Simon, Rita J., and Lisa Banks. Global Perspectives on Social Issues: Education

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2004 by Christina F. Jeffrey

Simon, Rita J., and Lisa Banks. Global Perspectives on Social Issues: Education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. 194 x pp. Cloth, $60.

In this thin volume, Simon and Banks have brought together useful information about the educational systems of twenty major nations from all regions of the world. After a brief introduction and overview, the following topics are covered, with only a few gaps, for each country: background information describing historical and political aspects pertinent to the development of that country's peculiar educational system; basis of the educational system--usually legislative; control--that is, who actually is responsible for running the schools; organization; pre-primary education; compulsory education; post-secondary education; private schools; financing; alternative forms of education; literacy rates; school enrollment rates; and, reform efforts.

The writing is clear and to the point. It leaves one wanting more information, as it should, but provides enough comparative data so that one can see, almost at a glance, how one nation stacks up against others. Aside from the topics covered in each nation's profile, there are numerous charts and graphs providing such data as literacy by gender, national expenditures as a percentage of each nation's gross national product, enrollment figures for every level, and changes in enrollment by region over time. The reader might wish for more current information, but the lack of it is probably due to the nature of the bureaucracies that report such data. Most of the tables are dated 1995 or 1996, but some are older. A few do not have dates at all.

The reader might also want more data. It would be unfair to ask for too much more, since the scope of the book is quite limited. However, the most important topic, literacy, could definitely be expanded. While literacy has been defined as the ability to read and write, Simon and Banks have reduced its meaning to the percentage of the population aged fifteen or older who possess the ability to write a simple sentence about everyday life (p. 175). Using this definition, half of the nations in the book, including the United States, are said to be ninety-nine percent literate.

A more refined measure of literacy might provide some more interesting results, but this reviewer suspects that the authors are limited by the data available and wanted to use the same measures throughout. Nevertheless, it might have been worthwhile to report comparative test scores, or to use some means of sorting out the different success rates of the educational efforts made by the various countries in the study. In their "Overview," the authors claim that one can measure the importance that a country places on education by use of such criteria as enrollment rates or literacy rates. This reviewer believes that success rates could also tell us a great deal about the importance of education in a given nation.

Christina E Jeffrey, Ph.D.

Spartanburg, South Carolina