Twenty-Fifth News Update
RUTH RIKOWSKI
News Update No.25
At last, I have completed the second and final portfolio for my teaching certificate. I wanted to send out an Update post-haste after its completion (as another 2 months have already passed since the last one), so I am circulating one now, with a select few, but very important items. More will follow in due course.
The summer is proving to be a real ‘mixed bag’ for us. It started out with Glenn and I going to Rhodes, which was brilliant (see below); only shortly to be followed on our return by Glenn slipping on a wet floor in a chicken take-away, resulting in him getting 2 fractures in his left elbow! You can imagine how painful and distressful that has been!
1. GLENN RIKOWSKI AND RUTH RIKOWSKI PRESENTING PAPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN, RHODES, GREECE
So, anyway, our summer break started off very wonderfully indeed, with Glenn and I flying out to Rhodes, one of the lovely Greek islands, of course. We were invited to speak at the University of the Aegean in Rhodes, by Dr. Dionyssios Gouvias, who is a Lecturer in Education Policy in the Department of Pre-School Education and Educational Design at the University there.
We spoke and facilitated 2 summer workshops (3 hours each), on 4th July 2008 for the new MA program at the university. The Post-Graduate Program is entitled ‘Gender and New Educational and Employment Environments in the Information Age’. For more information about this, see:
RUTH RIKOWSKI
News Update No.25
At last, I have completed the second and final portfolio for my teaching certificate. I wanted to send out an Update post-haste after its completion (as another 2 months have already passed since the last one), so I am circulating one now, with a select few, but very important items. More will follow in due course.
The summer is proving to be a real ‘mixed bag’ for us. It started out with Glenn and I going to Rhodes, which was brilliant (see below); only shortly to be followed on our return by Glenn slipping on a wet floor in a chicken take-away, resulting in him getting 2 fractures in his left elbow! You can imagine how painful and distressful that has been!
1. GLENN RIKOWSKI AND RUTH RIKOWSKI PRESENTING PAPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN, RHODES, GREECE
So, anyway, our summer break started off very wonderfully indeed, with Glenn and I flying out to Rhodes, one of the lovely Greek islands, of course. We were invited to speak at the University of the Aegean in Rhodes, by Dr. Dionyssios Gouvias, who is a Lecturer in Education Policy in the Department of Pre-School Education and Educational Design at the University there.
We spoke and facilitated 2 summer workshops (3 hours each), on 4th July 2008 for the new MA program at the university. The Post-Graduate Program is entitled ‘Gender and New Educational and Employment Environments in the Information Age’. For more information about this, see:
There were 4 main themes on the programme. Glenn presented his paper and facilitated the workshop ‘Special Issues on Gender and Employment – new forms of employment’ and I presented a paper and facilitated the workshop ‘Special Issues on Gender and New Technologies’. The other themes on the program were ‘Special Issues on Gender and Education – New Forms of Education’ and ‘Special Issues in Research Methodology’.
My paper was based on a subject that I have a lot of work experience in, as well as some published works; this is on the topic of gender and information technology. My talk at the University of the Aegean was actually based on a forthcoming article of mine, entitled:
‘Computers/Information Technology, the information profession and the gender divide: where are we going?’ This is to be published in
Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2008. See:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/6/issue6_4.asp
This article builds on my previous work on this topic - see my Updates 21 and 23, for information about my system/IT work experience in libraries. An article of mine entitled ‘Females, Computers and Libraries’ was published in the July/August 2003 issue of Managing Information and I wrote a chapter for the book ‘Library Management Trends and Opportunities’, edited by R. Raina, D. Gupta and R. Gaur (New Delhi, Excel Books, 2005), about implementing the Unicorn Library Management Computer System at Clifford Chance, a large international law company.
The magazine Information Age (see www.informationage.com) has also been taking a lively interest in this topic of late. In particular, it published a very interesting article by Laurie Penny in the May 2008 issue, entitled ‘Gender Gap’ (pp. 23-26). Laurie Penny began by saying “Where have all the women gone? Despite a persistent IT skills shortage in the UK and regardless of concerted efforts by technology companies, support networks and the UK government, the proportion of female employees in the UK’s IT sector keeps falling.” (p. 23). Information Age has also been taking an active interest in my work in this area (but more about that on another occasion). The gender inequality in I.T. is, indeed, still very significant, which should be a real cause for concern, as we all become more and more embroiled in this I.T. age.
Meanwhile, Glenn Rikowski wrote a paper specifically for the Rhodes workshop, which he then posted on our website. The paper is entitled ‘Against What we are Worth’ - see http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Against%20What%20We%20Are%20Worth.
This is a topic that Glenn and I first discussed and intended to write a paper on together, some 10 years ago now. But there never seemed to be the time – hopefully, there will be some time in the future to develop this further! The question that Glenn explored in this paper is ‘Why is it that men are paid more than women?’ He considered the fact that women are now doing much better in education than men overall, and yet, when it comes to the job market, they still lag behind, and overall earn a lot less than men. So, why does this apparent anomaly exist? This can be explained, objectively, by the fact that men have more value embedded in them than women, we would argue. This sounds quite horrific.
But the point it that the labour power within men is nurtured and developed to a far greater extent than it is in women, on the whole - particularly as women usually take ‘time out’ from labouring, and focus on nurturing the next lot of labour power, i.e. their children, rather than nurturing and developing their own labour power so much. Men tend to be at work longer as well, attend more training courses etc, and thus acquire more skills than women, over time. Interestingly, there is an article on this topic in The Guardian (6th August 2008) by John Carvel, reporting on research from Cambridge university about the difficulties that working women face, and how women still end up doing much more of the caring and the housework than men (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/06/equality.gender). And so men become ‘worth’ more than women, in this way, in the job market in capitalism. This is because this value is turned into profit (as I have explained in much of my published material) and it is this process that sustains capitalism. This is not a pleasant fact to accept, but is one worth thinking further about, I would suggest.
The workshops consisted of mature students; the students asked many questions, contributed a lot and also spoke very good English (which was just as well, because we could not speak a word of Greek!). Glenn and I certainly enjoyed facilitating the two workshops with them.
After giving our talks, we had time to look around the island, particularly the Ancient City, which we loved; do lots of swimming. and have a relaxing, enjoyable and effectively free holiday, (preparing and giving the papers was obviously work, but enjoyable work!). Michael Peters and Tina Besley were also there, giving talks and facilitating workshops, so we were also able to meet up with them, and that was very nice.
Finally, Chyrssi Vitsilaki, the Director of Postgraduate Programme and Vice-Rector of Finance & Development, at the University of the Aegean, made us very welcome, took us all out for dinner one evening, and invited us back next year. We enthusiastically accepted, of course! So, many, many thanks Dionyssios for inviting us.
2. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT DIONYSSIOS GOUVIAS
In this section, I want to provide some more information about Dionyssios Gouvias, specifically. Dionyssios is doing some very important work, and in particular he demonstrates some of the ways in which the neo-liberal agenda is starting to take a hold. He explained to Glenn and I, for example, that university education is currently largely free for those studying for their first degrees, in Greece (this includes fees, accommodation, books etc). However, Greece looks to Britain as a beacon when it comes to education. So Greece is now following the British trend, and money and targets are starting to drive the agenda.
We first met Dionyssios at a Marxism and Education: renewing dialogues (MERD) seminar, that was held at the Institute of Education, University of London on 3rd May 2006 – this was MERD VIII on the theme ‘Universities plc?’ Dionyssios spoke at this MERD, and in time the plan is that his paper will be published in one of the books in the Palgrave Macmillan series. For more information about MERD VIII see:
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=events&sub=MERD
The workshops consisted of mature students; the students asked many questions, contributed a lot and also spoke very good English (which was just as well, because we could not speak a word of Greek!). Glenn and I certainly enjoyed facilitating the two workshops with them.
After giving our talks, we had time to look around the island, particularly the Ancient City, which we loved; do lots of swimming. and have a relaxing, enjoyable and effectively free holiday, (preparing and giving the papers was obviously work, but enjoyable work!). Michael Peters and Tina Besley were also there, giving talks and facilitating workshops, so we were also able to meet up with them, and that was very nice.
Finally, Chyrssi Vitsilaki, the Director of Postgraduate Programme and Vice-Rector of Finance & Development, at the University of the Aegean, made us very welcome, took us all out for dinner one evening, and invited us back next year. We enthusiastically accepted, of course! So, many, many thanks Dionyssios for inviting us.
2. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT DIONYSSIOS GOUVIAS
In this section, I want to provide some more information about Dionyssios Gouvias, specifically. Dionyssios is doing some very important work, and in particular he demonstrates some of the ways in which the neo-liberal agenda is starting to take a hold. He explained to Glenn and I, for example, that university education is currently largely free for those studying for their first degrees, in Greece (this includes fees, accommodation, books etc). However, Greece looks to Britain as a beacon when it comes to education. So Greece is now following the British trend, and money and targets are starting to drive the agenda.
We first met Dionyssios at a Marxism and Education: renewing dialogues (MERD) seminar, that was held at the Institute of Education, University of London on 3rd May 2006 – this was MERD VIII on the theme ‘Universities plc?’ Dionyssios spoke at this MERD, and in time the plan is that his paper will be published in one of the books in the Palgrave Macmillan series. For more information about MERD VIII see:
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=events&sub=MERD
Leading on from MERD VIII, at my suggestion, Dionyssios wrote an article for Information for Social Change. The details are:
‘Pay as you Learn!’: The ‘Learning Society’ Rhetoric in the EU-Sponsored Research Projects’, in Information for Social Change, Guest Edited by Glenn Rikowski, Summer 2006, No. 23
http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC23/B5%20Dionyssios%20Gouvias.pdf
Dionyssios also has a number of other published articles. These include:
‘Student employment and parental influences on educational and occupational aspirations of Greek adolescents’ by Dionyssios Gouvias and C. Vitsilakis-Soroniatis, in Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 18, No. 4, Dec 2005, pp. 421-449
‘The ‘Response’ of the Greek State to Global Trends of Educational Policy Making’, (pp. 25-38), in European Educational Policy Research Journal (another Symposium journal) Vol. 6, No. 1, 2007 http://www.wwwords.co.uk/eerj/content/pdfs/6/issue6_1.asp#3
‘The ‘Regulatory’ State and the Use of ‘Independent’ Agencies as Legitimasing Mechanisms of Educational Reform’, in Research in Comparative and International Education, (another Symposium journal), Vol. 2, No. 4, 2007
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/rcie/content/pdfs/2/issue2_4.asp#3
Dionyssios Gouvias teaches primary and pre-primary schoolteachers in the eastern and southern Aegean region. He oversaw a nationwide research project on educational and occupational aspirations of students in technical and vocational schools. He has also given papers at many Educational and Sociological Conferences at Greece and abroad. During his post-graduate studies he took part in various research projects concerning socio-economic transformations and recent demographic developments and links between school and work in Greece.
3. POLICY FUTURES IN EDUCATION USAGE STATISTICS CHARTS – RIKOWSKI’S NO. 1 AND NO. 2!
We are very pleased and excited to announce that Glenn and myself are suddenly No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in the Policy Futures in Education (PFIE) charts. What does this mean, one might well ask? Well, PFIE has a usage statistics page for the most popular articles. This lists the articles in the journal in rank order by the number of downloads for each article (which are in PDF format). See: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/stats/popular.asp?j=pfie&view=total.
Glenn Rikowski with his article
‘Marx and the Education of the Future’, which was published in PFIE in 2004, Vol 2, No. 3 is currently No. 1 in this chart, with 4752 total downloads so far this year (as of 6th August 2008). His article can be viewed at:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=2&issue=3&year=2004&article=10_Rikowski_PFEO_2_3-4_web&id=195.93.21.71
Ruth Rikowski with her article, ‘Value – the Life Blood of Capitalism: Knowledge is the Current Key’, which was published in PFIE in 2003, Vol. 1, No. 1 (in the very first issue of PFIE, in fact), is No. 2 in this chart, with 4028 total downloads so far this year (as of 6th August 2008). My article can be viewed at:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=1&issue=1&year=2003&article=9_Rikowski_PFIE_1_1&id=195.93.21.68
There are some 250 articles altogether in this list, with a great variety of authors, so we think this is quite some achievement and I hope you agree!
4. ‘GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE CULTURES’, EDITED BY CUSHLA KAPITZKE AND MICHAEL A. PETERS IS NOW OUT.
It is good to see that this book is now out. I have a chapter in it, which is entitled ‘A Marxist analysis of the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights’ (by Ruth Rikowski) (pp.65-82).
Full details of the book are: ‘Global Knowledge Cultures’, edited by Cushla Kapitzke and Michael A. Peters, Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2007.
ISBN 978 90 8790 218 6 (pbk); 978 90 8790 219 3 (hdbk).
The book is in the series ‘Educational Futures Rethinking Theory and Practice’, Vol 14, Series Editors Michael A. Peters and J. Freeman-Moir. See:
http://www.amazon.com/Global-Knowledge-Cultures-C-Kapitzke/dp/9087902182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213182201&sr=1-1
5. A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION’S AGREEMENT ON TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS BY RUTH RIKOWSKI - NOW FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE
This article of mine, which was published in Policy Futures in Education, Vol 4, No. 4, 2006 (Issue theme ‘Copyrights and Patents: issues and ethics for education’, Guest Edited by Cushla Kapitze) is now freely available online (as are all articles in Policy Futures in Education 18 months after publication). So, for all those that are interested in reading this article of mine for free, here is the link:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/4/issue4_4.asp#6
6. CHRIS FORD INVITING US TO CONTRIBUTE TO ‘SOLIDARITY’
Chris Ford kindly invited members of the Rikowski family to contribute on an occasional basis to ‘Solidarity’: Workers’ Liberty for International Working Class Solidarity and Socialism. See: http://www.workersliberty.org/solidaritynew
Thanks for the offer Chris and we hope that we will be able to make a valuable contribution!
7. ‘ON MARX: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE REVOLUTIONARY INTELLECT OF KARL MARX’ BY PAULA ALLMAN, ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS: SENSE PUBLISHERS, 2007. PART OF THE ‘KEY CRITICAL THINKERS IN EDUCATION’ SERIES – SERIES EDITORS MICHAEL A. PETERS AND TINA (A.C.) BESLEY. ISBN 978 90 8790 192 9 (pbk); 978 90 8790 193 6 (hdbk), $19.95 –
REVIEW ARTICLE BY RUTH RIKOWSKI
I recently wrote a long review article (approximately 4500 words) on this all-important book, ‘On Marx’ by Paula Allman - I included information about this book in my Updates 19 and 20.
In my review article I aim to summarise some of the essence of ‘On Marx’, which was challenging, given the depth of the topic, and the fact that Paula gave herself an extremely difficult task of endeavouring to summarise Marx’s ‘Capital’ Vols I-III in just a few pages. As I point out at the end of my review article:
“The book is based directly on Marx’s work, rather than others reinterpretations (or indeed misinterpretations) of it! Allman’s indepth reading and understanding of the whole of Marx’s work, places her in a unique position to be able to write a book such as this…”
Furthermore, Paula Allman takes Marx’s work forward, demonstrating the relevance of Marx’s theory to education, and to her own revolutionary critical approach, in particular. I also emphasis the fact that, in my view, this provides the reader with an “…opportunity to enjoy the richness of a female mind such as Paula’s [which] should, in my decided view, be very much appreciated and celebrated. “
Professor Michael Peters is going to publish my review article in one of the journals that he edits.
8. ‘ON MARX’ BY PAULA ALLMAN REVIEWED BY VICTOR RIKOWSKI
Leading on from Chris Ford’s invitation (see point 6 above), Victor Rikowski wrote a review of Paula Allman’s book ‘On Marx’ (see point 7 above) for ‘Solidarity’. Victor also quoted from the book when he gave his guest lecture at Kingston University on ‘Problems in Education Today II’ earlier this year. He found Paula Allman’s book very helpful, inspiring and insightful and he learnt a lot more about Marx’s ideas from reading it. The review is also now on amazon.com – see http://www.amazon.com/Marx-Paula-Allman/dp/9087901925/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217483295&sr=8-2.
I recently wrote a long review article (approximately 4500 words) on this all-important book, ‘On Marx’ by Paula Allman - I included information about this book in my Updates 19 and 20.
In my review article I aim to summarise some of the essence of ‘On Marx’, which was challenging, given the depth of the topic, and the fact that Paula gave herself an extremely difficult task of endeavouring to summarise Marx’s ‘Capital’ Vols I-III in just a few pages. As I point out at the end of my review article:
“The book is based directly on Marx’s work, rather than others reinterpretations (or indeed misinterpretations) of it! Allman’s indepth reading and understanding of the whole of Marx’s work, places her in a unique position to be able to write a book such as this…”
Furthermore, Paula Allman takes Marx’s work forward, demonstrating the relevance of Marx’s theory to education, and to her own revolutionary critical approach, in particular. I also emphasis the fact that, in my view, this provides the reader with an “…opportunity to enjoy the richness of a female mind such as Paula’s [which] should, in my decided view, be very much appreciated and celebrated. “
Professor Michael Peters is going to publish my review article in one of the journals that he edits.
8. ‘ON MARX’ BY PAULA ALLMAN REVIEWED BY VICTOR RIKOWSKI
Leading on from Chris Ford’s invitation (see point 6 above), Victor Rikowski wrote a review of Paula Allman’s book ‘On Marx’ (see point 7 above) for ‘Solidarity’. Victor also quoted from the book when he gave his guest lecture at Kingston University on ‘Problems in Education Today II’ earlier this year. He found Paula Allman’s book very helpful, inspiring and insightful and he learnt a lot more about Marx’s ideas from reading it. The review is also now on amazon.com – see http://www.amazon.com/Marx-Paula-Allman/dp/9087901925/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217483295&sr=8-2.
Michael Peters liked the review, and said that he would like to publish it in Policy Futures in Education as well, which of course very much pleased Victor.
6th August 2008
Best
Ruth
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