Focusing on seven case studies of secondary schools in India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Samoa, Seychelles, and Trinidad & Tobago, this book analyses whether schools perpetuate gender stereotypes and investigates how this can be prevented. It provides insights and recommendations useful for policy-makers and educators worldwide.

Examining a variety of intriguing issues, this sociological study analyzes the impact global culture has had on the flora and fauna, people, economies, languages, and cultures of the Pacific for many centuries. The survey draws on findings from a 40-year research partnership, illustrating the effects of globalization from the perspective of a typical Samoan village and documenting the country's shift from baskets to buckets, from religious authority to a questioning democracy, and from in-kind work to a cash economy. Delving into questions such as When do Pacific emigrants stop sending money to their home village? Do villagers stop giving away fish when they get a refrigerator? and How do cell phones change villages? this argument contends that contemporary changes are presenting a more profound challenge to Samoan social institutions and society than at any other time in the past. Comprehensive and accessible, this guide is essential for those interested in the way global forces are shaping change in small Pacific nations.

A UN report recently found that the Asia Pacific is the world’s most disaster-prone region. Indeed, considering that the region accounts for more than half of the total number of disasters in the world, building capacity and resilience to mitigate the devastating impact of disasters is a pressing task for local actors. This book takes a regional, multidisciplinary and multi-actor approach to improve understandings of how various actors respond to natural and human-induced disasters in the Asia-Pacific region. It examines the ideas and activities of four different categories of agents: civil society; military and state institutions; local cultural knowledge and the media; and economic initiatives, and these themes are approached from various academic disciplines, ranging from anthropology and cultural studies to economics, human geography and political science. The contributors draw their findings from a variety of countries in the region, including China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar and Samoa, and importantly, focus on the interconnection between vulnerability and resilience. In turn, the book highlights how the nature and magnitude of disasters are influenced by social conditions, and aims to contribute to policies that prioritize development opportunities to enhance resilience. Further, it explores the complicated and multifaceted role of agency in building resilience, and presents a comparative framework for analysis and key findings from the Asia-Pacific region. The focus of this book on recent and ongoing disasters makes it a topical and timely contribution to the growing field of disaster management, and as such it will appeal to students and scholars of environmental studies, development studies and Asian politics.

Examines how the teacher feminisation debate applies in developing countries. Drawing on the experiences of Dominica, Lesotho, Samoa, Sri Lanka and India, it provides a strong analytical understanding of the role of female teachers in the expansion of education systems, and the surrounding gender equality issues.

This book explores the experiences of temporary migrants in the Asia-Pacific region. It develops the original concept of 'fluid security' to analyse the way in which persons carry a set of tools, strategies and attitudes across spatial, temporal and imagined borders. This concept applies a mobilities lens to human security in order to take into account the aspirations and needs of mobile populations appropriate for a globalising world. The book brings to light the diverse experiences of mobility and the multiple vulnerabilities experienced by individuals that intersect with, and sometimes challenge, national security domains. The authors analyse mobility patterns that are diversifying at a rate far outstripping the capacity of governments to adapt to the human security needs of mobile populations. While the idea of global citizenship may be held up as an ideal through which access to rights is not an arbitrary lottery, it remains far from a reality for the majority of migrants. They are excluded from the migratory flows global elites engage in almost at will. This important book advances the idea that mobile individuals can generate their own security when they have agency and the ability to plan; that experiences of security are not necessarily tied to permanence; that mobile populations benefit from policies that support transnational life; and that fluid security is enhanced when individuals are able to carry a bundle of rights with them.