The Asian Conference on Education and International Development 2017 (ACEID2017)

Join us in Kobe, Japan, next spring for The Asian Conference on Education and International Development 2017 (ACEID2017), March 26-29, 2017. **ACEID2017 at a glance... The Asian Conference on Education & International Development 2017 (ACEID2017) will be held in the beautiful and historic city of Kobe, Japan. Submit your abstract now to participate in this international, interdisciplinary and intercultural event. **Location: Art Center Kobe, Kobe, Japan **Dates: Sunday, March 26 to Wednesday, March 29, 2017 **Final Abstract Submission Deadline: January 15, 2017 **Enquiries: aceid@iafor.org SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT: iafor.org/aceid2017-call-for-papers Already had your abstract accepted? Register now: iafor.org/aceid2017-registration To find out more about registration packages, presentation options, conference events and more, please visit the conference website: aceid.iafor.org ***ACEID2017 Conference Theme: "Educating for Change" Whether we are looking at why we must change, or how education has changed or even how education will change, change affects all of us involved in language education in many ways. Administrators, teacher trainers, teachers, students: we all wear many hats and we all come face-to-face with change, sometimes on a daily basis. Positive change is about improvement: improving proficiency, improving lives, helping learners achieve their goals and dreams and ultimately, broadening horizons. In our work as educators we are often asked to effect change – that we are change-makers can be seen in the new curriculums, new material, and even new techniques or methods that we develop. For those of us who conduct research, our research is often focused on finding "better" or more effective ways of teaching, often measured in outcomes such as "students entered with an average of X and improved to an average of Y". In such a case, improvement = change. But change is also an area of research as can be seen by looking at journals such as the Journal of Educational Change, Changes in Higher Education, Culture and Change, and Educational Research for Social Change, to mention four. It is a serious area of study, and one worth our attention. The focus of the last journal mentioned above is worth looking at. Change is not only about test scores or proficiency going up. It is also about lasting change in one's life, life choices, and looking beyond us as individuals to the society we live in. Social change and a focus on improving the societies we live in is another outcome of education. In recent years, there has been a focus on language and identity, as well as an embrace of sociocultural theory and language development. At the same time change for the sake of change is not a good reason for change. There is often a tension between the status quo (which is not always bad) and the desire to change. As invested members of our field, we need to be able to examine change, identifying and applying that which is appropriate and will further our goals while also having the wisdom and gumption to reject change that does not make sense. As Dewey said, "Reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements are transitory and futile." And so we welcome you to this year's conferences, where we can examine change in ways that are important to each of us. What are its challenges, its complexities, and its constraints? It is electrifying to think about the wide-ranging conversations we will have as we consider how we can go about educating for change the world over. In conjunction with our global partners, we look forward to extending you a warm welcome in 2017. – The Organising Committee (iafor.org/aceid2017-committee) ***Programme **Featured Panel: Preserving and Challenging Culture: The Right to Education Chair: Professor Haruko Satoh, Osaka University, Japan This panel discussion will explore the conference theme, "Educating for Change", in the context of the featured conference screening of Among the Believers (Directed by Hemal Trivedi & Mohammed Ali Naqvi). Intimate and shocking, Among the Believers offers rare insights into the ideological battles shaping Pakistan and the wider Muslim world. The issues highlighted in the documentary will spark a discussion around the friction between preserving culture and challenging culture in areas of the world where education is highly politicised, and where religious and secular education vie for influence. The panel will attempt to unpack the question of the extent to which education can be considered fundamental human right, and in particular issues of gender and education. **Featured Symposium: How Public Managerialism Generates Neo-academicism in a Performativity Milieu Dr Tien-Hui Chiang, South Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan As neo-liberalism has become a world-prevailing value that functions as a new discourse, coming to reformulate people's souls and, in turn, viewing its assumptions as the only option to improve efficiency and ensure service quality, public managerialism acquires a legitimate status in running higher education institutes. Its entrepreneurialism, which focuses on efficiency and outcomes, is able to cure the institutionalized weakness caused by the monopoly of the public sector. Inevitably, the reconstruction of organizational arrangement and culture will bestow more authority on the university administrator so that university teachers are confined within a context in which they need to comply with the bureaucratic milieu that addresses performances well defined in regulations. However, this new tyrannicalism coats in a democratic form generated by the strategy of devolution. In order to examine this criticism, this study conducted interviews in America, Japan and South Africa. The findings show that such criticism adopted structuralism and its predetermined assumption neglected how the outcome-led evaluation system provided academic-oriented researchers psychical rewards such as excellence, honour and pride. This institutionalized reward system was able to generate neo-academicism that bridged the gap between the outcome-led evaluation system and the psychical expectation of academic-oriented researchers. Therefore, public managerialism was not simply retained in the form of social discourse but generated substantial and positive effects. Instead of social discourse, neo-academicism became the core element in sustaining the legitimate status of public managerialism. **Keynote and Featured Speakers include: Professor Barbara Lockee, Virginia Tech, USA Dr Monty P. Satiadarma, Tarumanagara University, Indonesia **Further programming for The Asian Conference on Education & International Development 2017 will be announced in the coming months. ------------- ***IAFOR Publishing Opportunities **Peer-reviewed journal: IAFOR Journal of Education The IAFOR Journal of Education (joe.iafor.org) is an editorially independent journal associated with ACEID. The Editor of the journal will select the strongest papers from associated conference proceedings for consideration. This open access journal, which conforms to the highest academic standards, reflects the interdisciplinary and international nature of our conferences. **Conference Proceedings If your abstract is accepted and you have registered for the conference, you are encouraged to submit a full paper for inclusion in the official conference proceedings. Our conference proceedings are open access research repositories, which act as permanent records of the research generated by IAFOR conferences. Submit your paper: iafor.org/aceid2017-final-paper-submission ------------- ***Join IAFOR at ACEID2017 to: – Present to a global audience – Have your work published in the Conference Proceedings and considered for peer-reviewed, open-access journals – Benefit from IAFOR's interdisciplinary focus by hearing about the latest research in Education & International Development, and more – Participate in a truly international, interdisciplinary and intercultural event – Take part in interactive audience sessions – Network with international colleagues **Register now to take advantage of Early Bird Registration and save over 20%. Early Bird Registration is open until the end of December 14, 2017. Please see the registration page for details: www.iafor.org/aceid2017-registration ***Registration includes lunch on full conference days, as well as twice daily refreshments and light snacks. *If you have attended an IAFOR conference within the past year, or belong to an affiliated university or institution, we offer additional discounts in appreciation of your support. Please contact us at aceid@iafor.org for details. ------------- ***About IAFOR To learn more about IAFOR, please visit www.iafor.org. For enquiries please contact aceid@iafor.org.