of syncretism, concord, contextual allomorphy and morphophonological wellformedness. These themes are tied together post-syntactically as the grammar, using a universal set of operations, manipulates the syntactic output to derive the observed empirical phenomena. Additionally, the theoretical analyses in this project are supported by novel data collected from the Mehri-speaking Yemeni immigrant community in Abu Dhabi. This fieldwork adds an empirical component to the dissertation, contributing to the modest body of descriptive literature on the Modern South Arabian languages. Pronominal possessors in Mehri consist of the possessed noun followed by a possessive suffix. For these constructions, I… [Direct]
(2013). Literacy Programmes with a Focus on Women to Reduce Gender Disparities: Case Studies from UNESCO Effective Literacy and Numeracy Practices Database (LitBase). www.unesco.org/uil/litbase/. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
Literacy is the foundation of lifelong learning and a crucial element in the universally recognised right to education. However, illiteracy continues to exist as a global challenge, and many individuals still lack the basic literacy skills that are needed to engage in further learning opportunities and for the economic and social development of their communities. In order to redress this persistent gender disparity, the need to empower women through the acquisition of literacy skills is gaining increasing recognition. A number of countries are already implementing effective literacy programmes that directly target women, including various E-9 countries (The E-9 is a forum of nine countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan), LIFE (UNESCO launched the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE, 2006-2015) as a collaborative effort to accelerate literacy action in thirty-six of the world's most challenged countries: Afghanistan,… [PDF]
(2013). Quality Assurance in Higher Education in 20 MENA Economies. Higher Education Management and Policy, v24 n2 p73-84 Nov
The last decades have witnessed an increased concern in higher education over accountability, quality and productivity, and a struggle to meet increasingly complex challenges. This is more so in Middle East and North African (MENA) economies that witnessed a large expansion as a result of a high social demand and massification policies adopted by governments in public institutions. These policies also allowed the private sector to expand to meet the increasing demand. As a consequence, higher education institutions were faced with serious challenges related to quality because the quantitative expansions took place at the expense of quality (UNESCO, 2010). Although 14 out of 20 MENA economies established national bodies for quality assurance and accreditation, quality issues are still challenging higher education institutions in the region. The author presents the achievements, challenges and issues in quality in higher education in the region. She also briefly presents several… [Direct]
(2007). Working Children and Educational Inclusion in Yemen. International Journal of Educational Development, v27 n5 p512-524 Sep
The Republic of Yemen has a very high number of working children, employed in a variety of occupations, ranging from street vending to guards on farms, and domestic labour. Including these children in formal education is a major challenge facing the Republic, which has one of the lowest rates of female participation in primary education in the world, and a very underdeveloped non-formal sector. In a context where poverty levels are very high, particularly in rural areas, families remain under significant financial pressure to rely on children's work to supplement, or indeed provide, their income and survival. This broader context challenges school-based efforts to include working children, particularly where initiatives aiming to improve the quality of the formal system are only just beginning to make an impact. This paper discusses key challenges of providing education to working children in Yemen, focusing on the work of the International Labour Organisation's International… [Direct]
(2011). Notes on Teaching 9/11. Footnotes. Volume 16, Number 09. Foreign Policy Research Institute
As today's high school students ranged in age from four to eight that fateful Tuesday morning, for many of them 9/11 is ancient history even though they live with the consequences of 9/11–namely, two wars (Afghanistan, Iraq), at least two low-level wars using special forces or drones (Yemen, Somalia), smaller-scale terrorist incidents (Fort Hood), thwarted or failed plots (the Times Square Bomber, the Underwear Bomber), and very intrusive procedures at the airport. So the first thing educators have to do is explain what exactly happened that day, then turn to why it happened, what their response was, and finally what are the consequences for today–for them. The author finds the best way to get started on this is to ask them what they already know; whether it is knowledge based on their own vague recollections or stories they've been told by families and friends, or something they've been taught in school. This paper offers some notes about \Teaching 9/11\ based on the author's own… [PDF]
(2008). Harsh Corporal Punishment of Yemeni Children: Occurrence, Type and Associations. Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal, v32 n8 p766-773 Aug
Objective: To examine the occurrence, type and associations of harsh corporal punishment in Yemen. Methods: Caregiver and teacher reports were obtained on 1,196 Yemeni 7-10-year olds obtained by systematic random sampling of children in the 1st to 4th grades of urban and rural schools. Caregivers (86% mothers) reported on disciplinary practices, socio-familial background, and child psychopathology. Teachers reported on school performance and child psychopathology. Results: More than half of the rural caregivers and about a quarter of the urban caregivers reported using harsh corporal punishment (hitting children with implements, tying them up, pinching them, or biting them). Harsh corporal punishment was significantly associated with poor school performance and both behavioral and emotional difficulties. The socio-familial factors that were independently associated with harsh corporal punishment were: rural area, male gender of the child, low maternal education, and large family… [Direct]
(2010). The How-to Guide for Student Councils. Academy for Educational Development
The Academy for Educational Development (AED), with funding from the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), supports the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Yemen in the establishment of the Student Councils Project. The program works with a number of schools in the Republic to establish student councils that are democratically elected according to the organizational by-laws of the student councils that were published by the Ministry of Education on October 6, 2008. As an additional means of providing the necessary technical support to schools, the Student Councils Project presents this how-to guide that explains in a simple way the mechanisms and methods that lead to the formation of effective student councils. It is hoped that students find the information contained herein helpful in their realization of the desired objectives in the establishment of student councils throughout schools in the Republic. [Funding for this paper was provided through the Department of State,… [PDF]
(2013). Developing Capacities for Teaching Responsible Science in the MENA Region: Refashioning Scientific Dialogue. National Academies Press
Spurred on by new discoveries and rapid technological advances, the capacity for life science research is expanding across the globe-and with it comes concerns about the unintended impacts of research on the physical and biological environment, human well-being, or the deliberate misuse of knowledge, tools, and techniques to cause harm. This report describes efforts to address dual use issues by developing institutes around the world that will help life sciences faculty learn to teach about the responsible conduct of science. Based on the successful National Academies Summer Institute for Undergraduate Biology Education and on previous NRC reports on effective methods for teaching about dual use issues, the report's authoring committee designed a general framework for the faculty institutes and chose the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region to test a prototype faculty institute. In September 2012, the first Institute was held in Aqaba, Jordan, bringing together 28 participants from… [Direct]
(2010). Syllable Structure in Arabic Varieties with a Focus on Superheavy Syllables. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University
This thesis has two broad goals. The first is to contribute to the study of Arabic phonology particularly syllable structure and syllabification. This will be achieved through examining phenomena related to syllable structure and syllabic weight such as syllabification, stress assignment, epenthesis, syncope, and sonority in three different varieties of Arabic: Classical Arabic, Meccan Arabic, and Hadhrami Arabic. There will be a focus on the analysis of superheavy syllables from an optimality-theoretical perspective. An original contribution in this regard is the introduction of new data from Hadhrami Arabic, a dialect spoken in Ghayl Bawazir, Hadhramawt, Southern Yemen, that has not been the subject of previous phonological analyses. The second goal of this thesis is to touch upon controversial matters in phonological theory such as the analysis of morphologically conditioned phonology and phonological opacity. It will be shown that some of the data presented in this study are best… [Direct]
(2006). The Linguistics of Loanwords in Hadrami Arabic. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, v9 n1 p75-93
The aim of this paper is to explore loanwords in Hadrami Arabic (Yemen). Most of these words, which are now diminishing due to the social and economical development in the region, reflect some stage of bilingualism when the Hadramis (natives of Hadramawt, Yemen) migrated to different parts of the world. The donor languages range from the tongues of the Indian subcontinent to the languages of the Malay archipelago, to Swahili and English. These loans are confined, as one would expect, to certain registers such as food or modern technology. The language contact resulted in different morphological and phonological processes and examples are given on how such loanwords became integrated in the dialect to the extent that some eminent folk-poets did not hesitate in using them in their poetry. In the appendix, a list of loanwords is given with their meanings and origins…. [Direct]
(2008). Living "Glocally" with Literacy Success in the Midwest. Theory Into Practice, v47 n1 p59-66 Jan
This article examines the concept of glocality as a way to better understand why immigrants, poor people, print-illiterate families, and boys are short-changed by schools that often operate under a deficit model or deprivation model in which students' economic, language, and gender status is the main determinant for school success. The author offers for discussion a set of themes that address (a) the challenges of recent immigration and resettlement in the Midwestern region of the United States, (b) the concept of glocality in connection to youth literacies and transnationalism, (c) the Midwest as a glocal context, and (d) the implications of success in relation to teachers and schools. Examples of glocality are drawn from research on Middle Eastern youth immigrant and refugee populations from Yemen and Iraq, as well as low socioeconomic American youth…. [Direct]
(2014). Educational Technology Use and Design for Improved Learning Opportunities. IGI Global
The rise of technology within educational settings has allowed for a substantial shift in the way in which educators teach learners of all ages. In order to implement these new learning tools, school administrators and teachers alike must seek new research outlining the latest innovations in the field. "Educational Technology Use and Design for Improved Learning Opportunities" presents broad coverage of topics pertaining to the development and use of technology both in and out of the classroom. Including research on technology integration in K-12, higher education, and adult learning, this publication is ideal for use by school administrators, academicians, and upper-level students seeking the most up-to-date tools and methodologies surrounding educational technology. Following a preface by the editor, the following chapters are contained in this book: (1) Implementing a Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure to Facilitate ICT in Education: Design and Evaluation (Yannis Siahos,… [Direct]
(2008). Muscles, Morals and Mind: Craft Apprenticeship and the Formation of Person. British Journal of Educational Studies, v56 n3 p245-271 Sep
The paper considers apprenticeship as a model of education that both teaches technical skills and provides the grounding for personal formation. The research presented is based on long-term anthropological fieldwork with minaret builders in Yemen, mud masons in Mali and fine-woodwork trainees in London. These case studies of on-site learning and practice support an expanded notion of knowledge that exceeds propositional thinking and language and centrally includes the body and skilled performance. Crafts–like sport, dance and other skilled physical activities–are largely communicated, understood and negotiated between practitioners without words, and learning is achieved through observation, mimesis and repeated exercise. The need for an interdisciplinary study of communication and understanding from the body is therefore underlined, and the paper suggests a way forward drawing on linguistic theory and recent neurological findings. It is argued that the validation and promotion of… [Direct]