Internationalizing the Field of Middle Level Education

When David Virtue invited me to co-edit this international issue for the Middle School Journal, I gladly accepted. In many years of working in the fields of comparative and international education and middle level education, rarely have I seen journals or books focused on both of these areas. An exception is An International Look at Educating Young Adolescents (Mertens, Anfara, & Roney, 2009), which included chapters from 14 countries spanning five continents. This book aligned with continuing efforts by National Middle School Association (NMSA, now Association for Middle Level Education[AMLE]) to move beyond the "national" by including more international members and raising awareness about international issues affecting middle level education.The middle level education knowledge base (and most Middle School Journal content) has been from the United States, with limited contributions from elsewhere in the English-speaking world, including Australia, New Zealand, and Canada (Anfara, 2009; Virtue, 2009). While this issue of the journal answers the call to learn about middle level education in countries other than the United States, the articles tend to focus on the aforementioned English-speaking countries with two exceptions: France and American Samoa, a U.S. territory where Samoan is an official language. While efforts were made to solicit manuscripts for this issue from around the world, submissions from non-Western and non-English-speaking countries did not materialize. The field of middle level education must make stronger efforts to reach scholars in other countries, especially the developing world.Affiliating with associations such as the Comparative and International Education Society-whose members include researchers who work for international donor organizations or non-governmental organizations (NGOs)-would help middle level education scholars to broaden their understanding about young adolescent education in settings around the globe. Within the field of comparative and international education, scholars are increasingly making the middle grades an important area of focus. In years past, international aid organizations understandably concentrated their efforts on increasing access to primary education for all children-especially girls who had been more often excluded-and on higher education. There was much less emphasis on middle level education. Today, both NGOs and the governments of developing countries are placing more emphasis on the middle level, particularly on access and the supply side to meet the demand caused by high numbers of students completing primary school. India, for example, has implemented policies to build more middle level schools and to make sure those schools are at an appropriate distance from villages so students can easily get to them. Curriculum development has also been an area of emphasis, as new policies addressing demand at the middle level have also created more concern about what gets taught.Many researchers, myself included, believe gender is a key area of focus for comparative and international studies at the middle level. As students move into the middle grades, physical and social development brings new concerns for young women who are often without empowered female role models and teachers to help them succeed. Young women may face harassment, lack of developmentally appropriate spaces, and lack of guidance for self-esteem and affective concerns. They struggle to stay in school, often in male-dominated environments that can be hostile and not conducive to their continued success.The development of youth is crucial to the success of a country. Guaranteeing that adequate structures and curriculum as well as safe, hospitable environments exist for all students will enable young people to continue their education beyond primary school and allow them to participate in the civil, political, and economic life of society. They will also be more capable of understanding the human rights to which they are entitled. …