Book Review // 

 Origins, Journeys and Returns: Social Justice in International Higher Education

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3 out of 5

Short Answer:

The book explores the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program (IFP), and the success of it to help those who would not as easily be able to afford quality education, specifically higher education.  The book’s editor describes it as a “qualitative reflection on the conceptionalization and inception of the program (Volkman, 2009).”  I would have to agree, instead of taking the facts and trying to understand them, it take the data and information at it’s face value and lets the reader draw a conclusion.

In the early parts of the book it defines how the program effectively works, and then it moves on to discuss more specific locations such as Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Brazil, Etc…  The book finally moves to discuss the return of these IFP scholars and their experience back in their home country. This was the most ‘real’ part of the book for me.  Brain drain is common with international student’s, but with this program it seems they have a fairly good rate of those staying in their home country after graduation, about 74% (Volkman, 2009).

I would’ve rated this higher, but the book was a bit more specific than the title and explanation of it suggest.  However it is a good book for what it’s supposed to be. I rate it 4 out of 5 for those who are looking for something to cite or use as a good book for source material on the subject of social justice in international education, but it reads like a text book.  Which is good in some cases.  For it’s overall readability I gave it a 2 out of 5.  It is very informative, but like I said reads like a text book (or rather research on a specific topic), which is really what it excels at.  That is why I gave it a 3 out of 5.

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Good book, but very segmented and specific to a specific audience.

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Long Answer:

I enjoyed this book, but it’s also because this book is very relevant to the field I work in and social issues that I see in the world through my career choice and other experiences.  Social Justice in itself is something I find to be a relevant topic in a world where privelidge is only relegated to few and the rest are unlucky enough to not be part of that few.  International Social Justice is a whole new spectrum than that which is often talked about in the U.S.

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The U.S. on the whole is a very privileged nation, we are really the 1% while many parts are left being the 99% if you allow me the liberty of taking a phrase from another group.  This book goes through some of the ways IFP scholars were chosen based on their disadvantage. Many people are disadvantaged, and deciding who receives assistance is a position I would never want to be in.  When everyone has a good reason for need, it’s hard to say no.

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What did I learn?  

I learned about one approach to combating social justice problems in the foreign countries.   There are obviously more  than just this approach, but this approach seems to be working well, but with everything could be better.  Seeing the vast number of problems that are possible in a project such as this, I commend the Ford Foundation for taking Social Justice as a real and definitive problem that the proper “leg-up” can help a nation and communities world-wide.

What I didn’t like:

It’s always tough to pull something out that I didn’t enjoy about a book, but specifically with this book it’s readability.  Each chapter reads more separate than I would like, but they are all written by different authors, so that is expected.  However when buying a book from Amazon, you don’t really have the luxury of looking through the book before buying.

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Takeaway:

The gain for International Students studying abroad for higher education is still a topic that has little research attached to it.  This book is a good start and opens up many questions for me about the real gain for international student’s from

J. William Fulbright believed like me that International Education helps build relationships and ultimately world peace through further educating each-other.  Without any research to back this up, I am of course left with the question of what is the ultimate gain of International Education?

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 Next Book: Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson

Sources:

Volkman, T. A. (2009). Origins, journeys and returns: social justice in international higher education. New York, NY: Social Science Research Council.