Professor recognized by President Bush

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Dr. Patricia Kubow, an assistant professor of educational foundations and inquiry at Bowling Green State University, was chosen to be recognized at the White House on Oct. 11 for her advocacy of democratic education in countries in which democracy is a new concept.

Unfortunately, Kubow could not be there to meet President Bush because, true to form, she is currently promoting democratic education in yet another region of the globe: South Africa and Kenya.

President Bush was to recognize a group of fewer than 100 educators, business people and others for their contributions to humanitarian and reconstruction efforts abroad. The Rose Garden ceremony was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the announcement of the establishment of America’s Fund for Afghan Children.

Kubow has a strong commitment to the role of education in creating democratic societies. Her current project, “Education for Democracy: Strengthening Civic Education through Curriculum Development and Cultural Exchange in Kenya, South Africa, and the United States,” is funded by a $230,000 U.S. State Department grant. She and her project co-director, Dr. John Fischer, an assistant professor in the Division of Teaching and Learning, will be in Africa until Friday (Oct.18) for the initial site visits to the schools with which they will work.

Focusing on middle-school-age children, the project seeks to support the development of curricular materials to acquaint students with democratic concepts and practices. Its second aim is to foster the professional development and democratic leadership of educators in their respective positions in Kenya, South Africa and the United States.

Before her work in Africa, Kubow participated in a major project in countries formerly part of the Soviet bloc. In 1999, she collaborated with faculty from the University of Toledo and Lourdes College; local educators and students in grades 5-8, and teachers and students in Hungary and Ukraine to examine the role of citizens in their societies, and how the classroom can teach students the skills they will need to help shape the future.

Kubow was chosen to participate in the Eastern Europe project because of her extensive background in the study of democratic education. She coordinated a five-year, nine-nation project examining projections of global policy trends over the next 25 years and the role of education in the development of the necessary accompanying citizenship characteristics. Her focus was the preparation of pre-service (student) teachers, who will be responsible for helping to develop globally minded citizens over the next two decades.

In 2001, in recognition of her work, she received the Distinguished Research in Teacher Education Award from the Association of Teacher Educators. Also that year, she gave a presentation on global trends in higher education at the first international conference on the globalization of higher education in Cape Town, South Africa.

She returned to South Africa this summer on a Fulbright-Hayes Seminar Abroad program to attend a conference titled “South Africa: Indigenous Knowledge Bases, An Invaluable National Resource.” The project took her across the country with 14 other educators in an exploration of how indigenous knowledge can be incorporated into K-12 and higher education.

Kubow earned a doctorate with an emphasis in comparative and international development education from the University of Minnesota in 1996. She won the Outstanding Dissertation Award in teaching and teacher education from the American Educational Research Association in 1998.


(Posted October 30, 2002)