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Education, culture and society: The complex dynamics of change
ARTICLE IN PRESS
International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 625–627 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev
Editorial
Education, culture and society: The complex dynamics of change In keeping with one of the central concerns of IJED, this issue addresses multiple elements of the process of educational change in low and middle income countries. It explores the complexities of major international trends such as the growth of English teaching and the use of new technologies in school management, as well as the way that culture impacts upon decisions about educational expenditure. It considers the limited embedding of certain reforms in local and institutional cultures and in the hearts and minds of educators, and the role that educational leaders might be able to play in strengthening change processes. It examines some of the ways in which education and the labour market interact and the divergent aspirations and employment chances that can develop. Finally, it addresses questions about the relationship between literacy and development at the individual, community and societal levels. This issue begins with a paper by Wedell in which he challenges the growing international assumption that ‘English for Everyone’ (EFE) should be a core component of national school curricula. He notes that large claims are made for the personal and national benefits that flow from such provision. However, he contrasts this, and the resultant enormous financial and human investment, with actual outcomes, which are often disappointing. He suggests that the heart of this performance gap is a failure to properly contextualise EFE curriculum in national patterns of English usage and English teachers’ existing professional understandings and practices. Che also is concerned with the inadequate embeddedness of education in a local context, in this case of mathematics teachers in Cameroonian private, mission schools. She argues that her respondents are concerned with an educational 0738-0593/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.06.002
offering that they consider to be disconnected in multiple ways from their own culture. However, she notes that, simultaneously, most of these respondents can only conceptualise professional development in highly Westernised ways that reflect the powerful influence of metropolitan discourses and, in their specific context, the pervasive influence of donor-funded professional development activities. There is a growing literature regarding the innovative use of information and communication technologies in the classroom (cf. Kim et al., 2008). Bisaso, Kereteletswe, Selwood and Visscher shift our focus to the use of ICT for educational management through a comparative study of Uganda and Botswana. Whilst acknowledging that such developments are at an early stage, the authors suggest that users were generally positive. They suggest that training and post-training support are crucial to effective use of such systems in educational management. Hsiao, Chen and Yang consider the leadership roles of vocational high school principals in curriculum reform in Taiwan. They argue that the curriculum leadership roles of such principals necessarily vary across the different phases of curriculum development. They also examine the ways in which leadership roles need to be balanced with more day-to-day requirements of management and administration. Li, Morgan and Ding consider the current situation in the labour market for higher education graduates in China and whether the rapid expansions of higher education and the economy have remained in balance. They suggest that there is still considerable unmet demand for graduates from employers, particularly in the faster growing, coastal provinces. However, they argue that continuing attention needs to be paid to the quality of higher
ARTICLE IN PRESS 626
Editorial / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 625–627
education. Presently, they suggest, graduates from high status institutions are more likely to get immediate employment and typically enjoy a premium on their starting salary. Those who have a strong academic record and certification of high level English competency are particularly advantaged. They also find evidence for employers preferring broader rather than narrower specialisms at undergraduate level. They suggest that recent reforms in Chinese public higher education at the policy and institutional levels have been consistent with employer preferences and are likely to result in an increasingly good fit between supply and demand in the graduate labour market. However, they note that graduates of private higher education and of higher vocational colleges are strongly disadvantaged in the current labour market and suggest that this issue needs to be tackled urgently. Cheung and Chan revisit the contentious debate regarding the effect that educational expenditure and class size have on educational quality through an exploration of the role that culture plays in shaping decisions around these issues and in the effects that these decisions have on learning. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of power distance and individualism, they show that decisions about class size and educational expenditure globally are significantly correlated to culture. The authors suggest that an understanding of this is vital to discussions aimed at persuading governments to increase their expenditure on education. Clearly, one-size-fits-all solutions will not work in this context. Moreover, the cultural embeddedness of underinvestment in education suggests that a turnaround will require very strong understandings of local cultural dynamics and great sensitivity in the planning of change. Little and Sabates explore how economic globalisation is impacting upon youth expectations in Sri Lanka. They find an increasing social class gap in education and occupation expectations over time. They suggest that the gap may be due to the expansion of the private sector. It is likely that middle class youth can reasonably expect to perform best in getting employed in the private sector through a combination of higher levels of achievement of the qualifications sought by employers; better English proficiency; and stronger social capital. Aypay and Kalayci take us back to an issue that has been much discussed in IJED in the recent past:
educational reform in Turkey (cf. Grossman et al., 2007; Aksit, 2007; Grossman and Sands, 2008). Through a survey of academic staff in eight faculties of education, they highlight some of the challenges that still remain in realising the country’s ambitious educational reform programme. Their focus is on the changes in teacher education that were intended to support the wider reform process. They note that these changes placed more emphasis on teaching pedagogical method over subject knowledge and sought to standardise teacher education curricula. However, they suggest that the approach followed has been too top-down and that the reforms in teacher education remain poorly internalised at both the individual and institutional levels. We conclude with two papers about literacy. In the first, Bartlett considers contemporary policy claims about the nature and practices of literacy. She contrasts the ways in which literacy is constructed in development discourses and the claims made for the effect of literacy on economic and political development with ethnographic data from Brazil. Rather than the simple and predictable impacts suggested by the development literature, she shows that the effects of literacy are highly context-specific, being shaped by the types of literacy and literacy programmes available; learners’ cultural understandings of literacy; and the contexts within which these learners will utilise their new literacy practices. In the second, Wedin examines the complex relation between literacy and power is complex through an exploration of case studies from Tanzania and Rwanda. As with Bartlett’s paper, she critiques assumptions about the ‘‘inevitable’’ political impact of literacy. She does concur with many other analyses that literacy has can empower those of low status but reminds us that high status groups may also use literacy to dominate and to reproduce their power and status. Her case studies suggest that power can be contested, achieved and transformed through literacy. They also confirm the powerful identity work that is done by literacy. References Aksit, N., 2007. Educational reform in Turkey. International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2), 129–137. Grossman, G., Sands, M., 2008. Restructuring reforms in Turkish teacher education: modernisation and development
ARTICLE IN PRESS Editorial / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 625–627 in a dynamic environment. International Journal of Educational Development 28 (1), 70–80. Grossman, G., Onkel, P., Sands, M., 2007. Curriculum reform in Turkish teacher education: attitudes of teacher educators towards change in an EU candidate nation. International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2), 138–150. Kim, P., Miranda, T., Olaciregui, C., 2008. Pocket School: exploring mobile technology as a sustainable literacy education option for underserved indigenous children in Latin
627
America. International Journal of Educational Development 28 (4), 435–445.
Simon McGrath UNESCO Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 625–627 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev
Editorial
Education, culture and society: The complex dynamics of change In keeping with one of the central concerns of IJED, this issue addresses multiple elements of the process of educational change in low and middle income countries. It explores the complexities of major international trends such as the growth of English teaching and the use of new technologies in school management, as well as the way that culture impacts upon decisions about educational expenditure. It considers the limited embedding of certain reforms in local and institutional cultures and in the hearts and minds of educators, and the role that educational leaders might be able to play in strengthening change processes. It examines some of the ways in which education and the labour market interact and the divergent aspirations and employment chances that can develop. Finally, it addresses questions about the relationship between literacy and development at the individual, community and societal levels. This issue begins with a paper by Wedell in which he challenges the growing international assumption that ‘English for Everyone’ (EFE) should be a core component of national school curricula. He notes that large claims are made for the personal and national benefits that flow from such provision. However, he contrasts this, and the resultant enormous financial and human investment, with actual outcomes, which are often disappointing. He suggests that the heart of this performance gap is a failure to properly contextualise EFE curriculum in national patterns of English usage and English teachers’ existing professional understandings and practices. Che also is concerned with the inadequate embeddedness of education in a local context, in this case of mathematics teachers in Cameroonian private, mission schools. She argues that her respondents are concerned with an educational 0738-0593/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.06.002
offering that they consider to be disconnected in multiple ways from their own culture. However, she notes that, simultaneously, most of these respondents can only conceptualise professional development in highly Westernised ways that reflect the powerful influence of metropolitan discourses and, in their specific context, the pervasive influence of donor-funded professional development activities. There is a growing literature regarding the innovative use of information and communication technologies in the classroom (cf. Kim et al., 2008). Bisaso, Kereteletswe, Selwood and Visscher shift our focus to the use of ICT for educational management through a comparative study of Uganda and Botswana. Whilst acknowledging that such developments are at an early stage, the authors suggest that users were generally positive. They suggest that training and post-training support are crucial to effective use of such systems in educational management. Hsiao, Chen and Yang consider the leadership roles of vocational high school principals in curriculum reform in Taiwan. They argue that the curriculum leadership roles of such principals necessarily vary across the different phases of curriculum development. They also examine the ways in which leadership roles need to be balanced with more day-to-day requirements of management and administration. Li, Morgan and Ding consider the current situation in the labour market for higher education graduates in China and whether the rapid expansions of higher education and the economy have remained in balance. They suggest that there is still considerable unmet demand for graduates from employers, particularly in the faster growing, coastal provinces. However, they argue that continuing attention needs to be paid to the quality of higher
ARTICLE IN PRESS 626
Editorial / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 625–627
education. Presently, they suggest, graduates from high status institutions are more likely to get immediate employment and typically enjoy a premium on their starting salary. Those who have a strong academic record and certification of high level English competency are particularly advantaged. They also find evidence for employers preferring broader rather than narrower specialisms at undergraduate level. They suggest that recent reforms in Chinese public higher education at the policy and institutional levels have been consistent with employer preferences and are likely to result in an increasingly good fit between supply and demand in the graduate labour market. However, they note that graduates of private higher education and of higher vocational colleges are strongly disadvantaged in the current labour market and suggest that this issue needs to be tackled urgently. Cheung and Chan revisit the contentious debate regarding the effect that educational expenditure and class size have on educational quality through an exploration of the role that culture plays in shaping decisions around these issues and in the effects that these decisions have on learning. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of power distance and individualism, they show that decisions about class size and educational expenditure globally are significantly correlated to culture. The authors suggest that an understanding of this is vital to discussions aimed at persuading governments to increase their expenditure on education. Clearly, one-size-fits-all solutions will not work in this context. Moreover, the cultural embeddedness of underinvestment in education suggests that a turnaround will require very strong understandings of local cultural dynamics and great sensitivity in the planning of change. Little and Sabates explore how economic globalisation is impacting upon youth expectations in Sri Lanka. They find an increasing social class gap in education and occupation expectations over time. They suggest that the gap may be due to the expansion of the private sector. It is likely that middle class youth can reasonably expect to perform best in getting employed in the private sector through a combination of higher levels of achievement of the qualifications sought by employers; better English proficiency; and stronger social capital. Aypay and Kalayci take us back to an issue that has been much discussed in IJED in the recent past:
educational reform in Turkey (cf. Grossman et al., 2007; Aksit, 2007; Grossman and Sands, 2008). Through a survey of academic staff in eight faculties of education, they highlight some of the challenges that still remain in realising the country’s ambitious educational reform programme. Their focus is on the changes in teacher education that were intended to support the wider reform process. They note that these changes placed more emphasis on teaching pedagogical method over subject knowledge and sought to standardise teacher education curricula. However, they suggest that the approach followed has been too top-down and that the reforms in teacher education remain poorly internalised at both the individual and institutional levels. We conclude with two papers about literacy. In the first, Bartlett considers contemporary policy claims about the nature and practices of literacy. She contrasts the ways in which literacy is constructed in development discourses and the claims made for the effect of literacy on economic and political development with ethnographic data from Brazil. Rather than the simple and predictable impacts suggested by the development literature, she shows that the effects of literacy are highly context-specific, being shaped by the types of literacy and literacy programmes available; learners’ cultural understandings of literacy; and the contexts within which these learners will utilise their new literacy practices. In the second, Wedin examines the complex relation between literacy and power is complex through an exploration of case studies from Tanzania and Rwanda. As with Bartlett’s paper, she critiques assumptions about the ‘‘inevitable’’ political impact of literacy. She does concur with many other analyses that literacy has can empower those of low status but reminds us that high status groups may also use literacy to dominate and to reproduce their power and status. Her case studies suggest that power can be contested, achieved and transformed through literacy. They also confirm the powerful identity work that is done by literacy. References Aksit, N., 2007. Educational reform in Turkey. International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2), 129–137. Grossman, G., Sands, M., 2008. Restructuring reforms in Turkish teacher education: modernisation and development
ARTICLE IN PRESS Editorial / International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 625–627 in a dynamic environment. International Journal of Educational Development 28 (1), 70–80. Grossman, G., Onkel, P., Sands, M., 2007. Curriculum reform in Turkish teacher education: attitudes of teacher educators towards change in an EU candidate nation. International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2), 138–150. Kim, P., Miranda, T., Olaciregui, C., 2008. Pocket School: exploring mobile technology as a sustainable literacy education option for underserved indigenous children in Latin
627
America. International Journal of Educational Development 28 (4), 435–445.
Simon McGrath UNESCO Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK E-mail address: [email protected]