Each year, the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) recognizes its members through a number of awards. Congratulations to our award winners for 2020.
George Bereday Award
In 1980, the first CIES Award Committee was formed to review articles published in the Comparative Education Review. The mandate was to review all the articles published the preceding year for their importance in shaping the field, analytic merit, policy implications, and concern for theoretical constructs and implications for future research. In 1989 this award was formally renamed the George Bereday Annual Best CER Article Award.
Congratulations to our 2020 Bereday Award winners Amy Jo Dowd and Lesley Bartlett for their article:
Dowd, A. J., & Bartlett, L. (2019). The Need for Speed: Interrogating the Dominance of Oral Reading Fluency in International Reading Efforts. Comparative Education Review, 63(2), 189-212.
Honorable Mention
Brunette, T., Piper, B., Jordan, R., King, S., & Nabacwa, R. (2019). The Impact of Mother Tongue Reading Instruction in Twelve Ugandan Languages and the Role of Language Complexity, Socioeconomic Factors, and Program Implementation. Comparative Education Review, 63(4), 591-612.
Dryden-Peterson, S., & Reddick, C. (2019). “What I Believe Can Rescue That Nation”: Diaspora Working to Transform Education in Fragility and Conflict. Comparative Education Review, 63(2), 213-235.
Gail Kelly Award
Each year, CIES recognizes an outstanding doctoral dissertation with the Gail P. Kelly Award. Created to honor the distinguished comparative educator Gail P. Kelly, and her many contributions to CIES, the Gail P. Kelly Award honors a doctoral dissertation that addresses social justice and equity issues in an international context.
The Gail P. Kelly Award is conferred on an outstanding Ph.D. or Ed.D. Dissertation that manifests academic excellence; originality; methodological, theoretical, and empirical rigor; and that deals with issues of social justice and equity in international settings. These issues may include (but are not limited to) gender, race, class, ethnicity, and nationality.
Congratulations to the Gail P. Kelly Award Winner Rachel Silver for her dissertation:
Silver, R. E. (2019). Sex, Schooling, and Moral Triage in Malawi. The University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Honorable Mention
Natasha Mansur
Jungmin Kwon
Joyce Cain Award
Each year, CIES recognizes an outstanding scholarly article that explores themes related to people of African descent, with its Joyce Cain Award. Proposed by the Under-represented Racial, Ethnic and Ability Groups Committee and approved by CIES’ Board of Directors in 2000 the Joyce Cain Award for Distinguished Research on African Descendants is awarded by the Comparative and International Education Society to honor the memory of Joyce Lynn Cain, a colleague whose scholarship on African descendants reflected her dedication to introducing individuals across ethnic boundaries to African culture.
Dr. Joyce Lynn Cain, teacher, researcher, practitioner, and international scholar, was one of the early researchers who combined her extraordinary skill as a public school teacher with research focused on the preparation of teachers to teach minority children in school settings. She was a forerunner in conducting comparative research on minority students in the USA and Africa. It was her love of the African cultures and heritage that led her to be an advocate and an advisor to African countries, particularly Zimbabwe. She was inspired to plan study trips to Africa for others in the USA and was called on as a consultant for international agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development.
She was a loyal member of the faculty of Michigan State University, where she served as an Associate Professor of Teacher Education until her passing in 1996. Her focus on, and attention to, the importance of Africa has inspired many researchers and practitioners.
Congratulations to the 2020 Winners of the Joyce Cain Award—Salman Asim, Joseph Chimombo, Ravinder Casley Gera, and Dmitry Chugunov for their scholarly article:
Asim, S., Chimombo, J., Chugunov, D., & Gera, R. (2019). Moving teachers to Malawi’s remote communities: A data-driven approach to teacher deployment. International Journal of Educational Development, 65, 26-43.
Jackie Kirk Award
CIES recognizes an outstanding book annually with the Jackie Kirk Award to honor the professional life and deep dedication of Jackie Kirk to our field and to CIES. The award is supported by the Jackie Kirk Memorial Fund, established in 2010 under the presidency of Gita Steiner-Khamsi—through a generous donation by Andrew Kirk, the husband of Jackie Kirk, and by the International Rescue Committee—and consolidated in 2012 under the presidency of Ratna Ghosh.
The Jackie Kirk Award annually honors a published book that reflects one or some of the varied areas of expertise represented in Jackie Kirk’s areas of commitment, primarily gender and education and/or education in conflict (fragile states, post-conflict, peace education). Jackie Kirk was also committed to work on identity (particularly of girls and teachers), globalization as a context for local practice, and visual participatory research methodologies. Furthermore, Jackie Kirk was professionally committed to encouraging dynamic and equitable collaboration between academics and practitioners, the global South and the global North, and comparative/ international educators and teachers on the ground. While the award will be granted primarily on the basis of the two main areas of commitment (gender and/or conflict), these additional areas of commitment will be used as a secondary set of criteria so that the award reflects the spirit of Jackie Kirk’s legacy.
Congratulations to the 2020 Jackie Kirk Award Winner Heather Switzer for her book:
Switzer, H. D. (2018). When the light is fire: Maasai schoolgirls in contemporary Kenya. University of Illinois Press.