Volume 6, Issue 1 (2014) Vol 6, No 1 (2015) International Education: From Theory to Practice

This issue of the Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education (JIAE) is dedicated to international education and the quest for autonomous, meaningful, and liberal education. The guest editors would like to thank the journal’s editor, Dr. Maria Ceprano, for allowing us the opportunity to focus on issues related to international education as we grace the pages and reach out to the readers of the JIAE. It is our hope that this is issue will serve as both a catalyst and springboard for re/examining critically the plethora of roles that international education may usurp in manifesting the intended promises of education especially with respect to eroding contrived boundaries to the realizing of societies exemplary of the practice of social justice, egalitarianism, and equity especially in an era of widening gaps globally. Indeed, as Alexander Means as well as David Callejo, Abel Hernández, and Xicoténcatl Ruis (this issue) all suggest, education is much more than rote learning or attending to the needs of industry by creating human capital. It is, at its very core, about creating the possibility for human flourishing while maintaining dignity and respect. Although the call for papers that initiated this special issue of the JIAE did not request that specific topics be discussed, we were delighted when we noted that the theme of many of the articles, whether from the United State or elsewhere, coalesced around questions of human security and the rejection of hegemonic control of education for corporate welfare purposes. We believe that education is, in fact, about transcending boundaries and creating the space for transactional encounters that inform practice, stoke the imagination, and create meaning in each of our lives individually and those with whom we ostensibly influence in our professional and everyday practices.

About the Guest Editors

Dr. William White is an associate professor in Buffalo State College’s Department of Social and Psychological Foundations of Education. He is a long-time advocate of international education, having served as Director of International Programs at Midwestern State University in Texas. Dr. White has presented and published internationally and is currently serving Buffalo State as its Director of Faculty Development.

P. Rudy Mattai holds the rank of Professor, Department of Social and Psychological Foundations of Education at SUNY- Buffalo State. In addition to having a cognate area in International and Comparative Education academically, Prof. Mattai has published and presented extensively, held professional and academic positions in the academy and professional organizations nationally and internationally; and has consulted over three decades with academic and governmental agencies internationally.