Processes, actors and outcomes of change in undergraduate professional major curricula: Comparative case studies in America and Mexico

Abstract

Across the globe, governments, private business and industry are implementing international economic integration, thus altering economic, cultural, and educational contexts within nation-states. Public higher education institutions are linked to globalization for the following reasons. (1) it provides research essential to the development of global products; (2) it has historically served as a primary creator and transmitter of national culture (simultaneously with maintaining national identity), and currently (3) it may play a central role in educating professional workers for a global economy, world consumers of global products, and citizens of a global culture. This study is a comparison of two case studies in a cross-national investigation of curriculum creation, maintenance and alteration within processes of globalization between 1990--2000. I used mixed methods: analysis of descriptive statistics, interviews, texts and observation data, to explore change in two professional education curricula (Primary Teacher Education and Finance units of Business Colleges). I selected two institutions, the University of Arizona, in America, and the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, in Mexico. I draw primarily on two bodies of theory: (1) globalization theory, and (2) curriculum theory. The major research questions, are as follows. (1) What is the scope of change in curriculum and course content? (2) Who or what, internally and externally, is involved in changing the content of academic programs and courses? (3) Who or what, internally and externally, is involved in changing the content of courses and curriculum? What are the associated mechanisms used to effect change? I intend to contribute empirical evidence to ongoing dialogues among legislators, professors and administrators, parents and students, and other stakeholders, about the relevance and purpose of higher education within the context of globalization. Curriculum at these sites has changed, from 1990-2000, and is a site of contention in all four departments. Finance is sustained by greater connections to actors and forces in the private sector, and Teacher Education is sustained by greater connections to actors and forces in the public sector, and overall, professional academic degree programs and curricula are accountable to actors and forces seeking to influence them.