Alden W. Craddock , IDEI Director

Alden W. Craddock joined the faculty of Bowling Green State University in January of 2003 as an Assistant Professor in social studies education in the College of Education and Human Development. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University where he served in a variety of capacities. Beginning in 1995, Craddock worked on the Mershon Center Civic Education Program and served as its Director from 1999 to 2002. During this time, the Civic Education Program completed successful long-term projects in Poland, Ukraine and South Africa and assisted with a variety of other international civic education efforts. These projects focused on curriculum development, teacher training, and applied research designed to strengthen education for democracy. Craddock recently received additional financial support from the US Department of State to continue civic education activities in Ukraine and is a lead partner in CIVITAS: An International Civic Education Exchange. He currently serves as Director of the School of Teaching and Learning’s International Democratic Education Institute at Bowling Green State University where he is also an Associate Professor. He has been Principal Investigator for nearly $2 million in external funding and assisted with an additional $1.5 million in civic education programs. He routinely is invited to national and international meetings and conferences as an expert in the field

Current Vita

John M Fischer

John M. Fischer is an associate professor in the School of Teaching and Learning. He works with social studies education, as well as courses in middle childhood and urban education. He holds a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in social studies teacher education with concentrations in international studies and technology in education. Since his arrival at BGSU he has worked to link issues of urban social studies with international civic education, specifically, issues of culture, democracy, and democratic teaching practices. He currently serves as the Project Director of the Ohio/Poland partnership of the International Civic Education Exchange. He has also served as Project Co-Director of the Education for Democracy Project, a curriculum development project with teachers in Kenya and South Africa. Finally, he serves as Site Director for a federally funded GEAR-UP project in East Toledo designed to restructure middle school education and increase student access to post-secondary education. At the center of his work, Fischer seeks to involve educators and members of various communities in dialog and deliberation around what it means to live in democratic societies.

Awad Ibrahim is an assistant professor at the School of Leadership and Policy Studies, Division of Educational Foundations and Inquiry, at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He is a doctoral graduate of the University of Toronto (Canada) and teaches and publishes in the areas of minority adolescents; racially and linguistically mediated identities; antiracism and critical multiculturalism; applied socio-linguistics; cultural studies; Hip-Hop; and educational foundations. His previous research was based in Canada, where he looked at a group of displaced continental African youth and their identity formation. He has published widely and explored the connections between race, language, globalization, culture and the politics of identity; the impact of Black popular culture on young people; and the dialogic relation between continental and diasporic African identities. His upcoming book, Becoming Black: Hip-Hop, Language, Culture and the Politics of Identity, to be published by the University of Toronto Press, deals with the process of becoming and their impacts on subject formation. His ongoing research is on African identity, youth culture/Hip-Hop, globalization, politics of engagement and the pedagogy of “null curriculum,” that is, how the off-school and indigenous knowledge can be used in classroom settings.

Nancy Patterson

Her work focuses on infusing global perspectives in social studies education through linking preservice/inservice teacher education with international curriculum development. Currently she serves as Co-Coordinator of "a Civics Mosaic", a Russian-US comparative curriculum development project.

Sharon Subreenduth is an Assistant Professor at the School of Teaching and Learning at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Currently she serves as Project Director with responsibility for the South Africa/Ohio/Kentucky partnership for the International Civic Education and the Civitas Africa Exchanges.Her civic education work attempts to locate the historical and contemporary context of curriculum production/practice within and outside South Africa and the US and incorporates transnational perspectives in theorizing about urban/marginalized schooling, curriculum knowledge, teacher education and pedagogical practice. Her research focuses on the interconnections between local and global knowledge, responsibility and accountability and addresses themes of cultural identity, race, power, gender, class and colonialism/imperialism. Subreenduth possesses a Bachelor of Pedagogics and a Bachelor of Education degrees from South Africa, a Masters degree in Advanced Social Studies and Global/Multicultural Education and a Ph. D in Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development with a focus in cultural studies from The Ohio State University.